More Washtenaw County students will have day off from school on Election Day
Students at half of Washtenaw County’s public school districts will not be at the polls this Election Day — but they won’t be in school either.
Pioneer High School was a polling location in Ann Arbor on Nov. 3, 2009. Students in Ann Arbor have had no school on Election Day since the 2008-09 academic year.
Angela J. Cesere | AnnArbor.com
Whitmore Lake has back-to-back PD days Monday and Tuesday, and at Willow Run schools, students are required to report for a half-day with professional development for staff in the afternoon.
Schools, as well as churches, have been polling locations for a very long time. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the heightened security that occurred as a result, schools began to question how they were dealing with the public mixing with students on Election Day, said Scott Menzel, superintendent of the Washtenaw Intermediate School District.
Menzel said when he was superintendent of Whitmore Lake Public Schools, which was from 2002 to 2007, Election Day security was of great concern among parents for the last three or four years he was there.
“Many school districts finally decided it just makes more sense not to have students there,” he said. “I think probably just before I left (Whitmore Lake) was when we made the change.”
Spokeswoman Liz Margolis said this is Ann Arbor Public Schools fifth year of no school for students on Election Day. The professional development day for staff began in 2008, with the Barack Obama-John McCain presidential election.
In Ann Arbor, the school calendar and professional development days are negotiated items with the Ann Arbor Education Association, Margolis said. She also cited safety concerns as the reason for the scheduling.
Margolis said 23 of Ann Arbor’s 33 K-12 schools are polling locations, and most of those are elementary schools.
“Obviously, we are really impacted every four years when we have a national presidential election with a lot of proposals on the ballot and higher voter turnout,” she said. “I remember when (Bill) Clinton was elected, my polling location was Bach Elementary and I stood in line for three hours.
“People were meandering through the hallway during the day and obviously that’s not a good situation.”
As a polling location, there is also work and setup involved on the part of the district, Margolis said.
“We work very closely with the city and Pittsfield Township … things have been in the works for months now. There is a lot to coordinate. Everything from delivering all of the voting machines the day before … and working to get building access for volunteers and signage out,” she said.
“Some of the polling locations use the gym or the media center, so kids couldn’t have gym or media that day. … There was always this ongoing juggling. We decided it was just a lot cleaner not having students in the buildings.”
Margolis said teachers at AAPS work a full day and during normal school hours, so the professional development day is not to give staff extra time to vote.
She added AAPS traditionally has had a PD day in November. It typically was conducted on a Monday, but the district moved it to election Tuesday to kill two birds with one stone, she said.
Read more on Election Day voting and school security issues here.
- Find your polling location here.
Danielle Arndt covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleArndt or email her at daniellearndt@annarbor.com.
Comments
Tom Todd
Sat, Nov 3, 2012 : 2:11 p.m.
Union Jealously at it's finest. Get a Life.
walker101
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 7:37 p.m.
Simple solution just add another school day and call it learning for students.
jns131
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 5:24 p.m.
I hate to burst everyones bubble here. But election day off for AAPS has been going on since the 70's. I love the day off. I consider this my only snow off since AAPS never closes while everyone else is. AAPS has always closed. Nothing to do with unions.
Enso
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 4:39 p.m.
Voting is so infrequent yet so important in a democracy that we can not only afford to make voting day a national holiday, but we should!
Kathy Griswold
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 3:32 p.m.
Ann Arbor City still has at least one polling location in a church, but the majority are in public schools. Please remember to look for the $65 MILLION bond for the New Downtown Library near the end of your ballot. Voters in the City of Ann Arbor and parts of seven townships are being asked to pay to demolish the DOWNTOWN library and construct a new building with a 400-seat auditorium and other conference center elements. (Only the taxpayers in Northfield Township are excluded because they have their own library district.) It's not worth it! See ProtectOurLibraries.org.
treetowncartel
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 3:20 p.m.
I think election day should be a holiday, and I also think people who don't vote in every election they are afforded the oppurtunity to exercise their suffrage shouldn't talk about politics or comment on stories such as this.
LincolnSchoolMom
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 2:53 p.m.
Years ago our Ann Arbor-area church was used as a polling place with no disruption to anyone. Then the church was told that it was not an acceptable polling place due to separation of church and state. I have moved to a different municipality where we vote at a local church. Only in Ann Arbor.
anonymous
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 1:12 p.m.
What a lot of unwarranted cynicism being expressed on this board. As an employee at an aaps elementary school: 1) there is a great deal of physical disruption before, during and after the election with the moving around of equipment, the taking over of school space. 2) the teachers are required to have so many Professional Development days; and so it seems logical to select a day when student flow and activity is already being compromised. 3) there is a great deal of voter wandering around the school. More than likely, it is harmless and of no consequence. But it can be distracting to classes; and yes, there is always a chance that unwanted visitors can also be walking around. There is a reason schools require visitors to sign in at the office.
dconkey
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 1:10 p.m.
It makes sense to me. The school that I vote at has a very small parking lot. If all the staff were there, there would not be much, if any parking for voters. And no, the bus does not even come close to where I vote.
aamom
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 3:02 p.m.
Good point about the parking. My polling place is no longer at a school, but when it was, you had to park a long way away from the building.
WalkingJoe
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 12:59 p.m.
Basic Bob and Common Sense,so let's keep the students in school so that we can have people wandering through the schools and put the kids at risk from all kinds of lowlifes. I thinks it's one of the few good ideas the school systems have come up with lately.
Dog Guy
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 12:35 p.m.
Students have long been inspired by the sight of the those two dozen voters entering their school to vote away their futures.
Common Sense
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 12:09 p.m.
Here we go again! Another day off for students and another day for them to fall behind the rest of the world! This is one reason why absentee voting should be allowed for anyone who requets an absentee ballot. No need for any excuses!
Jay Davenport
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 2:50 p.m.
I think you may need a name change.
Basic Bob
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 11:47 a.m.
Taking a page from the UAW playbook, the union negotiated to get election day off. This has more to due with political support for union issues than security. But if we stretch the truth often enough it becomes the conventional wisdom. Now I believe everyone should vote, but it doesn't take eight hours paid time off to encourage me to drive from my house to the polls and express my civic duty. Not to mention the widespread use of absentee voting by people whose work schedule makes voting in person difficult.
Carson
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 3:02 p.m.
"Margolis said teachers at AAPS work a full day and during normal school hours, so the professional development day is not to give staff extra time to vote." As noted in the article, a professional development day is not a "day off."
Liz Margolis
Fri, Nov 2, 2012 : 2:51 p.m.
The AAEA did not negotiate this. The administration presented this to the AAEA as part of the calendar agreement. Parents asked for years to not hold school on election day since so many of the schools are used a polling places and it disrupts the educational day.