Photo by James Mitchell
Allen Elementary School Principal Renee Chilson (left) and custodian Belinda Blunt pack away boxes of books from the school library. School staff emptied the media center last week after last month’s floods soaked the building.
By JAMES MITCHELL
Sunday Times Newspapers
SOUTHGATE — The way Supt. Leslie Hainrihar sees it, Southgate Community Schools can survive pretty much anything – including this summer’s floods.
“One bit of good news,” Hainrihar said last week, “is that in spite of some damage to buildings we were able to get all the repairs done and open on time.”
As with much of the city, Southgate school buildings suffered during a historic August rainfall, but around-the-clock efforts limited the interruption to just one building: the library at Allen Elementary School remained closed last week, awaiting new carpeting.
Perhaps, she said, the district was better prepared after enduring the unprecedented upheaval that marked the 2013-14 academic year.
“I’d be hard pressed to find a district that had gone through as many changes in one year,” Hainrihar said of the students, teachers and staff adjusted to new classrooms after no less than three buildings were closed – Gerisch Middle School and Chormann and North Pointe elementary schools – changes in semester lengths, staff layoffs and other disruptions.
Taken in that light, Hainrihar said the 2014-15 year will hopefully be one of continued improvements in test scores, which last year posted “some gains, some losses,” yet were difficult to calculate in some cases.
“We generally feel we stayed about the same,” Hainrihar said. “Which, considering the amount of shuffling of students and realignment we feel fortunate to keep student achievement at the same level.”
Some high school improvements were seen last year, she said, but middle school education shifted from eighth- and ninth-graders to a sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade student population.
“They maintained a status quo,” Hainrihar said. “That’s a good place to start. When a district has come through so many massive changes and challenges, we can celebrate the fact that a difficult year is behind us. It makes what might be an ordinary year seem extraordinary.”
Hainrihar was further encouraged last month when she submitted both a balanced budget for the coming year and a deficit elimination plan that should put the district back in the black within two years. Not too many years ago school officials dealt with an estimated $5 million deficit, a budgetary crisis compounded by internal communications issues that masked the true amount, which prompted the decision to shutter three schools.
Hainrihar said she expects to confirm state approval of the budget this month, after which the district will be ready for a year without massive interruptions.
“The biggest challenge is to live up to the expectations of living within our means,” Hainrihar said. “We’re not looking at any significant changes.”
Stability, she said, is a modest yet notable expectation that could very well usher in a new era of education at Southgate schools.
“There’s a giant sigh of relief that last year is behind us,” Hainrihar said. “We actually did OK, and now we get to go back to the joy of teaching. That can have an energizing effect.”
(James Mitchell can be reached at [email protected].)