To Shawn Colley & Kelly Kermode on their election to the Forest Hills Board of Education! We believe now more than ever, their voices are needed on our board.
From the beginning, Support FHPS has been working towards a more inclusive and globally-focused district that provides support, safety, and success for ALL students. By endorsing these vetted Board of Education candidates, we forward our mission to protect and uplift students and teachers, and to increase district transparency. We feel Forest Hills Public Schools needs to prioritize listening to their families and creating ways for them to be heard, particularly families from marginalized and neurodiverse communities, and we are excited to work with Shawn Colley and Kelly Kermode to make this happen. We believe electing candidates who fully support inclusive education and Healthy and Healing Community Schools is vital to creating an FHPS that benefits all students.
When we launched in 2021 to protect our school district from an unwarranted recall attempt and coordinated political attacks, Forest Hills Public Schools did not have any organizations to vet candidates or educate the community about factors shaping school board elections.
We are proud to be one of the first in the state - and the country - to step up and serve this role and we have had countless people from across Michigan and the U.S. reach out for mentorship to protect their schools.
During the last election, we issued a candidate survey, hosted a 12-person candidate forum, and endorsed candidates. Since that time, our education association and nonprofits like Michigan Education Justice Coalition have joined the effort to better vet those running for school board, understanding that our schools remain an unfortunate focus of political attacks and playbooks.
Support
Safety
Success
Support FHPS is a 100% FHPS parent volunteer group that supports Forest Hills Public Schools and ALL public education, advancing Public Schools through elections and policy.
Our mission is to support and protect our public schools from partisan and manufactured attacks, so that our educators and elected school board members can focus on their vital roles of providing a safe and inclusive learning environment for students.
We believe all kids deserve access to safe, quality, and well-funded public schools.
Our Core Values
Support FHPS follows the district’s Guiding Principles and established three Core Values upon launching as a committee:
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We want every individual within Forest Hills Public Schools to feel supported and accepted so they can be their best, not only at school, but also in the wider world. This includes but is not limited do:
• Supporting teachers and aspiring teachers
• Protecting programs that contribute to the “whole child”
• Advocating for the rights of LGBTQ+ students and diverse students
• Practicing the definition of inclusion versus belief-based exclusion
• Ensuring staff are motivated to join and stay in their positions with Forest Hills Public Schools (including transportation staff)
• Accepting the outcome of Board of Education elections and respecting the public vote, which also means reserving recalls for instances of gross misconduct or malfeasance
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We believe in ensuring the safety of our students while they are out of our hands at school and that of the staff working with our children. This includes confronting the tough issues while being warm, sincere, empathetic, and genuine. Topics in this area address:
• Embracing the expertise of credentialed professionals when it comes to shaping policies related to health, wellness and safety
• Reducing the risk of gun-related violence by adopting public school-focused best practices and policies
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We want to do our part to help our kids succeed – on whatever path they choose. Our students should be valued for their unique talents and gifts, so they can achieve their highest potential. This includes:
• Encouraging inclusive and accurate history education
• Supporting the Global Learners Initiative, which was designed to reduce instances of bias and close the gap on the nearly 20% of FHPS graduates returning home after their first year of college
• Protecting our district’s budget and public education from politically motivated attacks and profiteers. Public money should be utilized for public education
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Our kids deserve access to safe, quality, and well-funded public schools.
Our Board of Education balances their expertise with data and input from parents to arrive at decisions made in the best interests of students. Forest Hills Public Schools operates through a system of checks and balances.
Forest Hills Public Schools Board of Education members are elected by citizens of the Forest Hills community to serve our children and schools for their full terms.
The FHPS Board of Education keeps Forest Hills families well-informed by operating with full transparency and through ongoing communication, open and recorded meetings and public-facing meeting minutes.
The Forest Hills Public Schools Board of Education is fulfilling its outlined duties as a governing board, focused on district operations (and not functioning as a managing board).
Partisan politics DO NOT have a place on our school board or in our schools.
Families always have a voice and options that align with their personal choices, but these choices do not need to affect the entire student body.
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We span a variety of views and backgrounds but collaborate to Support Forest Hills Public Schools. We are working to preserve public and district resources, and help keep our Board, educators and students focused on their highest and best responsibilities.
We do not have to agree with every decision made to support our district. Working against the district instead of following steps and policies to drive change only delay progress and distract.
We believe in civil, thoughtful discourse and will not participate in any personal attacks on individuals. Furthermore, we do not believe that the right to make your voice heard should in any way intrude on the privacy or rights of others. It is critical that we as a community act in a manner that is consistent with our goal of providing a safe, supportive and success-driven educational environment for our children that is inclusive and respectful.
