Tecumseh school board picks reconfiguration plan; two schools to close after school year

TECUMSEH — A plan has been selected for reconfiguring the Tecumseh Public Schools.

When the 2024-25 school year starts, Sutton and Tecumseh Acres schools will each have Young 5's through third grade and the middle school will have fourth through eighth grades. The Patterson and Herrick Park schools will be closed. Only the high school will remain the same with ninth through 12th grades.

The vote Monday to adopt what had been Proposal 3 was 7-0, but it came after the board was asked by the district’s teachers union and a resident to slow down the process and wait a year to provide more information to the community and district’s staff and let the new superintendent have input on the reconfiguration.

Superintendent Rick Hilderley is planning to retire at the end of this school year.

Tecumseh Education Association members were surveyed about the reconfiguration plans, and 89% of the respondents said they preferred waiting to further plan and see what input the new superintendent would have on the reconfiguration, TEA President Joey Chase told the board as members of the union who filled the audience stood in solidarity again wearing red shirts, as they have at other recent meetings.

Most of the questions had 80-83 responses. The TEA has about 120 members and there are about 160 teachers in the district, Chase said.

Proposal 3 had support or strong support from 37% of the respondents, Chase said, while 38.3% were opposed or strongly opposed and 23.5% were neutral.

Proposal 4 was less popular, with 51.2% opposed or strongly opposed, 32.9% in support or strong support and 14.6% neutral.

The survey also asked if they would seek new employment or move their children from the district if the district continued with reconfiguration. The survey showed 11.1% would seek new employment if reconfiguration occurs, and another 21% said they would seek new jobs if they were assigned to a new grade. A little over half of the respondents with children said they would move their kids to another district, but half of the respondents said they already don’t have kids in the district.

Chase said the board’s budget goals and desire to move ahead with reconfiguration while Hilderley is superintendent are self-imposed and can be changed.

“Ninety percent of your teachers are saying there is another way,” Chase said. “Let’s put something together that brings students back, retains teachers and moves Tecumseh forward.”

Resident Heather McGee warned that the district would have to continue to make spending cuts to continue to make its budget goals and that closing two schools would not leave it enough space should it start to add students.

Regarding the desire to wait for the district’s next superintendent, which also has been brought up by people addressing the board at recent meetings, board President Tony Rebottaro said he’s visited other districts doing superintendent searches and learned that the best candidates do not want to come to a district where the first thing they’ll be asked to do is make cuts.

Hilderley said he’s joked that there is no one who would prefer the board wait to do the reconfiguration until after he retires than himself. However, he said, a decision like reconfiguration and closing buildings is best made by someone who has many years of experience with the district.

“We’re asking people to do some difficult things, again, and I think that that ask needs to come from somebody who has some relationships with people and some knowledge of the district and can help make that situation happen as best as it can,” Hilderley said.

The reconfiguration is not like the change in 2017 when the district changed how it taught its curriculum, he said.

“That was a huge program change,” he said. “…This isn’t that. This is about closing a couple of buildings that have performed their service but are now inefficient bastions in our budget.”

He said he went through the closure of a building in his first year in Tecumseh when the Tipton school was closed, and that, financially, decisions like that have to be made.

“I feel like the exiting superintendent is the person to make sure that that gets done and the dust is settled and the new administration is able to pick up and move forward in a positive way and not be tied to those changes,” Hilderley said.

"We knew the teachers wanted to slow down. We understand that. It just couldn't happen," Rebottaro said after the meeting.

The district can reconfigure and plan for growth, trustee Jacob Martinez said, but waiting would just make the district’s financial situation worse.

Trustee Lynne Davis said she agreed with Martinez, adding that the district needs to be flawless as it manages the reconfiguration and use all staffing levels to generate positive attitudes.

Talks about reconfiguring the district started a couple of years ago, trustee Becky Brooks said.

“We knew these issues were coming,” she said.

Since the recall election in 2018, Brooks said, the board has worked to give teachers a “great raise” and empowered teachers to take the lead on curriculum updates while the board worked those updates into the budget.

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Concerns were raised at the board’s Nov. 27 about scheduling busing and lunch at the middle school with five grades. Trustee Mary Tommelein said the lunch times have been worked out and a viable option for busing had been presented to the board.

Board members said when the bond proposals failed last year, reconfiguration was the inevitable outcome. Those proposals would have consolidated the elementary grades into a new school to be built on the Tecumseh Acres campus. Rebottaro said the plan the board adopted gets closest to goals of the bond proposals.

"The community was really loud and clear when they told us, 'Hey, figure out a way to do it. You're not getting more money, you're not getting more taxes,'" Rebottaro said after the meeting.

Trustee Greg Lewis said if the district had reconfigured a year ago it would have the money to pay for the repairs to the community pool’s roof.

None of the board members want to close buildings, Lewis said, “but it’s the hand we’re dealt. If the bond would have passed, we wouldn’t be here. It’s something we can’t fix based on what we have.”

— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Tecumseh school board picks reconfiguration plan