Dear LPS families,
Our Principal’s Message this week is a guest message from Superintendent Long:
“Hello! Thank you, Principal Fehrenbach, for allowing me to hijack your message this week. As some of you know, I have been in Washington, DC, advocating on behalf of our school and schools across the country who receive Federal Impact Aid (FIA). FIA is a source of unrestricted federal funding that is sent directly to schools from the Department of Education who have federal properties in their district boundaries for which they cannot collect taxes. It is essentially the government's attempt to pay its tax bill and is currently only funded at 7% of its obligation. (Wouldn't it be great if we only had to pay 7% of our tax bill??)
The money that LPS receives accounts for over 9% of our total budget and is crucial to our ability to maintain staff, small classes, and programming.
The 50% reduction in staff at the Department of Education and other recent developments at the federal level that have ramifications for public schools has many school leaders nervous, including me. We have typically received our payment at the beginning of February and have not yet received it. With the ever changing narrative at the federal level and day-to-day surprises, it has become difficult to predict and plan for the remainder of this year let alone for the next year or two.
If you are concerned, have questions, or would like to make your thoughts known, please reach out to our representatives. We heard from our congress men and woman that they want to hear from their constituents and the phones were busy while we were in their offices. This link will take you directly to our professional organization where you can advocate directly for the Department of Education and Federal Impact Aid.
I have shared our Michigan representatives' contact information on our website under Superintendent's Message and am including it below as well.
Thank you for whatever you can do to advocate for our special public school. Go Comets!”
Stephanie
