Everyone knows Grosse Pointe has good schools.

That's why folks move there, after all, and why so many native Grosse Pointers return home to raise their children: Community amenities like beautiful, exclusive parks, a walkable downtown. And, of course, those solid neighborhood schools.

But like a lot of Michigan communities — like a lot of Detroit suburbs that used to be destinations for families with kids — things have changed for the five Grosse Pointe cities.

Enrollment has been falling for years, but the pace is quickening: The district expected to lose 110 enrolled students this year, says Grosse Pointe Public Schools Superintendent Gary Niehaus. It lost 218.

Because of the way Michigan funds its schools, losing students means losing money. Those 218 hundred students are worth about $2.1 million in state funding. Compound those losses year over year, and Grosse Pointe, built to accommodate 9,000 to 12,000 students, with 7,600 presently enrolled, is facing a deficit that must be resolved by June.

A few years ago, the district's Board of Education passed a resolution that would require the district to come up with a plan, should enrollment continue to fall. So now the district is contemplating school closures, consolidating classrooms, re-configuring buildings or class sizes to fit the existing student body into fewer spaces. (Grosse Pointe parents are Not Happy about this; more on that later.)

What's happening in Grosse Pointe is a familiar script for Detroiters who've seen their own district dwindle, year after year. Schools close, or cut services or amenities, more kids leave, or families never move in, which means there's less money the next year. Which means there are more cuts, which means more families leave. It's a self-defeating cycle from which few districts break free.

That Detroit and Grosse Pointe have something in common — that Detroit and Grosse Pointe may, in fact, be at different points on the same trajectory — is a notion that would surely raise the hackles of many Grosse Pointers.

There's a story that's told, either implicitly or right out loud, depending on who you pal around with, that what happened to Detroit, and Detroit schools, is because of some moral failing on the part of Detroiters.

That's not true.

What happened in Detroit is what's happening in Grosse Pointe: Population declined. Revenue fell. It can happen anywhere, even to you.

Unless we get serious about funding education

Michigan lost population throughout the recession. But while the state as a whole has begun to add new residents, the good news in Wayne County, says Wayne County RESA Superintendent Randy Liepa, is that population decline may be leveling off.

In Grosse Pointe, Niehaus says, outmigration is exacerbated by social trends. Folks are waiting longer to have fewer children. More Grosse Pointers are aging in place, diminishing opportunities for new families to move in.

And, since I enjoy being honest, the Grosse Pointes do not enjoy a reputation as a welcoming community. We're talking about five cities with a distinct hierarchy among themselves: Not only are non-residents barred from Grosse Pointe's city parks, Grosse Pointers can't even go to one another's parks.

A recent Michigan State University report found that our state ranks last in the nation for growth in education funding, something that is surely related to the plummeting test scores that have helped to make Michigan a non-destination for professionals whose job searches take into account solid schools. Blame a retrograde tax policy that privileged business over literally everything else.

Liepa says Michigan's scant school funding has blunted school districts' ability to adapt to dropping enrollment without making drastic cuts. So increasing per-pupil funding, allotting more funds for students who are at-risk, special needs or learning English — all per the recommendations of the School Finance Research Collaborative Liepa has been a part of — would blunt the effects of population decline.

But back to Grosse Pointe

In some Grosse Pointe schools, there are dozens or hundreds of empty seats. That's not an efficient way to run a district, Niehaus says, so when the district's enrollment fell below the level set in that previously passed resolution, the same Blue Ribbon Committee that vetted the school's buildings before a bond proposal a few years back was tapped to develop options for the district.

That's what's happening now. The blue ribbon committee has been getting community feedback, and while no schools have been targeted for closure, that's something the district has to determine by year's end. Not just because of the looming deficit, but because the facility improvements financed by the city's bond sale can't be made at schools that won't be open.

It's important to look beyond finances, Niehaus says: "I can look at operational savings, I can look at construction savings, and can find the buildings I need to close on those reasons." But for members of the community, he says, the number one priority was, "whatever you do, do not lessen the quality of education. So how do we make a balanced approach to it, not just a financial approach?"

The next community meeting will be held April 11 at the Parcells Middle School Auditorium. Options on the table include reconfiguring middle and elementary schools, currently K-5 and 6-8, as K-4 and 5-8 schools, consolidating more students in fewer buildings.

"That is what has spooked the community, because not everybody was paying attention that we’d been losing 100 students a year for the last 15 years," Niehaus says.

'Spooked' is a diplomatic term

A Facebook group formed to discuss the proposed school closures quickly attracted nearly 2,000 members and roughly a jillion posts from parents who questioned the reality of population decline and/or the need to close buildings because of it. Posters have proposed that Grosse Pointers could pay $350 more per kid to offset the deficit, embraced conspiracy theories that the district is hoping to offload land to developers for fat profits, and suggested that Poupard Elementary, located in Harper Woods and, coincidentally, the district's most diverse school, should be the one to close.

Niehaus says the district has commissioned a second demographic study from another reputable firm and is meeting with parents to discuss their methodology concerns; notes that even if the district did intend to sell land for development, that would be a one-time cash infusion, not an ongoing solution to the district's budget woes. He absolutely rejects the notion that location or demographics should make Poupard a target.

It's worth noting that Grosse Pointe's enrollment problems could be solved overnight f the district were to open its doors to students from outside its five communities (and the corner of Harper Woods that pays Grosse Pointe school taxes), who would bring state funding with them. Other comfortable suburban districts have become schools of choice, and seen enrollment grow.

There's no question that a schools-of-choice Grosse Pointe could attract students; I'd bet there would be waiting list. But that's a non-starter — the district's Board of Education is staunchly opposed. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

The status quo isn't an option

There's one metric that seems to tell the whole story.

The district expects to graduate about 750 high school seniors this year, Niehaus says, but there are only 450 kids in Grosse Pointe's kindergarten classes.

"It’s not sustainable, and that’s the bottom line to it," Niehaus says. "It’s not sustainable, and you have to build sustainability ... and that’s something we have to spend some time talking through."

And maybe realizing that no school district is an island. When budget woes afflict school districts like Grosse Pointe, or Livonia, or Detroit, it's almost always treated like a one-off — a specific problem for this specific district. But it's not. We're trailing the nation in education funding. More than 400 traditional public school buildings have closed in Michigan over the last 10 years.

This is a systemic problem that requires systemic solutions. Or this — what's happening right now — will happen to you.

Nancy Kaffer is a Free Press columnist. Contact: nkaffer@freepress.com.