The school district in Buena Vista, Mich., which caught the nation’s attention earlier this spring when it shut down due to a budget crisis, will dissolve this school year, along with its financially troubled neighbor district, Inkster, the Washington Post reports.
Buena Vista’s students were out of class for a week this May, despite the fact that the district’s teachers offered to work for free.
The state did eventually provide the district enough money to allow students to finish the school year. But the district did not come up with a longer-term solution to the budget woes. Buena Vista and the nearby Inkster school district will both cease to exist this fall. Students will be reassigned to nearby school districts, in accordance with a new state law that allowed for the dissolution of bankrupt districts.
Buena Vista’s enrollment dropped from about 760 students in 2011 to about 400 students this past school year. Inkster served about 1,450 students. This year, 55 school districts in Michigan are running at a deficit, a record high.
Meanwhile, the historic bankruptcy case in nearby Detroit, which had been challenged, will proceed. A judge today overruled two challenges to the bankruptcy filing, according to the Detroit News. It’s still unclear what the implications of that bankruptcy will be for the school system, though the school system is independent of the city.