Chalkbeat

Detroit mayor announces 7 new after-school program sites with $2.2 million in city funds

2026-09-10T21:48:56+00:00

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Seven new after-school sites will open across Detroit this school year using $2.2 million in city funding, Mayor Mary Sheffield announced Thursday.

As part of Sheffield’s initiative to improve life for the city’s youth, the funding will allow the existing after-school program Get On And Learn, or GOAL Line Detroit, to expand to parts of the city lacking access to affordable out-of-school opportunities. The free program also will provide transportation for K-8 students from city schools to the new sites.

The program currently has 33 sites and serves more than 2,700 students, according to the city. With the expansion, it will serve around 1,000 more children in the city, Sheffield said at a press conference Thursday at the Northwest Activities Center.

For the first time in the program’s history, there will be sites in all seven City Council districts, Ricky Fountain, executive director of the Community Education Commission, said at the press conference.

“Our parents now can finish their workday knowing their children are safe and engaged, instead of having to leave work early or arrange transportation every afternoon,” Sheffield said.

At Thursday’s press conference, Sloan Gibson, the father of a fourth grader at Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School, said GOAL Line has helped his son grow as a student. The program also made his work schedule more manageable, he added.

“Those few extra hours, you know, it gives us a chance to get work done, just take a deep breath,” he said.

Out-of-school programs can have a number of benefits for kids, including improvements in schoolday attendance, academic performance, and behavior.

But parents in Detroit and southeast Michigan have long lacked access to high-quality, affordable after-school programs.

Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, said at the press conference that transportation is a barrier for families trying to get their kids to such programs.

“Our families are struggling,” he said. “They’re working. They’ve got multiple jobs. Their kids are coming home and maybe just watching TV or sitting on a phone.”

GOAL Line also expanded this school year to offer after-school programming at four more DPSCD elementary-middle schools, Vitti said.

The nonprofit was created in 2018 through the city’s Community Education Commission under former Mayor Mike Duggan as an incentive for parents to keep students in Detroit schools. Since then, it has expanded with philanthropic and state funding. It now offers 57 different enrichment activities, including robotics, athletics, tutoring, financial literacy, and coding.

Sheffield said the expansion is a first step toward her goal of having an after-school program within 2 miles of every Detroit school.

The new GOAL Line sites will be located at:

Helen Moore Community Center
Coleman A. Young Recreation Center
Joseph Walker Williams Recreation Center
Community Center at A.B. Ford Park
Detroit Public Library, Conley branch
Detroit Public Library, Lincoln Branch
Detroit Public Library, Chaney Branch

Existing GOAL Line sites are located at:

Northwest Activities Center
Heilmann Recreation Center
Patton Recreation Center
Engaged Detroit
Association for the Advancement of Deaf/Hard of Hearing
Cass Community Services Center
Detroit Public Library - Hubbard Branch
Detroit Public Library, Edison Branch
Detroit Public Library, Parkman Branch
Detroit Public Library, Redford Branch
Detroit Public Library, Sherwood Forest Branch
Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences
Bagley Elementary School of Journalism and Technology
Bow Elementary-Middle School
Bunche Preparatory Academy
Detroit Achievement Academy
Cornerstone Adams-Young Elementary Academy
Cornerstone Adams-Young Middle Academy
Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School
John R. King Academic and Performing Arts Academy
Palmer Park Preparatory Academy
Pasteur Elementary School
Schulze Academy for Technology and Arts
The School at Marygrove
Vernor Elementary School
Warrendale Charter Academy
Fisher Magnet Academy
Durfee Elementary-Middle School
Thirkell Elementary-Middle School
Munger Elementary-Middle School
Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy
Nolan Elementary-Middle School
Edison Elementary School

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit district maintains growth in literacy and math on the 2026 M-STEP

2026-09-04T21:04:00+00:00

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The Detroit school district made small year-over-year gains in reading, writing, and math in nearly every grade on state standardized tests last spring, results released Friday show.

The district reached a 12-year high in the percentage of third graders scoring proficient or above in reading and writing, and it bucked a statewide trend of little to no improvement in early literacy.

Students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District still lag far behind statewide averages on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP, however. For example, 14.1% of DPSCD third graders scored proficient or better on the 2025-26 exam compared to 38.2% of Michigan public school students.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a statement Friday that the results, many of which represented all-time highs for the district, reflect a broader trend of improvement.

“While students across the state (and country) continue to regress academically, our students are improving,” Vitti said.

The superintendent added the district needs to continue to “refine and scale” its success, particularly in literacy.

LaTrice McClendon, chair of the district’s board, said the results showed encouraging growth in math, adding “literacy still needs stronger gains.”

“We are not finished,” she said. “Detroit’s children deserve nothing less, and we will not rest until they get it.”

Researchers said long-term improvements in DPSCD on the exams, coupled with data showing fast student growth, indicate the district is making big strides to get students closer to where they should be academically.

Tara Kilbride, associate director of the independent research center Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University, said progress across all areas of the M-STEP over time suggests a systemic turnaround.

“That tells me that the improvements are likely not just an anomaly,” Kilbride added.

When evaluating test scores, an important factor to consider is that students in Detroit start out much further behind their peers in wealthier communities due an array of issues tied to poverty and systemic racism, said Jeremy Singer, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Michigan-Flint.

“If a student is making a lot of progress every year and they are learning at an accelerated rate, they may still not cross proficiency,” said Singer, also a research affiliate at Wayne State University’s Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research.

Kilbride added, “That doesn’t mean the lower levels of proficiency aren’t something we should be concerned about.”

DPSCD’s results show continued growth

Each spring, Michigan public school students in grades 3-7 take the M-STEP in English language arts and math. Fifth graders also take science and social studies M-STEP exams. Eighth graders take the PSAT in English and math. Eleventh graders take the SAT in the same subjects.

Exams were not given in the 2019-20 school year due to school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020-21, the tests were optional.

Compared to spring 2019 – the last year of testing before the pandemic upended learning – the improvements in DPSCD were noticeable in every subject and grade. For example, there was a 7.6 percentage point increase in eighth graders scoring proficient or better in English and a 6.8 percentage point increase in seventh grade math.

The year-over-year growth was smaller for the district in early literacy. A small dip in proficiency rates for sixth graders is attributed in part to unfinished learning when they were in kindergarten in 2019-20, Vitti said.

The district’s seventh grade cohort “continues to demonstrate large strides in their achievement,” and has consistently outperformed their peers, said Vitti.

On SAT results, also released Friday, 35.1% of students were at or above English benchmarks, as were 15.7% of students in math. Compared to spring 2019, those numbers increased by 6.6 and 4.3 percentage points respectively.

With smaller class sizes and more intervention for this year’s ninth graders as part of the DPSCD’s high school redesign, Vitti said the district anticipates more growth on the SAT.

Singer said the progress students make from the beginning to the end of the school year gives a clearer picture of district performance than the M-STEP, which is a snapshot of students’ performance on a single day.

A recent research analysis called The Education Scorecard suggests DPSCD is one of the best among similar districts across the country when it comes to the speed at which students are learning per school year.

DPSCD attributes progress to better attendance, specialized support

Vitti told Chalkbeat in an email Friday that the district’s investments in recruiting and retaining certified teachers, using evidence-based curriculum, student interventions, as well as wraparound services for children and families, contributed to DPSCD’s academic improvements.

“We also have clear targets and stretch targets at the district and school level to hold one another accountable but to also problem solve and support when achievement is not improving,” he said.

Vitti said that might be what setDetroit apart from some statewide trends.

“I don’t see evidence of all of this with great consistency throughout Michigan and I believe nationally school districts have not completely shifted from the legitimate challenges of the pandemic.”

DPSCD has used a large portion of its $94.4 million “right to read” literacy lawsuit settlement to support students who are below grade level. The district has hired hundreds of additional academic interventionists and contracted more tutoring services.

As the district must spend the last of the settlement this school year, Vitti said it will likely have to make difficult budget decisions in order to keep the interventionists.

Imani Foster of 482Forward, a nonprofit focused on educational equity, said she believes the targeted support has helped students. She added more time is needed to see the full effect of the literacy funds.

“I think in five years we can look and see if the incremental change marked sustainable change,” she said.

In math, Vitti said teachers and students are becoming more familiar with curriculum based on the “why” behind math instead of only procedural skills.

“We have also been more targeted in our interventions to make sure that we are filling the gaps in pre-requisite skills at each grade level,” he said. “Younger students who were exposed to the math curriculum at earlier ages are higher performing than their older peers.”

Venessa Keesler, president and CEO of Launch Michigan, said DPSCD is “proof of concept” of what happens “if you get good curriculum, you train your educators, you stay the course, and you really are honest about what’s working and what’s not.”

Maria Montoya, a Detroit parent and education consultant, said consistency is key for the district to continue improvements.

Since pandemic-era school closures, DPSCD has significantly improved its rates of chronic absenteeism, defined as a student missing around 18 or more days in a typical 180-day school year. Missing too much school can make students fall behind and struggle to catch up for years.

While performance on the M-STEP has significantly improved for DPSCD since 2018-19, chronic absenteeism has only fallen back to a slightly lower rate, at 60.9%.

Singer said those data points could suggest DPSCD’s academic achievement is due to more than just better success in getting kids to school.

Both Singer and Kilbride said the data can’t definitively say which efforts have led to better performance on the M-STEP.

“My best hypothesis would be that it was a combination of coordinated support and strategies rather than one particular thing,” said Kilbride.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Micah Walker is a reporter covering arts and culture and education for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Parent engagement and more resources to get kids to school: What to expect this school year in Detroit

2026-08-14T22:45:42+00:00

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The coming school year will be an important one for addressing the transportation challenges that make it difficult for so many Detroit students to get to school.

City officials on Friday announced a new ride share service pilot and a new initiative to help students feel safe on routes to school.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District is expanding yellow school bus service to students at two more high schools with high rates of chronic absenteeism.

Together, these efforts reflect city and school officials’ focus on targeting the systemic issues students in the city face that contribute to lower academic performance and poor attendance in both district and charter schools. Parents, in particular, may be closely watching whether investments are paying off for their children. In recent weeks, DPSCD has faced increased criticism and questions about everything from test scores to how the district is spending its money.

Among the parents is Tanecia Wilson, whose child attends the Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School. She wants the district to share more details about its budget.

“We’re just looking for transparency,” she said during the Aug. 11 DPSCD board meeting.

The 2026-27 school year begins Aug. 24 in DPSCD and many of the city’s charter schools.

Below is more information on transportation efforts and other things to expect this school year.

The city will invest more in student transportation

Starting this school year, Detroit Department of Transportation employees will help students taking city buses get to school safely.

Chanel Hampton, senior director of Youth and Education for Mayor Mary Sheffield’s office, said after a Friday press conference announcing the program that safety concerns from parents and students prompted the initiative.

The city began providing free bus service to all Detroit students in April. Sheffield announced the free service will continue with a $1 million state grant.

“We will have about 50 to 100 individuals who are city employees every single day who will now be extra vigilant and looking out to ensure the safety of young people during those to and from school commute times,” Hampton said.

Current DDOT employees will get additional training to monitor student safety, according to the city. They will be placed at bus stops, transit centers, and will be on buses with high student ridership. In some cases, Hampton said the safety “ambassadors” will walk students from bus stops to their schools.

The city will also run a $500,000 ride share pilot for around 150 students from Pershing, Denby, and Osborn high schools, as well as East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney, from Aug. 24 through mid-October.

Hampton said the city chose neighborhood high schools with higher rates of chronic absenteeism. The short pilot window is due to funding constraints, Hampton said.

“The hope is that we learn, we see what works, and we can absolutely then bring in more funds to scale this to be a … school year-round effort, but we need to see what works.,” said Hampton.

DPSCD’s board membership will change

The district’s board may see a lot of changes this year, as five of seven seats will be up for grabs in the Nov. 3 election.

There are 34 people running. Only two – Steve Bland, Jr. and Bessie Lee Harris – are incumbents. Both Bland and Harris have been on the board for less than a year. They were appointed to fill open seats last year.

The board’s leaders, Chair LaTrice McClendon and vice chair Corletta Vaughn, will not seek reelection.

After the recent death of member Iris Taylor, the board must also appoint a new member ahead of the election.

The board has the power to hire and fire the district’s superintendent and makes decisions that shape district policy, curriculum, and funding.

DPSCD will add more initiatives to boost attendance

Though the district has made a lot of progress in reducing chronic absenteeism in recent years, the rate of DPSCD students missing 10% or more of the school year (or about 18 days in a 180-day school year) was 60.9% in 2024-25.

The district will roll out a few more strategies to help get kids to school this year.

DPSCD will expand a pilot program that transported some general education high school students on yellow buses to Henry Ford High School and East English Village last year. Pershing and Cody high schools will join the program this school year.

The perfect attendance incentive, which the district says helped reduce high school absenteeism, will return and expand to include middle schoolers this year. They will be paid $50 each a week for perfect attendance during winter and early spring.

More focus on career pathways for high schoolers

DPSCD will roll out its high school redesign this fall. Ninth graders at the district’s 11 neighborhood high schools will explore career pathways during a seminar class, which will help them choose the dual enrollment, career and technical education, or advanced placement courses they want to take through graduation..

There will be smaller class sizes and more wraparound supports, including additional tutoring opportunities during the school day for ninth graders who are behind in literacy, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during the August board meeting.

“The goal is to reduce the number of credits that they’re behind, so by 11th and 12th grade they can take more career and college courses,” Vitti said.

The district is hiring seven more high school counselors this year, making the ratio one counselor for every 250 students.

Fewer costs, more communication for parents, DPSCD says

This year, parents should not be asked to provide classroom supplies and materials, according to the district, because DPSCD increased funding for supplies by $4.5 million, Vitti said at the Friday press conference.

After receiving complaints on a range of issues this summer, Vitti promised at a community meeting the district would improve parent engagement and communication.

McClendon, the board chair, said during the August board meeting that she asked for principals of district schools to hold regular town halls to answer parent questions.

In addition to those meetings, DPSCD is planning two town halls focused on special education in the district. The dates of the meetings have not been posted.

Another school will close

Thurgood Marshall Elementary-Middle School on Detroit’s west side is slated to close after this school year as part of an accelerated phase-out plan. Four other DPSCD elementary-middle schools closed in June.

Barack Obama Leadership Academy will not reopen for the 2026-27 school year. The fate of one of Michigan’s oldest charter schools was announced on its website this summer.

Another well-established Detroit charter, Old Redford Academy, closed at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

What Detroiters should know about the proposed school operating millage on the Aug. 4 ballot

2026-07-13T10:00:00+00:00

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If you’re a Detroiter heading to the polls for the Aug. 4 primary, or someone voting early, you’re likely asking yourself one big question: Why are we voting on another school operating millage?

The answer is a bit complicated. Yes, in 2024, Detroiters easily approved an operating millage renewal — the technical term for a tax levy on some real estate — for Detroit Public Schools. That’s the entity that used to educate students in the city, but since 2016 has only existed to collect tax revenue and pay off old debt.

But a lot has changed in the last two years. The Detroit Public Schools Community District must now seek its own operating millage for two key reasons:

The DPS millage will be done paying off old operating debt in September and must cease collecting operating tax revenue.
The operating revenue the state has been providing to DPSCD since state lawmakers created the district in 2016 will be eliminated, per the budget lawmakers approved July 3.

That means DPSCD must collect its own operating revenue, through a millage every Michigan district is required to levy.

There’s a lot at stake if voters reject the millage — more than $100 million in annual operating revenue for Detroit’s schools.

Below, we answer some important questions about the millage,. Have a question you don’t see answered? Reach out to us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

What is this millage for?

The Detroit Public Schools Community District is seeking an 18-mill operating millage, which equates to an $18 tax for every $1,000 of taxable value, for 20 years that will provide revenue for general operating expenses that can range from classroom programming and supplies to staff salaries. It can’t be used for capital projects.

Who’s affected by this millage?

Anyone can vote on the proposal, as long as they’re registered. But the operating millage is levied on commercial property, rental property, and vacation property. It doesn’t affect primary homeowners. So, if you own and live in your own home, this vote doesn’t affect you.

So what’s the difference between Detroit Public Schools and the Detroit Public Schools Community District? And why is there a change in which of them will collect operating revenue?

DPS was the district that for years educated students and operated schools. But DPS debt had grown over time, and most of it accumulated when the state controlled the district. That cut into the amount of money for classrooms.

To avoid what many thought was looming bankruptcy, lawmakers created DPSCD in 2016 as a separate district. Lawmakers transferred control of schools from DPS to DPSCD, and the new district benefitted from a fresh, debt-free start. DPS remained intact solely to collect revenue from millages. That revenue goes toward paying off the lingering DPS operating debt. (A separate debt millage is paying off capital debt and debt to the state’s revolving loan program.)

Meanwhile, because operating revenue was going to pay off debt, the state beginning in 2016 provided what DPSCD would have received from a millage.

But the state budget approved Friday eliminates $124 million for operating costs the state would have provided to DPSCD next year. It assumes the district will receive those funds from a millage.

Lawmakers made that move because rising Detroit property values mean the debt will be paid off much earlier than planned. DPSCD officials wanted to keep the DPS operating millage revenue flowing to help pay off the rest of the old debt. But the Michigan Department of Treasury said that’s prohibited by state law, and a lawsuit brought by the district ended with the courts siding with the state.

How much money would be generated by this millage?

The millage would generate about $112 million during the 2026-27 school year. DPSCD’s total budget for the coming school year is around $1.1 billion. State and federal funding provides the rest.

Are operating millages required?

Yes, traditional school districts are required to levy an $18 tax for every $1,000 of taxable value to generate operating revenue. DPSCD was an exception during its first 10 years.

Charter schools do not have millages and do not receive millage revenue, except in the case of a countywide school millage.

Why is this vote being held now?

The Aug. 4 primary is the first opportunity for DPSCD to put the proposal on the ballot since the district lost its battle with Michigan Treasury officials in court. If it doesn’t pass next month, the district can revive it during subsequent elections, with the first opportunity being the Nov. 3 general election.

The district could also opt to hold a special election, but that would be costly.

What happens if voters reject the proposal?

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said that if voters don’t approve the tax levy by July 1, 2027, the district would face a deficit of $111 million for the 2027-28 school year.

What is unclear is whether the state’s elimination of the operating revenue for the district for the 2026-27 school year will also lead to a shortfall. Vitti said the only way for the district to get its full $10,300 in per-student funding allotted to it by the state “would be to force the tax collections from DPS to DPSCD.” There is no other source of funding the district could tap to fill that gap, he said.

What if tax collections fall below 100%?

Approving the measure is one thing. Taxpayers still must pay their tax bills for the district to collect the projected revenue.

The state has provided DPSCD with 100% of what a millage would have generated. That may not be the case when the district has to rely on actual millage revenue. If property owners don’t pay their bills, less revenue will be generated. The ballot language says revenue generated would be $112 million; Vitti said that assumes a 92% collection rate.

Vitti said he has raised this issue with legislators. It is something that could affect every school district in the state.

“This makes no sense to me from an operating point of view, that you would put a school district in jeopardy of not having as much revenue as they should because of local property tax collection,” Vitti said during a May school board committee meeting. “This is 2026; we shouldn’t be funding school districts like this.”

How will tax incentives affect how much money the district receives for operating purposes?

Vitti said city incentives designed to boost economic development but which reduce tax revenue wouldn’t affect how much operating revenue the district receives, as long as the collection rate is 100%, because the state reimburses the abatements on the operating millage.

In a 2021 Detroit News opinion piece, the authors noted that communities “can offload the cost of their economic development deals onto taxpayers and schoolkids statewide. As a result, these deals receive less public scrutiny, because the state will make up most of the difference anyway.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

DPSCD adds five new schools to list of buildings with low enrollment, high costs

2026-06-30T18:40:02+00:00

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Five new schools have been added to a list of buildings the Detroit school district is monitoring for possible consolidation or closure due to challenges like high operating expenses, low enrollment, and underutilization.

Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti presented an annual report on the district’s small schools during a school board committee meeting on June 24. The report examines the program and operating expenses the 19 schools carry and how they surpass the revenue received through state and federal funding and grants.

The presentation was similar to one he gave last year outlining potential solutions that include merging schools, stepping up enrollment efforts, reconfiguring grades served, and investing in marketing.

The five schools added to the list for the 2025-26 school year include Palmer Park Prep Academy, Pasteur Elementary School, Gardner Elementary School, Chrysler Elementary School, and Thurgood Marshall Elementary, which is closing at the end of next school year.

Schools that were previously on the list but were removed include Mark Twain School for Scholars and four schools that closed earlier this month that the district identified for phase out in 2022: Ann Arbor Trail Magnet School, J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy, Catherine Blackwell Institute, and Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School.

The 18 other schools on this year’s list are not slated to close at this time, Vitti said.

“The schools on this list, all by varying degrees, the district supplements their budget based on the number of students enrolled at the school and the cost of running that school,” he said.

Below is a list of the schools on the list, not including those already being phased out:

Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men

Grades: 9-12
Enrollment: 61
Utilization rate: 5%
Revenue: $1,441,707
Expenses: $3,050,786
Cost per student: $50,013
Comparison school cost per student: $11,832
Potential solution: Reconsider bringing back sixth, seventh, and eighth grades since enrollment dropped when Frederick Douglass turned into a high school. Another option is moving the school within a high school building and operating it as a program within a school.

Davis Aerospace Technical High School at Golightly

Grades: 9-12
Enrollment: 112
Utilization rate: 15%
Revenue: $1,828,078
Expenses: $2,963,458
Cost per student: $26,459
Comparison school cost per student: $11,832
Potential solution: Monitor enrollment improvement closely and explore possibility of expanding course offerings to non-Davis students in a CTC model after relocation to City Airport if enrollment does not significantly improve.

DPSCD Virtual School

Grades: K-12
Enrollment: 196
Utilization rate: n/a
Revenue: $2,248,592
Expenses: $3,719,368
Cost per student: $18,976
Comparison school cost per student: $10,525
Potential solution: The district has expanded admission requirements to increase enrollment for special student circumstances.

Detroit International Academy for Young Women

Grades: K-12
Enrollment: 228
Utilization rate: 33%
Revenue: $3,817,804
Expenses: $4,742,678
Cost per student: $20,801
Comparison school cost per student: $10,525
Potential solution: Explore moving school and transition to a program within a larger high school building. Use the current DIA building (which was renovated) for Davison Elementary-Middle School.

Crockett Midtown High School of Science and Medicine

Grades: 9-12
Enrollment: 178
Utilization rate: 35%
Revenue: $2,830,968
Expenses: $3,518,370
Cost per student: $19,766
Comparison school cost per student: $11,832
Potential solution: Consider moving the program to an existing high school building as a program, or moving DIA and the Frederick Douglass Academy to the building.

Palmer Park Prep Academy

Grades: Pre-K-8
Enrollment: 359
Utilization rate: 61%
Revenue: $6,426,493
Expenses: $7,486,621
Cost per student: $20,854
Comparison school cost per student: $14,886
Potential solution: The district is adding two additional Montessori classrooms for the 2026-27 school year and expects enrollment to rebound as lower-grade Montessori students matriculate to middle school.

