By EVM Staff

Flint’s Office of the City Clerk has released an updated list of applicants to fill the 1st Ward vacancy left by the death of Councilman Eric Mays in late February.

In a press release the evening of March 20, 2024, the office listed nine “qualified applicants,” in alphabetical order:

1. Linda Anthony;
2. Leon El-Alamin;
3. Liberty Bell;
4. Cynthia Haynes;
5. Torrell Dewayne King;
6. Freddie Eugene McCoy;
7. Rosemary Morrow;
8. Nadine Roberts; and
9. D. Eric Walker.

Bell, Haynes, King and Roberts are all new to the list since the clerk’s original announcement on March 19.

Flint City Council will host a special meeting on March 21 at 5:30 p.m. in the council’s chambers to interview the nine candidates.

The late Mays died on Feb. 24, and Flint’s city charter mandates that the council appoint a person to fill the vacancy within 30 days. So, city council will need to appoint one of the applicants by March 25 “BEFORE midnight,” the release notes.

The appointee will serve as the 1st Ward councilperson until a special election is scheduled by Flint City Council, the special election is held, and a candidate is certified as elected.

By Linkin Carlson

University of Michigan-Flint social work student Bryce Aguilar is teaming up with the Urban Renaissance Center (URC) for his graduation project, and residents are encouraged to come see the outcome on Saturday, March 30, 2024 from noon to 4 p.m.

Aguilar said he grew up in and out of Flint, and after visiting the URC he wanted to use his project “to show people what they have in their own backyard.”

The event will be onsite at URC and will feature all of the equipment and knowledge available to the public, for free, at the center. That includes studio space, a podcasting set up, and a green screen recording room.

In addition, guests will be able to tour an art exhibition by local artist Martin Turner, as well as attend a live cooking demonstration by Chef Gina Franklin, who will showcase healthy and affordable meal options in URC’s kitchen.

Massai Albritton-Lusk and Bryce Aguilar demonstrate equipment at the Urban Renaissance Center in Flint, Mich. on March 11, 2024. (Photo by Linkin Carlson)

“Flint is bubbling with talent but lacks resources,” Aguilar said. “Here [at URC] there is professional equipment and mentorship offered year round for free.”

Massai Albritton-Lusk is a URC team member who will be helping with the green screen and podcasting areas on Saturday. When asked why the coming event was important for the community he responded, “Why not? I refuse to believe we are the only people in Flint who can make music and do these things. We want to amplify the voices of the people in Flint, we just need them to know we’re here and see what we offer.”

Mike Richardson, another URC team member, called the event, “the exposure of a hidden gem.”

According to organizers, Saturday will be structured in a “learn as you participate” way, with equipment demonstrations aimed at a hands-on learning experience. The overall event goal is simply to spread awareness to the Flint community that URC’s resources are available to them, they explained to East Village Magazine.

“This is a place where you can learn to do more with your talents for free, right here in North Flint,” Albritton-Lusk said.

The Urban Renaissance Center is a faith-based nonprofit established by the Joy Tabernacle Church. It is located at 2505 N. Chevrolet Ave. in Flint, Mich.

By Gordon Young

The Michigan Times, the student newspaper at UM-Flint, is officially “sunsetting.” That’s the sort of euphemism a good editor would slash and replace with something more clearcut. It’s a nice way of saying the publication that has been covering the downtown campus since 1959 is all but dead.

The Times hasn’t published a print edition this year. Its website and online archive have disappeared. All of its social media feeds are dormant. Confusingly, another publication calling itself The Michigan Times that covers “all types of local news for the cities of Flint and Detroit” has purchased the paper’s domain name and is publishing online, but it’s not connected to UM-Flint. It’s as if the paper’s very identity has been stolen. 

College papers are not immune to the brutal economic conditions that have killed publications across the country as advertisers and readers disappeared. The United States has lost nearly 2,900 newspapers and 43,000 journalists since 2005, according to a recent report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

But while there have certainly been budget cuts over the years at the Times, lack of funding isn’t the biggest problem. It’s lack of interest.

“Ever since I took over, I’ve been bailing water out of a sinking ship that never left the dock,” said Eric Hinds, the current and, it appears, last editor-in-chief. “There just didn’t seem to be any way to find people to work at the paper.”

Just a decade ago, more than a dozen staffers and freelancers put out the paper, according to then-editor Alex Benda. But the staff dwindled to a few students before the COVID-19 shutdown during the 2020-2021 academic year and continued to shrink when in-person classes resumed.

