WYOMING, Mich. (WOOD) - The board of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools voted Monday night to stop providing child care services to alternative education students with children of their own, following other Kent County districts which have eliminated the programs in recent years citing a lack of funds.
Dozens of students from Godfrey-Lee's alternative high school, Vision Quest, rallied outside the meeting to protest the move.
"When I was pregnant, that's when I started going," Vision Quest student Tatiana Roman said. "I said, "Oh, they have a day care there, I have to go there to still go to school (and) achieve my goals.' "
Roman said if child care had not been offered, she likely would have dropped out. The senior expects to graduate before child care ends in December, so her daughter, Angelli, should be taken care of. But Roman said she wanted to back the other parents and expecting parents who will still be there.
"We want opportunity as much as everyone else to graduate," she said.
The students moved inside the meeting before the vote but after the meeting's public comment portion and were not allowed to address the board. That prompted some students to say they were silenced, but administrators pointed out they had missed the time to talk.
"If you start making changes to the protocol for one group, where do you stop doing that?" Superintendent David Britten said. "Then, pretty soon, you don't have a protocol.
"I understand their concern. I know most of those kids. I've known most of them since I was the middle school principal."
Britten said staff outside with the students could have notified students they needed to come inside and sign in, but child care employee Susan McGuire said the students were told to stay outside by a principal so as not to disrupt the meeting.
In voting for the cut, one board member suggested the students take their effort to Lansing, noting that the state only gives the school district so much money to fund its operations. Britten agreed in comments after the meeting, saying the decision came down to money and the district does not have enough of it.
The superintendent said the program was serving "four or five" children a day with a $50,000 cost and "we decided that we can't operate a day care program that's going to cost us $10,000 per child."
McGuire disputed the superintendent's claim of four or five students per day, showing 24 Hour News 8 a calendar showing counts often in the double-digits and occasional single-digit days but no counts as low as five.
But unless the school board decides to reverse course, the program is over. The Vision Quest principal is working with county social services to find other placements for the kids, Britten said, "so they have a place to go."
The move means the elimination of four half-time positions in the district, which, along with supply costs, account for the program's $50,000 cost.