By ZEINAB NAJM
Sunday Times Newspapers
ALLEN PARK —
The Board of Education voted June 13 to close Allen Park Community School, 14700 Moore, after a lengthy discussion and hours of comments from the community.
During the board meeting, trustees voted 4-3 to approve a transition plan proposal for the upcoming school year, due to a decrease in enrollment.
Board President Gordon Miller, Trustees Laura Luecke, Sarah Filipiak and Jennifer Warren voted in favor of the proposal while Trustees Michael Klein, Jeannette MacDonald and Stephen Martin voted against.
The vote came after more than two hours of comments and concerns shared by staff and parents in the district along with a presentation on the plan and comments from board members.
Supt. Michael Darga said the expected enrollment at the school for 2022-23 is projected to be 60 students, creating a deficit spending of just over $493,000 if operations were to continue.
Program stability and sustainability also were brought up in discussion about shutting down the school, which offers alternative education for high school students ages 14 through 19.
Those APCS students will be offered a transfer to Allen Park High School, where a multi-tiered system of support will be added at the school for all students. Teachers from APCS will be placed into newly vacated teaching positions which became available after the resignation of 12 teachers.
The district plans to split the teachers between Allen Park Middle School and the high school based on certification. No teacher or staff member will be laid off and all APCS employees will retain their full-time status.
“We will work diligently throughout the summer to prepare for a smooth transition for our high school students and staff who have been re-assigned,” a district spokesperson said in a letter emailed to the school community June 16.
“Administration will reach out to current and former APCS staff over the summer for feedback on student connectedness, culture of acceptance, academic centers, Jag time reimagined and MTSS. Current APHS teachers who would like to be a part of these conversations and future planning are also welcome to join the conversations.”
Comments from the community ranged in topic areas, but the most common message was if the district gave up on APCS then it also gave up on the students.
Other parents and students said it was not the right time to close the school and that further action should be taken to invest in the school and increase its visibility in the community.
APCS Social Worker Michelle Calvillo said she has been at the school for the past four years as a voluntary transfer because that is where she wanted to be.
“The community school offers opportunity for change and hope,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for students to graduate on time, but more than that, it’s an opportunity to thrive.
“We are a smaller setting with intensive needs of all kinds, but we offer the opportunity for more individualized attention, flexibility, more time, smaller classes, relationship building and opportunities to transform and rebuild.”
She also said that people don’t know the strength of the program until they see it.
“It’s evident when you talk to our students and visit our school events,” Calvillo said. “Our students are casualties of this decision and they will not make it at the high school without significant changes to programming.”
Student Gabe Riley said he was lost before he started attending APCS and is now proud to represent all the amazing things that the school has done.
“Going to the community school was a blessing in disguise from all the critics who said what this community school wasn’t,” he said. “I got my second chance and had amazing people around me to help lead me through this journey. The things this school does is truly amazing. The school is not just a building; it is a whole entire community.”
Marcia Regalado, a parent of a student at the school, said that when her youngest child needed an alternative school plan earlier this year, she went to Asher Alternative High School in Southgate, but couldn’t enroll her child because they were too young by three months.
She said she didn’t know about APCS before it was recommended by a friend of a counselor at Asher.
“Where is the visibility and partnerships with local schools?” Regalado asked. “Why does the community not know that this school exists? That, right there, could contribute to your low enrollment.”
Regalado said her child’s mental health was in a bad place and she was making choices that affected her relationships with family and friends, and was unable to do well in school as a result.
“She came to Allen Park Community School, and with the support of teachers, she is not only passing for the first time since elementary school, she has A’s,” Regalado said. “She’s never felt good about school. My child and every other child that is currently enrolled or potentially enrolled in this school will lose, this resource to their educational journey, but the improvement in mental health, and the improvement in relationships that I have seen in my child.”
APCS gradate Brianna Schultz started a petition to save the school, which had 2,494 signatures as of June 30.
(Zeinab Najm can be reached at [email protected].)