Detroit Lions Academy

Grades: 6-12
Enrollment: 388
Utilization rate: 83%
Revenue: $6,432,088
Expenses: $7,582,328
Cost per student: $19,542
Comparison school cost per student: $11,832
Potential solution: “Because the demand and need for alternative education settings are high, and because students at the school need smaller, supportive learning environments, continue to fund at current levels,” the report states.

Osborn High School

Grades: 9-12
Enrollment: 392
Utilization rate: 42%
Revenue: $5,756,220
Expenses: $6,819,521
Cost per student: $17,397
Comparison school cost per student: $12,691
Potential solution: Continue to provide prioritized enrollment support with a focus on ninth grade recruitment. The district may also consider the phaseout of Osborn after the new Pershing building opens.

Thurgood Marshall Elementary-Middle School

Grades: 1-8
Enrollment: 178
Utilization rate: 25%
Revenue: $3,774,262
Expenses: $4,187,111
Cost per student: $23,523
Comparison school cost per student: $13,705
Potential solution: School is phasing out and will close at the end of the 2026-27 school year with the new Paul Robeson Malcolm X building opening.

Pasteur Elementary School

Grades: Pre-K-6
Enrollment: 234
Utilization rate: 43%
Revenue: $4,289,113
Expenses: $4,736,304
Cost per student: $20,241
Comparison school cost per student: $13,705
Potential solution: Provide school with prioritized enrollment support, including a “Summer on the Block” event for current and potential families with door-to-door canvassing prior to the event in the surrounding communities.

Carstens Academy of Aquatic Science

Grades: Pre-K-8
Enrollment: 295
Utilization rate: 43%
Revenue: $5,060,494
Expenses: $5,555,271
Cost per student: $18,831
Comparison school cost per student: $13,705
Potential solution: The school will move into a new facility as part of the district’s facility master plan, which will reduce operating costs and increase enrollment.

Northwestern High School

Grades: 9-12
Enrollment: 284
Utilization rate: 31%
Revenue: $4,526,557
Expenses: $5,002,007
Cost per student: $17,613
Comparison school cost per student: $12,691
Potential solution: Consider a smaller and more modern building as a K-12 on the existing campus to emerge with Sampson-Webber Leadership Academy through a new district bond.

Pershing High School

Grades: 9-12
Enrollment: 444
Utilization rate: 22%
Revenue: $6,367,128
Expenses: $7,051,324
Cost per student: $15,881
Comparison school cost per student: $12,691
Potential solution: The school’s new building will increase enrollment and will have fewer seats and reduced costs, the report states.

Edison Elementary School (Montessori)

Grades: Pre-K-5
Enrollment: 289
Utilization rate: 88%
Revenue: $4,925,889
Expenses: $5,276,909
Cost per student: $18,259
Comparison school cost per student: $14,886
Potential solution: Phasing out of Montessori education will increase seat access to neighborhood students in addition to Pre-K expanding from one classroom to two, with a total of 36 seats, according to the report.

Edmonson Elementary (Montessori)

Grades: Pre-K-8
Enrollment: 307
Utilization rate: 63%
Revenue: $4,802,073
Expenses: $5,005,375
Cost per student: $16,304
Comparison school cost per student: $14,886
Potential solution: “As of May 2026, there are 215 new 1st choice applications submitted for Edmonson. Edmonson will be fully funded with 42 additional students,” the report states.

Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy

Grades: K-8
Enrollment: 268
Utilization rate: 74%
Revenue: $4,541,908
Expenses: $4,738,660
Cost per student: $17,682
Comparison school cost per student: $14,886
Potential solution: “The school is currently operating out of the former CMA, while a new building is constructed. When the school relocates back to its new building it should return to a balanced funding model,” the report says.

Detroit School of Arts

Grades: 9-12
Enrollment: 553
Utilization rate: 39%
Revenue: $7,431,525
Expenses: $7,850,424
Cost per student: $14,196
Comparison school cost per student: $11,832
Potential solution: DPSCD has continued to develop and expand the K-8 performing arts pathway schools, leading to annual increases in enrollment
at DSA. This will continue with the new K-8 Southwest performing arts school. The school needs to enroll 20 additional students to break even with expenses, the report says.

Gardner Elementary School

Grades: K-5
Enrollment: 211
Utilization rate: 55%
Revenue: $3,712,772
Expenses: $3,822,624
Cost per student: $18,117
Comparison school cost per student: $13,705
Potential solution: Provide school with prioritized enrollment support, including a “Summer on the Block” event for current and potential families with door-to-door canvassing prior to the event in the surrounding communities.

Chrysler Elementary School

Grades: K-5
Enrollment: 142
Utilization rate: 76%
Revenue: $2,535,488
Expenses: $2,593,725
Cost per student: $18,266
Comparison school cost per student: $14,886
Potential solution: “The small deficit was caused by increases in personnel costs due to teacher salary increases and the adjustment to MPSERS (Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System) reimbursements,” the report states.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Housing, groceries, and medical needs: Detroit’s Health Hubs helping to get kids to school

2026-06-29T10:00:00+00:00

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Upbeat on-hold music blared from Jerrica Mickens’ cellphone for nearly 50 minutes as she searched on her laptop for affordable housing for a parent in Detroit.

Mickens was on a three-way call with a mother and a legal aide hotline the morning of April 21 in her Central High School office. As the two waited for a representative to answer questions about the mother’s landlord troubles, Mickens asked what else her family needed. Did they want to pick up a box of groceries for the month? Did the kids need new clothes? Did anyone in the family need mental health services?

Mickens is one of nine “navigators” whose job is getting to know school communities and discerning their needs. They play a critical role in the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s 10 Health Hubs. Since launching in 2023, the hubs have contributed to improved attendance in the district and helped thousands of families, officials say.

DPSCD Health Hub navigator Jerrica Mickens poses for a photo.

Mickens’ time and care is often a lifeline for parents in survival mode. Sometimes, she said, families just need someone to listen.

“My passion is serving people,” said Mickens. “So if that’s what a person needs, then I’m gonna be here for that.”

The navigators lead parents through a complex web of district resources, social services, and nonprofit assistance they may not otherwise know how to access. Their offices serve as a one-stop-shop to triage the root causes that keep students from regularly attending school, such as poor health, unstable housing, and food insecurity.

At the hubs, students are connected with vision and hearing screenings, as well as medical, dental, and mental health care. The centers connect families with housing, utility assistance, and legal services. The school community can stop in for food and hygiene product distribution.

From July 1, 2023, through June 14, the hubs served families 19,200 times and more than 1,100 referrals were made.

“We know that for students to show up ready to learn and focus on their academics, their basic health and well-being needs must be met first,” said Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. “Schools are the natural, trusted, and most convenient hub for families to access these vital resources.”

DPSCD's 10 Health Hubs are distribution centers for hygiene products and food, as well as onsight health centers.

Prolonged absenteeism has long been a problem for Detroit schools due to systemic socioeconomic barriers, which in turn severely hinders students’ learning.

Michigan students are considered chronically absent when they miss 18 days or more in a 180-day school year.

Nearly 61% of the district’s students were chronically absent in 2024-25. Though the rate was considerably higher than the statewide average of 28%, DPSCD has outpaced the rest of Michigan in reducing absenteeism since the COVID-19 pandemic.

District officials attribute the improvement to many long-term efforts – like creating a culture of improving attendance among leaders, hiring more counselors to address mental health needs, and student incentives – but they believe the hubs are a key piece.

Students get lunch inside Osborn High School’s Health Hub.

Overall, the district’s chronic absenteeism rate decreased by 5.2 percentage points last year compared to 2022-23, the last year before the hubs opened. Academic performance has also improved, with third-grade reading proficiency and graduation rates reaching historic highs last year.

“K-12 students who accessed the Health Hubs during the 2024–25 school year had better average daily attendance and lower rates of chronic absenteeism than students who did not access the Hubs,” said Vitti, though he didn’t provide detailed numbers.

Jaiden Mabins' house burned down when he was a 10th grader at Osborn High School. Health Hub navigator Jerrica Mickens helped his mom find new housing close to the school.

Jaiden Mabins, who recently graduated from Osborn High School, said his attendance improved and his postsecondary plans were affected by Mickens’ work as a navigator at his school.

In 10th grade, Mabin’s home burned down, which meant moving in with his sister near 10 Mile – a considerable distance from his school on the east side of Detroit. The limited transportation options forced him to stay home many days, he said.

“Ms. Jerrica, she helped us find a new place, still close in the neighborhood for school,” said Mabins.

The navigator gave him new clothes, school supplies, and a laptop. When it came time to think about his post-high school options, she helped him fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Addressing Detroit families’ needs beyond the school day

At 11:50 a.m. at Central High School, 17-year-old Jeremy McKinney was led by a school employee through Mickens’ office door, held open by two stacked boxes of canned green beans overflowing from the hub’s food distribution pantry.

McKinney squinted when he introduced himself, struggling to see. His glasses had been stolen. The navigator got him on the waiting list to get a new pair from a nonprofit that regularly visits the school.

Around 185 pairs of glasses have been given to kids in the district since the hubs opened, according to DPSCD.

As Mickens got back to packing boxes of groceries for scheduled pick-ups, she paused periodically to answer calls from parents.

Jerrica Mickens updates case files at her desk at Central High School.

“Oh Lord Jesus, I hope I can help her,” she said of a mother whose house flooded. Once a new place was secured, Mickens said she knew an organization that would build new beds for the kids. She could also help them get gas cards to get to school and some clothing.

While DPSCD has always tried to fill gaps for students with attendance agents and wraparound services, district officials say the hubs streamline the process. Navigators have the time for deeper conversations with families and take detailed notes on their case files. They can also better track how the children are served by outside organizations beyond the initial referral.

All of the hubs are strategically placed so every school has a location within 3 miles.

Mickens is currently responsible for 10 feeder schools in addition to Central and Durfee Elementary-Middle School. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she travels to the other schools to get to know parent outreach coordinators, principals, and social workers who relay family needs.

There are currently hubs in 10 DPSCD schools – Central, Denby, Henry Ford, Marygrove, Martin Luther King Jr., Mumford, Osborn, Southeastern, and Western International high schools, as well as East English Village Prep Academy.

There will also be hubs at the new Cody and Pershing high schools when they open for the 2027-28 school year. There are plans for a Detroit Lions Academy location, though an opening date has not been set.

A sign outside of a DPSCD Health Hub provides information for students.

It costs around $500,000 a year to operate each hub, said Vitti. But because most of the expenses are covered by donations from community partners, the actual cost for DPSCD is around $172,000 a year per hub, he added.

Coordinated school health plan models in New York City’s school system and the Oakland Unified School District served as models for the district. Those districts reportedly saw improvements in attendance and academic achievement, as well as lower rates of student discipline.

A third-party evaluator is currently examining how the hubs affect DPSCD student attendance. It is expected to be complete in the fall.

Later that day at Central, Mickens grabbed two tuna snack packs and a chocolate milk for a teen boy in between classes.

The navigator asked if he’d filled out the dental exam permission slip she gave him days before. No, he said, because he wouldn’t be at the school for long.

She consoled the student after learning the reason he had to leave. “No judgment,” she said.

Mickens said she understands some of the challenges the students she serves face. She dropped out when she was a ninth grader at Central years ago.

“A lot of it was because of the disconnect of social services that I needed,” she said. “ I have a heart to not let kids go through what I have.”

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

How Detroit parents are searching for new schools amid uncertainty, closures

2026-06-05T14:44:29+00:00

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For Takiyah Pearson, the Barack Obama Leadership Academy has been an idyllic place to send her children, with its Afro-centric curriculum and family atmosphere.

But the charter school could close after this year, leaving her and other parents in a conundrum: Search for new schools now or take a wait-and-see approach that, if the school does close, could put them behind other parents also on the hunt.

“I am waiting every day,” Pearson said. “I want to know what’s going on now. I don’t want to wait until the last minute and find out they’re closing. It’s already stressful and very disheartening to know that this is even happening.”

As this school year comes to a close, some parents in Detroit are trying to find new schools for their children, navigating a complicated selection process that is often based on word of mouth and requires parents to learn about the plethora of educational options in the city. Parents and students also are grieving the loss of their current schools.

In addition to the uncertainty surrounding the Barack Obama Leadership Academy, which needs a new charter authorizer to stay open, four schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District are set to close at the end of the school year. Students’ last day is Friday.

Those schools include Ann Arbor Trail Magnet Academy, Greenfield-Union Elementary-Middle School, Catherine C. Blackwell Institute, and J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy. A fifth school, Thurgood Marshall Elementary-Middle School, is slated for closure at the end of the 2026-27 school year.

The district first announced in 2022 that it would begin “phasing out” the schools, which meant not enrolling new students and eliminating grades over time. District officials decided last year, as part of the district’s budget, to accelerate the timeline, citing the high cost of maintaining buildings with so few students.

Despite the advance notice these parents had, some are still weighing next steps for their children, whether that means enrolling them in the schools the district reassigned them to or finding new schools.

Marcus Langston is raising two granddaughters who were enrolled at Ann Arbor Trail, one an eighth grader who is moving on to Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School and a fifth grader who is currently on a waitlist at the School at Marygrove.

Langston said he’s interested in Marygrove because it’s not too far from his home in Rosedale Park and he likes its extracurricular activities, including sports teams, arts clubs, and robotics. He also has heard positive things about the support available to students, such as counseling and mental health services.

“I just heard it’s a good school with a lot of programs,” he said.

In the past, school closures in Detroit were traumatic

This year’s school closures mark the first time in more than a decade that this many schools have shut down in one year but is far short of the days when dozens of schools in Detroit would close each year.

Between 2000 and 2016, around 200 district schools closed because of low enrollment and budget deficits. During most of that time period, the district was under some form of state control.

Many of the decisions were made by emergency managers at the end of the school year, with little to no warning.

The closures were unsettling because of how attached students, staff, and families were to their schools, said Helena Lazo, the co-founder of education nonprofit 482Forward and a former Detroit district teacher and principal.

But it was a “complex situation,” she said, pointing to dramatic drops in the district’s enrollment over the years. In 2000, for instance, the district enrolled more than 160,000 students, compared to nearly 50,000 now. (The district has 72,000 available seats.)

School closures had some damaging consequences, as some parents fled the district and sent their children to one of the many charter schools in the city, or enrolled them in suburban school districts through Michigan’s Schools of Choice law.

Today, half of the school-age children in the city don’t attend district schools. Meanwhile, years of school closures left the city littered with vacant, abandoned school buildings. (The district has vowed to demolish the four schools that are closing.)

Concerns about enrollment persist, but under the current administration, the approach to closure decisions has been different. Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat in 2019 that he didn’t want to “replicate the sins” of district leaders who abruptly closed schools without listening to the community.

“Ten years ago, school closures happened a lot more frequently, and they would just lock the door and be like, ‘Good luck to you,’” said Maria Montoya, a Detroit parent and education consultant who has worked with schools in Michigan and nationwide on issues such as enrollment. “You might not even get any of your child’s things back. But what’s evolved for this is the fact that they’re telling people, ‘This is how you’ll get your placement and you will have this transportation.’”

Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School is one of four schools in the Detroit school district that are closing.

Lazo said she appreciated how the district handled this year’s school closures, especially that families were sent letters regarding the accelerated timeline, and students will have transportation to their new assigned school next year. But she thinks more engagement with families was needed.

“There’s always room for improvement,” she said.

Families grieve loss of closed schools

Trying to navigate the complicated process of finding a new school is difficult enough. But when schools close, many of those involved — children, parents, staff — go through a grieving process, Montoya said.

“Even if you’ve only been there (at a school) for one year or if you’ve been there for three, four years, there’s some sort of grieving process,” she said.

Tiffany Walls, whose daughter, a fifth grader, has attended the Obama charter since kindergarten, is still shocked that the school might close. Her father also went there, when it was called Timbuktu Academy of Science and Technology (the school name changed in 2020).

Even as her own life shifted — she lived for some time in Pontiac, then moved to Detroit’s west side — she kept driving her daughter to the school.

“I was dedicated to keeping her in some stability,” she said. “Although I moved, I didn’t want to keep switching schools with her.”

She isn’t sure what to do about her daughter’s placement for next year.

“I’m a part of this community, and just to take that away would be devastating, not only to me but to her too,” she said.

Cha-Rhonda Edgerson, CEO of the charter school, said school officials are trying to secure a new authorizer. She said they are under review with one, but it could be mid-August before that authorizer makes a decision.

“We are pushing forward and hopeful,” she said.

Because parents are grieving, they may wait until July or August to select a new school for their children, Montoya said, but families should create a plan as soon as possible.

Adero Jenkins is among the parents who haven’t made a decision yet.

When her daughter Amara was in first grade, Jenkins enrolled her in Ann Arbor Trail, a school she attended in the late 1990s when it was solely a middle school. With the school’s closure, Jenkins is disappointed that her daughter, now in sixth grade, won’t graduate from Ann Arbor Trail like she did.

Extracurricular options are an important factor in the decision – Amara played volleyball and did theater at Ann Arbor Trail, and she wants her to continue those activities.

Jenkins said she is expecting some recommendations from the district’s enrollment team. Wherever she goes, Jenkins told Amara to keep an “open mind.”

“Hopefully it’ll be a smooth transition,” she said.

Chalkbeat bureau chief Lori Higgins and reporter Hannah Dellinger contributed to this report.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Laurie Mermet is a freelance reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit.

Are you a Detroit parent looking for a new school? Read these tips on how to make the best choice.

2026-06-05T14:00:59+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy.

For a parent, choosing a school for their child can be difficult no matter where they live. But in Detroit, the city’s dizzying array of options can leave parents struggling to figure out the best one.

This year, more parents are looking for schools than usual, with the closure of four schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District and the uncertain future of the Barack Obama Leadership Academy, which could shut down if it doesn’t find a new charter authorizer.

Some parents will send their children to the closest neighborhood school assigned by the district. Others told reporters at Chalkbeat and BridgeDetroit that they are still weighing their options.

Those parents won’t be the only ones searching for new schools, however. Detroit has constant churn as parents new to the district look for the best options, and existing parents consider new schools because they’re either dissatisfied with where they are, or they just want a school that is a better fit for their children. Just last week alone, multiple parents who are moving into the city posted in a Facebook group for DPSCD parents seeking feedback from others.

Searching for schools in Detroit can be complicated. There is no centralized source of information on both DPSCD and charter schools, said Maria Montoya, a Detroit parent and consultant who has worked with students, families, and administrators in Michigan and nationally on education issues, including enrollment.

The Detroit district has a school locator, as well as a guide to each school in the district, information about district services and programming, and a school-by-school listing that includes QR codes to take readers directly to school websites. The Community Education Commission guide to Detroit schools has a link to a school locator, but it takes viewers to the DPSCD website and has no information about the city’s many charter schools.

“There isn’t a place that you can go that says, ‘okay, here’s all the preschools, here’s all the elementary schools, here’s all the middle schools, no matter who runs them,’ and so … you become an expert on your own, and it’s like you have to figure them out, you know, you’re just kind of going word of mouth, you’re going with, you know, whatever research you can find,” Montoya said.

To help parents navigate this process now and anytime during the year, Chalkbeat Detroit pored over what’s available from various sources, compiling the best tips for parents. The tips below come from interviews with experts, current and past guides produced by the Community Education Commission, the DPSCD guide for picking the perfect school, a guide for parents in Kent County who are exploring enrolling their children in a district outside their boundaries, and other sources.

Step 1: Interview yourself to understand your education priorities for your child

Before parents even begin a school search, they need to ask themselves some key questions so they can determine what their priorities are in a school, Montoya said. Answers to the questions can help a parent decide where to begin their search.

Before beginning a school search, parents should ask themselves questions to determine what their priorities are in a new school.

Some of those questions include:

What does my child need in a new school?
What are their interests?
What specific academic needs need to be considered when choosing a school?
Does the school location need to be near my home or work? Does it need to be near a relative’s home?
Is there a specific type of staff or curriculum I’m looking for? For instance, do I want a school that is focused on the arts, or language, or something else?
For students entering high school, do I want a school that will give my child access to advanced coursework such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes?

Step 2: Finding schools

The first thing to know is the landscape in which you’re searching. Detroit has a little over 100 schools run by DPSCD and about 80 charter school districts.

DPSCD has a number of schools that require either an application to enroll or an exam. Parents interested in these schools, some of which are highly sought after, should become familiar with application deadlines and testing dates. You can learn more here.

There may be no centralized way to find information about all public schools in the city, but there are some options.

On this DPSCD School Locator, you can type in your address and find what schools are nearby. You can also type in an intersection near where you live, or in an area of the city you’d prefer to find a school.

On this Michigan Department of Education map of public school academies (the formal name for charter schools), you can search for all charter schools in Detroit and they’ll show up on a map. Or, as with the DPSCD locator, you can type in an address or intersection and find which charter schools are nearby.

Step 3: Time to research schools

Once you have a list of schools you’re interested in, you will want to explore such metrics as how students perform academically, attendance rates, and staffing.

Researching schools is an important part of the school selection process.

MI School Data is Michigan’s official portal for education data. It’s easy to get lost in all of the information, but there is one spot designed especially for parents: the Parent Dashboard for School Transparency. Parents can search for schools and, when they find what they’re looking for, they’ll find a host of information, including data showing how well students perform academically compared to the rest of the state and similar districts, as well as how much improvement students have demonstrated.

Some other things you’ll want to be aware of: Not all schools follow the same schedule for opening up enrollment. Call the school office or check their websites to know the best time to enroll.

Step 4: Diving deep on possible schools

These 10 questions come courtesy of the Kent Intermediate School District in West Michigan. It’s designed for parents considering enrolling their children in districts outside their boundaries through Michigan’s Schools of Choice law:

Does the school and the community match your expectations? Are buildings presentable? Are teachers and students friendly?
What special services does the school offer? Does it offer the special needs or gifted and talented programming your child might require? Do the extracurricular and athletic offerings match your child’s interests?
Does the curriculum meet state and national standards? Does the curriculum help prepare children for the realities of the working world and the diverse people they will meet? Does the district offer special programming focused in areas of interest to your child?
How does the school integrate technology into the classroom? Is technology integrated into the curriculum? Does the school have a well-equipped media center?
How does the school communicate with families? Do the opportunities for parent involvement meet your needs and desires? Are parents involved in their children’s education?
What is the student-teacher ratio? Will your child get the attention he or she needs to succeed? Are students actively engaged in their education? Is there a sufficient mix of teaching and self-guided instruction to engage your child?
Will school or self-provided transportation meet your child’s needs? Will transportation capabilities allow your child to participate in the before- or after-school activities that meet his or her needs and interests?
Will there be consistency in the curriculum, the staff, and in your child’s friends from year to year?
How does the school handle disciplinary matters? What is the parent’s involvement in disciplinary matters?
What is the school doing to meet demands for improved student achievement? Are parents, teachers, and administrators actively involved in efforts to ensure curriculum and technology are current and appropriate for student needs?