Hinds, who lives in Flint’s Mott Park neighborhood, is headed to law school in Rhode Island in the fall. His only reporter is transferring next year. Despite intense recruiting efforts, no viable candidates have emerged to replace them, let alone expand the staff.

“You have to have a passion for journalism,” Hinds said. “In the current climate, you get a lot of hate. It’s a difficult job. And if you don’t really want to do it, you’re going to be bad at it. I guess no one wants to deal with that.”

The not-so-slow demise of the paper corresponds with the elimination of most journalism courses at UM-Flint.

In 2009, the university added an ambitious journalism program, with a major, a minor, and several new classes. “The program was proposed in response to student requests,” according to a university press release announcing the expansion. “For years, students in the media studies track of the communication degree program have asked for more journalism courses.“

Tony Dearing, then-editor of The Flint Journal, was enthusiastic at the time. “It is important that we cultivate and train the next generation of journalists, and I strongly believe that a journalism program at UM-Flint would help meet that need,” he stated in the press release.

The timing could not have been worse. UM-Flint was embracing journalism education just as newspaper revenues were falling off a cliff. It wasn’t long before nearly the entire curriculum was scrapped at the university, a victim of budget cuts and low enrollment. It’s hard to attract students to a dying industry. And without journalism students, it’s tough to keep a student paper up and running, especially at a commuter school in an economically depressed city where many students work to pay for school and need a good job after graduation.

The paper is still considered a “sponsored student organization,” meaning it’s eligible for funding from student activity fees, but it will soon lose that status. If students want to relaunch the publication in the future, it will have to be a volunteer-only organization responsible for its own fundraising.

“From the university’s perspective, providing a robust student life experience is essential to help augment classroom teaching with practical skills,” Julie Snyder, associate vice chancellor and dean of students, stated in an email. “The newspaper being sunsetted means that there is one less avenue for students to be actively engaged in our community, an outlet for their budding talents and a practical co-curricular learning opportunity. However, as the students are not currently interested in taking advantage of that avenue, they have used their collective voice.”

First-year student Grace Walker — the only other staff member besides Hinds — is transferring to Central Michigan University next year. The 19-year-old Flint resident plans to major in journalism and hopes to join CMU’s student paper, a scrappy, vibrant outlet that’s been around for more than a century.

In the meantime, she’s working on a final project for a class that chronicles the demise of local news coverage in the Flint area, a topic she knows all too well. She’s not sure where it will be published, if at all.

“I’ve always been interested in journalism and politics,” she said, “so it’s been really hard and disheartening to get involved with something when it’s shutting down, when it’s going away.”

Gordon Young is a San Francisco-based journalist who grew up in Flint. He is the author of Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City, a book about the past, present, and future of Vehicle City. A version of this article first appeared on his blog, Flint Expatriates, on March 27, 2024.

By Kate Stockrahm

Flint City Clerk Davina Donahue has shared a new way to watch Flint City Council meetings: an official YouTube channel.

“I am happy to announce the formal launch of the Flint City Council’s YouTube Channel: Official Flint City Council,” Donahue said in a press release on April 3, 2024. “All meetings of the City Council will be broadcast live on this channel.”

When reached for further comment, Donahue told East Village Magazine that she decided to launch the channel after learning of public “confusion” following the end of a city contract with Flint-based Spectacle Productions on June 30, 2023. 

“The contract with Spectacle Productions was to provide video taping of council meetings,” the city clerk wrote in an April 8 email, noting that the channel was never an “official product” of the City of Flint, Flint City Council, or her office.

“Since the public was confused about the ‘unofficial’ nature of the existing channel, I decided to launch an official Flint City Council channel in order to provide the public with a way to clearly see and hear what was happening during council meetings,” she said.

When asked about financing the channel, Donahue noted that “as a municipal entity there is no charge to broadcast on YouTube” using the recently upgraded audio visual equipment in Flint City Council Chambers.

The new Flint City Council YouTube channel can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialFlintCityCouncil.

By Canisha Bell

After eight years of planning and four months of construction, Crossover Outreach opened the doors to its new building on April 8, 2024. 

The day’s open house event kicked off at 414 W. Court St. with speeches from Crossover’s board president Lionel Wernette and executive director Denise Diller. 

