Newsletter - February 9, 2025
How can you help today?
Right now there are two calls-to-action for our school district:
Encouraging a yes vote on taking bids for the replacement of Trombly’s windows.
Encouraging the the district to send its headcount survey to ALL addresses in the Trombly area (versus a subset of households where a consultant believes children between 0-9 years old live).
Take 60 seconds out of your day to send a premade letter.
🗓️ Send before Feb. 24
🗓️ Send before Feb. 14
Our Point of View
We are incredibly encouraged by the outpouring of support. And as you’ll read below, there continues to be forward momentum! It appears that the school district is not interested in selling the building, as evidenced by movement to accept bids for replacing the windows at Trombly. This is fantastic news!
That being said, our enthusiasm was dampened this week regarding the district’s headcount survey. At the end of last year, three Trombly United members went door-to-door and got a response from 299 addresses in Grosse Pointe Park. The school district saw this survey and decided it would like to conduct its own in order to include some additional questions. But instead of mailing the survey to every address in the Trombly area, the district is currently planning on sending only 400 postcards based on a consultancy’s list that predicts which households contain at least one child the age of 9 or younger (there exist 1490 addresses in the Trombly area).
We strongly believe this is a step in the wrong direction and will lead to a less accurate and less comprehensive understanding of the families in our community.
Latest News
Trombly United at ChillyFest
Trombly United had a table at the annual Grosse Pointe Park ChillyFest. Thank you to everyone who said hello, signed up to our mailing list, or offered to volunteer! Our Trombly United network now extends to nearly 250 people!
Facilities Committee Asks for Vote on Replacing Trombly Windows
Thank you to everyone who wrote the school board urging for an accounting of the leftover money from the 2018 bond! At the Facilities Committee meeting on February 3rd, Trustee Derringer made a motion for the school board to vote on pursuing bids to replace the windows at Trombly (an estimated cost of $1.1M). The motion passed and the board will be discussing it at the February 10th school board meeting and voting at the February 24th school board meeting.
It was confirmed at the meeting that approximately $2M remains from the 2018 bond (the bond that outlined $3.8M in critical Trombly repairs in its budget). As a reminder, the rough estimate laid out by Superintendent Tuttle for reopening as an elementary school is $5.8M. One million has been pledged by the Grosse Pointe Park Foundation!
Grosse Pointe Park City Council Forms Trombly Committee
The Grosse Pointe Park City Council voted unanimously to form an ad hoc Trombly Committee. This committee will be working directly with the City’s Community Engagement Committee and Trombly United. The first course of action is to assist the school district in getting people to complete its forthcoming headcount survey.
The Grosse Pointe News wrote about this in its February 6th edition.
Upcoming Events
School Board Meeting
Monday, February 10th - 7:00pm - 10:30pm
Brownell Middle School
School Board Meeting
Monday, February 24th - 7:00pm - 10:30pm
Brownell Middle School
The school board will vote on requesting bids for the replacement of Trombly windows at this meeting.