Step 5: Visiting a school, talking to the principal

The following tips on visiting schools come from the Community Education Commission, and provide guidance on what to look for as you’re touring a school, and what questions to ask. Visiting a school is ideal, but it isn’t always possible.

A key part of the school selection process is talking to the principal and school employees to get a sense of whether it's a good fit for your child.

What to look for:

Does the school feel welcoming?
Is the building neat and clean? Do things appear to be in good working order?
Do you feel comfortable with the security measures in place? Does the location seem safe?
How are adults interacting with students?
What are students doing? Do they look interested and engaged?
What technology is available in libraries or classrooms?

Here are questions you should ask:

How are you working to make sure every child is learning and making progress?
How does the school support students who have academic, behavioral/emotional, or social difficulties? How will the school support my student’s needs?
What activities are available to students beyond the classroom?
How experienced are the teachers? How often do teachers get training?
How are parents involved in making decisions at the school?
What kind of homework will my student have?
How does this school keep students safe? What are the school’s discipline policies?
How would you describe the school culture?
How does the school communicate with parents? How often can I expect to hear from the school?
How does this school prepare students for college? For careers? (for high schools)
How does your counselor help students choose classes and make decisions about college, careers, and life after high school? (for high schools)

Step 6: Knowing what documents you need to enroll

Every school and district may have a different set of requirements. But here’s what kind of documents DPSCD requires for parents to enroll.

Parent/Guardian photo ID
Student’s birth certificate or birth record
Student’s immunization record or waiver
Student’s most recent transcript or report cards
Two forms of proof of address

This DPSCD flyer has more details about what’s required, as well as what counts as proof of address.

Step 7: Not a step, just more recommendations

Here are some additional tips from Montoya:

Some schools may already be full and offer only waitlists, but many are still looking to fill seats until Michigan’s school count day on Oct. 7. Families shouldn’t fear that being on a waitlist means their student will not get offered a seat because some students are waitlisted at multiple schools.
Some parents don’t need to see a school in action to feel comfortable enrolling their child. But others find seeing a building and classrooms critical. Most schools host summer enrollment events where families can explore classrooms, meet staff and connect with others to ask questions.
If there’s a school you have a particular interest in, give them a call and ask about upcoming events, any newsletters you might sign up to receive, or start to follow them on social media to receive any news about events they might have in the works or ways to connect with their team over the summer.
While events, lawn signs, and billboards in Detroit aim to attract families, word of mouth remains the main influence on where families choose to send their children. This approach is second only to a school’s reputation within the community. However, families need to understand the school’s current reality, as staff, academics, and culture can change. While seeking advice from your network is helpful, also ensure you have a clear picture of your child’s potential experience at the school.
If a parent finds that the school isn’t working well for their child or family, they should not feel stuck. Start by talking to the school staff to see if issues can be resolved. If nothing works, remember you don’t have to stay at a school that isn’t the right fit. However, Montoya advises families to avoid pulling their child out without having a new placement lined up, as this can cause them to miss important academic milestones.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Nearly 84% of Detroit district high schoolers were paid for attendance this year

2026-06-03T20:07:48+00:00

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Nearly 84% of Detroit district high schoolers were paid for coming to school this year, with far more students in neighborhood schools receiving the payout.

Roughly 12,800 Detroit Public School Community District students received at least one $100 Visa gift card for showing up to each class every school day in five-day cycles from Jan. 5 through March 20, according to the district. The district has 15,247 students enrolled across 26 high schools in the district. Students could earn up to $1,000 total.

The chronic absenteeism rate for the district’s high schoolers decreased by 10 percentage points this school year compared to 2023-24, before the incentive began. This year’s rate was 54% by the end of April compared to 64% in 2023-24, according to DPSCD.

The program began last year as part of the district’s ongoing campaign to curb chronic absenteeism, which is defined as a student missing 10% or more of days in a school year. That’s 18 days of instruction in a typical 180-day school year.

Schools in Detroit and other communities like it have long struggled with kids missing too much school due to systemic issues, such as poverty. Though DPSCD had a chronic absenteeism rate of 60.9% in 2024-25, the district has outpaced the rest of the state in reducing rates since the COVID pandemic.

More students were eligible for the attendance incentive this year in part because eligibility was calculated in one-week cycles, Superintendent Nikoali Vitti said at an April board committee meeting. Last year, students had to have perfect attendance in two-week cycles to receive the money.

DPSCD data shows the incentive reached far more students attending neighborhood high schools, compared to last year when the majority who received the money went to students at application or exam schools.

“That was something that was a challenge last year that definitely improved this year,” Vitti said.

For example, only 16% of students at Pershing High School got the incentive at least once in 2024-25. More than 62% of the school did in 2025-26.

Data shows the program largely supported students who already had good attendance, however, and those who were at risk of becoming chronically absent.

“It’s still not at scale getting at those students that are dramatically absent,” said Vitti.

DPSCD defines dramatic chronic absence as missing 45 days or more of school.

The district’s data tracks with what studies on attendance incentives suggest: Such programs do not address demotivating factors like unsafe routes to school.

Still, Vitti said the incentive has been a success overall in improving high school attendance.

“I think it’s also creating greater advocacy among their students themselves,” he said, adding that students are making sure their attendance data is correct and following up with their teachers, principals, and the superintendent.

The district recommended the program expand to include middle school students next school year in a budget proposal presented to the board last month. If the board votes to adopt the idea, students in grades 6-8 would get $50 for each week of perfect attendance January through March.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit made buses free for students, but getting to and from school is still hard

2026-05-14T20:42:55+00:00

This story was originally published by Outlier Media.

Detroit buses are now free to all of the city’s K-12 students, which means 10th grader Jessica Horton has a free pass to a long wait outside a liquor store after school.

It’d be a quick trip home if her parents could leave work to pick her up. Instead, Horton stands around with dozens of other students outside a liquor-lotto joint on the city’s eastside, hoping a bus will get her home in under an hour.

“We get out of school at 3:20 p.m. but we don’t get a bus until 3:55,” Horton said. “We’d have to get out of class before the bell” to make the 3:27 p.m. bus.

The city’s bus schedules are often woefully misaligned with school schedules. Pair that with a system-wide afternoon on-time rate that hovers near 70%, and it’s clear that Detroit Department of Transportation buses — effectively the primary public transit option for many high schoolers — have serious drawbacks.

Mayor Mary Sheffield took office with a promise to focus on the city’s youngest residents, and her administration quickly applied that lens to public transit. In April, the city launched a pilot program making bus rides free for students. Robert Cramer, executive director of transit for the city, said a conversation with students at Cody High School also pushed the department to improve its bus-tracking system.

Meanwhile, students still face long waits and poorly timed routes.

Consider Southeastern High School, where Horton is a student. The first bus scheduled to arrive at one of the closest stops arrives just minutes after school lets out. Most don’t make it in time, but a handful of students run out of class to catch it. Earlier this month, Outlier Media waited with a group of students for 30 minutes for the next bus.

Two students rush to catch the bus.

Cramer acknowledged the scheduling issues and said many of them could be fixed with simple changes. He hopes improvements will be in place by the time school starts next year.

“It takes a little bit of time … but if these are adjustments that we can make to reflect [the mayor’s] extra emphasis on educational outcomes and supporting students and their families, this should be a slam dunk.”

He said potential changes include schedule tweaks and assigning additional or larger buses to routes frequented by students.

Students are less likely to attend school consistently when they lack reliable transportation, research shows. Chronic absenteeism disrupts student learning.

A recent pilot program that provided yellow bus service to students at two Detroit high schools showed top district officials that better transit options at neighborhood schools would improve attendance rates.

Bus routes don’t match school schedules

Detroit high schoolers, like their peers in many major U.S. cities, have long relied on public transit to get to school.

But taking a bus to school got harder as the city careened toward bankruptcy in the 2010s. As the bus system shrank, Cramer said, routes and schedules that once favored students were left by the wayside.

An Outlier Media review of bus routes found that more than 40% of high schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District are served by buses that run infrequently or at times that poorly match school schedules. (See more about our methodology at the bottom of the story.)

And timing isn’t the only issue.

In the case of Southeastern students, dozens often crowd together waiting for the bus — more than a single city bus can handle.

“If they see a whole bunch of kids, they won’t stop for the ones that can’t fit,” said Aaron West, a 9th grader at Southeastern.

Problems can multiply when students need to transfer buses, which is common because many Detroit students attend high school far from home.

Transfers are often poorly timed, consigning students to long waits for a second or third bus.

“If they have to transfer, almost half the time they miss it, and then they have to call an Uber if they want to be on time,” said Lindsey Matson, deputy director of youth organizing at 482Forward, an education advocacy group.

“And they don’t have Uber money.”

How we reported this story

The findings in this story came from an Outlier Media analysis comparing Detroit city bus schedules to high school bell schedules in Detroit. Outlier used ChatGPT to generate a Python script for the analysis. See the code here.

The analysis included 23 Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) high schools. To simplify the analysis, charter schools were excluded, along with schools that may offer transportation or that operate on irregular schedules, such as career and technical education schools and the Jerry L. White Center.

We used publicly available location data for schools and city bus stops to calculate the four stops closest to each school. Schools are frequently served by more than one bus route, and each route has one stop for each direction of travel. Most schools had at least four stops within a quarter mile.

We collected bus schedule data through a DDOT API. We gathered bell schedules for each school from the DPSCD website.

We considered bus and school schedules to be misaligned if students had to wait at least 30 minutes before or after school: a conservative measure of inconvenience by public transit standards.

We excluded buses that arrived fewer than six minutes (the typical walk time from stops to schools in our analysis) before the first bell or after the last bell.

At eight of the 23 schools we analyzed, buses were scheduled to arrive 30 minutes or more before the first bell — or just a few minutes before the bell, with a long gap since the earlier bus. At seven other schools, students would have to wait at least 30 minutes after the last bell for the first available bus.The analysis does not account for the fact that DDOT buses are frequently late, which makes getting to school by bus even more of a challenge.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Outlier Media. You can reach him at koby@outliermedia.org.

If your child’s Detroit school is closing in June, we want to hear from you.

2026-05-06T21:40:52+00:00

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If you have a student at a Detroit school that will be closing soon, we want to hear from you! BridgeDetroit and Chalkbeat Detroit are partnering to document this challenging time for parents, students, and district staff.

Detroit Public Schools Community District is accelerating the timeline for closing J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy, Ann Arbor Trail Magnet School, Catherine Blackwell Institute, and Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School, to save between $10 million and $19 million. In addition, Barack Obama Leadership Academy — a charter school — will also close if school leaders are unable to find a new authorizer to oversee the school. DPSCD, the current authorizer, has opted not to renew the school’s contract. .

What we need from you: If you have a student going to one of these schools, please take this brief survey and share your information with us so reporters from Chalkbeat or Bridge can reach out to talk to you!

Know someone else who is impacted? Please share the survey with them too!

Chalkbeat Detroit and BridgeDetroit reporters are looking to talk to parents whose children's school is closing in Detroit. Scan the QR Code to access the survey.

Detroiters have seen mass school closures over the years due to declining population, the state’s emergency management of the district, and enrollment lost to neighboring charters and suburban districts. Since 2000, more than 200 school buildings have closed in the city.

During last year’s budget cycle, the district’s board voted to accelerate the closure of these four schools to save between $10 million and $19 million. The board also voted to speed up the planned phase-out of Thurgood Marshall Elementary-Middle School, though there are no plans for it to close this school year. This district has not said when Marshall will close.

The under-utilized buildings cost the district more money to operate than the revenue each brings in, officials said. The threat of federal funding cuts, demands for higher teacher pay, and inflation were all considered when district officials recommended closing the schools earlier.

Formerly known as Timbuktu Academy, the Obama school offers African-centric education to about 300 students in grades K-5. The school has been open since 1997 and is one of the oldest charters in Michigan.

The Detroit school board cited concerns over the school’s budget and transparency, as well as its teacher licensure rate. Some board members also commented on the school’s poor academic performance.

If the school can’t find a new authorizer, it will be forced to close. The school’s current contract ends June 30.

Lauren Abdel-Razzaq is the executive director at BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at lrazzaq@bridgedetroit.com.

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Detroit district: Yellow bus pilot improved attendance for Henry Ford High School students

2026-05-04T21:05:51+00:00

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The Detroit district began the school year with a $600,000 experiment: Would yellow bus service for high schoolers improve attendance?

As the school year wraps up, the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s data suggests it can – with caveats. A pilot program offering yellow bus service at two high schools – Henry Ford High School and East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney – produced different results.

The data indicates the pilot reduced chronic absenteeism for students who live near Henry Ford and frequently rode the bus, administrators said during a board committee meeting last week. The results were inconclusive for East English students, because few students participated, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said at the meeting.

“As we think about the budget process, I’m comfortable in saying that yellow bus services in a neighborhood school where there’s a larger concentration of students who live in the neighborhood can reduce chronic absences,” said Vitti.

The bus rides were only available to students who lived within the feeder pattern of the two high schools.

This likely reduced the number of riders at East English Village, Vitti said, because a smaller percentage of its students live near the school.

Board Chair LaTrice McClendon said during the meeting the district should also continue to search for transportation fixes for students on the east side, where population density is lower.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t still need to provide buses,” she said. “We need to think outside of the box.”

The district spent around $600,000 to run four buses twice a day at each of the schools for the entire school year, according to DPSCD. A total of 102 Henry Ford students rode the buses through April 2. Only 29 did at East English Village.

Ridership increased significantly at Henry Ford in the winter months, as the district expected. In November, an average of 15 students rode the bus every day.

Both schools had higher chronic absenteeism rates in the 2024-25 school year than the DPSCD average – 82% at Henry Ford and 77% at East English Village. The district’s overall rate was 60.9%.

Students are considered to be chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of days in a school year, or roughly 18 days of instruction in a typical 180-day school year.

City buses are the main mode of transportation for most Detroit high schoolers because DPSCD does not provide yellow bus service to most. Though city bus rides are now free for all Detroit students, service remains unreliable. Some students say it takes them hours to travel to school due to inconsistent schedules and inconvenient routes. Others report feeling unsafe while they wait at bus stops.

Yellow bus pilot results varied at the two schools

Most high school principals in the district want yellow buses for their students, Vitti said during last week’s committee meeting.

“I feel that the Henry Ford pilot can tell us that it’s worth exploring,” Vitti said. “I would not scale at every high school, but it is something to explore maybe at certain schools.”

The 59 Henry Ford students who rode buses more than 10 times reduced their chronic absenteeism by 8.5 percentage points so far in 2025-26 compared to the year before, according to DPSCD. The change represented the biggest reduction in chronic absenteeism of all student groups across ten neighborhood high schools, administrators said.

The 43 Henry Ford students who rode between one and nine times reduced chronic absenteeism by 7 percentage points, according to DPSCD.

The remaining 263 Henry Ford students who were in the boundary for bus pickup but did not ride at all increased their chronic absenteeism rates by 3.8 percentage points, the district said.

Another 141 students at Henry Ford were not eligible for rides because they lived too far away, DPSCD data shows. They represented about 27% of students at the school.

More than 300 East English Village students who were eligible for rides at the school never participated. Another 266, or 55% of students at the school, did not qualify for rides.

Only 18 East English students rode buses more than 10 times. Eleven rode between one and 9 times.

Board member Monique Bryant, who rode along on the buses with McClendon a couple of times, said during the meeting many of the East English Village stops were not in areas “conducive for students to walk.”

“We saw an overwhelming number of students being dropped off, or they were in vehicles waiting in those areas that were too dark, where there were abandoned houses,” she said.

Both Bryant and McClendon had concerns about the district’s data collection around bus riders, saying there were likely more students participating than were captured.

In order to continue the pilot or expand it to other schools, a majority of board members must approve the plans. The district has not made any formal proposals to do so.

Budget discussions for the 2026-27 school year will begin at next month’s committee meeting. The board must approve a budget by the end of June.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

DPCSD: Savings from mayor’s free student bus passes could fund after-school programs at three sites

2026-05-01T10:00:01+00:00

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Mayor Mary Sheffield wants the Detroit Public Schools Community District to use the money it previously spent on city bus passes to expand after-school programs.

But the money freed up in March when Sheffield made bus fare free for all Detroit students would only allow the district to add high-quality after-school programs at three pre-kindergarten through eighth grade schools, administrators said this week.

The mayor’s Ride to Rise program will save roughly $700,000 for DPSCD, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during the district’s April board meeting. It would cost $200,000 annually at each school to run programs serving around 120 students, five days a week, with a ratio of 15 kids to one staff member, Vitti said during a board committee meeting Wednesday.

The last time DPSCD explored the idea of paying for after-school programming at each of its K-8 schools was before the COVID pandemic. Vitti said Wednesday that the cost was too high for the district.

“We were looking at $20 million, and that’s why we walked away,” he said.

After the mayor asked DPSCD to consider using the free bus fare money for new out-of-school programs, Vitti said the district did an analysis to determine options with the greatest potential impact.

The district mapped out the current availability of after-school programs and identified schools with high rates of chronic absenteeism and lower enrollment since 2020, said Vitti.

The three schools selected — Ronald Brown Academy and Bow and Marquette elementary-middle schools — were chosen as sites that future investments would likely pay off, Vitti said.

The presentation was the first breakdown of how the district might allocate the funds and was not an official recommendation to the board, which has the final say. It will begin discussing the budget for the next school year at next month’s committee meeting and must approve a budget by the end of June.

Sheffield has made access to after-school enrichment one of her key priorities to improve education and outcomes for youth in the city. Her goal is for there to be a program within a 2-mile radius of every Detroit school. She also proposed $2.2 million in the city’s budget for such programs — an increase of 120% from 2025.

Many families in Detroit and southeast Michigan want their kids to have access to after-school programs, but only about 1 in 5 students do, according to a 2025 survey.

Years of research show after-school programming benefits school attendance, student behavior, and academic performance.

In Detroit, chronic absenteeism is high and academic performance lags behind statewide averages because of systemic barriers.

At the state level, legislators have also increased funds for before and after-school programs. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recommended increasing the grants to $135 million in the next budget. The state education budget has not yet been approved. The grants are awarded to specific after-school program providers.

Every DPSCD school offers after-school tutoring in literacy and math at the K-8 levels and SAT preparation for high schoolers.

But tutoring does not offer the kind of enrichment, social activities, sports, or social emotional development after-school programming does. Those activities give students opportunities to explore robotics, music, visual arts, and more. Providers say the programs help leverage kids’ interests into academic success.

Some DPSCD schools use their budgets to pay for their own programs, but the district does not allocate specific dollars to pay for them, Vitti said. Organizations also use philanthropic or state grants to offer programs at district schools.

Board Chair LaTrice McClendon asked officials during Wednesday’s meeting to put a call out to community organizations and nonprofits that may be able to provide programming at DPSCD schools.

Vitti agreed, but cautioned there are not many providers in the city with the funding or capacity to expand.

“We did dig into this during the pandemic, and it was disappointing. When you try to ensure for quality and the right number of staff-student ratio and the background to actually do it, there aren’t that many providers,” he said.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Parents say Detroit schools fail to complete special ed evaluations on time. Here is what the data shows.

2026-04-28T10:00:01+00:00

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Many students in the Detroit school district are not receiving special education evaluations within the time frame required by state and federal law, according to data shared last week with the school board.

Of the 1,680 evaluation referrals the Detroit Public Schools Community District received from the start of the school year through March, 72 were not completed on time and 728 are still in process, the data shows.

The numbers, which were given to board members during a study session, underscore what advocates and parents have said for years: that some students in DPSCD and other districts across the state are missing out on crucial services due to delays in the process.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said the district has improved its number of on-time evaluations, but it needs to continue to establish a “no-excuse culture” around evaluation times.

“The standard is 100% ,” he said of the requirements of the law.

District officials pointed to some circumstances beyond their control to explain the numbers. Lohren Nzoma, assistant superintendent of the Division of Exceptional Student Education, said some of the delays are due to conflicting parent schedules, difficulty getting in touch with families, and students moving schools or homes frequently.

LaTrice McClendon, the board’s chair, asked district administrators for a breakdown of how many students with pending evaluations are moving frequently and how many cases are delayed because parents can’t be reached.

“How many are in school, and also, how long have they been in process?” she said, asking if students are waiting for “six months, a year, two years” to receive an individualized education program, or IEP, which maps out the educational needs, goals, programs, and services schools will provide students with disabilities.

District administrators did not have the information available at the meeting, but told board members they would follow up to provide it. If evaluations are not completed on time due to situations out of the district’s control, Vitti said those reasons need to be better documented at the school-level.

An initial evaluation is a comprehensive assessment conducted by a multidisciplinary team to determine whether a child is eligible for an IEP.

Initial evaluations may be requested by parents, school staff, or public agencies when a child displays signs of having a disability. If a district requests the evaluation, a parent must provide consent for it to move forward, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Districts must complete evaluations within 30 school days.

The law allows the timeline to extend beyond 30 days when parents agree in writing before the initial deadline.

As the number of students diagnosed with disabilities has increased in DPSCD and across the state, districts have struggled to hire enough staff to keep up with demand for evaluations. National staffing shortages and inadequate state funding for special education compound the problem, Vitti said.

“The fact is, in the state of Michigan, we are not appropriately funding [special education],” he said.

The district estimates that its special education costs this school year will total more than $214 million. Local, state, and federal grants will bring in around $179 million for special education. The district will have to use more than $34.9 million from its general funds to fill the gap.

Vitti attributed some of the district’s improvements to hiring more school psychologists and speech language pathologists earlier this school year.

Corletta Vaughn, vice chair of the board, said she hears from parents that the district does not follow up about pending evaluations for long periods of time.

“People are saying that, and what’s going to happen is we’re going to do better at communicating with our families,” Nzoma said.

Here is a breakdown of the district’s data on evaluations:

Administrators said they expect about 65% of the 728 pending initial evaluations to be done on time, while some others will get extensions.
Of the 811 complete initial evaluations this year, 637 were done on time and 102 were given permissible extensions.
Around 1,095 students who have already been identified as needing an IEP were not reevaluated on time this school year through March, up 16% from the same time in 2024.
There was a 48% decrease in the number of late annual IEP evaluations through March this year compared to the same time in 2024. Still, 249 were not completed on time.
Nearly 18% of the complaints parents filed against the district with the state stem from delayed responses to requests for initial evaluations. Another 7% of the complaints are from parents who say their children’s reevaluations were not done on time.

Changes to DPSCD’s special education system

This school year, the district revamped special education with centralized hubs at neighborhood schools. The change increased the number of self-contained classrooms from 174 to 185. Students with disabilities receive instruction and services in self-contained classrooms while they attend general education schools.

According to the district, the change streamlined administrative processes and led to stronger compliance in evaluations.

The district has reduced vacancies for special education staff from more than 100 in 2018 to as few as four at the start of the 2025-26 school year, according to DPSCD.

Recruitment and retention efforts, such as a $15,000 incentive to keep special education staff in the district, as well as programs for current staff to earn new certifications, have driven the change, Vitti said.