Sincerely,
The Executive Committee
Support FHPS PAC -
Even though non-partisan, school board members are elected officials and subject to campaign finance laws the same as any other elected position. Support FHPS organized as a Political Action Committee with Michigan's Secretary of State, taking the extra step of filing above the county level so that our fundraising and contributions are open, transparent and visible through the Secretary of State.
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FAQs
A small group, including individuals who do not have children in Forest Hills Public Schools, are attacking the district daily. Support FHPS is shouldering the disruption by elevating facts and protecting the integrity of our district and educators.
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Our district’s two attack groups follow the national pattern of using politically charged generalizations about public education to attack our duly elected Board of Education. We recently addressed this topic in a blog post and created a helpful tip sheet to allow community members to decipher real feedback from a political attack. See www.mischoolscoop.com for more information.
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This is false. We formed to protect the integrity of our school district from misinformation, politically charged attacks, and political outsiders. One of our goals is to re-focus communication at Board meetings to truly relevant concerns. We share a similar desire for our Board to begin live streaming meetings for increased safety, accessibility and visibility. We also hope that the district will continue to take steps to motivate qualified bus drivers to apply and stay in their roles. We promote Support, Safety, and Success for all students and will always hold administrators accountable for setting and following policies that keep those values in mind.
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We simply need to look at the definition of inclusion. If you review our core values, and see us fighting the attacks waged against specific individuals, you will know that we are public school proud. Inclusion is paramount to the success of a public school and is one of the district’s Guiding Principles.
While it is easy to mince words and argue “you said you include everyone, and that’s not inclusive,” or “the guiding principles say everyone,” there’s a second layer. Most of our Support FHPS PAC attended parochial school so we also understand the role and difference of beliefs. Justifying exclusion because of a belief is not practicing the definition of inclusion.
We honor the fact that there will always be diversity of beliefs - that’s what makes things interesting! We will not claim to try to change anyone’s belief. We WILL stay in the lane of preventing exclusion in our public schools, which is specifically what this group is attempting to promote (hello “no victim cards for any kids” and “no books about a student being born to parents that aren’t exactly like us” = beliefs which are completely fine to hold but not impose on an entire public institution).
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The specific challenges vary by the week but have ranged from frustration about disrupted bus routes (stemming from a national and local staffing crisis and COVID illness) to asking for personal e-mail access to board members instead of a collective e-mail address. Despite offering remedies to these ongoing concerns, the challengers press on with their disruption because we believe their ultimate goals are to:
Force partisan agendas into our public schools, which have always remained a neutral ground
Help shift support and funding away from public schools and into privatized or “for-profit” education, voucher, charter or “scholarship” programs
Please visit our Downloads page to access a fact sheet on the “Super 7” things to know amid this misinformation campaign.
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Yes. In November 2021, the district’s challengers attempted to petition three of FHPS’ seven Board of Education members. This recall attempt failed because they did not collect enough signatures required to advance the petition to a special election. A special election would have been costly and wasteful, requiring the district to spend $100,000 from its operating budget (source: Kent County Register of Deeds), but even this financial risk to our students did not deter the challengers.
We are grateful to the Forest Hills community for declining to sign this petition, which was filled with misinformation to try and gather more support.
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NO! It’s important to remember that “CRT” is not taught in K-12 schools. This is a harmful and inaccurate claim intended by Forest Hills Public Schools challengers to gain support – but it’s disingenuous. History relayed through facts and textbooks to teach students about America’s past.
Superintendent Dan Behm was recently quoted in an article by MLive saying, “There’s a narrative that says – erroneously – that public schools are places that aren’t teaching the basics of learning, but instead are spending their time indoctrinating kids in a political viewpoint. That just isn’t true.”
He continued, “On a daily basis, I see our teachers providing all kids with the building blocks to learn the ability to read, the ability to write, the ability to compute and do mathematics, understand their world, whether it’s geographically or economically or through history, understand basic science. That’s the type of work I see every day.”
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programming at Forest Hills Public Schools includes the popular Spanish and Mandarin Chinese immersion language programs at Ada Vista and Meadowbrook Elementary. It also includes programs that bring equitable opportunities that enhance the education experience for all students:
• STARS is a program in which teachers identify students who have reading levels in the lower percentiles of their classroom and them to a mentor/coach who works with the students individually to help them learn how to read and better comprehend what they are reading.
• LINKS a peer-to-peer inclusion program that connects students to their peers in the cognitively impaired classroom. They have special days they eat lunch together, play at recess together, etc.
