Coverage of schools from pre-k and kindergarten through higher education, including trade and online classes.
Strike up the music! The NAMM Foundation has called out the school districts of Berkeley, Bloomfield Hills, Dearborn, Ferndale, and Troy, as being among the best in the nation for music education. Read the full list here.
Construction started this week on a project to turn a beat up, outdated main street in downtown Farmington into a boulevard streetscape of greenery, decorative lighting and stamped walkways. The $1.1-million Grove Street Reconstruction Project will also add parking to downtown and make over a tired strip retail center as well as connect it to a major pedestrian crosswalk that will lead to another shopping center. Water mains will also be replaced and a plaza space with seating will be part of the new downtown layout. The goal of city officials and the Downtown Development Authority is to make downtown more attractive, walkable, and busy as well as match it to a streetscape already redone. The plans call for turning a swath of pavement into a boulevard separated by a center island with angled parking along parts of it. Mayor Tom Buck says the project is as much about attracting families to downtown as it is attracting small businesses and boosting the local economy. The project will completely remove and replace Grove Street from Grand River to Main Street. The work was delayed in 2009 due to the costs. It is expected to be completed in two phases over a 10-week period and ready to use sometime in July. Writer: Kim North Shine Source: Annette Knowles, executive director, Farmington Downtown Development Authority
Birmingham's business development officials have been studying shoppers and retail trends for many months now, trying to figure out how to improve on downtown Birmingham as a shopping and free-time destination. One question asked: When do you want to shop? The answer: evenings, after work or school. That's when many downtown shops are closed. So in the interest of finding out if nighttime shopping will actually generate traffic, about 45 downtown stores will stay open until 9 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month, says John Heiney, director of Birmingham's Principal Shopping District. The response will show if a mostly daytime downtown -- other than restaurants and movies -- will fly. First Thursdays will run through September during the summer months, when strolling store to store at night is more likely. There will be a theme each month along with sales and special events and activities in stores and around downtown to promote First Thursdays. Birmingham's Principal Shopping District, which is made up of downtown businesses and employs a retail consultant to keep downtown thriving, is hosting the event and "wants to get shoppers thinking about shopping in the evening," Heiney says. Writer: Kim North Shine Source: John Heiney, director, Birmingham Principal Shopping District
Rob Battaglia wasn't inspired to start his own company because he lost his job in the recession or to realize a lifelong dream of owning a business. He started We Tech 24 years ago because he worked for a computer company and saw them giving away the training, which he considered the real business opportunity. "I decided to start my own company," Battaglia says. "That has grown to training and training support and sales. It then grew into a Dell partnership and now we're an HP partner." The Holly-based business started out as a computer training company in 1989. It has moved into IT support, desktop support and software sales to small- and medium-sized customers on top of its normal training services. We Teach has been Battaglia's full-time gig for more than two decades. It not only provides him with a job but steady work for four independent contractors. Battaglia prefers to keep his business small and nimble by employing contractors, which gives both them and his business flexibility to do the work the best way they can see fit. "I can find best in class," Battaglia says. "I want to find the best trainers I can find. I am very picky about who I put in a classroom." Source: Rob Battaglia, owner of We Teach Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Bloomfield Hills' International Academy has consistently ranked among the country's best in recent years, but hasn't rested on its laurels. It's still the best high school in Michigan, and is in the country's top 20, according to U.S. News & World Report. See the rankings here.
Spy Vs. Spy. Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions. The Fold-In. For 60 years MAD Magazine has made hysterical sense of an insane world. Royal Oak filmmaker Alan Bernstein is making a documentary about the satirical mag with the help of a highly successful Kickstarter campaign.
