Our schools are in the best of shape

We need to fire the incompetent teachers and cut the administrative overhead by 70% - from the Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ:

School district charges mom $77,000 for Freedom of Information Act request about her son
Nineteen-year-old Mitchell Smith has special needs, but while mainstreamed at Goodrich High School he fit right in.

“Did you have a lot of friends at school?” I asked him.

“I have a lot of them,” he replied smiling.

While surrounded by classmates of different abilities, Mitchell made goals. He beat many in cross country, running a twenty-two minute 5k. He passed a test to qualify as a basketball referee.

“I think that would be a great job,” said Mitchell. 

As his classmates researched what to do after high school, he did too. He learned about Ready for Life, a program that teaches life skills while mainstreaming special needs students on a college campus.

But the school district and the state didn't let Mitchell enter that program, instead:

“I decided last year I wanted to go there,” said Mitchell. “We visited a couple times and I liked it a lot.”

Then Mitchell and his mom met with school leaders to talk about his continuing education after high school, something state funded because of his special needs.

The decision?

Mitchell should spend hours commuting everyday to a non-mainstreamed district  program in Flint. Mitchell’s mom says it offers vocational training in positions Mitchell isn’t interested in.

“I wanted to know how they reached that determination,” said Sherry Smith, Mitchell’s mom.

She filed a Freedom of Information Act Request for emails sent by school staff about her son. The  school said okay, but first you’ll have to pay.

The price?  $77,718.75.

To Sherry, it is suspicious.

“Why don’t you want us to have access to the emails?” she asks.

 The school superintendent said:

The current estimate is that it would require up to 4,687.5 hours at the current clerical hourly employee rate of $16.58 per hour.

The school is taxpayer funded so the information is in the public domain and should be available at zero cost. This will be an interesting lawsuit. Once again, this graph comes to mind: