New council to focus on helping Michigan students recover from COVID-19 education disruptions
Updated Feb 04, 2021;
Posted Feb 04, 2021
Students wear their masks during class at All Saints Central Middle and High School in Bay City on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2020. (Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com)Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com
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With Michigan schools encouraged to resume in-person learning by March 1 and winter sports reauthorized, school is starting to look more familiar. But with students having been separated from school support systems for so long, a new council is tasked with examining how the state can help students recover.
The new Student Recovery Advisory Council, comprised of 29 members with a variety of educational, medical and labor backgrounds, will make recommendations on how to help students recover. Those recommendations will include addressing students’ academic, physical and mental well-being.
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IPR s Politics Reporter Max Johnston breaks down what the State of the State address means for northern Michigan.
“I’ll continue to reach out to Republicans here in Lansing,” she said. “While common ground seems less and less common these days, it’s never been more important that we work toward it.”
Republican lawmakers Up North largely welcomed that theme with some hesitancy. Gov. Whitmer also appeared to signal hope in her address tonight, but it remains to be seen whether she is willing to work with the Legislature to restore trust in government and foster a recovery for the state, State Sen. Curt VanderWall (R-Ludington) wrote in a press release.
Who’s new in the Michigan House of Representatives
Updated Jan 05, 2021;
Posted Jan 05, 2021
The House Chamber pictured at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing on Thursday, April 25, 2019.Neil Blake
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The new legislative session brings with it substantial turnover for the Michigan House of Representatives, which will have 28 new lawmakers serving their first full terms in office.
Most of the freshman class will fill House seats vacated by members who hit their six-year term limit serving in the state House, although some defeated incumbents or are replacing members who sought other offices last fall.
Speaker-elect Jason Wentworth, R-Clare, and Democratic Leader-elect Donna Lasinski, D-Scio Township, will fill the leadership slots left open by the departures of former Reps. Lee Chatfield and Christine Greig.
Whitmer bill signings include tightened sex offender registration protocols, boosts in medical staffing
Updated Dec 30, 2020;
Posted Dec 30, 2020
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LANSING, MI - Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s major signing Tuesday was the partial approval of a COVID-19 relief supplemental equaling $106 million. Later on Dec. 29, though, she inked a series of other bills.
The governor ratified more than 80 bits of legislation to immediate effect, notably the tightening of registration protocols for sex offenders and the loosening of license restrictions to boost medical staffing to fight COVID-19 surges.
The approval of changes to the state’s Sex Offender Registration Act fulfills a 4-year-old mandate from the U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled that it was unconstitutional to impose new restrictions on people convicted before the Act was updated.
State lawmakers approve measures to boost medical, education staffing amid COVID-19 surge
Updated Dec 16, 2020;
Posted Dec 16, 2020
Inside a new COVID care unit at Hackley Hospital in Muskegon on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020. Mercy Health Muskegon is opening the unit at the previously closed Hackley Campus on Thursday, November 19, in response to the increased number of coronavirus pandemic cases in Muskegon County. The new unit will treat stable, COVID-positive patients who require extended stays in the hospital. Patients will not be admitted directly at Hackley. (Cory Morse | MLive.com)
Cory Morse | MLive.com
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LANSING, MI - Helping Michiganders cope with the COVID-19 surge is at the center of a series of bills that passed Wednesday in the Michigan Legislature.