• Peer-to-peer support programs increase opportunities for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the upper grade levels, giving them access to general education settings and curriculum. Peers model typical academic and social behavior in educational environments throughout the school day and provide support for students with ASD to promote independence and socialization. Peer to peer support programs and inclusion of students with ASD not only affects outcomes for the students with ASD but can also impact several outcomes for typical peers and at-risk students.
• Forest Hills Public Schools also offers a Global Learners Initiative program for students, parents and teachers that is 100% opt-in, not opt out.
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Forest Hills Public Schools’ petitioners raised personal funds to audit the district’s communication and content around “CRT.” The publicly visible data provided by the district reaffirms what we already knew – that while trade articles and academic e-newsletters delivered to district e-mail addresses contain content about this divisive topic in the context of keeping educators informed of the national debate, the data did not produce any evidence of this topic occurring at Forest Hills Public Schools. The petitioners’ own inquiries into the school also produced a significant number of those mentions.
The petitioners did not add parameters to their search of common terms, which yielded many inaccurate results. For example, the word “race” could yield communication about a cross country race. Or, theory produced articles in the media about a variety of academic theory. As a result, claims about the volume of results are inaccurate.
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No. Parents always have a say in what their children read and can check out from the library. Please read this recent interview by WOOD-TV with facts from Superintendent Dan Behm and Support FHPS.
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Because of the pandemic, schools are being given substantial funding as part of the government’s American Rescue Plan to mitigate learning loss and to help keep kids in school.
It’s up to each district to determine how to use their funds BY 2023/2024 and they can be used for nearly anything (except new construction). Again, the best uses are to help kids keep up through appropriate resources.
Forest Hills Public Schools is already a well-funded district, but we are still getting an equivalent of $91 per student which is incredible, rare and helpful. Think of how much fundraising we already have to do. ESSER funding categories include:
Title 1 funding support
COVID-19 responses
Support for principals and school leaders
Activities for at-risk students
Improvements to LEA
Training to minimize spread of disease
Cleaning supplies
Planning for closures
Educational technology
Mental health supports (current staff to student ratio is 1:250)
Summer learning
Other activities necessary to maintain school districts
Learning loss (added to ESSER-II and ESSER-III requires 20% of funds to be allocated to this category)
School facility improvements (added to ESSER-II & ESSER-III)
During the January 2022 Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Behm noted that the Board has allocated much of the funding to learning loss prevention.
Learn more and please support the use of these funds that HELP OUR KIDS MITIGATE LEARNING LOSS through these times. Nothing more. We will not stand for any attempts by district critics to spread harmful misinformation about these funds.
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The country is facing a national shortage of bus drivers. Drivers experience illness, exposure/quarantines, medical emergencies and other issues that affect day-to-day staffing outside of Forest Hills Public Schools Board of Education’s control. Substitutes are arranged as often as possible.
Forest Hills and its bus drivers ratified a new contract spanning 2021-2023 and offers a competitive salary and benefits. The district is offering a $1,500 sign-on bonus to any new drivers, as well as a new $500 referral bonus to employees – triple that of any other district in Kent County. The Board has been actively promoting the open positions via FHPS communication tools, social media and regional news media.
Forest Hills Public Schools Board of Education meetings are open to the public, following the Open Meetings Act. Meetings are published on the district’s Vimeo page. The Board complies with the State of Michigan on all requirements. In fact, FHPS Board of Education responds to every e-mail, phone call or request received.
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We are concerned about the extreme lack of transparency surrounding the reasons for these attacks. However, because they are part of a national movement, we are gaining more understanding about why they have arrived at Forest Hills Public Schools.
We believe in public schools and specifically Forest Hills Public Schools. Support FHPS openly promotes core values of Support, Safety and Success for all students.
The parents behind “Support FHPS” have children who are currently attending Forest Hills Public Schools – from Pre-K up to 12th grade.
We are all proud to have chosen Forest Hills Public Schools for our families. Some of us relocated here specifically for this incredible school district, while others graduated from Forest Hills and wanted their kiddos to experience the same amazing opportunities as they did. We actively volunteer with our schools, attend Board meetings and review ongoing communication from FHPS.
Our 100% local volunteer group raised a hand to step up and advocate for our schools, children and hard-working school board because we can recognize the difference Forest Hills Public Schools are making in our children's lives.
Simply put – our intentions are to promote and support Forest Hills Public Schools and nothing more.
Contact us at: info@supportFHPS.org
Who We Are
Forest Hills Public Schools Attendance Area
