Challenges Facing the District

Novi Community School District faces two central challenges. First, facilitating each child’s success in a profoundly altered and competitive global market; and second, finding ways to do so within stable or declining financial resources.

Globalization is rapidly altering the world of work our children will enter. The Michigan Merit Curriculum (requiring more credits of Math, Science and Language Arts) recognizes this, as does the new offering of Chinese as a foreign language at the high school. Further steps in this direction are important. The joint program between the District and Providence Hospital to permit students to shadow active medical professionals is an example of the sort of imaginative, practical program that should be supported and expanded.

Though we cannot ignore new demands, state, regional and local financial challenges still face the district. Downturns in the economy, and job transitions are affecting the state and its resources, and southeast Michigan bears the brunt of these changes. Longtime Novi residents are startled to see homes on their block in foreclosure, or for sale for months at a time, and to note recent declines in the value of their property. Plainly, Novi is approaching a period of stable or contracting student population levels for the first time in the modern history of the district.

The challenge for the NCSD will include competing with our larger, neighboring districts for retention and stability of our student population. NCSD must build on its great foundation to continue to provide the best possible education for citizens of all ages.