“Most of you know we work with other agencies in the community who refer their clients to us,” Diller said from the new building’s large warehouse area, filled with shelves of kitchenware, children’s toys, and plastic tubs of clothing, bedding and toiletries for the nonprofit’s visitors – many of whom require emergency assistance. “One of our most important jobs is to love on people who are hurting and working toward their self sufficiency, and to get them the things that they need so they can continue to work toward that successfully. We are just so proud of everyone involved.” 

Founded by three Flint churches in 1991, with a fourth church joining as an ongoing sponsor ten years later, Crossover Outreach has provided Flint and Genesee County residents with critical resources ever since.

Prior to constructing its new building, the nonprofit had been operating out of a home built for a single family on the same site as its new space.

Crossover Outreach Executive Director Denise Diller speaks to supporters at the nonprofit’s new building at 414 W. Court Street in Flint, Mich. on April 8, 2024. (Photo by Kate Stockrahm)

Over the years, Crossover staff said they saw the needs of their community grow, with over 35% of the population now living under the federal poverty level. That rise in need created a “sense of urgency” to expand services and programming to reach more people, but in order to do that they realized they needed to grow, too.

“We desperately needed a new space, but we needed it tailored to our needs and how we serve the community. We also knew it had to be sustainable long term,” Diller said ahead of the April 8 open house. “This new building is exactly that. And more importantly, it’s a tool to help us serve even more people experiencing hardships in our community.”

Crossover’s new facility has increased the nonprofit’s usable space from 5,000 to 7,500 square feet. It also includes a new “community room” for use by other organizations, such as the Flint Holistic Recovery Community, which meets there each Wednesday.

Diller told East Village Magazine the new building will not only allow for more such community partnerships and create greater efficiencies for the work Crossover already does, it will also allow her and her staff to spend more time on what matters most: having conversations with the people who come in.

“Our goal is to serve our community and continue in our mission of showing the love of Christ by providing services and programs, restoring hope, and rebuilding lives,” she said.

In April of 2023, Crossover announced it raised more than $2.6 million for the new building, beating its fundraising goal. Major funders included the Whiting Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Samueli Foundation, Graff Family Foundation, The Carls Foundation, Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan, and two foundations that wished to remain anonymous according to a March press release.

To round out remarks at the April 8 open house, Pastor Jeremy Peters of Court Street United Methodist Church took to the podium to bless Crossover’s new space.

“God, we are pinching ourselves today,” Peters said to a room full of bowed heads. “We have dreamed of this moment. We have dreamed of this place. And now, we have dreams for this place.”

This story includes reporting by Kate Stockrahm.

By EVM Staff

Mott Community College (MCC) will host a day of discussion on Flint and Genesee County’s housing crisis with a “Housing Summit 2.0” event Thursday, April 18, 2024 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The summit will take place in college’s event center on its main campus in Flint, Mich.

The conference comes at a time when Genesee County is 7,000 units short of its needed affordable housing, or housing available to residents making zero to 30% of area median income (AMI).

According to MCC’s April 9 press release, the event will feature presenters from national, state, and local levels sharing “information and data that will help shape solutions and encourage action,” and topics will include Michigan’s Statewide Housing Plan, the Genesee County Land Bank, and housing insecurity.

The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited and RSVP is required by April 15. This is the second housing summit MCC has hosted in Flint and Genesee County, the first being held in November 2023.

According to MCC’s release, the April 17 summit will be followed by a free Housing Resource Fair from 2 to 5 p.m. in the college’s Lenore Croudy Family Life Center. Local housing vendors will be in attendance to answer questions about housing options in the area.

By EVM Staff

A recall election for Flint’s 9th Ward City Council seat will be held on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. 

With incumbent Councilwoman Eva Worthing electing not to run in the recall, three candidates are vying for 9th Ward residents’ votes next month: Page Brousseau, Kathryn Irwin, and Jonathan Jarrett.

To get to know each candidate a bit better, East Village Magazine (EVM) asked all three the same five questions. Here’s what they had to say about the needs of the ward they call home and why they’re the best person for the council job.

From left to right, Page Brousseau, Kathryn Irwin, and Jonathan Jarrett, the candidates running for 9th Ward Flint City Council representative on May 7, 2024. (Photos courtesy of candidates)

What do you see as the top three issues facing Flint’s 9th Ward?

