House committee approves almost $50 million for DPS, teachers plan town hall meeting

DETROIT (WJBK) - Detroit Public Schools are one step closer to getting the cash the district desperately needs after a House committee approved nearly $50 million in funding on Wednesday.

Now it's up to their colleagues to do the rest. If they fail the district will run out of money in three weeks.

There is a little bit of relief for the moment with a last minute move to keep DPS from running out of money in April after the committee said yes to the $48.7 million in emergency funding. Once approved by the House, the Senate will get a crack at it next week for a final vote.

Erika jones is happy to see lawmakers in lansing moving forward on the 48-point-7 in emergency funding.
Once approved in the full house, the bill will go the senate next week for a final vote.

"(It's) about time. Honestly, we need that money. We need more resources in the school district, and they shouldn't really have been holding it that long. They're known this all year this was coming up and we possibly could have gone bankrupt April 8th," said DPS Teacher Erika Jones

She teaches at Cass Tech and is organizing a town hall for Thursday at the Plymouth United Church of Christ between 6 and 8 p.m. She said the plan is to have Detroit educators express their concerns and look for answers on what's next.

"A lot of us are still upset about pay freezes, the conditions of the schools and what they're going to do about retaining teachers, because a lot of people are looking to leave the district. We don't have people graduating from college right now saying I want to come to Detroit Public Schools," Jones said.

Couple that with the huge deficit lawmakers still have to figure out and we have the DPS crisis on our hands.

"If they found the $50 million from there, let's find a couple more million to keep this district going. It takes a village, and this is the largest district in the state," Jones said.

We contacted the president for the teacher's union, and the transitional manager for DPS for a response, but, as of 5 p.m. on Wednesday, we are still waiting to hear back. We're told union members and other leaders will be at the town hall meeting at 600 East Warren. The public is invited to attend and hear about the ongoing concerns.