TCAPS is trying to retain and gain students. They see the charter schools growing while their student population is decreasing. They attribute some of this to the difference in facilities. If they can seek and gain approval on a millage, it offsets the demand on their operational budget and increases the chances they may gain students whose parents are interested in the facilities. Not bad logic or strategy - the only thing they are missing is that many, I may say most, parents are truly interested in their children securing and excelling in the basics - a solid foundation in the fundamentals of education.

I love the comment on word usage. Catholic skule is reelly paing of.

They treat their teachers like garbage, kids programs are being cut, class sizes are huge, parents are told the politically correct answers, then this garbage goes on. Get rid of every administrator in the district from the top down. They make too much money and only hurt the kids. The cooks, custodians secretaries and teachers do all of the work and make very little money. No supplies for the classrooms but we have 2 million to spend on a parking lot. Nice.

Beautiful striped parking lots, attractive entrances and exits and no money to pay the teachers and fund the programs necessary to educate the students.
How many accidents or injuries occurred before the redesign was approved?
Regardless of the source of funding, it's time for TCAPS officials to be a little more responsible and stop spending a dollar just because they have a dollar on projects such as this.

What TCAPS is really saying is this: "We got money from the taxpayers that we don't need, but let's spend it anyway". Education is important. Having stupidly expensive parking lots is not.

GTACS is Better
Posted by TC Parent, tc - Monday, July 20, 2009 at 6:44 p.m.
Thank goodness are children go to catholic school. I was talking to a friend of ours and she teaches at a TCAPS chool and sends her children to GTACS, So what does that tell you about TCAPS and there education?

TC Parent: I can tell you what your post tells me about you! You need a refresher course in word usage.

(See bolded words above.. Are should be OUR, There should be THEIR

As Brent Manthei mentioned Proposal A was passed years ago to give all schools in Michigan equal funding and raised sales tax from 4 to 6 percent. This was supposed to make all schools equal so schools in wealthy districts would no have a significant advantage over poorer districts.

Now with the whole state having trouble all schools are being equally poorly funded. The extra money TCAPS could raise would have to go back to the state and shared equally with the rest of the schools in the state to keep with the spirit of proposal A.

I think the "line" you will receive from the State about school funding and not being able to use bond funds for operatons will be that by insuring that all public schools use the per pupil funding for operations the State can guarantee equity in funding for all schools. Without this, the State may say, "richer districts" could pass as many bonds as they wanted to fund schools where "poorer districts" who couldn't pass a millage would be left behind. If this is the line you receive, follow up with a question about the "J-20" school districts (districts in the metro Detroit area like Rochester, Birmingham, etc.) and why do their students receive over $12,000 per pupil of state funding where Northern Michigan schools only receive about $7,000 per pupil in state funding. These districts saw the hand-writing on the wall when Proposal A was about the be enacted to try to equalize funding for district across the state that these more affluent ditricts could lose money to equalize funding for all. As a result, their influential members of the State Congress were able to add the J 20 clause to Proposal A to insure that their districts would maintain their levels of funding over and above the normal per pupil funding that the rest of the districts in Michigan receive. Check it out, I'm sure you will find it very interesting.

One thing to remember when questioning whether voters could approve an 'operational millage' (which you noted is not legally allowable) - they essentially have by approving the capital fund millage. If there was not a capital fund millage, any capital needs would have to be met with TCAPS' state funding (the 'other' revenue source you mentioned). Yes, if they did not have the millage funds they probably would not be undertaking such large capital projects. But, capital needs would still exist and expenditures necessary even if not to the extent they are currently be expended. As capital expenditures can be taken out of the millage money, this frees up the state funds to be spent on operational needs. So, the voters have aided TCAPS in their operational budget through approving the capital fund millage.

All this work and expense for what?
Most of the work is being done because the parents can't let little Jimmy and Suzie ride the bus home after school. They have to be picked up every night and dropped off every morning. Spoiled kids now days.
Then this same bunch whines about global warming and what everyone else should be doing about it.
If the parents weren't such a bunch of whusses, they would make their kids ride the bus and the taxpayer's wouldn’t have their tax dollars wasted on nonsense projects.

Thank goodness are children go to catholic school. I was talking to a friend of ours and she teaches at a TCAPS chool and sends her children to GTACS, So what does that tell you about TCAPS and there education?

I drive by the school everyday too and marveled at the construction. Will it help control the student population, overcrowding and teacher/student ratio? Probably not. Will the school administrators listen to parental concerns? Probably not - based on our experience. However, I dont see where the roads are too high. This is called engineering and by what means does the previous writer measure incliment weather? These roads do not look dangerous to me in the slightest. In the end, its all math, a numbers game or math in numbers of dollars.

See posted link...this is a news story from 2001. Older but still accurate. MI citizens complained of higher property taxes and funding inequities in the 1990s so we changed funding in 1994 to proposal A. Prop A is imperfect...whats the solution: we must choose to pay more taxes OR we cut services elsewhere in the State's budget to properly fund public education. We can't have our cake and eat it too. www.educationreport.org/pubs/mer/article.aspx?id=3752

We drive by the school almost everyday and wonder each time how this will allwork. The road is high(to high)for the buses to get going in any weather.It looks very dangerious to us,also will a lot of students use the roads for other things,skateboarding,etc.Who came up with this plan?