PAGE BROUSSEAU: The three top issues facing the 9th Ward are blight elimination, business development, particularly along Dort Highway and Fenton Road, and ARPA money distribution: ensuring responsible distribution across the city and making sure dollars support efforts in the 9th Ward.

KATHRYN IRWIN: Blight, crime, blight

JONATHAN JARRETT: In speaking with constituents, variations of blight make up the top three issues: Vacant properties; Illegal parking/car storage; and Hoarding.

How would you go about addressing those three issues if elected to Flint City Council?

BROUSSEAU: The first step is to make the City Council a place where the city’s business can be handled with maturity and thoughtfulness. Second, the Council must work together with the Mayor’s office to create conditions for businesses and residents to relocate to Flint and remain within the city.

Blight and crime are major factors influencing decision-making when people and businesses establish roots. ARPA spending must be transparent, with every dollar directed before the Council approves the spending.

IRWIN: The best thing we can do is work on blight to keep residents here. We need clean, safe neighborhoods because people looking to buy a home they can afford don’t want boarded up or burned out properties next to them. We need to work with police to find a way to up neighborhood patrols.

JARRETT: We are hopeful the vacant properties at issue are on the demolition list for which Genesee County Land Bank received a City of Flint ARPA Funds allocation. Illegal parking/car storage and hoarding, which create safety and rodent concerns respectively, can be resolved in partnership with Neighborhood Safety Officers by making them aware of addresses where enforcement is needed.

Many Flint residents have noted division and incivility among current city council members. How would you work to address that?

BROUSSEAU: My contribution to the City Council would be representing the 9th Ward civilly and professionally. I pledge to respond to residents, city staff, and my colleagues in a professional demeanor that supports the desired level of decorum.

I respect everyone on the Council and the constituents who sent them there. I will hear all sides of every argument, promise to be fair, and work with anyone on the Council who is working to improve the quality of life for all in Flint.

IRWIN: Calmly. [In] all jobs I have had [including bartending and hairdressing], I have had to deal with all personalities and diffusing many different situations. I hope to do that at council.

JARRETT: Maintaining civility is an individual choice. I choose to model acceptance, recognizing there are other views and perspectives outside of my own. I choose to show myself to be tolerant where tolerance is needed; I choose to be a leader where leadership is needed; and I choose to be respectful in all situations.

U.S. Census data shows that Flint lost around 20% of its population in the last census. What is your plan for addressing the vacant and blighted properties that loss has left behind — both in the 9th Ward and across the city?

BROUSSEAU: The city must work with Federal and State agencies to eliminate blight. Property owners must be held accountable for their properties when they fail to abide by city ordinances. Working with the Land Bank and the public, current residents should be encouraged to acquire vacant land next to their property.

IRWIN: The city has increased the size of its blight department and is working on grants for clean up that can be our springboard to find more funds.

JARRETT: I intend to work identifying resources and partnerships that promote homeownership. I believe transitioning renters to homeowners (holding a property deed) causes them to plant roots in a way that renters (who hold only receipts) don’t. Those roots make families less likely to relocate which provides stabilization of neighborhoods, wards, and the city.

Why should 9th Ward voters elect you to Flint City Council this May?

BROUSSEAU: In my time in the United States Marine Corps and as an infantry officer in the United States Army, I have worked with people from various backgrounds toward a common goal.

There will not be a better advocate for the people of Flint than me.

My wife and I choose to make Flint our home, and this is where my daughter is growing up. I want Flint to be the best it can be and maintain a high quality of life for residents and businesses.

IRWIN: I bring a fresh perspective to council. A clean slate will work [and is] what is best for my ward and citizens of Flint.

JARRETT: I believe voters should elect Jonathan Jarrett to the Flint City Council because I am already working to earn their vote. I spent time at primary polls, and I make myself available to take calls and/or emails (810-230-4426 or jonathan.jarrett1122@gmail.com) from constituents.

Ultimately, I want every voter who cast their ballot for Jonathan Jarrett to feel good about that vote for months and years after the election. As the term expires in 2026, I want the quality of my work and my efforts to cause constituents to hope to see Jonathan Jarrett on a ballot again.

Please note candidates’ responses have been lightly edited for formatting and clarity purposes. This article also appears in the April 2024 issue of East Village Magazine.

By Kate Stockrahm

Genesee County officials aim to expand broadband access across the county through federal funding, but first they need residents’ and business owners’ help.

