Reimagine GRPS with Us!

Objectives

• Prioritize customer service, responsiveness and communication expectations with continual feedback loops and on-going evaluation.
• Each school to prioritize healing-centered themes like: Social, Emotional Wellness; Restorative Justice; Healing-Centered Engagement; Customer Service; Anti-Bias Education; etc.
• Quadrant-based Open Houses with community partners with co-facilitators (Partner and GRPS), co-construction of agendas and two-way sharing that centers scholars – quarterly Claim and situate all schools to operationalize their theme of safe, healing and healthy
• Create an app (Reimagine GRPS) opening up real-time data for our champions pertaining issues that matter the most - foster related systems (regular cadence of website updates) - expand who provides feedback
• Exploration of philanthropic partnership to offer mini-grants to scholar, caregiver and teacher-centered initiatives through participatory budgeting
• Collaboration around our success matrix pertaining key topics - acknowledging while the district has always endeavored to do its best with resources it has, our community has experienced hurt and harm
• Regular Superintendent Highlight and Update Videos
• Deepen structures and practices related to our Grow Your Own initiatives, while strengthening our First Three Years Educator programming and support
• Establish a “model classroom” in each school
• Amplification of the role of PALS in quadrants
• Offer incentives for all staff leading and serving in our partnership schools: Campus, Alger and Ottawa
• Incentivize scholar-centered clubs in our partnership schools

Objectives

• Fully staffing schools with priority focus on fully staffing schools with Black and Latinx students.
  • The reality is our state and nation are facing historic teacher and
    school staffing shortages. GRPS has too many buildings, not enough
    students and not enough teachers and support staff – who are spread thin between the 42 school buildings. With 450 vacant staff positions, it is necessary to close and consolidate school to help ensure our schools are fully staffed - without any layoffs.
• Increased investment in equitable education opportunities with priority focus on neighborhood schools and SE-side schools
• New, improved and expanded state of the art school facilities with the latest instructional technology and education spaces for enhancing teaching and learning for all scholars
• Maintaining one-to-one technology for all scholars and teachers
• Provide support to our teachers through initiatives such as offering Spanish courses for staff at no cost and launching school support meetings
• Expanding the number of Elective, Advanced Placement, Dual Enrollment and Experiential course
• Expanding resources/accessibility to social emotional mental health services and support for scholars/staff. Increased training and staffing for social-emotional and mental health services. As described in our repair criteria, we will offer services and honor the two-generation, caregiver systems approach
• Increasing scholar voice in decision making for school and district improvement planning with emphasis on increasing scholar engagement, belonging and social-emotional support. Dedicating funds for students to decide how to invest in their schools utilizing the Scholar Advisory Committees.

Objectives

• Ensure equitable investments in our boys and girls’ sports teams to support competitiveness and state of the art facilities comparable to our peer districts
• Fully fund Ottawa Hills and Union High Building Champions campaign improvements (locker rooms, weight rooms, fields, tennis courts, gymnasiums and more)
• Renovations/improvements to pools at Ottawa Hills, Union and City High Schools
• Houseman Field improvements
• Increase stipends to ensure fully staffed coaching for all teams

Objectives

• Major renovations to Ottawa Hills High School, Union High School, Innovation Central High School, City High School and Burton Elementary/Middle School auditoriums to transform them into state-of-the-art performance halls
• New, improved and renovated art and music spaces at elementary and middle schools
• Maintain and expand menu of options for art and music classes

Objectives

• Expanding after-school program opportunities to increase accessibility and serve more scholars
• As part of our repair criteria, whatever is offered in one half of the district is offered in the other half (North and South) - scholars do not have to go outside of their home half to access GRPS Programming
• New, improved, expanded playgrounds
• New, improved, expanded and more equitably available and accessible extra-curricular offerings (e.g. STEM Greenhouse, debate, mock trial, chess club, robotics, hip hop clubs, poetry/spoken word, etc.)
• New, improved, expanded partnership with the City of Grand Rapids Parks & Recreation Department to activate greenspaces, athletic facilities, playgrounds and pools, aligned with Green Grand Rapids Master Plan and prioritizing 3rd Ward/49507

Objectives

• Annual air quality monitoring of all schools for CO2, humidity and temperature with targeted investments based on findings.
• Investment in new/improved HVAC systems and ensure all schools have air conditioning

The reality is the district has too many buildings and not enough support staff due to the significant number of vacancies in custodial, grounds, maintenance and food service. The closure and consolidation of schools, coupled with staff retention and recruitment efforts, will improve the quality of staffing and services in our schools.

Objectives

• Investing in custodial/grounds/maintenance improvements to ensure buildings and grounds are regularly cleaned and well maintained. The closure and consolidation of schools will help address staffing shortage issues that have contributed to the challenges of regular groundskeeping, maintenance and cleaning. 
• Investing in transportation improvements to ensure students are on-time, ready to learn. This includes instituting a tracking process for contract standards and service provisions, reinstituting the parent committee dedicated to transportation improvements and quarterly reports to the Board of Education. The closure and consolidation of schools will reduce the number of yellow bus runs and help ensure transportation is fully staffed and yellow buses on-time frequency is better.
• Investing in food service improvements to ensure all students have access to high quality, free school meals – informed by scholar voice – that influence academic readiness. The closure and consolidation of schools will help ensure food service is fully staffed.

Objectives

• Continued investment in secure entry ways
• New, improved and expanded school safety technology
• New, improved and expanded visitor management system 
• Expanding professional development and training opportunities for scholars, parents, caregivers and staff on school safety, gun safety and overall public safety

Objectives

• Our repair criteria states how we will prioritize repurposing our closed buildings for affordable housing and green spaces first
• Leveraging district assets (facilities, property, greenspace) by seeking out partnership opportunities for vacated schools and sites. Prioritizing that GRPS maintain ownership for future asset decisions.
• Prioritize affordable housing development options for families with children, GRPS teachers and support staff