Newsletter - July 9, 2025
Momentum Builds for Trombly—but Key Decisions Still Ahead
WEAR RED at the upcoming school board meetings to show your support.
Summary
The City of Grosse Pointe Park has taken a big step forward in exploring the future of Trombly. At a recent community town hall, city leaders presented a compelling vision: a hybrid preschool and elementary school model that could reopen Trombly in a budget-neutral way. The proposal builds on strong survey participation from local families and points to a sustainable, long-term plan to serve the district.
Progress is already underway:
New windows for Trombly are being ordered and are expected to be installed by January.
The $120M bond proposal, which will go to voters this fall, includes $6 million dedicated to upgrading Trombly for reopening as an educational facility.
And perhaps most exciting, GPPSS just published a 2025-2030 strategic plan that prioritizes “preserving neighborhood school walkability”, “maintaining reasonable class sizes”, “expanding innovative programming aligned with student needs”, and more. The vision of expanding preschool throughout the district and reopening Trombly as a preschool + elementary fits perfectly into this vision.
But to make that vision real, two major roadblocks remain:
The bond proposal must pass in order to fund key infrastructure investments—not just at Trombly, but district-wide.
The Board of Education has not yet acted on the community’s call for deeper analysis:
They have not reviewed the town hall’s findings or assessed the feasibility of reopening Trombly in light of the survey results.
They have not yet presented any plan for expanding preschool access, despite clear interest across the district.
Trombly United will continue working to ensure these conversations move forward—with data, transparency, and community input. As always, we welcome your ideas and support.
Let’s keep the momentum going.
A further look
Grosse Pointe Park’s budget-neutral preschool+elementary proposal
You can view the town hall where this proposal was presented here. The proposal presented involves a proposal to (a) reopen Trombly as a 4yo preschool + elementary and (b) add 4yo preschool to Defer.
Using data from the GPPSS’s trusted vendors Plante Moran and Epic MRA, a conservative analysis showed this proposal as being immediately budget-neutral.
The school board and administration have yet to ask Plante Moran to analyze the cost of reopening Trombly given the remarkable results of the Trombly Headcount Survey. We are hopeful that the district will see that there is an enormous demand for expanding preschool access throughout the entire district and Trombly plays a key role in doing that in an equitable and cost-effective manner.