Demand a better BUILDING plan for new thurston
Reject the current plan to destroy over 60% of the green spaces, and educate kids next to a construction site for 3-4 years.
What's Wrong With the Current Plan For Thurston?
- No Space During Construction: From the moment construction begins over half of the current grounds will be completely unavailable to the Thurston community for recess, soccer, and recreation. For the projected 3-4 years that construction will take, recess will be squeezed into a tiny footprint filled with temporary play structures. The current plan requires two buildings on site for the most of this duration and leads to a host of negative circumstances for the students and teachers.
- Poor Learning Environment: The distance between the proposed construction site and the school housing the children is the length of a school bus. 75% of the current classrooms face the construction site. For multiple years children will be expected to learn with the constant noise, debris, and crews that come with such a large project.
- Thurston Shortchanged: The original bond plan for the Northeast area cluster of schools (King, Logan, and Thurston) was to build a 4th elementary school and stage all of the current schools through that new building. For many reasons we no longer need a 4th elementary school in NE Ann Arbor, but using the New Logan building to stage preserves the fairness of the first plan. What about Thurston? Logan and King students will enjoy safe and full access to outdoor spaces during this process because they will not be on an active construction site. Thurston on the other hand will lose the vast majority of the green space including soccer fields, grass areas between playgrounds for children to use during recess, and the Nature Center Habitats that are used as outdoor classrooms for multiple schools. Students at Thurston will lose out with this plan both in the short term during construction and in the long term with the final build site.
- Compromised Future Facilities: It’s important that we protect what is best about the Thurston site for future generations. We can advocate for a new building that preserves the expansive green spaces, access to nature, and child centered playgrounds. If the current plan comes to fruition, the grounds will not be large enough to accommodate daily lunch recess for over 500 children, nor will they provide the same beautiful setting away from car infrastructure currently used for special events such as the annual field day and International Night. The future is going to miss out on some of the best that Thurston has to offer. As parents and community members, it’s our responsibility to safeguard these for future students of Thurston Elementary School.
Get the full story
It all started way back in 2019 when Ann Arbor voters approved a record-setting bond for $1 Billion to improve Ann Arbor pubic schools. But then COVID hit, the district discovered a $25M budget shortfall, a builder was brought in under the radar, and things started getting really interesting...
Explore a better plan
The current plan would permanently remove playgrounds, reduce green space by ~70% and squeeze the playfields between a driveline and a parking lot. Our kids would be forced to learn and play on an active construction site for as many as 4 years. There's a better way, and we found it.
See... everything
As a group, we believe in full transparency. In this section you can see emails, social media posts, news articles, videos, and documents as we are able to access them.
About Let Thurston Play
Who are we?
What do we want?
What do we want?
We are group of Thurston parents, school staff, and neighbors who are opposed to the current construction plans for a new Thurston Elementary. We are in favor of a new school building, but believe that the current construction plans are poorly conceived and not reflective of the unique considerations and features of the Thurston site and community.
What do we want?
What do we want?
What do we want?
We demand that the AAPS Board of Education re-evaluate the plan for Thurston and consider alternative options that balance both short- and long-term priorities, while upholding their commitment to community engagement and environmental stewardship.
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