“It’s kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity where bipartisanship has worked in Washington,” said Dr. Beverly Brown, Genesee County Commissioner for District 4, of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program.

Funding for BEAD passed as part of President Joe Biden’s massive 2021 infrastructure bill, which allotted $42 billion to make broadband internet universal by 2030. 

Of that $42 billion, the State of Michigan received roughly $1.6 billion, Brown said, which “presents quite an opportunity for us in Genesee County to get a slice of that pie.”

But to get that slice, Brown and Michael Dawisha, Genesee County’s Chief Information Officer and Chair of the Broadband Task Force, need residents and business owners to help prove the county’s funding needs through the “Merit BEAD Mapping Challenge.”

“Our aim is to get as many people on this as possible, because the result affects how the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] draws its maps of coverage,” Dawisha explained. “By default, if you look at the maps from the FCC for the county, we’re fully covered. And everyone knows that’s not true.”

Dawisha said that’s why he and other task force members are asking residents to participate in the challenge: to prove the real internet gaps in the county so officials can seek appropriate funding to expand broadband access.

“Our goal at the county is pretty lofty,” he said, noting the task force wants every address wired for fiber from “end-to-end.”

“And we’ll even take it further,” Dawisha added. “We want to be open and equitable for all, which means we don’t want to wait for any one or a dozen for profit motivated vendors to do it. We want to establish a standard so there’s reasonable pricing for all, [and] reasonable data standards for all.”

Participants in the challenge are asked for documentation of their current internet service, if any, and to run tests to confirm the speed of their service from their home or business address in question. Administrators also ask that the challenge be completed from a desktop or laptop computer rather than a mobile device.

When asked why this push for broadband is important, both Dawisha and Brown put broadband on par with providing other basic utilities, like gas and electricity, given the internet’s necessity to daily life in 2024.

“We learned that a lot of students and Genesee County were negatively impacted because of COVID,” Brown said. “They couldn’t access their classes effectively because everybody was at home [with unequal access to internet].”

Dawisha added, “They had to go to Starbucks or Taco Bell or something to do their homework. That’s not right. We want to remedy that.”

Brown also noted that many people access telehealth services online, as well, and expanding the county’s broadband will also encourage businesses to stay or move to the area knowing there will be reliable, fast internet service already available.

“Once we can build in infrastructure, and put that backbone conduit underground for every business and every household to have access to — once we can get that done, then, I think the world will open to us,” she said.

More information on the Merit BEAD Mapping Challenge can be found here, and an instructional video can be found here for interested participants. The challenge launched in late March and is open until April 23, 2024.

Editor’s Note: Nic Custer, East Village Magazine’s business manager, serves as a member of Genesee County’s Broadband Task Force.

By Harold C. Ford

Details of a sweeping settlement of grievances and other issues that divided Flint Community Schools (FCS) and the United Teachers of Flint (UTF) in recent months are now public.

The specifics were revealed in April 11, 2024 press statements and posts to the district’s website, in which the two sides pledged “to amicably resolve grievances and other litigation” as well as “rectify, restore, and make whole teachers in the Flint Community Schools for all past concessions made.”  

At the heart of the settlement agreement is restoration of teacher pay steps – pay hikes based on length of employment – which had been frozen for up to a decade for some UTF members due to the bleak financial profile of the school district. 

The new settlement also returns FCS to a “traditional calendar” in the 2025-2026 school year, following the district’s use of a “balanced calendar” since the 2019-2020 school year. 

Additionally, the UTF agreed to waive unfair labor practice charges and multiple grievances,while the school district will abandon a potential lawsuit over the matter of a UTF sickout that closed schools on March 13. 

Aside from those high level matters, the agreement notes that three additional paid teacher workdays will be added to the district calendar for recruitment and retention of students and teachers. The workdays are also to include a campaign to attract former FCS teachers back to the district and transition of “guest teachers” fully into the salary schedule upon achieving certification. 

The settlement also calls for teacher support for personal tutoring and literacy events, and that elementary teachers be compensated if they do not receive a planning period.

The Flint Board of Education (FBOE) approved the agreement on April 3 by unanimous vote. Within hours, UTF members ratified the settlement with a reported 96 percent favorable vote.

Pay steps

The first numbered item in the FCS-UTF agreement addresses pay step increases, the most contentious issue that had divided the district’s leadership and teachers:

Retroactive to the first pay of the 2023/2024 school year, teachers that have been step frozen shall move to the step commensurate with their years of service … by May 3, 2024 … Eligibility includes all active teachers at the time of ratification.

