Students and teachers bade tearful goodbyes Wednesday as the Kalkaska Public School system declared itself broke and closed 10 weeks early.
"It's ruining our education," said ninth-grader Brook Knoertzer, 15, who wept as she embraced friends after the final bell rang. "We'll be behind everybody in the state. It's just not fair."The small, rural district in Michigan's northwestern Lower Peninsula sent its 2,300 students home for the year rather than slash programs to close a $1.5 million deficit in an $8.8 million budget.
Three times in seven months, voters rejected a property tax increase to cover the shortfall. State officials, including some who accused Kalkaska of grandstanding, offered no bailout.
Teachers are looking for part-time jobs and working parents are scrambling to arrange day care or home schooling. Some students are taking jobs, while others are enrolling in neighboring school systems.
Despite the shortened school year, seniors will graduate and receive their diplomas Saturday.
In Lansing, the state Senate quickly approved legislation that would reopen the schools within weeks and put a state-appointed manager in charge of the district's finances.
A team appointed by Gov. John Engler to investigate the district's books was expected in Kalkaska on Thursday.
"They're playing a game of chicken here, and they can't be allowed to hold a gun to the children's head," said state Sen. Michael Bouchard, a Republican.
But Democratic state Sen. Jim Berryman said the Legislature was in no position to criticize Kalkaska. Lawmakers have failed for decades to change Michigan's reliance on property taxes to fund schools, which creates wide disparities between districts, he said.
Kalkaska officials were unrepentant. At a rally following adjournment, Superintendent Doyle Disbrow said to thunderous applause that if state officials run his schools the way they handle their own affairs, "we'll go on like this for the next 20 years."
Kalkaska originally was scheduled to adjourn June 4. But Disbrow said doing so would have required a shorter day, teacher layoffs and cramming students into classes of 40 or more. Busing and kindergarten would have been eliminated, along with counselors, music classes and physical education.
Opponents of higher property taxes in Kalkaska County, where many of the 13,497 residents are retirees on fixed incomes, insist they're paying all they can.
Cassie Brueggeman, who waited outside Cherry Street Elementary School to pick up her two children, wouldn't say how she voted on the tax increase. But she said the schools spend too much on extras.
"If they'd stayed with the basic things, they could have stayed open," she said.