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Rockford teachers, parents talk education investments with Michigan governor

Gov. Whitmer’s visit to Rockford Public Schools' Valley View Elementary gave parents and teachers the opportunity to discuss the new investments made in education.

ROCKFORD, Mich. — Though class had been dismissed for the day, Valley View Elementary’s library served as the roundtable for educators and parents alike as a part of an ongoing tour set by the state’s governor.

The visit to Rockford was Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s second stop in a part of her ongoing “Back-to-School Tour.” On Wednesday, Whitmer held a similar discussion with residents in Novi in Oakland County.

Rockford Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Steve Matthews introduced Whitmer Friday afternoon to an eager group – saying in part that the historic state budget played a role in increasing teacher-staff salaries and reducing classrooms’ teacher-to-student ratio.

Sonia Andrews, a teacher at RPS, doubles as president of the local teacher union Rockford Education Association. She told Whitmer she was excited about the investment and pointed out that her district is fully-staffed after hiring more than 60 new educators.

“The budget most definitely made a difference with the governor's per-pupil increase,” Andrews said. “It allows a district to attract highly-qualified, quality educators and support staff personnel to our district.

“There are a lot of districts (that) struggle throughout the course of the year being fully-staffed and will operate often, like Grand Rapids Public does – not having a fully-staffed district and that definitely is noticeable when you can start the school year with the permanent teacher in the classroom with the students.”

According to a news release, Whitmer’s fourth bipartisan education budget made the highest state-per-student investment in the state’s history, and made it possible to hire, train and recruit 10,000 teachers.

That budget, Whitmer said, was set with the help of a task force she helped assemble during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were making sure that we are focused on the right things to get our kids back on track,” Whitmer told members of the press after the roundtable. “The student-teaching stipends is a really important piece to getting people to go into this important profession – the ability for teachers to make a living while they are in the profession.

“That's why we increase how much money we're giving to districts so that they can take care of their teachers and their para-pros and the bus drivers etc. A lot of the work in this budget is reflected by the need to keep people in into lower good people into this profession. We've got more work to do, though, no question.”

Still, turnovers within education are continuing. It’s something that Rockford High School band director Evan Bahm has seen first-hand. His worry is that pay for educators still isn’t keeping up, and beginning to phase passionate workers out.

“You know, there’s 13 music educators that I graduated with and 3 or 4 are still teaching,” Bahm said, later adding that his own wife, a music educator, left the field to work for a software company. “It's been challenging to kind of go through this and have the love and passion for teaching. And to just kind of have to rely on that intrinsic motivation to kind of get you through all the years.”

The education budget focuses on six primary areas: students, mental health, learning supports, student safety, school infrastructure and teacher recruitment.

A breakdown look at the budget can be found here.

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