The main area the district still needs to improve, said Vitti, is customer service.

“We have to treat all parents better, but we have to be particularly more empathetic with our [special education] parents,” he said. “They are struggling more than the general ed students. They have more questions, they have more issues, they have more concerns.”

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

These 4 Detroit district schools are closing. What will happen to their students?

2026-04-16T21:00:58+00:00

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One yellow bus dropped off several students outside of J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy early Thursday in the Morningside neighborhood.

The kids filed into the school through a gothic arched doorway at the front of the large building on Detroit’s east side. The only sounds on the street were the muted chatter of a couple of kids who walked themselves to school and several cars stopping to drop off students. A staff member blew a single whistle to signal the start of school at 7:30 a.m.

Jaqueisha Loyd watched her three children go off to class. They all started kindergarten at Clark. The mother will need to find new schools for all of her kids after the school year ends June 5, when the school is set to permanently close and eventually be demolished.

Clark and three other schools have been on the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s list of phase-out buildings for four years, but district officials moved up the timeline in part because of budgetary concerns. That news, shared in letters in February, has brought complex feelings for some families and staff members.

Loyd said she wishes things were different. She values having a traditional public school in her neighborhood.

“I would love for it to stay open,” she said.

During last year’s budget cycle, the district’s board voted to accelerate the closure of Clark – along with Ann Arbor Trail Magnet School, Catherine Blackwell Institute, and Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School – to save $10 million-$19 million. The board also voted to speed up the planned phase-out of Thurgood Marshall Elementary-Middle School, though there are no plans for it to close this school year. This district has not said when Marshall will close.

There was not a date set for the closures when the district’s board voted to phase them out in 2022, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat in an email. The original plan was for each lower grade to be phased out and for grade levels with fewer than 10 students to be eliminated.

Staff at the closing schools will be reassigned to other positions in the district, Vitti said.

All four school buildings are set to be demolished, according to last year’s budget presentation. The district has not shared a timeline for demolition.

About 330 students total have been affected across the four schools. Their families should have received letters in February letting them know their new assigned neighborhood schools for the upcoming school year. Students, however, may attend any neighborhood school in the district they choose, though transportation isn’t guaranteed.

They may also opt for a DPSCD application or examination school, as well as choose to leave the district for a suburban district or charter school.

Nearly 25% of school-age children in Detroit attend a charter in the city, according to DPSCD data based on 5-Year American Community Survey estimates from 2023. Another 17% go to charters outside of Detroit and 10.6% are in traditional school districts in the suburbs. More than 39% attend DPSCD.

At the beginning of the 2025-26 school year, DPSCD enrolled about 49,400 students, state records show. Enrollment fell significantly during the COVID pandemic, and the district has not yet fully recovered its numbers.

Here are details about the closing schools.

Ann Arbor Trail Magnet School at 7635 Chatham St. in northwest Detroit enrolled 51 students at the start of the school year, according to state data. There are 21 total staff members, including 10 teachers. The district estimates that it lost about $15,000 a student by running Ann Arbor Trail in the 2024-25 school year, according to a DPSD report. Students’ new assigned neighborhood school is Dixon Educational Learning Academy, about 1.4 miles away.
Catherine C. Blackwell Institute at 9330 Shoemaker St. on Detroit’s east side enrolled 61 students at the start of the school year. The school employs 21 total staff members, including 10 teachers. The school operated at a loss of about $8,000 a student in 2024-25, according to DPSCD. Students’ new assigned neighborhood school is Hutchinson Elementary-Middle School at Howe, about 2.2 miles away.
J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy at 15755 Bremen St. enrolled 83 students at the start of the school year. The school employed 23 total staff members, including 10 teachers. It operated at a loss of around $3,000 a student in 2024-25, according to DPSCD. Students’ new assigned neighborhood school is Hamilton Elementary-Middle School, about 1.7 miles away.
Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School at 420 W. 7 Mile Road on the north end of Detroit had 138 students at the beginning of the school year. There are 29 staff members, including 13 teachers. The school operated at a loss of about $2,506 a student in 2024-25, according to DPSCD. Students’ new assigned neighborhood school is Nolan Elementary-Middle School, about 1.6 miles away.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit district to accelerate closure of four small schools amid financial constraints

2026-04-15T21:31:00+00:00

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The Detroit school district will close four schools at the end of this school year, officials confirmed Wednesday.

All four schools – Ann Arbor Trail Magnet School, J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy, Catherine Blackwell Institute, and Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School – had previously been identified to be phased out in 2022 by the Detroit Public Schools Community District due to low enrollment and high operation costs.

District officials originally planned to stop enrolling new students at the schools, phasing out grades over time to minimize disruption to families. But Superintendent Nikolai Vitti indicated during Tuesday’s board meeting that the plan had changed because of budgetary concerns.

“When we looked at the budget and the threats at the federal level, increased inflation, need to continue to increase wages for all of our employees with an upcoming bargaining season, we said, ‘How do we maximize our costs and still help children?’” Vitti said. “And one way we did that was to accelerate the phase-out of the original phase-out schools.”

These 4 Detroit district schools are closing. What will happen to their students?

Vitti only mentioned one of the four schools during Tuesday’s meeting — Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School. DPSCD spokesperson Chrystal Wilson confirmed to Chalkbeat on Wednesday that four schools, including that one, will close at the end of June. The last day of the school year is June 5.

District officials did not immediately respond to questions about when families were notified of the accelerated school closures.

Rudaina Kainaya, a middle school science teacher at Greenfield, told Chalkbeat the school’s principal shared the news of the closure last month during a staff meeting. Staff were told they will be placed in other district positions, she added.

The board meeting Tuesday was marked by shouts of frustration from the crowd and a tense exchange between board members. Security circulated the auditorium at Renaissance High School to warn audience members to settle down. At one point, an officer appeared to ask a mother to leave but stopped at the direction of Board Chair LaTrice McClendon.

None of the schools were on the meeting agenda, but some of Greenfield’s teachers and parents showed up for the public comment portion of the meeting.

Kainaya, who spoke during public comment, said staff members at Greenfield were originally told the school would close one grade level at a time.

“Dr. Vitti said that even if we had 10 students left [per grade] at that time in 2022 and 2023, they would phase out that last year for those students as eighth graders,” she said.

Vitti said the district did stick to that promise for the higher grades at Greenfield and has given families time to move their children to other schools. He added that he was troubled by the public comment, because the closures have been discussed for several years.

“It’s disingenuous to come to the mic tonight and say we didn’t know the school was going to close,” he said.

But he acknowledged that the accelerated closure plan is new.

Mass school closures in the district – both before and after the state’s period of emergency management – enraged many families over the years and prompted some to abandon the school system.

In 2019, Vitti told Chalkbeat the district would not “replicate the sins of the past,” and he would take a different approach to closures than previous administrations.

“We would phase schools out and phase grade levels out rather than abruptly closing schools,” he said. “But part of this process has to be rightsizing the district. We have too many open seats.”

There are 15 other schools the district says cost more to keep open than the revenue they generate, according to a 2025 report.

“This is a districtwide challenge that is not going away,” Vitti said during Tuesday’s meeting.

Former board member LaMar Lemmons, and others who spoke during public comment, said school closures are a reflection of the district’s failure to grow enrollment.

Vitti said low enrollment is a long-term problem stemming in part from Detroit’s population decline and the fallout of the state’s emergency management of the district.

When emergency management ended, the district enrolled about 45,700 students. The numbers increased by more than 5,000 the following year when Vitti took the helm. However, enrollment declined during the COVID pandemic, and the district has not yet fully recovered its numbers.

At the beginning of the 2025-26 school year, there were around 49,400 students, state records show.

Community support for a charter school with an uncertain future

Dozens of community members also spoke during Tuesday’s meeting to urge board members to renew a one-year contract for Barack Obama Leadership Academy.

Four board members, who were present during a committee meeting last month, decided not to put a vote on the Obama charter on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting – a move that likely means the charter would not be approved by the district to operate for another year. At the time, some members said the charter had received multiple warnings that it needed to improve its academic performance and had not shown enough growth.

If the board does not approve a new contract by June 30, the charter will either have to rush to find a new authorizer or face closure.

Michigan charters must sign a contract with an outside body, known as an authorizer, in order to operate. DPSCD, like other school districts, colleges, and universities, can serve as an authorizer. Its role is to monitor the schools’ compliance with education laws.

The district currently authorizes six charters, excluding the Obama school. One more is expected to open in the fall.

Cha-Rhonda Edgerson, CEO of the charter, said during Tuesday’s meeting that the school wanted a final one-year contract with DPSCD to allow enough time to find a new authorizer.

“This is not a request to reverse the course indefinitely,” she said. “We’re asking for the opportunity to continue serving our students while we complete that transition in a thoughtful and structured way.”

During public comment, Tiffany Walls, a parent at the school, described the charter as a community hub and safe haven.

“A school is more than just a list of test scores,” she said. “It’s a vital pillar of the community.”

It is unclear whether the board will revisit the matter at its next committee meeting on April 29 or if it will be on the agenda of the regular board meeting on May 12.

A tense exchange among board members

At the start of the meeting, board member Ida Short asked to make changes to the agenda related to school closures and the Obama charter’s contract.

She said she wanted to “plan a way in which agenda items can be provided by individual board members, so that it does not matter who is the president or not the president, because we’re all equal members.”

McClendon, the board chair, said that “any board member at any time can add an agenda item.” She encouraged Short to attend the board’s committee meetings, where policy is discussed and agendas for regular board meetings are decided.

“I know you’ve missed the last two meetings, but that is the place where you can discuss [policy],” she said.

Short responded, “If I don’t attend any meeting, it means that I have something personal that’s very important.”

Later in the meeting, Short asked about another agenda item, and McClendon responded that the item was discussed at length during the last committee meeting, including the answer to Short’s question.

She suggested Short go back and listen to a recording of the committee meeting.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Report: Many Metro Detroit families want their kids in after-school programs but don’t have access

2026-04-13T10:00:00+00:00

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Ajia Phillips sometimes had no choice but to keep her daughter home from school.

On days when she worked 14-hour shifts as a kitchen manager, Phillips couldn’t get to Beacon Elementary School in the Harper Woods School District by 3:10 p.m. dismissal. Traveling by bus also made her arrival time unreliable. And sometimes the cost of the school’s “latchkey” program was too high for the family. As a result, her first grader, Marley Tucker, had to stay home with her aunt or uncle.

“I can’t leave her stranded at school,” said Phillips, who lives in Harper Woods, a Wayne County city that borders Detroit.

Now that Marley is enrolled in the new free Out-of-School Time program at Beacon offered by the nonprofit Sound Mind Sound Body, Phillips said her daughter’s attendance has improved.

Beacon Elementary School students paint during the Sound Mind Sound Body after-school program.

Many families in southeast Michigan want their kids to have access to similar programs – but only about 1 in 5 do, according to a 2025 survey released last month by the national nonprofit Afterschool Alliance.

Parents of about 500,000 kids in the region are interested in after-school programs, but only about 90,000 children are enrolled, according to the survey. In Detroit, the need is similar. Parents of about 101,000 children in the city want their kids in programs, while only about 20,000 are enrolled. (Data specific to Harper Woods was not available.)

The findings are based on answers from 1,146 households in southeast Michigan, and the projections made by the nonprofit are based on U.S. Census Bureau 5-year estimates made in 2022.

After-school programming has a number of benefits, including improvements in school-day attendance, student behavior, and academic performance.

In communities like Detroit, where 84% of students come from low-income homes, chronic absenteeism has long been an issue due to systemic barriers, such as inadequate transportation and parents’ inflexible work schedules. Academic performance in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, as well as in city charters and suburban districts where high percentages of Detroit students are enrolled, has lagged behind statewide averages for years.

Mary Sheffield, Detroit’s new mayor, has made after-school access one of her administration’s key priorities.

During her first State of the City address, Sheffield said her goal is to have an after-school program within a 2-mile radius of every Detroit school. She said she will increase the city’s budget for after-school programming to $2.2 million, an increase of 120% from the year before. Her administration has also made bus travel free for all students in the city, and Sheffield said she is advocating for DPSCD to take the money it previously spent on bus passes and direct it toward after-school programs.

Denzel McCampbell, Detroit City Council member representing district 7, said he is working with the mayor’s office to identify how the additional funds could have the greatest effect. He’s heard from existing program leaders and his constituents that not every Detroit family is keyed into the resources available.

“What I’m particularly focused on is how do we reach the kids that we’re not interacting with on a regular basis?” McCampbell said.

Students find motivation, purpose after-school

Bryan Jordan, 16, of Harper Woods, said he didn’t have much motivation to come to school once football season ended.

Now that he’s in the Sound Mind Sound Body, or SMSB, program at Harper Woods High School, Jordan said he has a reason to show up to class ready to learn. The program extends coaching, team building, and mentoring for football players through the rest of the school year.

He and many of his teammates get to school by 6 a.m. for weight training and stay well after the school day ends. They get training on how to apply for college, financial aid, and potential career paths.

Harper Woods High School students work out during the Sound Mind Sound Body after-school program.

“They make it cool to come around, conversate, laugh, have fun, focus on our work, focus on bonding as a team,” Jordan said.

Ray Lanlyons, an attendance agent for Harper Woods, said early data suggests the program has improved attendance for most of the boys.

For the 27 students enrolled in the SMSB program, average daily attendance improved from around 69.2% at the beginning of the school year to 81.7% since the end of January, Lanlyons said.

Curtis Blackwell II, founder and president of SMSB, said the organization’s many programs in 27 schools across the region, including in DPSCD, are designed to leverage kids’ interests to succeed in school — whether it be robotics, video games, sports, music, or art.

“It encourages young people to dream bigger and to feel like school has a meaning,” Blackwell said.

Cost, location are barriers for kids to attend after-school programs

Unique Reid, a Detroit resident whose son attends SMSB at Beacon, said the cost of other programs was prohibitive.

“We try to minimize all the bills that we pay, especially as single mothers,” she said.

The average cost for after-school programs in Detroit is around $98 a week, according to the Afterschool Alliance.

Unique Reid, left, and Ajia Phillips, right, pose for a photograph at Beacon Elementary School.

In addition to cost, a lack of availability, not enough safe transportation options, and inconvenient site locations also keep kids out of programs, said Jen Rinehart, senior vice president of strategy and programs at the Afterschool Alliance.

In order to make programs more accessible, Rinehart said the city will need to address all of those factors.

Michigan and Detroit leaders have begun to address some of the obstacles.

Last year, the state allocated $75 million in out-of-school time learning grants – including nearly $4 million to SMSB. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recommended increasing the grants to $135 million in the next budget.

Though the recent increases have allowed SMSB to expand, Blackwell said his organization doesn’t have enough resources to meet the demand. For example, in Southfield, nearly 120 students asked to be in the program. They were only funded to serve 40, he said.

Some of the city’s plans are to better resource existing programs, said McCampbell.

“What I’m hearing a lot from programs is we would love to do more, we could do that if we had more (funds),” he said.

Another avenue to having a greater effect, McCampbell said, is to find innovative ways to get the word out about existing programs. The city, schools, and community organizations can partner on outreach, McCampbell added.

“Let’s meet folks where they are,” he said. “They may not come to a community meeting, they may not read a newsletter, but they may hang out at the park.”

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Free bus fare for students prompts discussion on whether Detroit has enough welcoming spaces for youth

2026-04-08T18:47:19+00:00

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Detroit City Council members are advocating for more inclusive spaces for youth in the city’s core in the wake of a new program offering broad access to free bus rides.

The need for more welcoming spaces was raised Monday by City Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero after a series of public commenters shared concerns for and about youth during the council’s Public Health and Safety subcommittee meeting.

The city this month launched the “Ride to Rise” program, offering Detroit students ages 5 to 18 at public, private, or charter schools free Detroit Department of Transportation — or DDOT — bus rides seven days a week, at any time. All they have to do is show their school ID. The initiative is expected to help students get to school more consistently and to access after-school activities.

In recent days, Detroit saw an influx of visitors for the Detroit Tigers’ opening day as well as a surge of young people downtown, which resulted in some being detained by officers.

Santiago-Romero said she was concerned that youth were “overpoliced downtown” over the weekend and she’s eager to talk with Mayor Mary Sheffield’s administration about how officials and law enforcement can better support and engage with youth.

“Because, let’s be honest, downtown does become a place for adults to come and drink but we need to have a welcoming place and inviting space for youth as well,” she said.

She also said discussions on wraparound services for young people as well as “deescalation training” are necessary, “not just for young people but for all of us.”

“This is going to be another cultural shift that we need to do in embracing our young people downtown,” she said. “After budget (deliberations) we will invite the administration’s dedicated person for youth to share with us some plans they have for the summer. We know for the summer people are outside and we want to make sure that people are safe.”

Santiago-Romero suggested that the city consider using Hart Plaza as an organized gathering space for young people.

“That usually is not a space that is as active as I believe it could be,” she said.

Campus Martius, Santiago-Romero said, is essentially roped off and not welcoming for individuals under 21.

“We need a space where you’re not roped off for being young,” she said. “We have a lot of space and we have a lot of downtown. I think we can do this.”

Detroit transit ambassador Michael Cunningham praised Sheffield for the “awesome” free bus offering for students, but he doesn’t expect the rollout to be without challenges.

Cunningham said it will be important to have a surplus of volunteers on hand, restrictions on days and times for the bus travel and signage for folks who need to report any problems that might arise, especially in the summertime and later at night.

“I’m not saying our youth are bad, but … some of them have no respect for elders at all like we did,” he said.

Transit unit to address safety concerns for kids

DDOT Executive Director of Transit Robert Cramer told BridgeDetroit on Monday, following a press conference about the Ride to Rise program, that the Detroit Police Department has a transit unit with officers who can be deployed.

“If we hear, ‘Hey, there’s a certain bus at a certain time where it seems like there’s more trouble or kids are feeling less safe,’ then we could have more random boardings come onto those buses,” he said.

The longer-term idea, however, is to develop an “ambassador program” — adults who would ride buses to help students feel more secure — and potentially collaborate with Community Violence Intervention, social service groups, crossing guards, or DDOT staff.

Students were able to access the free DDOT rides on April 1, during spring break. The more formal launch was April 6, when the school session resumed, according to the city.

Councilman Denzel McCampbell on Monday echoed Santiago-Romero’s concern for embracing youth who visit downtown, noting that unlike the malls, arcades and skate parks of the past, there aren’t enough places for young folks to gather and have fun today.

“We need to increase more opportunities for young people and the other aspect is how we react to young people as they gather,” said McCampbell, pointing to the importance of Community Violence Intervention groups, peer educators, and others. “We need more of these folks to say, ‘Hey, do you need anything?’”

McCampbell said he too is looking forward to conversations with the administration on what can be done to give young people more to do and to ensure “we’re not penalizing them for also wanting to be a part of what we all have been taking part in downtown.”

An inquiry to the Detroit Police Department about detainments and tickets for youth over the weekend was not immediately returned.

Council Member Mary Waters, who also serves on the Public Health and Safety Committee, said the downtown was “electric” over the weekend, and that she hopes that tickets weren’t given out to young people.

“The young people were everywhere. The city felt alive. I am not anti having young people out,” she said. “I hope this is something we can figure out … so they can feel they are a part of this downtown and this Detroit. We’ve got to make it happen for them. Otherwise, they go to other cities and we lose them.”

Reporter Nushrat Rahman contributed.

Christine Ferretti is the managing editor for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at cferretti@bridgedetroit.com.

Detroit students to be able to ride city buses for free starting Wednesday

2026-04-08T15:30:36+00:00

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Students across Detroit will be able to ride city buses for free in a new program the city council approved Tuesday.

The Ride to Rise program is being launched Wednesday in part to address high rates of chronic absenteeism of Detroit students attending schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District and charter schools.

In her proposal to the council last week, Mayor Mary Sheffield said the free bus passes will also expand access to safe and reliable transportation, extracurricular activities, employment opportunities, and supportive services.

Sheffield, during her State of the City address Tuesday night, described the program as a “show your ID, ride for free” program.

It’s unclear how much it will cost.

“This is an opportunity for us, under Mayor Sheffield’s leadership, to learn more about how transit and DDOT in particular can work more effectively for students and their families,” Detroit Department of Transportation Director Robert Cramer said during the council meeting on Tuesday. Cramer said DDOT will also seek feedback about bus routes, schedules, bus stop changes, and amenities.

Cramer said they’ll present the feedback to the council and possibly submit an ordinance amendment to change the fare system and create a longer-term program in September or October when students return to school.

DPSCD doesn’t provide yellow school bus transportation for high school students, though exceptions are made, including for students with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness. The district does pay for bus passes for high school students who want them.

The district won’t have to pay for the city bus passes during the pilot. DPSCD “is working on plans to reinvest that funding in strategies that expand our work in improving student attendance and enrollment,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said.

Sheffield was more specific during her Tuesday evening speech, saying the city “reached an agreement in principle with the board and the superintendent so that the money currently spent on bus fare for students will now go towards much-needed after-school programs.”

Vitti said in an emailed statement that the district supports the city’s effort “to empower youth to use citywide transportation without cost or barriers.”

“This investment by the City will create greater awareness and access to citywide transportation,” Vitti said. “We believe this will support the District’s efforts in promoting stronger student attendance citywide.”

Transportation has long been a challenge for Detroiters, and it’s particularly so for families trying to navigate a range of options: yellow school buses, city buses, ride share services, their own transportation, or relying on others to get their children to school. Those challenges have made it difficult for many children to get to school regularly.

About one-third of families in Detroit don’t own a car, and 30% don’t have a reliable way to get their children to school every day, according to a report on transportation from Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research, or Detroit PEER, at Wayne State University. Researchers there have done extensive research on chronic absenteeism and its causes.

Half of the school-age children in Detroit attend DPSCD schools. The rest attend charter schools or suburban schools. While many of the city charter schools provide some form of transportation, parents often have to get their kids to a preset location for them to hop on a bus.

“Transportation is one of, if not the most important issue for student attendance in Detroit,” said Jeremy Singer, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Michigan-Flint and research affiliate at Detroit PEER.

Singer said the mayor’s initiative is an admirable way to tackle a challenge that schools can’t solve. He hopes the city goes further by addressing safety issues on city buses and at bus stops, as well as the frequency and reliability of bus service.

In a survey Detroit PEER completed in 2022, 40% of parents said free DDOT rides would be at least somewhat helpful. High school parents were more likely to say it would be helpful.

Among the transportation recommendations Detroit PEER made in its report last year:

The city should work with Detroit schools to coordinate public transit schedules and stops with public school schedules and locations.
DDOT should collect better data on public school students who ride public transportation to better understand their schedules and needs.
The city should work with local schools to increase safety, lighting, and complete sidewalks so more children can walk or bike to school when they live close enough.

Few students now are taking DDOT buses daily to get to school, Singer said.

Results from the 2022 survey showed that just 10% of parents said their children rode DDOT to get to and from school. Broken down by grade level, 18% of parents of high school-aged children said their kids sometimes took DDOT, compared to 6% for parents of K-8 children, Singer said.

