After the Senate decided the Normandy School District needed $1.5 million to remain operational through the rest of the school year, the bill moved to the House but was rejected. Currently, lawmakers are attempting to reach an agreement as to the amount of funding Normandy will receive, causing the financial situation of the District to remain unstable.

“We’re kind of in a holding pattern because right now our finances are pretty fragile,” Normandy Public Relations representative Daphne Dorsey said. “The supplemental funding is needed so we can ensure that we remain fiscally viable until the end of the school year and that we’re able to meet our financial obligations.”

According to State Representative Bryan Spencer, the House originally passed a $5 million supplemental budget bill which included funds that would last Normandy through the end of the school year, but the Senate decided that the District only needed $1.5 million to remain open. Currently, a conference committee is working to agree on an appropriate amount of funding, but hasn’t yet come to a compromise.

“The issue should have never happened in the first place,” Spencer said. “We have MSIP5, which is an accreditation program that’s designed for school districts to stay open and I believe they said that there will be 23 school districts under MSIP5 that will be unaccredited next year, so we’re going to have 23 school districts like Normandy. So there’s something wrong with the accreditation program.”

Despite the uncertainty of the future of the Normandy School District, members of the Normandy community hope that the school district will remain intact.

“Our goal is to continue operating until the end of the school year,” Dorsey said. “Beyond June  30, we don’t know. I guess that’s a question that DESE would have to answer and respond to because they have not told us what their plans are regarding our future. We’re very optimistic that we’ll get the funding, but again, it’s wait and see what that final amount is going to be.”