Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and the state legislature recently passed an emergency funding bill that prevented the Detroit Public Schools system (DPS) from going bankrupt, but those funds will apparently run dry at the end of the school year.
The school system's emergency manager informed the teacher's union over the weekend that they will not be paid over the Summer break. Teachers have reacted to the news by organizing a "sick-out" today.
The teachers say they were assured that the emergency funding bill would cover the cost of their paychecks, but what they were told evidently wasn't true.
"The district’s promises are no longer worth the paper that they are printed on," Terrence Martin, executive vice president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said during a hastily called news conference where officials announced they were urging teachers to call in sick Monday to disrupt operations.
"While we recognize that this puts Detroit’s parents and communities in a difficult situation, the district’s broken promises and gross negligence leave us no choice."
While the vice president of teacher's union says the "district's promises" are no longer worth a damn, it should be noted that the district is not controlled by an elected body; it's controlled through emergency management.
The Detroit school board recently filed a lawsuit against the state government to regain control of their own system and rid themselves of their emergency managing overlords, but for now they're stuck.
Summer school and special education will also be canceled after funding runs out.
In other news, Detroit's brand new hockey arena has been named Little Caesars Arena.