For parents of high school-aged students, 8% said their children rode DDOT daily, 4% said they rode DDOT weekly or monthly, and 6% said they rode DDOT infrequently, Singer said.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note, April 8, 2026: This story was updated to reflect a slight change in the name of the program since the city council approved it last week.

Muslim Detroit students say district rule is unfair for those observing a major holiday

2026-03-20T20:26:08+00:00

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As the sound of fireworks boomed around Detroit neighborhoods to mark the end of Ramadan Thursday night, Humayra Ahmed stayed up late weighing a heavy decision.

The 17-year-old had not yet decided if she would miss school at Cass Technical High School the next day to observe the sacred Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. If Ahmed didn’t go to school on Friday, she would not be eligible to receive a $100 perfect attendance incentive from the Detroit Public Schools Community District. She said she needs the money to cover the costs of activities for the end of her senior year.

Ahmed and other Muslim students in the district have expressed frustration over missing out on the attendance incentive for observing Eid, which can be celebrated for up to three days. The observances commemorate the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting, prayer, gatherings, and time with family. Eid is not recognized in the district’s calendar this year, despite years of student advocacy. However, observance is considered an excused absence.

“We’re not asking for the whole month off for Ramadan – it’s one day to celebrate with family and feel closer to God,” said Ahmed. “We still continue to show up to school while we are fasting to get the work done and score good grades.”

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in an email the district is “committed to including Muslim holidays in the calendar next year.” He added that will depend on factors outside of the district’s control, such as union negotiations.

The holiday is based on the Islamic lunar calendar, which means it falls on a different day each year.

The district’s attendance incentive began last year as one of its efforts to combat chronic absenteeism, which is defined as a student missing 10% or more of the days in a school year. In a typical 180-day school year, it amounts to about 18 missed days of instruction.

Students missing too much school due to systemic barriers such as inadequate transportation, chronic illness, and parents’ work schedules has long been an issue for communities like Detroit, where 84% of students come from low-income homes.

Last school year, nearly 61% of DPSCD students were chronically absent.

This year, students who showed up to each class every school day for a week got $100 Visa gift cards. There were 10 weeks students could get the incentive this year, giving them a chance to earn up to $1,000. This week is the last of the incentive, which is given in the winter and early spring months when attendance tends to drop due to inclement weather.

Vitti previously said the incentive helped improve attendance last year, with nearly half of all high schoolers receiving a payment.

Studies suggest attendance incentives may have minimal effects because researchers said the programs do not address demotivating factors like unsafe routes to school.

The district’s attendance incentive does not make exceptions for any excused absences – whether they are for religious holidays, chronic illnesses, deaths in the immediate family, or college visits.

Both excused and unexcused absences are included when the state calculates chronic absenteeism.

Vitti told Chalkbeat the district relied on state guidelines regarding which absences contribute to chronic absenteeism when it created the incentive.

Students, educators, and advocates asked during public comment at multiple board meetings this school year for a 2026-27 calendar without classes on the holiday.

Vitti said including Eid in the district’s 2026-27 calendar may require an agreement with unions to shorten midwinter break. Some other school systems in Metro Detroit, home to one of the country’s largest Muslim populations, do so to accommodate students.

Another option, said Vitti, is “adjusting the midwinter break and/or spring break” next year. Having a spring break that does not occur from March 29 through April 2, 2027, as mandated in the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency’s common calendar, would require a waiver from the Michigan Department of Education and union approval, he added.

It is unclear what adjustments to the breaks the district may consider.

“We do not want to extend the school year into mid to late June by adding days off to the calendar because this leads to worsening student attendance, behavioral issues, and the risk of temperatures being too high in most of our schools,” he said.

After years of student calls for change, DPSCD recognized the holiday for the first time in its 2021-22 calendar. Union negotiations and considerations for extending the school year upended plans for observances other years.

Muneer Taher, a senior at Western International High school sits for a portrait at Clark Park on Thurs., March 19, 2026 in Detroit, MI.

Muneer Taher, a Muslim Western International High School senior, planned to miss school on Friday. Instead, he planned to wake up early to go to a Mosque for hours of prayer, lecture, and spend the rest of the day practicing the tenets of Islam.

Taher exchanged emails with Vitti expressing his and his peers’ frustrations over not getting the attendance incentive.

The superintendent’s explanation of union calendar negotiations and why exceptions could not be made for excused absences fell flat to the 18-year old.

“There are a big number of Muslim students in DPSCD, and accommodating those students will help the community,” he said.

Ultimately, Ahmed, the Cass Technical senior, decided to attend school Friday. She said she needs the money to pay for an outfit for her senior pinning ceremony and supplies for an upcoming Muslim Interscholastic Tournament.

“I think it’s just unfair,” she said. “But I have this financial strain weighing on me.”

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

The Detroit school district considers a charter application with a cap on enrolling its own students

2026-03-03T22:27:22+00:00

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The Detroit school district is considering a new strategy when it comes to authorizing city charter schools: limiting how many of its students the schools can enroll.

The idea comes from a proposal to authorize a new charter, called Sound Mind Sound Body Preparatory Academy, which would serve students in grades 4-8. The new charter would agree to enroll no more than 20% of its students from the Detroit Public Schools Community District and to require those students to apply to district high schools. District administrators said no such agreements have ever been included in previous charter contracts.

Board members discussed the potential shift in strategy around charter authorization last week during a board committee meeting.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti signaled that his philosophy on charters has changed since he took the helm of the district nine years ago. At the time, he recommended that DPSCD get out of the business of charter authorization and instead focus on improving its traditional public schools.

He said he is considering now how the district can partner with K-8 charters that cater to specific student needs to feed into district high schools instead of those in the suburbs.

“Over time, I’ve come to accept that charter schools are not going anywhere,” he said, adding that his views have also been affected by the new mayor’s approach to taking a citywide outlook to help youth in Detroit.

“I think if she is going to promote a more agnostic approach to … how we share resources as a city to help Detroit youth, I think there is an opportunity for DPSCD to step up as a stronger authorizer to improve quality,” he said.

Board members said during the meeting that they are hesitant to approve the contract for Sound Mind Sound Body before they develop an overall approach and goals for charter authorization in the district.

“We don’t need a one-off,” said Board President LaTrice McClendon. “We need to be in, or we need to be out.”

School districts and other entities, like community colleges and universities, can authorize charters through an application process. Authorizers monitor charters’ compliance with state and federal education laws, and in exchange, can take up to 3% of their state funding.

Anyone can operate charters, or public school academies, in Michigan. The operator handles key functions, such as hiring teachers and managing payroll. Many Michigan charters hire for-profit companies to fill the role.

When Vitti became superintendent in 2017, the district authorized 13 charters. It currently authorizes seven charters, with one more set to open in the fall.

More than half of Detroit’s school-age children attend charter schools. There are 62 city charters, according to state data compiled in May. There are 24 high school charters in Detroit and 17 in the suburbs where Detroit students make up more than half of enrollment. Many Detroit kids also attend traditional public schools in the suburbs.

As the number of charters in metro Detroit has increased over the last three decades, enrollment in the Detroit district has declined.

A charter for young student athletes

The Sound Mind Sound Body Foundation, whose founders applied for the charter contract, is a nonprofit that runs out-of-school programming geared toward athletics, social emotional learning, and mentoring. The new charter would develop student athletes, according to the proposal.

DPSCD currently contracts with the nonprofit to provide student enrichment programs.

The nonprofit was founded in 2004 by four Detroit Public Schools alumni.

The charter’s plan is to incorporate athletics into its daily schedule and curriculum. It will offer sports leadership, arts and creative expression programs. It will also have college and career exposure, out-of-school activities, mentoring, and an innovation hub for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.

Deputy Superintendent Alycia Meriweather said during last week’s meeting the agreement would allow coaches and program leaders from DPSCD high schools to visit the charter and work with its students.

The charter proposes opening in the 2026-27 school year with 50 fourth graders. The next year, there could be up to 100 students in grades four and five, then 200 students in grades 4-6 in 2028-29, followed by 400 in grades 4-7 in 2029-30, and 500 in 4-8 in 2030-31.

For 2026-27, DPSCD would collect a 3% authorizer fee, estimated to be around $81,000.

The charter plans to open at 11433 Beaconsfield St. on the east side of the city, near King High School.

The district’s proposed contract is for three years of operation and requires the board’s approval in order to move forward.

A potential shift in thinking around charters

Vitti said there are some charters that would not be interested in partnering with DPSCD for fear of losing their autonomy but others would be interested. He said the board needs to have a broader conversation about a potential shift in strategy.

“It’s not something that I think is top of my priority list, but I do think it’s an opportunity moving forward,” he added.

Vitti said the district supported Purpose Charter Academy – which the board voted to authorize last year to serve students experiencing homelessness, chronic absenteeism, and interactions with the criminal justice system – and Sound Mind Sound Body because they are tailored to meet specific student needs that may go unmet in DPSCD.

McClendon said the district needs to do its due diligence to ensure the charters it authorizes will be sustainable, pointing out the recent closure of Detroit Lions Academy.

“We know that charter schools close left and right and leave our kids hanging,” she said.

The board president said she is not comfortable moving forward in approving Sound Mind Sound Body’s contract until the board has developed a clear charter strategy. She added the board will likely soon hold a study session on the topic.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Gas cards, bikes, and money for parents considered in Detroit district’s chronic absenteeism fight

2026-02-26T00:04:23+00:00

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More financial incentives, gas cards, and stronger early pick-up policies may be in the Detroit school district’s future as part of ongoing efforts to improve attendance.

The potential strategies were mentioned on Tuesday during a Detroit Public Schools Community District board work session on chronic absenteeism. Board members requested the meeting to springboard new strategies and better understand current efforts.

With a new mayor who has promised to focus on city issues that affect youth and education, there could be momentum to address root causes of chronic absenteeism.

Mayor Mary Sheffield, has already begun conversations with the district around improving transportation, district officials said. Those conversations have included the possibility of expanding city bus routes in specific areas where school-age kids have the highest rates of chronic absenteeism and hiring staff to make sure students feel safe riding the bus.

“If we’re going to partner with the city, maybe we should try to galvanize our community,” said Board President LaTrice McClendon during the meeting.

Students are considered chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of the school year, or about 18 days of instruction in a typical 180-day school year. Even as the state’s chronic absenteeism rate has climbed in the years following the pandemic, DPSCD has made substantial ground reducing its rate.

Last school year, 60.9% of DPSCD students were chronically absent, an improvement of nearly 5 percentage points from the year before. The district also decreased the rate by nearly 16 percentage points from the 2021-22 school year, when quarantine rules caused many students to stay home.

Still, the district’s rate was nearly 30 percentage points higher than the state average last year.

Districts in communities like Detroit, where 84% of students come from low-income homes, have long grappled with kids missing too much school due to systemic issues such as inadequate transportation, poor health, dangerous routes to school, and parents’ inflexible work schedules.

Gift cards, carpooling, bikes, and city partnerships

The district is considering building on existing financial incentives for attendance, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during the meeting.

Instead of an across-the-board incentive, like its perfect attendance payouts for high schoolers, the district could offer gift cards to families of early-grade students living in neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of poverty, Vitti said. The district could even target the incentive to neighborhoods and grade levels with the highest rates of chronic absenteeism, he added.

The chronic absenteeism rates in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade were higher than the district average last year, according to the district’s data. The kindergarten rate, for instance, was 68.3%.

The district may also give more gas cards to parents who carpool, bringing students from the same neighborhoods to school together. Attendance agents would organize this strategy at schools, Vitti said.

The district will also recommend updating school policy to curb the frequency of early pick-ups, said Vitti. Caregivers would still be allowed to pick up students early, but the new policy would set a standard about how often is acceptable.

“This has been a big problem for a lot of schools where we have parents consistently removing children from school before the end of the day,” he said. “It disrupts the learning process.”

This spring, the district will give some students at Cody and Osborn high schools bicycles to get to school, Deputy Superintendent Alycia Meriweather said during the meeting.

Students told the district in a recent survey that bikes would help them get to school. They are already being used at Davis Aerospace Technical High School, where the chronic absenteeism rate dropped by more than 14 percentage points last school year compared to the year before.

The bikes will be given to a targeted group of students to create data around whether the move can improve their attendance, she added.

DPSCD will continue to explore the idea of adding more yellow or shuttle bus services. Vitti said specific student data will be needed in order for those efforts to pay off.

“You will hear, ‘Why don’t we do more transportation?’” he said. “We can add a bus, but if we don’t have any assurance that there’s actually kids that are going to go from point A to B, then we’re just going to have an empty bus.”

The district does not currently provide yellow bus service to most high school students. Exceptions are made in some cases, including for those with disabilities or experiencing homelessness.

Although the district’s yellow bus pilot at Henry Ford High School and East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney served few students last year, the district said it may have helped improve attendance at one campus.

Chronic absenteeism declined by 8.5 percentage points last semester at Ford compared to the 2024-25 school year, according to the district. In the same time frame, the district’s nine other neighborhood high schools’ rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point.

Ford went from having the highest chronic absenteeism rate of all 10 neighborhood high schools to the third lowest, according to the district.

The same was not true at East English – the chronic absenteeism rate there went up by roughly 1 percentage point in the fall compared to last year, the district said.

Board members want to see more parent, community investment

At an October board meeting, some members asked what could be done to hold parents more accountable when their kids miss too much school.

This year, the district began more coordination with its police department in issuing “parental responsibility” citations for egregious truancy cases, according to the district. The citations require parents to improve their child’s attendance or enter the court system.

The citations are a “last resort,” said Meriweather, the deputy superintendent.

Board members asked whether the district could expand attendance contracts to students at risk of severe absenteeism in neighborhood schools.

Currently, the contracts are used for students who attend a school outside of their attendance boundary who are at risk of missing 45 days. They are asked to sign contracts, with their parents, agreeing to improve their attendance or risk being transferred to their neighborhood schools.

The policy was adopted for the 2024-25 school year. More than 2,900 students were identified under the policy and 434 were transferred, according to the district. The average chronic absenteeism rate went down by 7 percentage points for the group who signed contracts. Chronic absenteeism reduced even more for the group of students who were forced to transfer back to their neighborhood schools, with the average rate dropping by 10.1 percentage points.

Board members asked if the at-risk threshold could be reduced from 45 days.

“We can definitely look at bringing that number down,” said Vitti.

McClendon suggested the district partner with community organizations, parent-teacher associations, volunteers, and block clubs to help get kids to school. The groups could help walk kids to school, monitor bus stops for safety, make phone calls to parents, drive carpools, and more, she said.

The district spends around $14 million a year on improving attendance, said Vitti, and most of the funding pays for attendance agents.

The district has hired more attendance agents and concentrated them in neighborhood schools with the most absenteeism in recent years. The agents have a number of duties, including home visits, data collection, dropping off resources to families, making connections to wraparound services, and more.

Board members said they would like to discuss whether it would be possible to hire more agents in future budgets.

“We need to talk about capacity to help, whether it’s on an office level, whether it’s on the school level, to ensure that we’re able to touch every student,” said McClendon.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

New city roles point to Sheffield’s focus on youth and education in Detroit

2026-02-12T22:16:42+00:00

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Years ago, when Chanel Hampton was leading a group of educators, they began each day with a question: “How are the children doing?”

It became a North Star, she said, guiding the team in its efforts to see all students succeed. They wanted to be able to say that all the children were doing well.

Hampton, whose background is in education, government, and organizational leadership, is bringing that same direction to a first-of-its-kind dual role in the Detroit city administration as the senior director of youth and the education liaison. Mayor Mary Sheffield formally announced Hampton’s appointment Thursday during a press conference, though she’s been in the role for about two weeks.

Hampton’s job, as well as the hiring of JerJuan Howard as the director of the new Office of Youth Affairs, reflects a new direction for Detroit, which is putting youth and education in the forefront as major priorities in the new administration.

“Today is really a step forward in how we show up for our young people in the city of Detroit,” Sheffield said Thursday. “If we want Detroit to rise higher, which we all do, we know that the next step is how we really invest in our young people and how we continue to improve education in our city.”

During the mayoral campaign, Sheffield often spoke of her desire to play a role in education in the city with a focus on working with the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the city’s many charter schools, and city agencies to reduce chronic absenteeism, improve transit coordination so students can reliably get to school, and expand after-school programs and enrichment opportunities at city recreation centers.

While the mayor has no control over city schools, Sheffield’s interest in addressing the societal problems that make it difficult for students to succeed is coming at a critical time. While schools have seen improvement in academic performance and chronic absenteeism, far too many children aren’t performing well and many are missing too much school.

Hampton will serve as a liaison between the mayor’s office and DPSCD, charter schools, out-of-school-time partners, and community organizations “to address some of the most persistent needs of students and their families,” according to a news release from the city. She will also lead the city’s work supporting people from 0 to 26 years old.

“Our young people will know that they are a focal priority in our city, and they will know they have a key role in leadership and ownership in our city, inside of school, outside of school,” Hampton said. “We will be able to say all the children in Detroit are well.”

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti echoed other speakers when he said Detroit children are talented, but lack opportunities. Gaps in opportunities can only be addressed by working together, being collaborative, problem solving, and sharing resources.

“And that’s why today is so special, because we have a mayor that understands that,” Vitti said. “It takes … putting egos aside and focusing on what’s best for children, regardless of what organization or institution or resources are coming from.”

He and Ralph Bland, the CEO of the Detroit charter school network New Paradigm for Education, agreed that this kind of coordination means setting aside egos and working on common goals, even if they are competitors.

“We need to move from isolated to coordinated to intent to implement, said Ralph Bland, CEO of the Detroit charter school network New Paradigm for Education. “This is serious.”

Sheffield said JerJuan Howard, the director of the new Office of Youth Affairs, will oversee an effort to “ensure that youth voices are not an afterthought, but a part of how we develop our policy, allocate our resources, and measure success across city government.”

Howard, a youth leader and founder of the Umoja Debate League, said the new position is timely and necessary.

“It’s important for youth to come with us and for changes not to happen to our youth, but to happen with our youth. They should become the engineers of their own reality and what their city looks like moving forward. They must have a seat at the table, and this appointment reflects that commitment by the mayor.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Sheffield committees weigh in on role of education, arts in Detroit’s future

2026-02-11T17:19:53+00:00

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When Cyekeia Lee was invited last fall by then Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield’s transition team to advise the incoming administration on youth and education affairs in the city, she could hardly believe the moment was real.

The executive director of Detroit College Access Network said she was honored to share her experience leading a nonprofit dedicated to helping Detroit students prepare for college.

“This is a historic time for the city of Detroit, with Mary Sheffield being the first Black woman mayor in its history,” Lee said. “Mayor [Mike] Duggan led really well, but it feels like a return of self for Detroit.”

Lee was among the residents, professionals, scholars, creatives, and others seated on 18 transition committees helping to guide Sheffield’s early days in office, which range from health and human services and housing development, to education and arts and culture. The committees, which met in November and December, were responsible for developing policy recommendations and identifying priorities.

As Sheffield enters her second month as Detroit mayor, she has already filled key cabinet positions and kicked off a series of new initiatives. Sheffield announced plans last month to launch the popular Rx Kids program in Detroit, which opened applications this week. The mayor unveiled a plan to reshuffle city departments focused on health and human services and a crackdown on senior housing conditions. She also launched a citywide survey seeking feedback from residents on six priority topics that will be used to inform her governing agenda. The survey is open through March 6.

An action plan is set to be released publicly on April 11 — Sheffield’s 100th day in office — Melvin Butch Hollowell, co-chair of Sheffield’s Rise Higher Detroit transition team, told BridgeDetroit. It will include recommendations from the committees for actions to take in her first year and before the four-year term ends. Hollowell didn’t share details of the plan, but noted that transportation, housing, education, and safety are key priorities.

Lee served on the education committee, which met a couple of times in November and December. The group was co-chaired by five people: Ralph Bland, CEO at New Paradigm for Education; Alycia Meriweather, deputy superintendent in Detroit Public Schools Community District; Damon Pitt, an education achievement expert; Angelique Power, CEO at Skillman Foundation; and Shawn Wilson, CEO at the Boys and Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan.

Lee said the group was packed with members deeply rooted in Detroit.

“For people to just be able to put thought to how things were when they were growing up, or streets that they know, or areas of the schools, it feels very home-grown,” she said. “We did a lot of small group work, and, as we rotated groups, I got to know a lot of people that I didn’t know before or that I only knew by name.”

Creating a better future for the youth of Detroit

During her campaign, Sheffield said that she wants to prioritize initiatives that will improve the lives of young people, including ensuring the city’s children receive a quality education.

While the mayor does not have control over schools, Sheffield has shown interest in forming a partnership with DPSCD and the city’s many charter schools. After her public swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 10, Sheffield visited Pershing High School and talked with nearly 90 students in the school’s library.

Suma Rosen, another education committee member and the executive director of InsideOut Literary Arts, said the committee had to take Sheffield’s 15 priorities in the education and youth space and narrow them down to five on the citywide survey. Members also had a say in what the survey looked like, she said.

“Watching the conversations happen — we had full group conversations and breakout conversations — it was structured in such a way that everyone’s voice was heard,” Rosen said. “It was so rewarding to listen to what my co-committee members were saying.”

The group discussed a variety of topics, but among the top five priorities was combating chronic absenteeism, including figuring out solutions for some of the factors that lead to students being absent from school. During the 2024-25 school year, more than 60% of DPSCD students were considered chronically absent. About 84% of the district’s students come from low-income families and have experienced high rates of chronic absenteeism due to systemic barriers, such as housing instability, a lack of accessible transportation, and health concerns.

When it comes to transportation, Lee said one possible way to decrease absenteeism is to have the district provide more yellow school buses for students. DPSCD offers buses for students in grades K–8 who reside more than three-quarters of a mile from their neighborhood school. The district does not provide yellow bus service to most high school students. Exceptions are made in some cases, including for students with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness. City buses are the main mode of transportation for most Detroit high schoolers.

“Even though there’s a relationship with DDOT [the Detroit Department of Transportation], trying to get to your bus stop when it’s eight degrees, that’s tough, right?” Lee said. “And then, the thing that I don’t love for students is you may be in middle school and you got to ride the bus with a bunch of adults. There’s a whole different level of safety measures for young men and young women that we have to wrap our heads around.”

Lee and Rosen said the committee did not have a list of solutions ready in efforts to combat chronic absenteeism, but it’s something they want to tackle in the long term alongside Sheffield’s administration.

“We want to be really clear on what the household determinants are first before we try to put [recommendations] out,” Rosen said. “You can’t put all your eggs in one basket if it’s the wrong basket.”

Every transition committee included a youth representative, and the education group wants to see young people continue to have a seat at the table during Sheffield’s term, Lee said. Having a youth task force in the mayor’s office was another priority that was discussed, Rosen said.

“We want a longer-term committee, and we want that to also include youth voices,” Lee said. “It’s one thing for us to say all the things we want for young people; it’s another thing for young people to say, ‘This is how this is showing up in my life, in my building, in my neighborhood, in my home.’ Whatever it is that we do moving forward, we have really got to look at incorporating the voices of 14-to-24-year-olds.”

