Grosse Pointe School Board Recalls 14 Teachers

The Board members unanimously approved the recall of 14 teachers Monday at the request of the district. Two additional teachers were also approved for partial recalls.

Thomas Harwood, the assistant superintendent of human resources, requested the recalls after providing the board a review of enrollment numbers. While enrollment numbers are never set in stone, officials have a better idea how many students will be attending this fall as the school year is quickly approaching. 

According to tallies of registrations thus far, the district is anticipating being about 25-40 students shy of its original projection of 8,344 students, assistant superintendent of business operations Chris Fenton said. As of Monday night, the district had 8,241 students enrolled, but enrollment will continue up until the start of the school, which is Sept. 6. Fenton said he is anticipating about 60 more students to enroll in that time.

The list includes teachers from each level of the district--elementary, middle and high schools--with the most coming from the elementary schools.

Harwood said the approval means all but about 10 teachers have been recalled from . The remaining 10 were part of the district's proactive plan for cutting costs before the board , he said.

Grosse Pointe Education Association President Ranae Beyerlein said she is happy that more teachers have been recalled. She is hopeful that the remaining 10 still have a chance to also return.

In addition to the recalls, the board approved the hiring of one new teacher for the special education department at . The district is still looking for an elementary Spanish teacher--a position Beyerlein believes can easily be filled by one of the 10 still on the list.

Before the board approved the recalls, board member Joan Dindoffer asked why some of the additions to staffing were necessary at schools that have lost population—specifically questioning requests for and .

Harwood explained that the administrators of those particular buildings are hoping to reclaim some staff to keep class sizes from getting too large. 

Beyerlein had asked the board at the beginning of the meeting to use funds slated for the purchase of a software program instead to fund recalling teachers. She said the software is not supported and there are other methods to pay for it that are not allowed to be allocated for employee compensation.

Assistant Superintendent of Special Education Deb Jackson said the district however had already entered to an agreement to receive the funds for the software program. The agreement was made with a promise to report results back to the issuing agency, meaning reallocation would be breaking the district's agreement, she said.

The board later approved the purchase of the software, to be used for students with special needs or at risk for having problems in reading and mathematics. The approval calls for the purchase of 50 software licenses at a cost of $84,010 from federal grant funds.