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More than $28 million in new money is coming to Greater Lansing schools following the approval of a historic state K-12 funding bill.
The bill will help close a district funding gap, an effort that started with the 1994 approval of Proposal A, which replaced property taxes with state taxes as the main source of school funding. The bill means an increase in base funding from $8,100 per student in some districts to $8,700 per student in all schools.
The bill will bring millions of dollars in extra funding to Greater Lansing schools as they rebound from a year of remote learning amid COVID-19 concerns. Lansing School District alone could see more than $4 million in new state education funding.
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LANSING In a normal year around this time, thousands of students across Michigan would be quietly filling in bubbles on the state’s standardized test.
As with all things education and COVID, it’s a little different this year.
In 2020, with the virus still new and unknown, the U.S. Department of Education waived its requirement that schools administer state summative assessments. That included the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, otherwise known as the M-STEP, which is administered to students in grades 3 through 8 and 11.
Michigan officials tried for months to secure another waiver this year, but were denied. Instead, they got a compromise: Schools are required to
Lansing Area Businesses Pay Off Student Lunch Debt
One thing sparks another. That s the story of one local business giving back to area schools.
Co-owners of Saddleback BBQ, Matthew Gillett and Travis Stoliker heard about student lunch debt in the Lansing area and made the decision to pay off Mason Public Schools existing debt.
They wrote a check for $1,753.21 in February to cover the school districts lunch debt. Stoliker told Lansing State Journal that, this was the first time he had ever heard about student lunch debt and wanted to take care of it.
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The giving didn t stop there. A couple months later, Saddleback BBQ teamed up with several local businesses and paid off nearly $6,300 worth of debt in nine area school districts.
LANSING Students once again filled the Okemos High School halls with chatter and laughter, nearly bringing Christine Sermak to tears.
The Okemos High School’s principal on Monday greeted students who chose to return for in-person learning at the high school for the first time in nearly a year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The morning had the excitement of the first day of school as students greeted each other and walked inside. Sermak even took a photograph with her daughter to mark the occasion.
“It’s so emotional. It’s almost like when you get your vaccine, you just want to tear up,” she said. “It’s just been a long journey. When you think about it, we have been out of this building since March 13 (2020), so it’s been a year. It’s just really exciting to have kids back in the building. They’re really the energy. They’re the reason why we’re here.”