One way Lee wants Sheffield’s administration and the Detroit College Access Network to stay connected is through Decision Day, a day on or around May 1 when high school seniors decide which college they’re attending in the fall. Lee said Sheffield participated in the nonprofit’s College Decision Day in 2022 when she was serving as City Council President and hopes to see Sheffield return this year.

“Our hope is that we can communicate with her [Sheffield] and her office to have a citywide Decision Day where every student knows that May 1 is Decision Day and celebrated in all middle and high schools,” she said.

Committee members want to stay engaged on education issues

Hollowell was in charge of finding and selecting individuals to join 18 committees for the transition team, ranging from health and human services and housing development, to education and arts and culture. The committees had a total of 50 co-chairs and 284 members. Some co-chairs included The Right Productions President Shahida Mausi, Detroit NAACP President Rev. Wendell Anthony, Black Tech Saturdays CEO Johnnie Turnage, and Transportation Riders United Executive Director Megan Owens.

Hollowell, who formerly served as corporation counsel under Duggan, said it was the largest group ever assembled for a mayoral transition in Detroit.

“It was easy and hard,” Hollowell told BridgeDetroit about the selection process. “It was easy in the sense that no one said ‘No.’

“The process was the hard part. At some point, you got to draw a line on how many co-chairs you have,” he added. “Everybody wanted to be a coach. We had some people from corporate, some people from the neighborhoods, from the education community.”

While work for the committees officially ended Dec. 31, some committees continue to meet informally and members remain in communication, he said. Hollowell hopes members will continue to serve as advisors throughout Sheffield’s term.

“The mayor has said ‘I don’t want this group to go anywhere,’” Hollowell has said. “They want to be kept engaged and we’re going to do that.”

Building an artist economy is also a Sheffield priority

On the arts front, members of Sheffield’s arts, culture, and entertainment committee honed in on the need for more support for Detroit creatives.

The committee, led by Mausi of The Right Productions, also included Detroit Institute of Arts Chairman Lane Coleman and Detroit Entertainment Commission Chairman John Collins. Like the education committee, the group met a couple of times in November and December, said Adrian Tonon, business advisor of digital marketing agency Menace Media and the city’s former 24-hour economy ambassador.

Tonon said a healthy creative economy — one of his responsibilities as an ambassador — was discussed during the committee meetings. He said the city must provide resources for creatives, including enough independent venues across the city to perform in. Tonon added the city is beginning to plug in more to the arts and culture scene with the creation of its Film Detroit office last year.

“Our report was really about how do we infuse support in every vertical of government, from BSEED [Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department] to law to health to housing, every sector of government in order to support people that are creatives,” Tonon said.

Detroit Poet Laureate jessica Care moore was also on the committee and said that she wants to see an artist infrastructure similar to New York, where people can make a living making their art. Moore lived in New York and Atlanta for several years before moving back to Detroit 18 years ago.

“Working as a full-time artist for the last 30 years, I wish I could make a living here,” she said. “I’ve made my money traveling, going to other cities and other countries. It’d be nice for the world-renowned artists that we have in the music industry, the writers, the painters, the dancers … that they could be sustained. And if we have a system, a way to help fund people who are here, then we build the culture. We create an ecosystem that has people saying, ‘Well, yeah, I live in Detroit because nobody’s taking care of me better than Detroit.’”

The committee doesn’t have a plan yet of what an artist infrastructure would look like, but moore wants to help make it happen. She added she represents the D wherever she goes, whether that’s New York, Baltimore, or London. She wants that same love and respect in the city for herself and other artists.

“We have to understand that our artists are globally connected and are some of the best in the world, and we need to take care of them and respect them in that way,” moore said.

Tonon said he believes that Sheffield and her team will prioritize the city’s vibrant arts and culture scene and help creatives thrive. While serving on the City Council, he said, Sheffield was one of the few people who saw his vision of having a 24-hour economy.

“She really got it before anybody else got it,” Tonon said. “She’s the right candidate, the right mayor for the right time.”

BridgeDetroit reporter Malachi Barrett contributed to this report.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

These are the Michigan education issues we’re watching in 2026

2026-01-06T22:18:23+00:00

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2026 could be a pivotal year for education in Michigan.

The state’s education system has produced lackluster academic results on state and national exams for years, raising questions about whether the system is properly preparing students for success after high school. That’s critical since many other states are showing academic improvement while Michigan has been stagnant.

With a wide open governor’s race in 2026, we expect to hear plenty of ideas about what it will take to get Michigan’s kids on track. Already, candidates have floated ideas ranging from strengthening accountability for schools to expansion of school choice so parents can more easily send their children to the public or private school that best meets their needs.

Meanwhile, in the city of Detroit, a new mayor could bring energy to efforts to help city students succeed against a number of societal odds, including high poverty rates.

Below, we highlight some of the key education issues we’ll be watching in 2026.

What’s missing? Email us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org with your ideas about what you want to see take center stage and why.

Governor’s race could drive conversation about schools

During the 2024-25 school year, test results for Michigan students raised alarms because they showed that not only have students continued to lose ground compared to their peers in other states, but that recovery from the pandemic has been slow.

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card, just 24% of fourth graders were proficient in reading in 2024. In math, just 37% of fourth graders were proficient. The rigorous national exam is given to a representative sample of students in every state in the U.S.

Closer to home, on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Performance, students didn’t do much better, with third graders recording their lowest performance in English language arts in the 11-year history of the exam.

The results will almost surely be used by gubernatorial candidates to suggest a range of reforms, as well as to attack the record of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whose second term ends this year. But it’s important to note that Michigan students began losing ground long before Whitmer took office.

Michigan lawmakers have tried and abandoned a number of reforms – some of which were required by federal law – including grading schools, holding back third graders who struggle on the state reading exam, holding teachers accountable for student test scores, and potentially closing failing schools.

There are a number of people running for governor. Some have been vocal about what Michigan must do to improve schools. Mike Duggan, who just wrapped a dozen years as Detroit mayor, has proposed getting tougher on school accountability, with a plan that could lead to the firings of principals and superintendents if struggling schools continue to fail. He is running as an independent. Meanwhile, Mike Cox, a Republican candidate for governor, has proposed a universal school choice program that allows parents to “select the schooling option that best fits their child’s needs.”

Will Detroit Mayor Sheffield deliver on her education promises?

Detroit’s mayor doesn’t have any control of the public school systems in the city. But the mayor does have a role to play in addressing societal issues that make it difficult for students to learn. Newly elected Mayor Mary Sheffield, who was sworn in last week, has said she will do just that.

What did Sheffield promise? In her election night acceptance speech, she said she would address transportation issues that make it difficult for students to get to and from school and invest in after-school programs and wraparound services. It’s an ambitious plan, given the city has dozens of education governance structures between the Detroit Public Schools Community District and the many charter schools that educate students.

The big question will be whether Sheffield can deliver on her promises. There’s much at stake, given low academic performance across the city and high rates of chronic absenteeism – issues that are fueled by difficult to solve problems like high rates of poverty, housing instability, and transportation woes.

Detroit school board race could result in dramatic shift

With five of the seven seats on the ballot this November, the race for seats on the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s school board could be a defining one for the district.

With so many seats open, new faces on the board can bring new priorities and affect Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s reform efforts.

Board members LaTrice McClendon, Iris Taylor, and Corletta Vaughn are up for reelection. In addition, seats currently filled by board members Bessie Harris and Steve Bland – who were recently appointed to fill seats left open due to resignations – would also be up for reelection.

Will legislative initiatives improve reading, parent transparency?

The state budget lawmakers approved in October included new rules for Michigan that require parents be informed about reading curriculum and how at-risk funding is spent. Districts receive at-risk funding for students identified for one of 10 factors, including being from low-income homes, being English language learners, or being a victim of child abuse.

One provision, aimed at putting the focus on low literacy rates in the state, requires school districts this school year to notify parents if their schools use a K-5 reading curriculum that isn’t on the state’s list of evidence-based curriculum, or that isn’t aligned with state standards.

An evidence-based curriculum is one that research has shown to be effective. As part of that notification, schools must tell parents that the curriculum they’re using “could negatively impact student academic outcomes.”

Another parent transparency effort: Schools also provide parents with a report showing how much state at-risk funding they receive, how the money was distributed, and what evidence-based interventions were used with the funding. Districts must also provide parents with a method for providing feedback on how the at-risk money is used.

School districts continue fight against school safety funding conditions

Another budget provision placed conditions on districts receiving school safety and mental health funding.

In order to receive that funding from the state, districts must agree to waive privilege, which means they must disclose information that would otherwise be legally protected if there is a mass casualty event. Districts had to agree to a comprehensive investigation of such an event.

Dozens of school districts and school officials filed a lawsuit challenging the language, saying it violates the Michigan Constitution. A state judge rejected their argument in a December ruling. But plaintiffs are appealing the ruling.

The big issues to watch here are: How many districts agreed to the conditions to receive the funding and if a mass casualty event occurs in a district that agreed to the conditions, how will a state investigation play out?

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit district stands to lose $2.2 million in state funding for low daily attendance last year

2025-12-19T22:23:14+00:00

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Detroit’s school superintendent wants legislators to change a state law that mandates penalties for not meeting daily attendance requirements as the district faces millions in fines.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will lose $2.2 million in state funding for not reaching a 75% attendance threshold multiple days last year, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat the law disproportionately punishes schools in communities with high concentrations of poverty and creates more funding inequities.

He said the fines punish the district for attendance issues rooted in systemic challenges, such as housing instability, lack of transportation, health concerns. Ultimately, it takes away money that could be used to support students in need, he said.

Many school building closures also have been caused by the city’s aging infrastructure, which are beyond the district’s control or ability to fix, the superintendent added.

“It’s a policy that punishes the symptoms while making the underlying condition worse,” said Vitti.

Under the State School Aid Act, districts can lose state funding if less than 75% of enrolled students attend school on any day of instruction. The state superintendent can waive the fines in some situations, such as severe storms or epidemics.

The MDE calculates the fines based on the amount of annual state funding allocated to each district and the percentage school systems fall short of reaching 75% attendance per day. Districts that receive more state funding stand to lose more in fines.

Bob Wheaton, the MDE’s director of public and governmental affairs, said the agency and its auditors are obligated to enforce the daily attendance penalties. All districts in the state are subject to the fines, regardless of student demographics, he added.

When asked if the law is intended to address chronic absenteeism, Wheaton said the percentage of students in attendance on a school day is a different data point than chronic absenteeism rates, which represent how many students miss 10% or more of all days in a school year.

“While chronic absenteeism remains a serious concern for the state, the calculation of chronic absenteeism originates from federal and accountability reporting requirements and is monitored through separate data systems and processes,” he said.

State records show DPSCD fell below the attendance threshold 11 days last school year. Initially, the district faced more than $6.8 million in fines. However, the number was reduced to $2.2 million, according to the MDE, because the district reported absences at one school that went beyond the state’s 180 instructional day requirement.

“We were fortunate; the reduction was only possible only due to a unique circumstance at the specific building that was affected,” said Vitti. “Had the same situation occurred at nearly any other school in our district, we’d still be facing the full $6.8 million.”

So far this year, Vitti said DPSCD has fallen below 75% daily attendance twice.

But, “our challenges typically accrue throughout the year; during the winter months when students face additional barriers getting to school due to weather, and at the end of the year when attendance drops,” he said.

State records showed 142 traditional public school districts and charter schools were initially identified as facing potential fines for last school year’s attendance rates. A final tally was not immediately available from the MDE this week.

The Detroit district, where 84% of students come from low-income families, has long had high rates of chronic absenteeism.

In recent years, the district has significantly reduced the rate with a multilayered approach.

“We’re investing heavily in attendance agents, health hubs, home visits, parent engagement, mental health services; all the wraparound supports that actually move the needle on attendance,” said Vitti.

Last year was the first time students in the district were chronically absent at a lower rate compared to pre-pandemic years. Still, more than 60% of students missed too much school.

The statewide absenteeism rate was higher in 2024-25 than before the COVID pandemic, at nearly 28%.

As Michigan struggles to reduce absenteeism, recent data suggests districts with the most to overcome, like DPSCD, are outpacing the rest of the state in improving attendance.

At a November policy committee meeting, Vitti said this year was the first since he became superintendent in 2017 that the attendance penalty has been enforced for the district.

According to Wheaton, 2020-21 was the only year the penalty was not implemented in the state due to COVID.

In 2023-24, Wheaton said only one district faced a fine, but it was waived once it was verified there was an error in the attendance data.

“That said, it’s common for somewhere between 35 and 50 districts to be initially identified,” said Wheaton.

Vitti told board members at the November committee meeting that the district should begin lobbying legislators to change the law.

“Taking millions from schools doesn’t get a single additional child to school,” he told Chalkbeat “It just means we have that much less to help them get there.”

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s how the Detroit district spent nearly $32 million of its literacy lawsuit funds last year

2025-12-17T22:40:39+00:00

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Last year, the Detroit school district spent about $32 million from its literacy lawsuit settlement to hire more staff to support students learning to read, reduce class sizes in early grades, and pay for tutoring.

Some of the investments are already paying off, said officials in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, or DPSCD. Students in classrooms with academic interventionists and kids who read with in-school tutors showed more improvement on average on the district’s literacy assessments than their peers, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during a board finance committee meeting in November.

The district’s spending on those initiatives account for about one-third of a one-time $94.4 million settlement in the 2016 federal “right to read” civil rights lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleged Michigan’s longtime funding inequities led to bleak and unsafe conditions in Detroit schools, including vermin infestation, overcrowding, and leaking sewage. The complaint said the alarming state of schools in the city denied children “access to the most basic building block of education: literacy.”

The state settled the lawsuit in 2020 and allocated the money to DPSCD three years later. Last school year was the first in the district’s three-year plan to use the funding to improve literacy instruction, intervention, and proficiency.

The district’s plan for the money is based on recommendations made by a task force and input from community meetings.

The largest chunk of the district’s settlement spending last year went toward efforts to teach students in K-3 to read.

“The idea was investing there to narrow the achievement gap, because it’s the narrowest at the early grades, and to get kids to where they need to be as soon as possible,” said Vitti.

Results on recent state standardized testing suggest those efforts worked.

The percentage of DPSCD third graders who met or exceeded proficiency in English language arts on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP, reached an 11-year high in the 2024-25 school year.

The district’s overall proficiency rates, however, still lag far behind the statewide averages.

Last spring, 15.4% of students in grades 3-8 in the district scored proficient or above in English language arts. The statewide average was 38.9%.

Ida Short, a board member, asked Vitti at the committee meeting what the district can do to get students caught up to grade level more quickly.

Vitti said the greatest challenge in closing achievement gaps is chronic absenteeism, defined as a student missing 10% or more of days in a school year.

Last year, more than 60% of students in the district were chronically absent. DPSCD has reduced that rate below pre-pandemic levels, though it remains higher than the statewide average.

Here is a breakdown of how the district has invested the settlement funding so far:

The school system spent $17.3 million to hire 267 additional literacy academic interventionists to work with students in small groups and in K-2 classrooms. Students in classrooms that had interventionists showed more improvement on district assessments over the last two years than peers with similar previous scores, according to DPSCD.
In order to reduce K-3 class sizes, the district spent $4.6 million to hire 44 additional teachers. The largest improvements on assessments were not associated with the most dramatic reductions in class sizes, Vitti said.
Forty-three additional teachers were hired with $4.5 million so that teacher leaders could leave some classroom responsibilities to focus on coaching other educators at their schools. Of the 216 teacher leaders in DPSCD last year, 77 led K-8 English language arts classes while also coaching other educators. According to the district, students taught by teacher leaders were somewhat more likely to meet their goals in learning to read compared to their peers.
Around $2.5 million was spent to hire more multilingual academic interventionists to work with students who were not fluent English speakers. The district also spent $1.1 million to expand an existing newcomer program at Western International High School and establish one at Harms Elementary School. State proficiency assessment results show more English learners met language acquisition goals last year compared to previous years.
This school year, the district will spend $1.8 million on merit pay for educators whose schools or classrooms reached ambitious literacy goals.
The district spent $240,000 for 150 Let’s Read tutors to read with first and second graders. The program previously existed in the district, however, the settlement funds allowed the district to serve about 423 students – up from fewer than 50 in previous years. The funds allowed the district to offer tutors stipends of $2,500, as well as provide more training and curricular tools. Last year, more students who participated in Let’s Read met their goals in learning to read compared to their peers, according to DPSCD, but there was little difference in their proficiency levels at the end of the year.
DPSCD spent $230,000 to offer free after-school online tutoring to students in all grades for six weeks to prepare for end-of-year testing. According to the district, high schoolers who got the tutoring had better PSAT/SAT scores on average than their peers.
The district spent $270,000 to create Parent Academy sessions focused on literacy to help parents encourage their kids to read at home. Parents got $25 stipends for attending up to 15 sessions, with nearly 900 parents from 89 schools participating.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Sheffield wants to hire a strong education leader to advise her. Are you the person for the job?

2025-12-04T22:02:29+00:00

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A job posting for Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield’s administration provides insight into the kind of person she’s looking for to advise her on Detroit education issues.

Sheffield, who won the Detroit mayor’s race by a large margin last month, said throughout the campaign that she intended to play a role in education in the city. On election night, she said that would include creating coordinated transportation and investing in after-school programs and wraparound services. Her main goal, she said that night, is ensuring every child in the city can succeed.

There’s been a growing realization among education advocates in Detroit that the mayor, while having no control of district or charter schools in the city, still must address some of the societal issues that have led to low academic achievement and high rates of chronic absenteeism, both of which are heavily influenced by poverty.

The job posting for an education liaison is one of many posted on Sheffield’s transition website.

Here is the kind of person Sheffield is searching for:

She wants someone who can take on an ambitious set of responsibilities

Detroit’s education system is fragmented, with dozens of governing bodies overseeing 185 schools. That includes the Detroit Public Schools Community District and charter schools that are independently operated.

But it’s not just the city’s K-12 system that the mayor’s education liaison will be responsible for advising her on. Sheffield wants this person to also be the primary liaison between her office and early childhood education organizations and on youth development issues.

A key responsibility: “Identify challenges facing Detroit students and families and develop solutions in partnership with schools and City departments.”

The person will also be responsible for coordinating city services that support schools. That includes public safety, public health, recreation, neighborhood improvements, environmental safety, and transportation resources.

That’s crucial given the power the city has to address issues schools can’t control but that affect students nonetheless. For instance, many high school students take the city’s public transportation to get to and from school, but they have long reported that service is spotty, with buses arriving late or passing them by. They’ve also reported safety concerns waiting for buses. Sheffield has promised to address wait times and other concerns.

Sheffield wants someone experienced in education policy

There is no shortage of education advocates in Detroit. But Sheffield is looking for someone with at least a bachelor’s degree — though an advanced degree is preferred — in public policy, education, public administration, or social work.

They also need at least five years of experience “in education policy, school-district administration, charter-school management, youth development, government, or related roles.”

The qualifications go beyond education and experience. Sheffield wants someone who has a “deep understanding” of Detroit’s education ecosystem, someone who is a proven collaborator, someone with strong research skills, and someone who is committed to equity and improving outcomes for Detroit students.

The job can pay in the six figures

There is a wide salary range for the position, with potential pay ranging from $80,000 to $120,000 annually.

Of course, whatever salary the education liaison receives will be based on their qualifications and experience.

There are few details about benefits in the posting, aside from a link to a city web page that provides more details, but it does note that “our goal is to attract and retain a highly skilled workforce by providing generous healthcare and other benefits to eligible employees.”

Interested in the job? Here’s a link to where you can apply.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Mary Sheffield is Detroit’s next mayor. Can she influence education?

2025-11-05T14:39:22+00:00

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Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield won the race for Detroit mayor by a wide margin Tuesday.

The vote totals were 88,229 for Sheffield and 25,725 for Solomon Kinloch, the pastor at Triumph Church.

Her big win was also historic, with Sheffield becoming the city’s first female mayor.

She referred to the historical significance of her victory during an acceptance speech late Tuesday, noting that in the city’s 324-year history, there have been 75 mayors and “not one of them has been a woman.”

“But tonight, Detroit, we know that changes. And you changed it Detroit,” Sheffield said.

Sheffield will be the city’s first new mayor in about a dozen years. Current Mayor Mike Duggan didn’t run for reelection and instead is running in next year’s governor’s race.

Now that Sheffield has been elected, the attention will turn to whether she’ll deliver on her campaign promises. And for those who care about education in the city, the big question is whether she will be effective in partnering with the city’s schools to improve student outcomes.

Kinloch and Sheffield both said they intended to play a key role in helping address the issues that make it difficult for children to show up for school and learn. Sheffield won the August primary and led polls since then.

Detroit mayoral candidate Solomon Kinloch, center, lost Tuesday's election to Mary Sheffield. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)

The mayor of Detroit doesn’t have any control over the operation of schools in the city but can still have an influence.

Sheffield said Tuesday that her administration will be more involved in education in the city by creating coordinated transportation and investing in after-school programs and wraparound services. The goal, she said, is that every child can succeed.

“We know that when our youth rise, Detroit rises,” Sheffield said.

In interviews with Chalkbeat during the campaign, community leaders and education advocates offered these ideas for what the mayor could do:

Transportation: Many high school students take the city’s public buses to get to and from school. Many students say that the bus system isn’t reliable, buses are often late, and sometimes, buses pass them up. Students have also expressed concerns about safety while waiting at bus stops and on buses. The mayor can work with the Detroit Department of Transportation to improve reliability of bus service, including wait times, address safety concerns, and ensure bus stops are located in areas that are convenient for students.

Housing: Many Detroit families are struggling with housing insecurity, and the number of children experiencing homelessness is on the rise. Two Michigan State University political science professors wrote earlier this year that rising rents in the city are playing a role in housing challenges. About 59% of families with school-aged children are renters in Detroit, according to this fact sheet from Wayne State University researchers. The city has invested a lot in creating affordable housing, but concerns were raised during the campaign that the affordable housing isn’t affordable enough for the average Detroit resident. Meanwhile, evictions can create instability for children attending school.

What can the mayor do? Push for affordable housing that works for families with school-age children, while also ensuring that affordable housing is placed in areas that make it easier for parents to get their children to and from school.

Partnering with schools: The city’s mayor can create a more cohesive education system by bringing district and charter schools together and ensuring students who attend both have access to important resources such as after-school programming.

What Sheffield promised on education

Here’s what Sheffield told Chalkbeat this summer when asked what role the mayor could play:

“I understand my role to be a solutions-oriented advocate on behalf of parents, teachers, students and community members. In my opinion, it does very little good to point fingers or blame entries or people for current issues, especially when many times, whole systems need to be addressed to reach real solutions,” Sheffield said.

“Instead, I will establish deeper collaborative ties with DPSCD first and foremost, acknowledging that a strong school system means a strong Detroit. Everything from Detroit’s public safety to workforce to small business and entrepreneurship have direct ties to our educational system. So as a goal, we will understand the gaps and create solutions together. I am willing to commit significant resources towards improving the areas impacting education that the City of Detroit oversees: Infrastructure, quality of life for students and families, safety, and in some cases, funding advocacy. I will do this in collaboration with residents and with DPSCD partners.”

