COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) - Coldwater school superintendent Dr. Tina Kerr has issued a red flag warning regarding her worries over pending legislation she believes could ultimately allow for the state takeover of local schools and buildings.  At last night’s Coldwater Board of Education meeting, Kerr updated the Board on the scope of the Education Achievement Authority, which already is already established in the Detroit Public Schools and would be expanded statewide.

She called it a total political power grab endorsing state owned and operated schools. She said local districts would have a chancellor, a state reform officer that would run the system instead of school boards and superintendents. Kerr said it would also allow for the takeover by the state of local school buildings. She cited as an example the district’s Fremont Street building, which is being used now by the Branch Intermediate School District.

Kerr claimed the proposed new legislation would eliminate their opportunity to allow the ISD or whoever wanted to rent that space for their programming because technically, these buildings would be on the state’s list and once a facility that is vacant or is not being used for K-12 Instruction, it never gets off the list.

Kerr said she’s very concerned because the EAA legislation only found the light of day in the last two weeks and figures it may gain support in the legislature’s lame duck session. It could see some