WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Collegian Week In Review: October 10th, 2024

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

This week on the Collegian Week in Review, hosts Moira Gleason, Thomas McKenna, and Caroline Kurt first discuss this issue's top headlines. Then, they talk to Catherine Maxwell about the recent hurricanes. Finally, they talk to Sophia Mandt about her article on chronic absences at Hillsdale County Schools.

Welcome to The Collegian Week and Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Here are your hosts, Moor Gleason, Thomas McKinna, and Caroline Kurt. Welcome to Collegian Week and Review, where we give you an inside look into Michigan's oldest college newspaper. We're your hosts, Caroline Kurt. Mora Gleason. And Thomas McKenna. Today we'll be interviewing Assistant City News editor, Catherine Maxwell, about her opinion piece on why Florida needs more hurricane relief.

after Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton hit that state and others. Then we'll be speaking with freelance reporter Sophia Mant by her article on chronic absenteeism in Hillsdale's community schools and how it compares to chronic absenteeism across the state. But first we're going to start with some top stories. And the first one we'll go to is one written by our news editor, Morrig Leeson, for My City News section. There's a county courthouse here in Hillsdale that's been under renovation. for a few years now, and the scaffolding is scheduled to come off in just a few weeks. Mora, tell us more about what the end of these courthouse renovations will look like. Yes, so the scaffolding has been on the courthouse since the beginning of 2023, at least,

and it will finally be coming down on November 15th, according to one of our county commissioners. The construction company said the project will be completely done, and everything will be off of the property by December 1st. So that's very exciting. They've done some really impressive work on the building actually replacing or refurbishing most of the stones that are original to the structure. And the courthouse has been there for 100 years. So this was the first major repair that they've done. And they replaced all of the copper on the copula and a lot of the stone work.

And it just kind of looks like a new building. One other repair they were excited about were some updates to the clock and the bell. The clock has now been connected to a program software controlled by the county facilities team, so the clock is now correct and up to date. And the bell is also controlled by a software rather than just the mechanism that was there before. and it hasn't worked apparently in several years. No one really seemed to know why, but it's now working and ringing for the first time in years.

So that's very exciting as well. So this renovation as a whole is going to wrap up after more than two years of work and $10 million spent. You spoke with some of the county commissioners who have been working on this project for a few years now. Tell us more about what they were saying about the project. So originally it was supposed to just, be a roof repair. They started not knowing that it was going to turn into this multi-year project.

They just set out to have the roof of the building repaired. And when Renaissance historic exteriors, who are the construction company working on this project, when they went in to do the roof, they found that there were all sorts of structural problems with the actual stones, where the stones used to be held in by these, or like bolted in by these metal bars. Those bars had rusted, and so the stones were kind of just sitting there. And one of them actually fell a few years ago. So it became this much bigger project as they figured out all of the structural work that needed to be done. And they had originally, even for the updated project, they originally had $8 million, and it's now exceeded $10 million. County Commissioner Doug Ingalls was telling me, though,

to build a completely new courthouse would have cost upwards of $40 million. So they're investing a lot of money in restoring this old building, but not nearly as much as it would take to build a new one. So Caroline, bring us over to the opinion section. Tell me about some of the takes that were run in your pages this week. Totally. Had a strong lineup this week. Ali Hall wrote about beauty content and developing social media literacy, using a humorous example of how not taking things with a grain of salt

led her to accidentally kind of fry her hair instead of refresh her blonde highlights. Nathan Stanish wrote a piece about make Kamala president now, emphasis on the now. He doesn't intend to vote for Kamala as he writes in the piece, but he believes she ought to assume the role of president now rather than wait till January

as Biden is not able to navigate potential national security concerns and so forth. So Nathan makes a really interesting case for that. Yeah, and I also have a biweekly column called After Eden in which I'm talking about family and work and gender issues. And this week, I used my experience with this girl I knew in high school to talk about how we need to be more generous with the people in our lives who may not fit perfectly into gender stereotypes, but are trying to figure out their identity as young men and women with a lot of honesty and vulnerability and how we should change. just be open to them and be good friends. It can be a challenging issue because it forces us to go beyond being judgmental, but it has the possibility to do a lot of good, both for us and for them.