During an October debate, when confronted with a question about how the mayor can address low academic performance and high rates of chronic absenteeism, Sheffield replied:

“My administration will have a liaison working directly with our DPSCD and charter schools on a consistent basis. We will ensure that we have robust after school programming within a two mile radius of every school, focusing in on literacy. We will provide the wraparound service and address the social deterrents that prevent and impact our families and our students, like mental health and housing and having support in the schools and on the grounds to support our families and students. And lastly, as a mayor, I can ensure that we have safe routes to school and fixing the infrastructure around our schools and providing more coordinated transportation to reduce absenteeism and get our students back in school.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Election: Detroit’s next mayor could influence education in the city

2025-10-31T21:10:10+00:00

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Detroit residents who haven’t already voted will head to the polls on Tuesday to help decide who the city’s next mayor will be.

The election — featuring candidates Solomon Kinloch, a pastor, and Mary Sheffield, city council president — has been largely focused around issues related to neighborhood revitalization, safety, poverty, and housing instability.

All of those issues affect the city’s public schools, and each of the candidates say they intend to play a role by partnering with schools to ensure children have a quality education.

What that role looks like remains to be seen. But low academic achievement, high rates of chronic absenteeism, and the myriad effects of poverty on student learning are key challenges in Detroit.

Here’s what you need to know about the election.

What can Detroit’s next mayor do?

Unlike in some other big cities, Detroit’s mayor doesn’t have any control over or say in education issues. But the mayor can still have some influence.

For instance, students miss school at alarming rates in the city, and it’s not just because they want to blow off the classroom.

More than half of the students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District attend school outside their neighborhood, and challenges getting to and from school often lead to absences.

The Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research has reported that a third of families in Detroit don’t own a car, and 30% of families don’t have a fixed way to get their children to school.

Meanwhile, high school students largely take city-run transportation to get to school, and Chalkbeat has often heard from teens that buses don’t always arrive on time or pass them by when they’re waiting at the bus stop.

While the mayor can’t equip all Detroit residents with vehicles or require students to attend their neighborhood school, they can address issues with the transportation system. The topic came up earlier this month when Sheffield and Kinloch met for a televised debate.

Sheffield vowed to provide “more coordinated transportation to reduce absenteeism and get our students back in school,” while also noting that the city needs to improve transportation wait times. Kinloch said that in order to improve transportation, the city needs to ensure it is offering competitive pay to transit workers, has reliable vehicles, and has trained mechanics.

What Detroiters told us they want from the next mayor

Chalkbeat asked Detroit residents to tell us what they would like to see the next mayor do to address education issues in the city.

Some common themes emerged. Residents said they welcome the mayor playing a role in education issues, though several made it clear schools should continue to be independently operated. They told us they want to see Sheffield or Kinloch address issues such as safety, transportation, poor attendance, lack of stable housing, and lack of student engagement.

One reader told us that the mayor needs to play a role because she or he “has a direct impact” on some of the biggest challenges facing schools in the city.

Sharon Kelso, a Detroit district parent and education advocate, said safety, lack of student engagement, and lack of accountability of school staff are major factors affecting student learning.

“There is currently too much failure with blame being placed on students and parents,” Kelso said.

The next mayor, she said, can promote parental involvement by holding town hall meetings to hear parent concerns. They can also hold town hall meetings and conferences to hear from students. Kelso said the mayor can work with DPSCD and charter school leaders to address transportation and safety issues.

Sheffield and Kinloch’s views on education

Kinloch has said he will create a cabinet-level position that would partner with DPSCD “to make sure that we’re removing the social ills that keep the children from showing up in class in a productive way, not to just to survive, but to thrive.” He said on his website that the cabinet member would work with school administrators, educators, parents, and students “to coordinate city services that support student success.”

Sheffield, in a response to a Chalkbeat Detroit survey, said she would “commit significant resources” toward improving conditions that affect education that the city oversees. Sheffield, during the debate, said she would partner with DPSCD and charter schools on a consistent basis to “ensure that we have robust after-school programming within a two mile radius of every school, focusing in on literacy,” as well as addressing the social deterrents that affect students and families.

How to vote in Tuesday’s Detroit election

Detroit residents aren’t just voting for a new mayor. They also will be electing city council members, city clerk, board of police commissioners, and the community advisory council.

For information about how to vote early, BridgeDetroit has a handy guide here. A reminder that if you’re voting in person on Nov. 4, the polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.

Want to read more?

Chalkbeat wrote in July about why some advocates see education as a key issue in the mayoral race. After the primary, we broke down how the top two contenders would address education issues, specifically chronic absenteeism. And we had all the details about what the candidates said about education at a televised debate.

For more information on the candidates, check out coverage from our partners at BridgeDetroit.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

What mayoral candidates Sheffield and Kinloch said about education at this week’s debate

2025-10-16T18:44:16+00:00

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Detroit’s mayoral candidates may be far apart about how they should solve many of the city’s challenges, but their views on improving education in the city sound similar.

Rev. Solomon Kinloch, Jr., the pastor at Triumph Church in Detroit, and Mary Sheffield, the president of the Detroit City Council, faced off Wednesday night during a televised debate on WXYZ-TV. Moderators asked one question about education, but related topics such as child poverty, transportation, and safety also came up.

Education has been an issue throughout the campaign because of the depth of Detroit’s school challenges. Low academic achievement and high rates of chronic absenteeism are big problems in district and charter schools. While the mayor doesn’t have control over how schools are operated, the person elected can play a role in addressing many of the barriers that make it difficult for children to learn, including housing instability, a lack of transportation, and extreme poverty.

Here’s what they had to say at Wednesday night’s debate.

How will the candidates help improve education in Detroit?

Moderator Carolyn Clifford noted the city’s high rate of illiteracy and the most recent results for the Detroit Public Schools Community District on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in which just 5% of district students were proficient or above in reading. Noting that the mayor has no control over district and charter schools in the city, she asked the candidates, “What can a mayor do to help ensure Detroit kids can read, can learn, and succeed?

Kinloch repeated what he’s said throughout the campaign: that he would “be an educational mayor” and would create a cabinet-level position that would partner with the school district. Though the city has dozens of charter schools, Kinloch only mentioned partnering with the district. Kinloch said that while “the school district is not the mayor’s job, it’s still the mayor’s responsibility.”

Solomon Kinloch Jr. faces off against Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield in a televised debate between the two remaining candidates in Detroit’s mayoral race on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025 at the WXYZ-TV studio in Southfield.

“What we will do is partner with the district to make sure that we’re removing the social ills that keep the children from showing up in class in a productive way, not to just to survive, but to thrive. There are a whole lot of things that take place before those children get to class. And so we got to make sure that they have access to mental health professionals, that they have access to affordable housing, that they have access to food and grocery stores and healthy eating, that they have access to extra curriculum activities to keep them off the street and give them a sanctuary to be safe.”

Sheffield said she believes the mayor “can be a greater partner to drive better outcomes for our youth” and that every child deserves access to a quality education.

Setting students up for post-high school success

At various points during the debate, Sheffield and Kinloch talked about ensuring that children are set up for success once they leave high school.

Sheffield noted that the Detroit Promise, a scholarship program that gives eligible Detroit residents a tuition-free path to an associate degree, bachelor’s degree, or technical certificate, already provides opportunities for Detroit youth.

“We want to enhance that program and ensure that we’re creating pathways so that everyone who wants to receive secondary education has a pathway to do so,” Sheffield said.

Kinloch made a similar statement.

“I’ll make sure that every child has access to a quality education, giving them a pathway to college and giving them a pathway to a career,” Kinloch said.

Crime may be down, but safety is still an issue

Chalkbeat heard from a number of students earlier this year who said they often feel unsafe in the city, avoid being out in large groups because they fear what could happen, and worry about violence as they travel to and from school. That’s despite crime being down in the city.

At Wednesday night’s debate, candidates were asked how they explain the disconnect between the statistics and what people say in their neighborhoods and what they would do if elected mayor to solve this problem.

Kinloch noted that as a pastor, he has had to “give children dignity in death that they didn’t get in life because their life was taken too soon.”

He said one of the reasons there is a disconnect is “because Detroiters deserve two things. They deserve safety and they deserve justice.” He also suggested that the city is “fudging” crime statistics. BridgeDetroit and the Detroit Free Press reported that after the debate, Kinloch explained his comments, saying there should be additional oversight into how crimes are tracked.

Sheffield noted the reduction in crime stats, but also said “one life lost is still far too many.”

Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield faces off against Solomon Kinloch Jr. in a televised debate between the two remaining candidates in Detroit’s mayoral race on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025 at the WXYZ-TV studio in Southfield.

“I believe in a comprehensive and holistic approach to public safety that is rooted in strong partnerships with our law enforcement agencies in our community. I will ensure as mayor that we are investing in prevention, more year round, youth employment for our young people, ensure that we’re expanding our community violence intervention work.”

Her plan also includes launching the city’s first ever office of gun violence prevention and expanding community policing efforts.

Improving public transportation is important

The candidates were asked to explain how they would improve public transit in the city. While the question wasn’t specific to education or students, the city’s transportation woes affect school attendance. Many students take city buses to and from school, and Chalkbeat has heard from students who say the buses frequently arrive late, making them late for school, or don’t show up at all.

Transportation barriers are one of the reasons the DPSCD chronic absenteeism rate is high. The rate is improving, but 60% of students were chronically absent in the 2024-25 school year. At least one DPSCD school is experimenting with distributing bikes to students to make it easier for their children to get to school.

Sheffield said the most pressing issue is addressing public transportation wait times.

“We have to ensure that no one is waiting 30, 40, 50 minutes to catch a bus. And so as mayor, my number one priority is to reduce wait times, increase frequency and reliability of our system, make sure that our drivers are paid the wages that they deserve, and make sure that the system is safe.”

Kinloch said the city needs to ensure it is offering competitive pay to transit workers, has reliable vehicles, and has trained mechanics.

“I remember growing up in the city of Detroit, and the only way I can get from point A to point B is I had to depend on public transportation,” said Kinloch, who said improving the transit system is a necessity. “A lot of our school children are dependent on public transportation. Our family, our community is dependent on public transportation.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Could holding parents accountable improve chronic absenteeism in the Detroit school district?

2025-10-15T21:01:04+00:00

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Two members of the Detroit school district’s board want to explore what can be done to hold parents accountable for their children missing too many days of school.

Based on trends in the attendance rate so far this school year, Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said at Tuesday night’s board meeting that about 45% of students are projected to be chronically absent by the end of the school year. Students are considered chronically absent when they miss 10% or more days of a school year.

Chronic absenteeism, which negatively impacts students’ ability to learn and progress academically, has long been a problem for DPSCD. High rates of poverty, a lack of transportation, health concerns, and unsafe routes to school are among the leading causes of kids missing too many days of class.

The district has made big strides in reducing absenteeism in recent years. Still, more than 60% of students in the district were chronically absent last school year.

When students are at risk of being chronically absent, the district’s intervention process includes engaging with parents and visiting the kids’ homes. Students are also required to sign an acknowledgement that they know they will be required to attend their neighborhood schools instead of opting to attend district schools outside of their feeder pattern if they miss too many days.

In an effort to solve transportation issues, DPSCD gives students free city bus passes, as the school system does not offer yellow bus service to most high schoolers. Some principals problem-solve for individual students with ride shares or carpools, one school gave its students bikes, and two high schools are piloting yellow buses this year.

In addition to solving transportation barriers and providing wraparound services, board member Monique Bryant asked Vitti what the district can do to address parents who are “not sending their kids to school.”

“I hear we’re working with students, we’re providing transportation, but I just don’t understand how we are not more firm with our parents and their responsibility to get their children to school,” Bryant said to some applause from the crowd at the meeting.

“I think there’s some work for the board to do, and I think now we need to step up more than ever, because we need to be the first people saying parents should be accountable,” said Latrice McClendon, another board member. “We need to be non-negotiable about some of the things that are happening in our district, and we are now outraged and upset about what we’re seeing … It starts with the parents.”

Vitti said during the meeting he believes “it is time to enhance the accountability and engagement” with parents. There are policy or administrative actions the superintendent said he would recommend that would put parents at the center of discussions around attendance, like mandatory in-person or virtual meetings.

“The more extreme cases of absenteeism, we are reporting those to the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, but they are way understaffed, and they are not prosecuting the vast majority of cases that we send them,” said Vitti. “They take the most egregious examples and move forward on those cases, especially for the youngest of children that are extremely absent.”

Bryant said she was not aware that there are cases referred by the district that do not get prosecuted, adding “they should be.”

McClendon said, “We need to personally contact our prosecutor to say, ‘Hey, we need to step up, and we need to do that.’”

Michigan parents can face a misdemeanor charge if they fail to ensure their child attends school. The penalty can range from 90 days in jail and fines between $5 and $50. Parents who get public financial assistance for their children also risk the aid being withheld by the state.

Some research suggests punitive measures do not reduce absenteeism. Officials with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services told Chalkbeat in 2023 they could not provide evidence its penalties for parents of truant kids improved attendance.

During public comment at Tuesday’s meeting, one parent told the board they should focus more on filling in gaps for families without transportation instead of prosecuting them.

McClendon clarified to the speaker that she agreed.

“The goal is never to criminalize parents,” said McClendon. “Accountability is not punishment, it’s partnership.”

The board member added she understands addressing absenteeism requires “empathy and understanding” because of the “complex realities families face.”

“I think the balance is delicate, but it’s necessary,” she said. “I do want to set high standards.”

Vitti said he will provide more information and recommendations on potential policy changes at a future board committee meeting.

Could yellow bus service improve high school attendance?

This school year, DPSCD began piloting yellow bus service for students within the boundaries of Henry Ford High School and East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Vitti said despite efforts to raise awareness and interest among students, the pilot is “not having a scaled impact” on chronic absenteeism data at either school so far this year. He didn’t say how many students are participating in the yellow bus pilot. The superintendent said there may be a positive impact for individual students and the district will look at whether attendance for kids taking the bus has improved compared to the prior year.

There may also be more use of the buses once the weather becomes colder, Vitti added.

He suggested the board decide early next year whether the pilot should continue based on participation and attendance data.

The schools have sent robo calls and texts about the service, made announcements during school, and offered incentives for ridership.

Anthony Peete, a student representative on the board who attends Henry Ford, said at the meeting that he had surveyed his classmates about why they do or do not use the service.

“A lot of what students replied was that it just wasn’t convenient for them in a lot of different ways,” said Peete.

Some said in the survey they felt the city bus was more convenient, and many said they didn’t know how to check if the yellow bus went to their neighborhood, Peete said.

Because the district received more state funding than was anticipated in its adopted budget for this school year, Vitti said there is some opportunity to expand transportation options.

Vitti said he would not recommend using the funds to add more yellow bus services, saying ride shares for targeted students or small groups of classmates who are missing too many days of school may be more effective and cost efficient.

The “big picture” solution to the problem is for the city to expand its transportation offerings. That has been successful for other large urban districts in the U.S. in improving attendance, Vitti said.

The district’s long-term goal is to “have more children attend their neighborhood school,” Vitti said, which would result in students traveling shorter distances.

About 50% of DPSCD students currently attend schools in their neighborhood, said Vitti.

“That will happen if we continue to improve neighborhood schools, which we are, and the data suggests that,” said Vitti.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: Oct. 17, 2025: A previous version of this story said the student representative’s name was Anthony Peele. It is Anthony Peete.

Students at this Detroit school got free bikes. Here’s how they say it helped attendance.

2025-10-07T21:16:36+00:00

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Some days, it takes Elyazar Holiday two hours and four buses to travel the 20 miles from his home on the far west side of Detroit to his school on the edge of the east side of the city.

The Detroit school district has limited yellow bus service, and none for most high school students. Like many students in the city, the 17-year-old’s family doesn’t have access to a working car. Riding city buses to Davis Aerospace Technical High School is Holiday’s only option, but – with delays and missed buses – it often proves unreliable.

Last year, Holiday received a gift from his school that made the trek easier: a bicycle.

Principal Michelle Davis gave every student at the school a bike as part of a holistic approach to reducing chronic absenteeism. The bikes were funded through community donations.

Many of the nearly 100 students at Davis Aerospace last year said the bicycles helped them safely get to school by reducing the amount of time they had to walk to school or wait for buses. Others said the bikes gave them a new sense of independence, allowing them to travel around the city with their friends, get to after-school activities or jobs, and get exercise.

While Davis believes the bicycles improved attendance during good weather in the fall and spring, she said it’s only one measure the school is taking to get kids to class.

“Giving the students bikes is just one problem that we’ve solved for,” Davis told Chalkbeat. “What we do intentionally is solve for all of the problems that the kids have, because that has to be our major responsibility.”

Principal Michelle Davis poses in front of her "Big Ideas" board.

The principal wanted her students to feel the same sense of independence she did as a teen when her mother bought her a pink Huffy.

So, Davis wrote “bikes” at the top of a white board next to her desk that lists her “big ideas.” And soon the vision came to fruition.

Other high schools in the district may also soon give bikes to their students. Last school year, the district surveyed high school students who were chronically absent about why they missed too much school. Some of the students said having a bike would help improve their attendance.

After the district’s school board heard the feedback at a July meeting, some members said they wanted the superintendent to follow up on whether a stock of “dozens” of bicycles in a storage warehouse could be used for that purpose.

Can bikes reduce chronic absenteeism in Detroit?

Chronic absenteeism, defined for Michigan students as missing 10% of the school year, has long been a problem in DPSCD. Issues such as high rates of poverty, health concerns, parents’ work schedules, and unsafe routes to school keep many children from missing crucial instructional time.

Students at Davis Aerospace say the bikes have helped address some of those barriers.

A poster tracking attendance for each grade is one of the first things students see as they enter their school building.

Holiday, for example, said his bike allows him to get to bus stops more quickly.

The first bus Holiday usually rides is regularly late by 20 minutes to an hour, he said.

If that bus doesn’t come in time, the teen has to decide whether he’ll go to another stop to try and catch a bus on a different route.

“I might miss those if I walk too slow, or I might be tired from trying to run to make it there,” he said.

Now, if the bus that runs on Plymouth Road doesn’t arrive, the teen can ride his bike to another stop. Or if Holiday isn’t able to catch a transfer due to delays, he can ride his bike the rest of the way to school.

“With the bike, I can still make up the distance or go to a different street to get on a different bus and still make it there on time,” he said.

His bike also makes him feel safer.

While violent crime rates have declined in Detroit in recent years, many young people fear being attacked on their way to school. Their sense of safety is shaped by many factors, including news reports of peers killed in gun violence.

“A bike in itself is protection,” said Holiday. “You can use that to get away from the situation. You can use that as a barrier between you and something coming at you in the heat of the moment. You can even throw it.”

The bikes also help students left without a ride because their parents have to get younger kids to school earlier in the morning.

Myron Dean, a senior at Davis Aerospace, said while his parents take his five younger siblings to their schools, he has to get to school on his own.

With a bike, Dean can get to school in about seven minutes.

Dean is also using the bike to get to driver’s education classes so he can eventually drive himself and his siblings anywhere they need to go.

Junior Tryve Roberts said when no one in his family was able to give him a ride, he used to have to walk to school. It took about an hour, which would make him tardy.

Now, since he can get to school on the bike in about 16 minutes, he’s showing up on time more often.

Some research and anecdotal evidence in other parts of the country suggest bicycles alone may reduce chronic absenteeism. Those who support the idea say using bikes to get to school gives more students access to transportation they otherwise wouldn’t have, can improve their health and well-being, and adds motivation for kids to improve attendance.

However, the successful examples proponents cite are in parts of the country with warmer climates, such as Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona.

At Davis Aerospace, the students are taught bike safety and instructed to not ride to school in poor weather conditions or during the winter.

There are nearly 165 miles of bike lanes in the city, according to advocacy groups, but not every neighborhood in the city has access to continuous dedicated bike paths.

Creating a culture of good attendance

DPSCD has made strides in reducing chronic absenteeism in recent years. Several schools in the district have outpaced all others in the state in reducing absenteeism.

At Davis Aerospace, the chronic absenteeism rate dropped by more than 14 percentage points last school year compared to 2023-24. Since 2018-19, the chronic absenteeism rate at the school fell by nearly 23 percentage points.

Even with that progress, more than 42% of Davis Aerospace students missed too many days of school last year. And the problem is more persistent in the district’s neighborhood schools.

For example, Denby High School, which is also on the east side of the city, had a chronic absenteeism rate of nearly 80% last year.

Some of Davis Aerospace’s progress may be due in part to the bikes, but the school had already been making steady progress in reducing absenteeism before that program.

“What we know is that there’s not just one thing that’s going to decrease absenteeism,” said Davis. “Every kid that has a barrier for attendance, we talk to those students. We see what the barriers are, and we solve for the student and their challenge to getting to school.”

Students can pick out any items they want from the school's free boutique.

At the school, which requires an application for students to attend, reducing absenteeism is ingrained in the culture.

A poster hanging on a brick wall by the school entrance tracks the daily attendance rate of each grade. Students who miss two days or fewer in the class with the highest attendance each month get rewards like cookies, nachos, or a movie day.

A room on the first floor of the school looks like a clothing boutique, except the clothes “for sale” are all marked “100% free.” Kids can grab the things they need to show up to school, like winter coats, gloves, and new shoes.

In another space, kids can get the hygiene products they need to show up ready to learn. There’s also a washer and dryer in the school where students can clean their clothes.

Davis said there are discussions around creating a parent carpool for kids who live near each other.

‘A form of freedom’

The gift of the bikes was not simply a pragmatic attempt to reduce absenteeism, said Davis. It was an act of love.

“When you’re a teenager, bikes are your first form of transportation, right?” Davis said. “It gives you a form of freedom. You explore the world with your bike.”

Students Elyazar Holiday, Savannah Robinson, Ciana Carter, and Myron Dean pose with bikes in front of Davis Aerospace.

Junior Roderic Pippen said his bike helped him find a new hobby.

“I like to adventure on the bike – find new places to be at,” he said. “My bike trips are more fun than just sitting in the car, scrolling on the internet.”

Holiday will use his bike this year to attend biweekly events by the Midnight Golf Program, a mentorship and college readiness nonprofit.

Before they got bikes, seniors Savannah Robinson and Ciana Carter felt stuck at home during summer breaks because their parents were busy with work.

Last summer, the girls had the freedom to ride to meet up and go to places like the beauty supply store and restaurants.

“Anytime she had a bad day over summer, I’d be like, come on, girl, let’s go ride our bikes and get fresh air,” said Robinson. “So it’s really helpful for both of us.”

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Count Day: Detroit school district sees modest bump in enrollment, officials say

2025-10-03T20:11:13+00:00

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Nearly 500 more students were in attendance on Count Day in the Detroit school district this year compared to last, according to early data.

