For immediate release

August 15, 2022

contact: [email protected]

Governor Whitmer discusses in-person learning, historic education budgets, and next school year with superintendent

Lansing, Michigan — Today, Governor Gretchen Whitmer said, 50 The Michigan Superintendent of Education, representing all parts of the state, emphasized the importance of in-person learning. She also notes that the recent bipartisan education budget has the largest per-student investment in Michigan history and includes investments in school infrastructure, on-campus mental health, school safety, and teacher recruitment and training. We also emphasized the inclusion of historic investments. This roundtable is focused on enabling children to continue in-person learning and enabling districts to take advantage of all resources available from the budget.

“As parents, we know how important face-to-face learning is to our children. We use every tool at our disposal to keep our students safe and our classrooms clean.” Governor Whitmer“The Bipartisan Education, to which I signed last month, is making a historic investment to support in-person learning, and research shows that in-person learning is the most successful in Michigan history. A budget that includes top state per-pupil funding, $250 million for school infrastructure, funds for mental health, teacher recruitment, and school safety keeps kids on track. We applaud the leadership of our dedicated superintendents across the state for their unprecedented leadership and work with them to ensure our students have a great school year. We look forward to working together.”

In 2020, Gov. Whitmer established the COVID-19 Return-to-School Advisory Committee to appoint educators, parents, and students to provide guidance on returning K-12 students to school safely, fairly, and effectively. provided. Earlier this year, Gov. Whitmer created the Michigan Parents Council, empowering parents to give policy-making seats.

Governor Whitmer is working with health care and education leaders, students and parents to get their perspective throughout the budget process, and she will continue to engage with them as we head into the school year.

“As the state’s largest coalition of school leaders, the Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators is committed to providing the highest quality in-person education in school districts statewide,” it said. Tina Kerr, Executive Director, Michigan Association of Supervisors“We are grateful for Governor Whitmer’s partnership in this effort to support students returning to classrooms this fall. The budget she recently signed into law will make an unprecedented investment in K-12 education. and help schools provide wraparound support to ensure students have their most successful school year ever.”

Investing in the education budget

Education budgets can be divided into six main sections: students, mental health, learning support, student safety, school infrastructure, and teacher recruitment.

1) Students

For our students, it’s the best funding per student in Michigan history, $9,150 for every child in every public school district. Additional support for approximately 200,000 special education students and 710,000 at-risk students in Michigan. Expanding free preschool to her 1,300 children under the Great Start Readiness Program, the state is now able to serve more than 50,000 of her 4-year-olds. 27% increase in funding for career and technical education programs.

2) Mental health

Dedicated mental health dollars to every student in every school. Increased funding for teen centers, community mental health grants, and her TRAILS, which provides training to mental health professionals in schools, to better serve students with evidence-based services. increase.

3) Faculty recruitment

Funding MI Future Educator Fellowships. This will pay a future Michigan educator up to $10,000 in tuition, $9,600 for her first semester scholarship for a student teacher, and a free grant for the school district to hire support staff to become an educator. Help the Grow-Your-Own program to help you put it on the path. Additional funding for career and technical education educators and a Troops-to-Teachers program that connects veterans with mentor teachers as they work to become certified educators. Finally, it is a strong investment to ensure that retired teachers have a stable and safe retirement.

4) School infrastructure

Provides $475 million for school construction, renovation and voluntary consolidation, and helps build or renovate classrooms, labs and libraries. Funds to assess the current state of school infrastructure and determine additional funding.

5) Learning support

Expansion of pre- and after-school programs to keep children engaged. This budget will provide tutoring for every child in Michigan to help them stay on track and keep up with long-term success, and will help school districts provide support for academically challenged and economically disadvantaged students. Provides resources for developing learning pods for

6) Student Safety

A dedicated school safety fund for every student in every school. To hire more on-campus school resource officers, bring together law enforcement, schools and mental health professionals to create intervention systems for at-risk students, and establish school safety committees funds.

Greetings from Governor Whitmer

“Thank you to everyone who took the time to join us this morning. I would like to thank you for your incredible leadership in these unprecedented times. For supporting our children, I truly appreciate your tenacity and your perspective more than ever before.As a state, we want our children to stay on track for long-term success and that you You can do anything to support the work you do every day.

As you know, the school year starts in a few weeks. Or for some today, many of our children will have their first normal year in years. It’s where students do their best work, and it’s very important.

So I just wanted to get in touch and tell you that I really appreciate the work you do. This recent bipartisan education budget, which I signed, is making record investments in our students, schools and staff.

As you know, our students got $9,150 per student for every student in every school district. This will enhance your in-class experience. We have dedicated resources for mental health and school safety and resources for at-risk and special education.

We proposed $1 billion to build and renovate our schools, but of course we had to negotiate with Congress and in the end we got $250 million in import investment. New classrooms, libraries, labs, exercise facilities, and HVAC systems aren’t the most exciting things to spend your money on, but they’re more important than ever. We are improving water quality in schools.

For our staff, we offer $10,000 scholarships to 2,500 prospective MI educators and $9,600 scholarships to student educators each year. We have also put resources into our Grow Your Own program to get our staff into certification without tuition fees.

I didn’t come up with these ideas on my own. You helped give us Congress. Thank you. I wish all of you, students and educators a wonderful year.And I’m really excited to see how these resources can be used to best meet the needs of children and educators in different districts.

So I look forward to seeing what best practices you come up with and how we challenge each other and inform our continued investment in education. please give me. I am so happy to be with you all this morning.

…

absolutely. Thanks for the question Tina. You know this isn’t just Michigan, it’s not just schools, right? However, we have known in this field for a long time that there was a decline in the number of people entering the profession and retirement was looming. I’m just there. So it’s thanks to conversations with you and education professionals that we’ve highlighted some of the spending priorities we’ve prioritized in our budget. It was suggested by everyone, and we were able to make it happen.

I think this is a step in addressing the issues you just voiced out to Tina. So we welcome your advice and suggestions. In many cases it has yielded improved results and we have codified your ideas and put them into practice. Know that we are passionate partners in securing great people, whether it’s from the classroom. These are some steps we’ve taken, but we recognize there’s more to be done here and we all want to work with you to make this a success. Tina, You hinted at it, but Stephanie Odea on my team will remain for the rest of the term. Everyone. That’s why I want to make sure this isn’t just a moment, it’s an ongoing conversation that we’ve all had and will continue to have. ”

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