Thanks, Caroline. We'll be back in a moment. We'll stay on the opinions page with Catherine Maxwell, who wrote about Hurricane Relief. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Radio Free Hillsdale's The Collegian Week in Review continued. Welcome back to Collegian Week in Review. We will be interviewing Junior Catherine Maxwell, who wrote an opinion on the recent hurricane devastation in the eastern half of the United States and the government's response. Catherine, give us just a rundown of what you had to say in this piece. Yeah, so Hurricane Helene crashed across Florida and then Appalachia, so Northern Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas.

I think it hits them of Alabama. And it's been called the worst hurricane since Katrina. Wow. There's over 230 people dead so far, and they're still searching for victims and survivors. But as I was watching the news come out about the hurricane and the response to it, I was just getting increasingly upset. I've got some connection to the area and was really feeling that the government was not stepping in and doing enough to help these people or just address the situation properly. There was also news coming out at the same time of FEMA, the federal emergency management agency running out of money or not having the money to get through the rest of the hurricane season, despite being supposedly prepared back in July. and no one knows why that happened.

There's some talk of funds being misappropriated and stuff going missing, but people don't really know what the story is there. But there's also been news coming out of billions of dollars that FEMA has spent on housing illegal immigrants. And it's important to note that it's not like they took hurricane money and spent it on illegal immigrants. Yes. But people are saying, if we have all this money to spend on illegals, then why can't we find the funds to help American citizens? People were supposed to get this $750 check to cover immediate needs,

first aid, food, that sort of thing. But lots of people were saying they were being denied the checks because they either had to be already receiving federal assistance or they had insurance that was supposed to cover things, even though the check was supposed to be to cover their needs until insurance took effect. It was just getting managed. really poorly and the coverage was not great or flattering to the administration.

And they were doing a lot of PR work and just trying to cover themselves instead of actually respond to the problems. Yeah. What I found really striking as I was editing your piece was when you pointed out that these workers, when they actually arrived on the scene in North Carolina, a week after the hurricane, not even there was some time. But they, as you wrote, recommended survivors use an after. to access FEMA system and watch this news station for to get assistance locations and stuff.

And you were saying that like, you know, never mind that many of the survivors don't have internet access or TVs or any of this. Yeah, no one, no one had any idea what they were doing. FEMA didn't have a plan when they showed up after they finally showed up a week late. And it was really just a bad situation. So Hurricane Milton hit Florida yesterday. Given what we saw in the federal government's response to this previous hurricane, what would a better response look like now? Yeah, I think we're actually seeing a better response play out.

I think the government got the message from Helene and realized botching two hurricanes in a row would be a really bad idea. before the hurricane hit DeSantis was evacuating the area so there's I think been five people found dead so far but way fewer than Helene I think the hurricane was a category three when it hit Florida Helene was a category four but Florida's dealt with hurricanes in the past they already have a better handle on what they're doing but it's looking like the devastation station was not as bad as they worried it would be. And Biden's been promising DeSantis all the assistance Florida needs, promising to send the money, send aid. And it looks like they'll need less of that than Helene did. But at least the government is on top of things this time. And DeSantis knows what he's doing. So Florida looks like it's on the road to recovery. Now, obviously, safety and hurricane relief is the thing on top of mind right now.

but a presidential election is less than a month away. Do you think there's a political impact to these two hurricanes and the federal government's response? Absolutely. There's, well, to begin, while the hurricane was approaching, as I mentioned in my piece, President Biden was vacationing at his beach house in Delaware, and Vice President Harris was campaigning in California. and previously Harris had skipped hurricane disaster briefings to kind of prepare for a government response. So that's a bad look for them and the fact that people in Appalachia are still missing, still not getting the money that they need or the aid that they need is a really bad look for the administration.

There's also been talk that the Hurricane Helene could be this year's October surprise or in a lot. election altering event that changes the outcome of the presidential election. It's not clear if it will prevent voter turnout. The media was saying that it might prevent voters in storm damaged areas from voting. I saw North Carolina has authorized counties to move voting locations and that there weren't any voting stations destroyed or damaged in the storm. So assuming people can find those and access them, then it doesn't look like it's going to stop people from voting. But that's definitely a concern and people are trying to address it. Awesome. Catherine, thank you for a great and very timely piece. And it was great to talk. Yeah, thanks for having me. You're listening to Radio

Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. This is the Collegian Week in Review. Welcome back to Collegion Week review. I'm Thomas McKenna, the city news editor, and we're sitting down with Sophia Mant, who wrote an article on chronic absenteeism in Hillsdale Community Schools. So there's a big trove of data that the state publishes every year on chronic absenteeism, that's students who miss 10% or more school days a year. And Sophia went through some of that data and looked at how Hillsdale City Schools compare to the rest of the state. So Sophia, Tell us about your article and what you found about chronic absenteeism. So I was first bird to do this article when I realized just how bad chronic absenteeism is.

