Education Beat Flint Community Schools: Assistant Superintendent Keiona Murphy Resigns; Terae King Removed as Flint Board Vice-President; Charges of Racism Block Bid to Make MacIntyre Treasurer
By Harold C. Ford “We have met the enemy and he is us.” –Cartoonist Walt Kelly’s Earth Day 1970 parody of a similar statement by Master Commandant Oliver Perry in the War of 1812 The resignation of Keiona Murphy, assistant superintendent for Flint Community Schools (FCS), was announced by Superintendent Kevelin Jones in a statement made available to the public April 25. Later the same day, four members of the Flint Board of Education...
UM – Flint tenured faculty begin unionization efforts, propelled by governance, pay, work life, university climate concerns
By Jan Worth-Nelson The tenured and tenure-track faculty at the University of Michigan – Flint (UMF) have begun efforts to unionize. A group of about 16 organizers have been meeting, circulating information and membership cards, and consulting with eligible colleagues. The union would be called UMF AFT-AAUP Local 5671 [American Federation of Teachers — American Association of University Professors, affiliating with a...
Education Beat: Turmoil at the top continues at Flint Community Schools
By Harold C. Ford Editor’s note – This article has been updated naming the former FCS employee who received the $61,000 retirement payout. The tumult that has plagued the leadership team(s) at Flint Community Schools (FCS) in recent years was fully on display in and around the April 12 Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting of the Flint Board of Education (FBOE). Michael Clack, board president, announced an investigation by...
Village Life: Flint’s “coney culture” fed us, brought us together, inspired art, music, literature, poetry — and even some brawls, presenters declare
By Jan Worth-Nelson One thing was clear as a sell-out crowd lined up for their food Saturday in a big meeting room at — where else — Koegel Meats, the origin and home of the legendary frankfurter. The coney is more than a hot dog. The “Salute to Flint’s Coney Culture” sponsored by the Genesee County Historical Society, started with a simple formula: volunteers doling out a well-grilled dog slipped into...
City Council Beat: “I’ve never seen it this bad” City’s sewer system supervisor on raw sewage back ups
By Tom Travis Despite shouting, near physical fights, repeated racial slurs, and loss of quorum that have continued to characterize a dysfunctional Flint City Council, the elected body still managed to conduct some of the people’s business. Those actions included acceptance of $21 million in grants — for an upgraded pump station, for St. John’s Street neighborhood, for Choice Neighborhoods assistance to the Genesee...
Remembering Viola Liuzzo, murdered 58 years ago in the cause of voting rights: a personal reflection
By Harold C. Ford Viola, Viola you laid your young life down, From Selma to heaven, 3 Ks took you out, Colorblind angel battled bigotry, Viola, Viola lives on in history. –“Color Blind Angel,” Robin Rodgers, 2008 [Author’s note: I was moved to write this personal reflection when my son Justin Ford gifted me a book: From Selma to Sorrow, The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo, by Mary Stanton, University of Georgia Press, 1998....
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