Dear Dexter Families–
The Dexter Community Schools set new goals in March and I’d like to share two that are exciting opportunities for our students and the community. One of the goals is for Post-Graduation Planning. “The district will implement a robust Post-Graduation planning process engaging all high school students and parents by the end of 2024-2025 and it will be expanded to engage middle and elementary school students and parents in 2025-2026.”
DCS recently posted a new position, Career Development Facilitator, to help implement this goal. Interviews start any day now and we can’t wait to make this goal a reality for our students, families, and community.
The next goal involves Facilities Planning. DCS will “conduct a comprehensive analysis of our current/future facility needs, which shall include a 10-year facilities study and analysis of environmental and sustainability impacts.” Currently, we’ve engaged architects and engineers to study our existing mechanical infrastructure along with the expected life of district facilities. We’ve surveyed our staff members who work in the buildings every day and will continue to collect feedback. In late May, we will be sending out an application for parents, staff, students, and community members to join a facility study committee that will meet approximately five times between August - November. DCS greatly values our community support and we strive to be excellent stewards of taxpayer facilities. We are excited to continue this partnership by seeking and incorporating community input throughout our facilities evaluation and planning process.
Update on the Status of the Dexter Wellness Center and Dexter Senior Center:
- On Friday, April 26th Dexter Community Schools closed on the purchase of the Dexter Wellness Center. We’re continuing the operational agreement with 5 Healthy Towns and the facility will continue to operate very similar to current operations.
- The Dexter Senior Center is temporarily moving into the former physical therapy space in the Dexter Wellness Center while construction of the new Dexter Senior Center on Baker Road is completed. Groundbreaking for the new 9,000+ square-foot Dexter Senior Center should begin by summer.
- All of this is possible as a result of a state appropriation of $8.5 million to Dexter Community Schools for creation of a senior and community center. These wonderful resources continue to be available to our community because of legislative appropriations stewarded by our elected representatives including Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, Senator Sue Shink, Representative Jennifer Conlin, and Representative Carrie Rheingan along with the partnership between DCS, the Dexter Senior Center, 5 Healthy Towns, A.R. Brouwer, and the City of Dexter.
- We’ve collected the most frequently asked questions about this project in a FAQ on our website. We will continue to update the FAQ when new information becomes available.
Seeking a Host Family
We are still looking for a host family for a student who would like to complete a second exchange year in Dexter. If you have interest in hosting an exchange student next fall, please contact me at 734-424-4101.
Sincerely,
Christopher Timmis, EdD
Superintendent