The GPPSS Board of Education (BOE) has officially decided on repurposing the building that was formerly Trombly Elementary School as an education enhancement hub. Trombly’s repurposing was the ultimate decision following numbers being presented by consultant firm Plante Moran throughout the 2024-25 school year and a survey taken by market research company EpicMRA within the former Trombly catchment. The resolution passed 5-0 at the BOE meeting on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 (Board Trustees Sean Cotton and Ginny Jeup were not in attendance).
BOE President Colleen Worden stressed the necessity of the repurposement, believing that keeping the building for means other than reopening as an elementary school was the best decision for the current state of the district.
“It’s clear to me based upon the data that we received from our experts at Plante Moran as well as looking at our own enrollment projections and our own budget that it’s not the time to reopen an elementary school,” Worden said at the May 13 meeting. “That being said, everybody at this board has committed that we do want to keep one of our greatest assets, and that’s our buildings.”
Budget and enrollment numbers are two of the BOE’s greatest concerns for the district and two large factors when it comes to possibly reopening a school. Board Treasurer Tim Klepp agreed with Worden that when it comes to the position that the GPPSS is in and has been in for the past few years, it is best to wait for the budget to favor a reopening and that repurposing the school is best for now.
“We may not know what we want to do with the building yet, but we know that we don’t want to sell it, we don’t want to raze it; we need to maintain it in a working capacity,” Klepp said at the May 13 meeting. “Therefore, it’s appropriate to communicate to the community that as we evaluate this bond that some of those bond funds would be set aside to preserve the building.”
The community members who oppose the repurposing of Trombly are backed up by Cotton and Jeup, who were not at the May 13 meeting, but spoke on Trombly numerous times, including the April 28 meeting, at which Cotton disagreed with the claim that the numbers presented by the EpicMRA survey do not merit a reopening.
“We’ve shown that we could operate all of our elementary schools [with] decreased enrollment,” Cotton said. “I know that we don’t know how many students are in that [Tromly catchment] area, and until we know that, we shouldn’t just dismiss this and say that we have those numbers, because I do not believe we do.”
While the majority of the BOE was in consensus that the decision they made was the best for the wellbeing of GPPSS, many members of the community including Cotton, Jeup and community member Richard Schroeder, who spoke at the May 13 meeting, oppose the direction that the district is taking regarding Trombly, favoring it to return as an elementary school.
“Reopening Trombly as a neighborhood elementary school would directly serve families, children and the broader Grosse Pointe community in ways we can all see and understand,” Schroeder said at the May 13 meeting. “This is a moment to invest in the future, not to cling to a vague concept that lacks clarity and consensus.”