“The majority of teachers will be restored to the [pay] steps where they’re supposed to be,” FCS Superintendent Kevelin Jones said. “They haven’t received monies commensurate with their years of service in Flint Community Schools and now we’ve done that with the settlement agreement.”

“There are some people who have been frozen on step two for ten years,” noted Karen Christian, UTF president, adding that FCS has lost many younger teachers to other school districts where pay is relatively higher. 

“We don’t want to lose them to districts that are offering more,” she said.

Jones pointed out that the agreement now moves FCS teachers into the top 1/3 of the estimated 500 to 600 school districts in Michigan. He said that competitive edge “will help us to grow … as it pertains to bringing in new staff.”

Jones explained that FCS funding for pay steps – totaling about $1.3 million – will come from the $1.5 million the FBOE voted to set aside in a special account for teacher compensation back in May 2023.

Return to a traditional calendar

The newly approved agreement also states that FCS will convert back to a traditional school year calendar in 2025-2026 after six years on a balanced calendar. A balanced calendar features an earlier start to the school year, a later finish, and longer and more frequent breaks during the academic year. 

Balanced calendar proponents cite many advantages – most often the diminishment of learning loss – particularly for low-income youth. The first school district in Michigan to adopt the balanced calendar was Beecher in the 2013-2014 school year. 

Beecher had prepared for a balanced calendar school year when it passed a $2.2 million bond proposal that, in part, upgraded climate control systems in its buildings to prepare for warmer temperatures in June and August.  

Conversely, FCS has experienced multiple climate control issues over the years, due in part to outdated HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) systems in a lineup of buildings among the oldest in the nation. On several occasions, school was called off due to unbearable temperatures in the classrooms.

Labor-management issues

Per the terms of the agreement, three grievances filed by the UTF were deemed settled, and the union agreed not to file “any grievances regarding these matters during the term of this Agreement,” which expires in July 2025. 

Additionally, three other grievances by the union were either withdrawn or put “in abeyance until May 17, 2024.”  

Further, UTF agreed to withdraw an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge it filed with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, and both parties promised “no further legal action will be brought forward regarding actions taken on March 13, 2024” — the date UTF staged a sick-out that caused a district-wide cancellation of classes and union leaders reported a “unanimous” vote to strike.

Teacher and student retention and recruitment

The agreement calls upon both sides “to collaborate and focus on the vital needs of increasing student enrollment and retention; as well as teacher recruitment and retention for academic success.”  

To achieve that, the parties agreed to add three paid workdays “to support and assist with an enrollment extravaganza day and professional development.” 

Further, the agreement also reaches out to former FCS teachers and current “guest teachers,” or FCS classroom teachers with four-year degrees but absent teaching certification:

If a teacher has FCS employment service, and the teacher left FCS, their placement on the salary schedule shall be commensurate of their overall verifiable teaching experience … Any ‘guest teacher’ … obtaining their teaching certification, shall move on the salary schedule commensurate with their original date of hire into the ‘guest teacher program.’

In an effort to attract teachers, new hires will now be given credit for prior teaching experience and will be placed accordingly on the pay step scale. 

Additionally, both sides agreed to seek solutions for “implementing full elementary planning time” and “kindergarten class size overages.” Elementary teachers that are not provided panning periods will be compensated at $30 per hour up to 225 minutes each week.

“We on a good roll now.”

At the April 10 joint press conference, both Jones and Christian called the settlement “a very collaborative effort.”

“Our teachers will be restored, which is the biggest thing,” Christian said. “At this point, no one will be frozen [in terms of pay steps] anymore.”  

“We on a good roll now,” said Joyce Ellis-McNeal, FBOE President, though a colleague added that she’d hoped for more on behalf of the teachers.

“It is not enough,” said Laura MacIntyre, FBOE assistant secretary/treasurer. “They definitely deserve more … but I’m glad this is a step in the right direction.”

For his part, FBOE Treasurer Dylan Luna called upon others to do more for Flint schools: “I want to see our partners in government, philanthropy, and private industry join us at the table to help us finish the work we started so we can make a transformational change for our students, their families, and their futures.”

The new FCS-UTF agreement is set to expire on July 31, 2025, at which point it “will become part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and be subject to bargaining as it pertains to a successor Agreement” per the settlement’s language.