Plans Calls for Combining High Schools in Southfield

High school administrators are invited to a meeting today to discuss combining Southfield High School and Southfield-Lathrup High School.

The idea, which has been a topic of conversation for more than six years, was presented by Lathrup Village Mayor Frank Brock and Southfield City Councilman Myron Frazier at a school board meeting on March 10. A citizen’s advisory panel contributed to the proposal, which would take effect in 2016, according to the plan.

The plan includes a number of Southfield public schools. It proposes the following:

• Southfield-Lathrup students would move into Southfield High School’s building.
• University High School would move to the former Southfield-Lathrup High School building and include grades K-12.
• Brace-Lederle would change from K-8 to K-5.
• All of the middle schoolers would relocate to Levey Middle School.

Senior Kyrah Gradford-Dye, who represents Southfield High School at board meetings, said the purpose of the plan is to save money and make wiser use of existing buildings.

Southfield High School can hold 4,500 students at maximum but has under 1,000 this year. Southfield-Lathrup can hold 2,800 students but has approximately 1,000 students as well.

Senior Darren McDonald said, “This change should have been in effect a long time ago. We should have been making use of those empty classrooms.” McDonald said he sees benefits to combining the high schools because each school has programs the other school does not have.

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