Tonight parents with students enrolled at Muskegon Heights Public Schools will get a chance to hear more about the new plan to turn the district's finances around.
The plan is to completely turn over operations to a charter school operator beginning this fall.
Muskegon Heights Public Schools is running a more than $12 million deficit.
The school board asked for a state appointed emergency manager after struggling for more than six years to close the budget gap.
Emergency Manager Don Weatherspoon said the only way to do that is to have a charter operator run things so that he can worry about paying off the district's debts.
"I think the most important thing for both students and parents and the community is that they have a neighborhood school system," said Weatherspoon.
Weatherspoon said consolidating with neighboring school districts was not an option because of Muskegon Heights' huge deficit. And he said cutting salaries, even by as much as 30 percent, wouldn't have gotten the district into the black.
I'll attend tonight's meeting and will update this story.