I didn't realize, for example, when I was looking through the data that at Detroit public schools, around 66% of students are chronically absent, which is insane if you think about it. and I find just analyzing statistics and stuff interesting. And so I decided to look into it more. And then also why maybe, well, in my opinion, around 22% of students in Hillsdale community schools missing more than 10% of school days, as defined by chronic as some tism. Well, I think that's a problem.

Like, why maybe is it perhaps lower than other districts? And I thought maybe I would ask the superintendent of Hillsdale Community Schools, Mr. Ted Davis, as well as Molly Masek, who's the Director of Education Policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, as well as Assistant Provost for Hillsdale K through 12 education. Kathleen O'Toole may be just different kind of experts or people focused in public schools as to why. So tell us about what you found when comparing Hillsdale Community Schools to the rest of the state and why chronic absenteeism was on the rise in the past few years. So a big rise is shockingly COVID. So about 30% of students across the state of Michigan were chronically absent during the 23 to 24 school year. but that's down compared to the 2021 to 22 year when it reached 38.5% or almost 40%. So in other words, almost half of students were chronically gone from school.

And I think this really shows how destructive lockdowns and staying home and online school forms were to kids actually being able to successfully learn. And what's unfortunate is those measures hurt students that were already struggling the worst. So, you know, minority students or students that are lower income are facing the biggest negative effects from this. So it's just leading to more inequality, which is unfortunate. Now, even after the pandemic, Hillsdale Community Schools are still struggling to get their chronic absenteeism rate back to where it was before the pandemic. And you spoke with the superintendent of those schools. Can you tell us a bit about what he is trying to do to get students to come back to the classroom? Yes. So he said, um,

Part of why the absentee rate might be better than other places in the state is that many students live in close proximity to the school. They attend, as Mr. Davis said. So a lot of students can simply walk to school. And he said it sounds like the district really tries to keep track of students. They'll notify parents if their child's chronically absent and phone call communication. They've even made home visits to talk with the parents to better understand the situation. And as a last resort, they'll work with the court system because I believe it's technically illegal to not be educating a child at any point or them not to be going to school, at least in the state of Michigan. Yes.

And then they've even had alternative school programs to help students succeed. So Mr. Davis mentioned how they had several students struggling to make progress. and he used alternative school program and alternative school program to help them make academic progress, such as school districts in Hillsdale County are allowed to travel into neighboring districts to pick up students who take advantage of the alternative school program so they can attend a different school. So that essentially just makes it easier for students to eventually get to school. So, your story also addresses some alternative education options that might help with these chronic absentee. rates. Could you tell us what those options are? Yes, and it was Dr. Molly Masek, who's a director of

education policy who suggested, and she said that virtual school might be a better option in the short term if physically attending school is difficult, but I mean, I think that was not considered ideal and around 83% of families in the Hillsdale Community School District have broadband access, which means that there's actually a decent amount of students that don't, and the students that wouldn't have internet access are more likely to be the ones that would struggle with absenteeism. But another more logical or helpful solution has been suggested using local and state money to secure private tutoring services or to cover transportation expenses. So that's been another thing. suggested. And Sophia, did anyone you talk to in reporting this piece draw any connection between

chronic absenteeism and like concerns about a student's mental health? Yes, specific data wasn't given, but they just said in general it's very hard. I think Dr. O'Toole said it's just, it's very devastating to not to just have your habits be disrupted and not really have any set habits day by day that school helps to develop. And the problem is that having, you know, an adult having their habits disrupted by COVID is less shocking or damaging than a child because, as she told me, you know, if you're only six years old and then you're out of school for a whole year, I mean, that's a major part of your life that you're not in school. And that's, that's just devastating. It impacts your development and it's not good. Well, thanks, Sophia, for coming on. Thanks for giving us the scoop.

on a local education issue. You've been listening to the Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Mauregleason. I'm Carolyn. And I'm Thomas McKenna. You can find the Collegian Weekend Review online at cwir.transister.fm.

You can find more news at HillsdaleCollegian.com. And you can find us on Instagram at Hillsdale Collegion. We'll see you next week.