Feature photo: Governor Gretchen Whitmer recently visited Beecher High School after the school received $2.5 million in the state budget, and she and toured classrooms.
Written by Tanya Terry
On August 29, Governor Gretchen Whitmer was joined by state leaders, teachers and school staff for a visit to meet students and others in the community at Beecher High School, at 6255 Neff Rd, in Mt. Morris. Due to the old high school building being in a state of disrepair, high school and middle school students within the district have been under the same roof, in what was Dolan Middle School. Beecher Community Schools has been raising money to renovate and reopen the old high school building, at the corner of Saginaw Street and Coldwater Road. High school students will be back at this location, while the middle school students will remain in the current building. The district received $2.5 million in the state budget for this purpose.
Whitmer toured classrooms and spoke to students using the school’s PA system, dismissing them from the building during her visit.
“All the decisions we’ve made, the priorities we’ve set, are as the result of the school’s parents and teachers and kids trying to make sure we do all that we need to get our kids not back on track, but thriving,” stated Whitmer during her visit.
Whitmer pointed out some of the resources the state has been able to put into education have helped boost salaries, which is helping to stabilize the workforce.
Chandra Madafferi, president of the Michigan Education Association said “now is the time to become a teacher or any educator” at a Michigan school.
“Pay increases are happening,” Madafferi added. “There’s support to become a teacher, whether it’s scholarships. Student teachers are getting paid of the first time, and it is an amazing profession for us to be in to be able to make a difference in our students’ lives.”
Becky Pringle is president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union. She said she made it a priority to visit Michigan schools and learn the Michigan story.
“I think for decades we’ve made too little of an investment in our public education system,” Whitmer said. “For decades, we’ve saw different areas have different amounts of resources with which to educate students, much less maintain buildings. We are addressing a lot of that, but this has been baked in for a long period of time.”
She called the investments made a “major step in the right direction.”
“But every child in Michigan should have access to a high-quality public education,” stated Whitmer.
Lance Sumpter, Beecher High School principal, said the community is “energized” about the district receiving $2.5 million.
“I’m a Beecher graduate,” said Sumpter. “I graduated from Beecher in ’96, and the old high school always felt like the heartbeat of the community. When we, in 2004, brought all the high school students to the current location, it really hurt a lot of the alumni emotionally because it felt like the district was going down. Over the next ten years, people even had the misnomer that the district has closed just because of the high school and that location closing.”
Sumpter says the opening of the new location will be a “rebirth.” He pointed out over the years Beecher has won amazing state championships athletically, but the district is in the process of growing back academically.
Beecher teachers just received a three-year contract. They have not had multi-year contracts in at least a decade.
“Now they have the opportunity to get raises for the next three years-7%, 6%, then 5%:,” said Sumpter.
The money from the state budget made this possible, according to Sumpter.
“That one of the huge reasons I believe the governor came is because of the work that our board of education, our central office and our teachers’ union have done together to make sure we’re supporting each other.”
Sumpter explained Beecher is doing presentations to various donors and organizations to raise more money. He expects renovating and reopening the old high school will cost approximately $15-20 million.
“It’s been a breath of fresh air,” he added. “There’s been a jot of energy the last couple years since we’ve been working on this project, and it’s very exciting.”
