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School Out at Children's Village: Panel Rejects Contract With Waterford

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 June 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Kathleen Gray, Detroit Free Press

Jun. 13--A school for abused, neglected and criminally charged youth at Children's Village will basically shut down after action taken Monday by a committee of the Oakland County Board of Commissioners.

The Waterford school district has educated children at the facility for more than 20 years under a contract with Oakland County, which owns and runs Children's Village.

But four Democratic commissioners on the General Government Committee -- Tim Melton of Auburn Hills, David Coulter of Ferndale, Vincent Gregory of Southfield and Mattie McKinney Hatchett of Pontiac -- were joined by Republican Commissioner Christine Long of Commerce Township in rejecting a three-year contract extension.

The contract expires July 1, so summer school at Children's Village will be canceled. The fate of next school year, which would begin in September, is up in the air until the full Board of Commissioners takes action.

About 1,200 kids go to school at Children's Village each year, but the daily count falls between 200 and 240 students. Waterford will be responsible for educating the general education students at the facility.

But 54% of the children are classified as special education students and might have to be transported by the county to their home school districts. If the students are criminally charged, the courts may order tutors to come in, at county taxpayer expense, to educate the students at Children's Village.

"A condition of the Children's Village license is there has to be an educational system there," Deputy County Executive Gerald Poisson said. "But what commissioners have said today is that these kids who have been removed from their homes aren't worth the same type of investment that we make into our adult prisoners."

Though the state picks up the bulk of the cost to run the Children's Village school at an expense of $2.1 million, the contract called for the county to subsidize it for $489,000 a year.

The county's share was cut by more than $100,000 a year over the course of the last three-year contract. Commissioners had asked the administration last week to bring back the contract with more cuts.

"It's our recommendation to approve the contract as we presented," Poisson said. "It's a fair deal between the school district and the county. We recognize the board's right to delete things, but we do not recommend that."

The board could have cut driver's education and summer school, which would have saved $67,000, but it chose to reject the contract outright instead.

"You've obviously drawn the line in the sand and you're not going to negotiate," Hatchett said. "To paint a picture that this is the last chance for these poor pitiful kids isn't an accurate picture."

Commissioners approving the contract were: Republicans William Patterson of Oxford, Eileen Kowall of White Lake Township, Hugh Crawford of Novi, Eric Wilson of Lake Orion and Will Molnar of Troy.

Contact KATHLEEN GRAY at 313-223-4407 or gray@freepress.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Detroit Free Press

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Detroit Free Press

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