Students, parents and community members have their own list of demands for the Grand Rapids Public Schools during the school bond event last night

Last night a group of students, parents and community members came out to show support for the upcoming Grand Rapids Public Schools bond initiative that will be on the ballot in November. However, in recent years they haven’t seen relief on chronic issues that cause a lot of harm to students, parents, and staff. 

The Urban Core Collective brought together last night the group of students, parents and community members to show support for the upcoming bond vote, but they also wanted to make it very clear that there are an urgent set of issues that cannot be contingent on bond funding in order to be implemented.

One parent, Marta Johnson, who has been working with the Urban Core Collective, came out last night to say: 

“Our house is on fire and we can’t just watch it burn. We cannot wait for bond dollars or a Facilities Master Plan to begin effecting change. We need GRPS administration to take immediate action on issues of air quality, transportation, teacher compensation, school food and mental health services.”

This list of demands can be viewed in more detail at this link, demands that were presented to the Grand Rapids Public School Board back in June, when the Urban Core Collective hosted a rally/march to the School Board meeting and presented these same demands to school officials.

In addition, it was stated last night that community members are calling on the Grand Rapids Public School’s Board of Education to conduct a thirty, sixty, ninety day evaluation on key issues that have previously been named and now reiterated in the district’s recent Public Engagement Report and to make immediate financial investments for the current school year.

The Urban Core Collective also did a livestream of their action saying, “We’re live outside Long Road Distillers where Grand Rapids Public Schools is holding a fundraiser for the no tax increase infrastructure bond on the ballot in November. We’re here to tell GRPS we support the bond, but we also want to see action and accountability from the district about key community concerns, including transportation, air quality, food, mental health and safety, and staffing, as well as a plan to address the scholar, parent/caregiver, and community partner issues outlined in the Eureka report. Learn more at bit.ly/EurekaReportFull and bit.ly/grpsbudgetresponse or reach out to us with a message!” You can watch the short video here.

You can also sign on to an Action Alert that will be sent to GRPS officials to demand action that the community is calling for before the November 7 bond vote takes place.

MLive did show up to the event last night, but their article almost exclusively focused on those attending the event organized by the bond committee, Yes for GR Kids. The MLive article mentioned that several elected officials were in attendance, along with GRPS officials, as well as the fact that the Yes for GR Kids Ballot Committee was already touting several endorsement, from groups like the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. It wasn’t until the very end of the article that MLive even mentioned that the Urban Core Collective was outside during the event wanting to make their demands known.

One thing that I found instructive about the Yes for GR Kids Ballot Committee, is that it was being headed up by John Helmholdt. Helmholdt, who now works for SeyferthPR (the PR agency for the rich and powerful in GR) was the former communications person for the Grand Rapids Public Schools. Finding out that Helmholdt was orchestrating the Yes for GR Kids Ballot Committee now made sense, especially in regards to the sponsors of their event, which we wrote about on Monday.