Oakland County is trying to make starting a business or taking it to the next level easier for entrepreneurs by offering free, walk-in business counseling. The One Stop Shop Business Center at the Oakland County Executive Office building, 2100 Pontiac Lake Road, in Waterford will open May 9 and offer regular walk-in hours after that. The hours for May 9 are 9:30-noon and 1:30-4:30. The business center is on the first floor of Building 41W. “We usually operate on an appointment-only basis but many entrepreneurs walk into our One Stop Shop with questions on how to get started with their business idea,” says Greg Doyle, supervisor of the One Stop Shop Business Center. “By designating special walk-in days, we hope to reach more entrepreneurs and help them understand their next steps as well as present the resources we can make available to them. Our aim is to get them started quickly in a way that makes the most sense to their unique situation.” Counselors at the business center can answer specific questions, suggest planning tools and give direction on where to go to solve problems or achieve goals. All sessions are confidential. The counselors have expertise in business development, community planning, financing and market research. Writer: Kim North Shine Source: Greg Doyle, supervisor, One Stop Shop Business Center
A metro Detroit distributor of craft beers and other alcoholic beverages is hosting a Craft Beer Expo May 15 as a celebration of American Craft Beer Week and Michigan's standing as a state that's home to accomplished craft brewers. The hope is to make the expo an annual event. Host Power Distributors, an Orion Township company that employs over 200 people, will feature beers from 17 breweries, including six from Michigan, as well as a strolling dinner and raffles at the expo, which runs from 6 - 9 p.m. at Canterbury Village in Lake Orion. “Craft beer is exploding in popularity,” says Gary Thompson, chief operating officer of Powers Distributing. “Michigan is the fifth-largest craft beer state in the country. Our breweries are experiencing fantastic development and the state offers an amazing selection of both local and national beers to craft beer drinkers. To celebrate this, we created a local beer event. American Craft Beer Week seemed to be the perfect time to invite the public to learn more about this 4,000-year-old beverage and how wonderfully it pairs with cuisine.” The expo also has a philanthropic angle with $5 of each $15 ticket purchased going to Rock STAR Warriors, a Michigan nonprofit that helps Michigan veterans find work and land careers. The STAR in the name stands for Sustainable Talent And Retention. The breweries represented at the expo: Cheboygan Brewing Company, Dragonmead Brewing Company, Kuhnhenn Brewing Company, North Peak Brewing Company, Saugatuck Brewing Company, Uncle John's Cider, Oskar Blues Brewery, Blue Moon Brewing Company, Tenth & Blake Beer Company, Samuel Adams – The Boston Beer Company, Magic Hat Brewing Company, Vermont Hard Cider Company (Woodchuck), Brooklyn Brewery, Boulder Beer Company, Tommyknocker Brewing Company, Spoetzl Brewery (Shiner), and Anchor Brewing Company. Writer: Kim North Shine Source: Jim Miller, publicist, Franco Public Relations Group; and Gary Thompson, COO, Powers Distributing
A former professional dancer and classically-trained dance teacher is opening a studio this month in downtown Rochester with hopes of replacing the competitive, reality TV twist of some dance studios with one that's focused on classical education and performance. Cindy Raffel, 27, will bring her experience as a dancer and choreographer with companies around the country and as a certified K-12 dance instructor to her 2nd Street Studio of Dance. It will open with a ribbon-cutting on May 17th, with three days of free classes that day through the 19th. By July, classes for ballet, tap, jazz, modern dance and hip hop and other forms of dance will begins. The studio at 100 E. 2nd Street is 5,600 square feet of space with three dance studios and classes for children and adults. She plans to keep prices low, partly by eliminating the competitive dance aspect that can come with so many costs. Classes themselves will be affordable, she says. Raffel, who's danced with ballet and theater companies in places such as Virginia, where she is from, and Florida, where she was with the Tampa Ballet, moved to Michigan in September after her husband, Tom, received a tenure-track position at Oakland University. They bought their home in Rochester and really dug downtown, she says. They loved Rochester and after hearing about the vacant RARA building -- Rochester Avon Recreation Authority -- she decided to open the studio she's dreamed about for years. "Obviously with dance I started as a kid and I always wanted to have a dance studio…As an elementary schooler I was making up a show, picking out a costumes and showing my parents my choreography," she says. "It was always in the back of mind because I didn't know how far my professional career would go. When we decided to move here, we bought a house really quickly. I thought, this is going to be where we're settling down. I should for it. Lo and behold there was this vacant building waiting for me. The studio "is literally steps away from Main Street," she says. "For me it's a great location only because it is a great area…but for all that's going on. You can walk out the door and be at a parade. Amazingly enough the house that we bought in August is exactly halfway between the university and the studio." Before finding a place to open, she had been researching what was missing in the local dance scene. "It's kind of hard as an outsider looking in…The dance world is so much word of mouth," she says, "But I think people are looking for something kind of different. something that's not competitive…I want dance to be a fun, happy experience. I want it to be enjoyable for everyone, including the parents." Writer: Kim North Shine Source: Cindy Raffel, owner/instructor, 2nd Street Studio of Dance
Painting With a Twist, where customers are encouraged to BYOB and pick up a brush to learn from artists how to paint, is expanding, moving into a new space in downtown Ferndale. The move down the road on 9 Mile will almost double the space for Painting With a Twist Ferndale, which is a franchise of Corks n Canvas. The new 3,000-square-foot space is being renovated inside the former Dollar Castle on 9 Mile. Dollar Castle closed in October and is being divided for three tenants. Modern Natural Baby is moving is moving into 5,000 square feet of the building, adding to its inventory and building parts of the business it previously didn't have the space to do. At Painting With A Twist Ferndale, birthday parties are celebrated, charity events are held, and girls' nights out are common, as are outings for artists just wanting to paint. Writer: Kim North Shine Source: Chris Hughes, Ferndale Downtown Development Authority
Our Partners
