Plan Advocates Four School Districts For ...

A proposed plan whereby the L 10 districts of the Washtenaw 5 County Intermedíate S c h o o 1 j District would be merged into ' íour separate districts was ' sented last night at a meeting ; of the Washtenaw County School Officers Assocjation. The plan was one the i pal aspects of the Washtenaw County School District Reorganization Study laid in the laps of bers of the association. tjyo-year study was i fyy Kenneth Grinstead, ie professor in the Col-gc of Education at Eastern I Michigan University. Assisting Ihim were Jack Alian, Clayton iGraham, D. L. Schechter, Cliff ■ Scherer, Bill Taylor and FranI cis Winter. Grinstead said, "It is not our lintent to teil the public how Ito run its schools. Our purpose lis to serve in a capacity to ■ help and to open all channels I oí communication." "Our study is our profession■ al point of view. We don't exI peet the study to have an I immediate effects. We just wan I it to stimulate your thinking." i The EMU s t u d y, coxaflU,' é ;ioned by the school cfficers 'roup, grew out of a 1 nendation made two years ago C ;hat all the school districts in t ;he county be combined into one t school system. That early recommendaüon } was made by the Washtenaw ' County Intermedíate School District Committee for the i organization of School Distriets,!1 a group charged by state iegis-i! lation to reorganize school : ricts so that all primary disricts (school districts without ügh schools) were annexed into indergarten-through-12th grade districts. The reorganization committee dropped the proposal f o r a ounty-wide district when that plan failed to gain support and adopted a plan, later approved )y voters, meeting the minimum requirements of the state aw. That action, in effect, reduced the number of school districts in the county from 17 to 10. The subject of school distric reorganization did not die, how ever, and the school officer group asked EMU to study oth - - - rpossible steps. : The four áreas proposed by a 3 MU would be called the North c Central Washtenaw County Disrict, the East Washtenaw i ,y District, the Scutheast j ;enaw County District and the i (Vest Washtenaw County ( xict. i The North Central District i K-mild merge the Ann Arbor, e ft'hitmore Lake and D e x t e r ( School Districts. ünder this ( plan, Whitmore Lake's 7-12] grade building couid be used or grades 1 to 9 and, with i ome additions and reeonstruc-i, ion, could accommodate 500-J 00 students in junior high chool. This would cali for the ;ransporting of some Ann Aror students to Whitmore Lake. No plans were made for Dex-j ter High School although it would be possible to enlarge the building to accommodate more students and transport students in grades 10 to 12 in from Ann Arbor. Dexter High School also could possibly be converted into a junior high school. Decisions concerning the future use of the buildings could only be made after a wmm lareful review by arcmtecxsM tnd school planners, the study ■ state s. The study points out that itil s not necessary for the Annl rbor School District to be en- arged or merged with other j iistricts in order to improve itsj program because the district al- ready has a "highly adequate! educational" program. The stu-j dent population of the Northjl Central District in 1967-68 isl projected at 21,000. The proposed East 1 naw County District yvould have I a 1967-68 enrollment of aboutl 11,600 students, and would in-j elude Ypsilanti and the Willowl Run districts. The small geographic are al encompassed by the two districts, their close proximity and Stheir north - south orientation, would make it advantageous for a possible merger, the study says. The study also says that thej Huron River is a major traffic barrier for Ypsilanti, and expansión of this district on its eastem boundary would reduce the problems caused by restricted traffic flow.