The numbers are crucial for determining how much state funding the Detroit Public Schools Community District will receive. The early data suggest that the district’s efforts to ramp up enrollment and reduce chronic absenteeism have paid off with incremental gains.

On Wednesday, 45,388 students attended school in the district compared to 44,893 last school year, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat.

The numbers are preliminary, as districts are able to add some students who attend school within a certain period after Count Day.

Monique Bryant, a school board member, told Chalkbeat the increase in Count Day attendance this year is a move in the “right direction.”

Bryant said she and Vice Chair LaTrice McClendon made an effort this year to ensure parents’ questions about the enrollment process were answered and that logistical issues were resolved promptly by staff members. The two board members answered calls and emails themselves and worked with Vitti and administrative staff to make sure each concern was addressed.

“This is a direct reflection of the work we have done,” Bryant said of the numbers.

Michigan public school districts tally the number of students in attendance on two days each year. The count helps the state determine the amount of per-pupil funding districts will receive the following fiscal year. Count Days are held on the first Wednesday of October and the first Wednesday of February.

The foundation allowance of per-pupil funding will be $10,050 per student this school year, according to a state budget approved Friday morning that still awaits Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature.

Michigan districts that serve higher rates of students from low-income families, such as the Detroit district, have received more weighted funding from the state to support children with higher needs since 2023. This school year, the Michigan legislature approved a 25% increase in at-risk funding compared to the last.

In the last 20 years, DPSCD has lost more than 92,000 students. Many factors played a role in the drop, such as population declines in the city, lower birth rates, the state’s emergency management of the district, and the pandemic.

Enrollment declines over the years have led to underutilization of many school buildings. A recent district report found the high per-pupil cost for operating19 small schools is creating funding challenges.

In June, the district outlined potential solutions that included merging schools and phasing out the use of some buildings.

Increasing enrollment has been a top priority of the district for years. This summer, it spent more dollars to market to prospective families, send people to canvas communities, and nearly doubled the number of community events hosted at neighborhood schools.

Bryant and McClendon pushed the district to improve its marketing and have asked Vitti for reports to determine what’s working.

In recent years, DPSCD has focused on retaining students. Vitti said at a board meeting in August the school system has “done a fairly good job” in attracting new students, adding that the main challenge is keeping them.

Bryant said she and other members of the board will continue to regularly assess enrollment and attendance data to refine the methods the district is using to attract and keep students.

“One of the things I think has been a detriment to the district is that we have not told our story,” said Bryant. “We have far more academic programs, resources, and wraparound services compared to our competitors. Too much of that is not being shared broadly enough for parents.”

The board member said moving forward, she will push for changes that will better serve the district’s population of students who have to move to new neighborhoods frequently due to economic and housing constraints.

“We have to make sure students know all the resources they have in one school will follow them to the next,” she said.

The full impact of the district’s recruitment and retention efforts won’t be known until the end of the school year, officials say.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Detroiters, tell us what role the city’s next mayor should play in education

2025-09-23T19:05:42+00:00

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No matter who Detroiters elect as mayor on Nov. 4, one thing is certain: The city’s next mayor intends to take advantage of the city’s resources to play a greater role in education issues.

Candidates include Solomon Kinloch, the senior pastor at Triumph Church in Detroit, and Mary Sheffield, the president of the Detroit City Council.

Their interest in education is happening at a critical time in the city, as district and charter schools struggle with low achievement and high rates of chronic absenteeism, two issues that are intrinsically intertwined. While schools have aggressively tackled chronic absenteeism, there is only so much they can do to address the root causes of students failing to attend school — which researchers at Wayne State University’s Detroit PEER made clear in a book released earlier this year.

Both candidates say they plan to use resources the city controls to help eliminate barriers to attendance.

That’s where Detroiters come in. Chalkbeat Detroit wants to hear from city residents about what role, if any, they see the city’s mayor playing in education issues, including chronic absenteeism.

Please complete the survey below to share your thoughts. And please share the survey with other city residents.

No time to fill out the survey? Feel free to share brief thoughts via email: detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

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Kresge invests $180M to improve Detroit neighborhoods for families

2025-09-12T21:48:32+00:00

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On a recent July day, a group of adults took to the streets of Detroit to experience what students encounter on their way to and from several schools.

The excursion was the work of a new effort — a piece of a $180 million investment into multiple Northwest Detroit neighborhoods announced Friday by the philanthropic Kresge Foundation — to identify issues, such as unsafe vacant homes and property, that can make the trek to school a challenging one for children.

“The vacant property, whether it’s residential or commercial, is factored into how do you look at your neighborhood, or set neighborhoods, through the eyes of a child or young person, and create a different not only aesthetic but ecosystem that supports their growth, development and educational opportunity,” Wendy Lewis Jackson, managing director of Kresge’s Detroit Program, told Chalkbeat Thursday.

Kresge announced its $180 million investment Friday morning, with its plan to move its headquarters from Troy to the Marygrove Conservancy Campus in Detroit. Since 2018, that campus has been the site of another of the nonprofit foundation’s investments in Detroit, with the closed Marygrove College campus transformed into a unique preschool through college site, which holds a K-12 campus (part of the Detroit Public Schools Community District,) an early childhood center, and a University of Michigan teaching school with housing for dozens of students. (Kresge is a Chalkbeat funder.)

The move to Detroit “gives us the possibility to really become a very different kind of partner in neighborhood work,” said Rip Rapson, Kresge’s CEO and president.

The five-year investment is focused on housing stabilization, home ownership, revitalization of the Livernois-McNichols corridor, public space enhancements, and financial support to residents and businesses in the Fitzgerald, Bagley, University District and Martin Park neighborhoods, Kresge officials said.

The focus on “how can we do this in a much more comprehensive way that centers and puts kids and families really at the center of how we strengthen and support neighborhoods,” builds on work Kresge has already done in the city.

Here are some more specifics about the investments:

A new structure to house the Kresge headquarters would be built on the northeast corner of the Marygrove Conservancy campus. In addition, Kresge would make improvements on the campus to create new open spaces, new pathways, and public gardens. “The whole idea is to help create an amenity that is basically owned by and committed to by the community,” Rapson said.
Kresge pledged $50 million to promote home ownership, home repair, wealth building, improvements in the physical environment and rental assistance — all things Jackson said in a news release that residents of the neighborhoods have said they’ve been promised but few of those promises have been kept. Among the initial commitments Kresge is making, in partnership with the Live6 Alliance, will create a resident investment and opportunity fund that will invest in resources for home maintenance, repairs, and accessibility improvements; property tax relief; support for renters; and the revitalization of vacant land.
Kresge is also investing in completing the Ella Fitzgerald Greenway. Construction of the greenway began in 2017 in the Livernois-McNichols area. Kresge will extend it east to Livernois Avenue and by making improvements to Ella Fitzgerald Park.

Community engagement work is already underway, and began in late July when Kresge, with support from several partners, began four community groups (on youth and education, housing and development, arts and culture, and health, wellness, and environmental sustainability) that has residents working together with the foundation in “co-designing strategies and recommendations for change,” Jackson said.

It was members of the youth and education group that walked the routes students take to and from Mumford High School, the School at Marygrove, and Bagley Elementary School of Journalism and Technology. It was an initial step in their work, Jackson said, and they likely will also look into the routes students take at other schools within the four neighborhoods. The group will also be seeking feedback from the young people who are making these treks daily.

Youth safety is a critical issue in Detroit. Students interviewed by Chalkbeat earlier this year said they fear getting attacked on the way to or from school. They also said they worry about bullying, school shootings, and immigration actions.

“Yes, they saw vacant properties, particularly along the commercial corridor,” Jackson said of the adults who walked the routes.

Then they set out to draw what they consider to be a safe route. What was interesting about that exercise, Jackson said, is that everyone had a different idea of what a safe route would be. Bringing young people into the conversation, she said, “is going to be fascinating to kind of see if there is, you know, a consensus.”

Rapson said a philanthropic organization like Kresge won’t have all the answers, though, and that partnerships with the city of Detroit and community organizations will be a key part of the investments the foundation makes.

“There’s always, I think, a temptation for philanthropy to think that it can kind of do it on its own,” Rapson said. And while Kresge can invest in making vacant lots safer, “at the end of the day, it’s also a public sector function. So we’re hoping that by demonstrating our commitment … to the sort of integrative approach, we’re going to invite other partners in.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

The Detroit street where kids dodge semitrucks to get to class

2025-09-11T19:59:53+00:00

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Abdullah Mansoob, 8, should have one of Detroit’s safest walks home from school.

Two blocks, a straight shot. Houses on one side, Romanowski Park on the other.

On the first day of the school year, dozens of children were outside at 3:15 p.m., shaking off the first-day jitters.

But before Abdullah could join them, he first had to negotiate a hazard.

Lonyo Street.

Semitrucks roar down Lonyo at all hours, barreling between I-94 and a sprawling complex of truck yards that sandwich this neighborhood.

The trucks could take a slightly longer route to the freeway via Wyoming Street — a few extra minutes, fewer kids, no schools. But they don’t because they don’t have to.

City Council has delayed action on a proposed truck route ordinance for years, despite long-running complaints.

“It’s a shortcut,” said Shaddad Mansoob, Abdullah’s 38-year-old father, who grew up in this neighborhood. Wyoming “is out of the way for (truck drivers). It’s like a few extra minutes, so they don’t want to do that.”

In exchange for those “few extra minutes,” hundreds of children like Abdullah face daily dangers. To play after school, he must cross Lonyo twice: once to drop off his backpack at home and again to get back to the park.

“When trucks drive, the dust goes in my eyes and face,” Abdullah said. “I have to keep looking away, turning around.”

The dust is irritating, but the bigger danger is diesel exhaust — a toxic stew of chemicals linked to respiratory illnesses, heart disease, cancer, and thousands of projected deaths nationwide this year.

“Everybody has a respiratory problem over here,” Shaddad said. “I myself have asthma. My kids do.”

Shaddad Mansoob, a lifelong Southwest Detroit resident, is concerned about the frequent semitruck traffic passing through the neighborhood.

“These trucks just add on to the pollution that we already have, which is not right,” he added, pointing to the freeway and nearby industrial zone.

“We pay our taxes, I feel like we should have a decent life here just like all the other neighborhoods.”

Optimism for an ordinance

None of this will come as a surprise to Detroiters. Truck traffic is a fact of life virtually everywhere in the city, from the shipping depots near Lonyo Street to warehouses on the westside and factories on the eastside.

Detroit ranks among the nation’s busiest freight hubs: Nearly 128,000 loaded containers entered the city in July alone. A city study tallied an average of 1,600 trucks going in and out of a depot near Lonyo Street every day.

The same study found that 435 trucks per day pass through the intersection — Lonyo and Arnold — that Abdullah crosses to get to school.

The semitruck parade is linked to border trade and local efforts to lure industry to the city. But residents have opposed the traffic pretty much from the start. Trucks are noisy, chew up roads, and endanger pedestrians. A semi struck and killed a man weeks ago not far from where the Mansoobs live.

City officials have promised to do something about the situation for years, but haven’t delivered.

Now the city is trying again, and its leaders insist this time will be different.

Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration is planning to ban trucks from more streets and is drafting an ordinance that could strengthen enforcement of those rules.

Sam Krassenstein, deputy director of the Department of Public Works, said Lonyo is one of several streets that will have new truck restriction signage by the end of the year. He said the city is also considering physically changing streets — by narrowing them, for instance — to discourage truck traffic.

Residents have frequently complained that truck restrictions and signage elsewhere in the city are inadequately enforced and largely ignored.

Key supporters of a truck route ordinance, including City Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero, who represents Southwest Detroit, hope it will pass by the end of this year. Both mayoral candidates have said they’d support an ordinance.

Shaddad Mansoob with his children, nieces, and nephews. His family occupies a significant portion of their street.

Enforcement poses a thorny challenge. Ticketing trucks might seem like an obvious solution, but shipping companies could have little incentive to change their routes if the tickets go to drivers, many of whom are independent contractors. And the sheer number of trucks could overwhelm enforcement.

“Whatever ordinance we decide to go with, we want to ensure that it has a strong enforcement mechanism … that changes behavior and improves pollution or safety concerns within their neighborhood,” Sheffield said.

Trucking companies with operations near the Mansoobs’ home did not return requests for comment.

‘I wouldn’t live anywhere else’

Shaddad Mansoob says he won’t stop speaking out about truck traffic, and he certainly won’t let it push him out of the neighborhood where he grew up.

His father emigrated to the area from Yemen as a teenager, and Shaddad bought a house here as an adult. His parents live on one side of him and his sister on the other.

Central Transport, a freight shipping company run by Ambassador Bridge owner Matthew Moroun, is situated near Lonyo Street.

Gesturing down the street, he points out the homes of his cousins, aunts, uncles, and siblings. He notes proudly that many residents on his street have been there for 30 years or more. He feels lucky to raise his children in such a tight-knit, kid-friendly community. About a third of residents in his neighborhood are under the age of 18.

It’s why he refuses to leave, despite the truck traffic and pollution.

“I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” he said. “That’s why I want to make this area better for the future children growing up here, for my children.”

Koby Levin is a senior reporter for Outlier Media. You can reach him at koby@outliermedia.org

Michigan third grade student proficiency on M-STEP exam reaches a new low

2025-08-27T19:37:33+00:00

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Last spring, Michigan third grade students recorded their lowest performance in English language arts in the 11-year history of the state test.

Only 38.9% of the third graders were proficient in ELA, down from 39.6% in 2024, according to latest results released Wednesday from the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, known as the M-STEP.

There are some positive trends: Test scores are up in four out of six grades in both English language arts and math. Still, overall proficiency rates remain below pre-pandemic levels in all subjects and grades except eighth grade English language arts.

Those eighth grade students were third graders when schools shut down in spring 2020 because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The results show Michigan’s educators still face an uphill battle to recover learning lost during the pandemic. Michigan has fared poorly compared to most states in national tests, with its students among the farthest behind compared to where they were before COVID disrupted learning across the country.

The state’s students fell behind peers in places like Mississippi despite tens of thousands of additional staff, free early childhood education, and greater free nutrition options.

State Superintendent Michael Rice, who is leaving his post soon, focused his comments on recent gains and made little mention of the steep losses students registered in 2022 and 2023.

“It is noteworthy that in many grades, Michigan students posted the highest math and ELA proficiency rates in the last three school years,” Rice said in a news release. “At the same time, however, ELA scores in grades 3 and 4 remain a concern. Once fully implemented, historic 2024 laws to address early literacy and dyslexia will help substantially, but we must do more to improve literacy skills of young readers.”

Lawmakers passed two bipartisan laws last year aimed at improving how schools teach literacy skills. The laws will require schools to screen students for characteristics of dyslexia and provide evidence-based literacy instruction. Plus, educator preparation programs will be required to train future teachers on dyslexia and student support strategies. The state is also investing millions in teacher training and curriculum materials.

The Michigan Department of Education did highlight that students who were learning remotely in 2020-21 continue to struggle.

MDE determined that of all economically disadvantaged 3-7 graders who spent seven months or more studying from home that year, 16.9% were proficient in ELA this past spring, compared to 27.6% of those who were in school more frequently.

In math, the gap was similar: 10.4% who were homebound for seven months or more compared to 22.3% who were not.

Those same gaps affected those who are not economically disadvantaged. In ELA, 45.6% of students in longer remote settings were proficient compared to 56.8% of those who were in school more. In math, the gap was bigger: 36.8% proficient for the remote students compared to 52.8% to those in school longer.

School districts administer the test to students in the spring.

Here’s how students in some Michigan districts performed

Dearborn Public Schools: The Wayne County district’s fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade math scores are up compared to pre-pandemic. Its reading scores are down in most grades tested but up in fifth grade. Superintendent Glenn Maleyko is poised to become the next state superintendent.

Detroit Public Schools Community District: The state’s largest public school district reports higher ELA scores compared to pre-pandemic scores in all grades tested. Math is also up in fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade. The proficiency rates are still much lower than the statewide numbers. Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has testified in support of bills to help students with dyslexia, and DPSCD has hired more than 250 academic interventionists to help students, using funds from a literacy lawsuit. (DPSCD’s results are labeled “Detroit” in Bridge’s searchable database.)

Ann Arbor Public Schools: The Washtenaw County school district’s scores are below pre-pandemic levels across third through eighth grade in both ELA and math. But ELA and math scores are up in all grades compared to last year, except third grade ELA.

Grand Rapids Public Schools: The Kent County district’s sixth and seventh grade math scores are higher than pre-pandemic along with the seventh grade ELA. Compared to last year, math scores are up in each grade, but ELA scores are down in each grade.

Literacy scores remain a concern

During the first school year that the M-STEP was administered, 2014-2015, half of the third grade students were proficient. Last year, 39.6% of third grade students were proficient in ELA.

Rice reiterated calls for several funding and policy changes. The Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have failed to meet a school budget deal, blowing past a July 1 deadline in law.

“The Michigan legislature needs to provide our children with lower class sizes in high-poverty K-3 classrooms, more in-person instructional time, funding for more research-based, early literacy materials that help drive improved student achievement, and mandatory training in Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) on the science of reading for teachers and administrators in grades K-5 and all literacy coaches,” Rice said. “These research-based measures would also help students improve their reading skills.”

The Senate Education Committee heard testimony earlier this month about a pilot project to fund lower class sizes in specific districts. Rice has called for the state Legislature to double the funding for evidence-based literacy materials.

Recently, 561 school districts received a total of $87 million to purchase materials but they had to select from either curriculum funds, professional development, or “interventions.” The state offers grants for LETRS training, but the training is optional.

State Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, who helped lead the charge to pass the literacy laws, told Bridge the “test scores confirm that we need to make changes around literacy.” Change will take time, he cautioned.

“I think the changes we made last fall are absolutely necessary and important.”

State House Rep. Jaime Greene, R-Richmond, said the results underscore the importance of the legislation. School districts have a few years before the requirements fully kick in, but Greene said districts that can should “fast track” changes “because what they are currently doing is absolutely not working.”

Venessa Keesler, president and CEO of school reform group Launch Michigan, told Bridge “Literacy has to be the state’s top priority. And the good news is we actually know what to do, and we’re doing most of it.”

She called for high-quality curriculum and teacher training requirements. Additionally, she said districts should use assessments that determine if students have decoding skills, and then use that data to make changes to course correct more quickly.

Income gap drops

The latest test results show that the gap between students from low-income homes and those who are not remains vast in Michigan —with the latter group of students having proficiency rates that double those of students from low-income homes — but it has shrunk since the pandemic.

But it’s contracted largely because overall proficiency rates among students who are not from low-income homes fell even farther than their peers. For instance, 31.3% of third graders from low-income homes were proficient in English in the 2018-19 school year, compared to 62.8% of those who are not from low-income homes.

The scores of students who are not from low income homes, however, fell 7.1 percentage points, to 55.7% this past spring, while their peers’ scores fell 5.6 percentage points to 25.7%; the gap shrunk from 31.5 points to 30. That runs counter to some research that has found that the gap nationally actually widened since the pandemic.

Mike Wilkinson is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach him at mwilkinson@bridgemi.com.

Isabel Lohman is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

First day excitement as metro Detroit students return to school

2025-08-25T14:44:29+00:00

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It was a nippy August morning outside Richards Middle School in Fraser, but the arrival of the fall-like chill didn’t stop the back-to-school fashion show on the first day.

Girls wore their jean shorts, tinsel glittering in their hair, and boys donned their basketball shorts, artfully paired with socks and sandals. Several clutched Alani Nu energy drinks as they hurried to the school gymnasium for a quick introductory assembly.

For half of the students sitting in the gym, the eighth graders, middle school is the last stop on the way to high school. And for the seventh graders, it’s the next stop after elementary school.

For the 30 minutes before the assembly started, the gym was a cacophony of student voices. In the tweenager stage of their lives, the middle-schoolers lived up to some of the stereotypes of their age: Boys and girls mostly sat in separate groups. Moms kissed stoic kids outside of school. Braces abounded. Someone shouted, “I have a boyfriend!” to teachers.

Shatara Johnson kisses her daughter, Katelyn Roney, on Monday at Richards Middle School. It was Katelyn's first day of seventh grade.

But eighth-grader Elijah, 12, excited for his first algebra class, said middle school is not all awkward or challenging.

“It’s not as hard as some people say,” he said.

These scenes of excitement and jitters played out across metro Detroit as students returned for the first day of school. But the first day also was clouded with concern as an ongoing impasse among lawmakers over the state budget has meant school district leaders are still uncertain about how their schools will be funded.

Michigan lawmakers have been unable to agree to a budget, with the House and Senate both far apart in their proposals for funding schools. As a result, some school district leaders have made staffing cuts, according to a recent survey of school officials.

The impasse is happening during a school year for which there is a growing chorus of people calling for change. High rates of chronic absenteeism and lackluster student performance on state and national exams, have led to renewed criticism of the state’s school system. Even Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, during an address earlier this year, said low literacy rates are “not acceptable.”

Richards Middle School seventh grader Nikola Bilbilovski, center, sits with classmates on the bleachers as their first day of school began.

Federal policies impact southwest Detroit schools

Meanwhile, fears about how Trump administration actions, from promised cuts to federal education funding to increased immigration enforcement, have further fueled uncertainty.

The crackdown was on the minds of some students filing into Western International High School in southwest Detroit Monday. In May, a junior at the school, Maykol Bogoya-Duarte, was detained by immigration officials. In June, he was deported to his native Colombia.

Students file into Western International High School before the first bell.

Natalia Quinomez, a junior, stood in front of the school about thirty minutes before the first bell rang as she looked for a friend. Her mind was also on Maykol.

“He was about to graduate, which makes it really sad,” said Natalia. “Like, he was so close, but he was detained.”

Natalia said people in her community don’t feel safe as federal immigration crackdowns continue in the city. The school, the student said, also could have done more to make her and others feel supported after Maykol’s arrest.

As cars lined up for blocks on Scotten Street on Monday, Maria Ruvalcaba walked her daughter Camila Gallardo to her first day of her freshman year.

Ruvalcaba said (her daughter translated) that she thought the school “more or less” did well in handling Maykol’s arrest. More security at the school would make the family feel more safe, she added.

For many, worrying about immigration enforcement is nothing new, said John Henriques, a senior at Western.

“I don’t really worry that much,” he said. “It’s just normal life.”

At the Southwest Detroit school Monday morning, students were greeted by a staff member on a bullhorn as they filed into the building.

“Good morning, good morning, good morning,” he said. “It’s going to be a great year.”

Detroit International Academy for Young Women seniors Assia Kaddoumi and Aysha Uddin hug.

Aiming for continued improvement in reading and writing

The pink-and-gray lined hallways at the Detroit International Academy for Young Women were full of excitement Monday morning as clusters of girls spilled out of their classrooms to head to their next class.

“Good morning! Have a good first day!” a male and female teacher called out to the students. One girl gave the female teacher a hug before heading down the hall.

Lakesha Spears, a fifth grade social studies and English teacher at Detroit International Academy of Young Women, in her classroom on the first day of school on Aug. 25, 2025 in Detroit.

Lakesha Spears, a fifth grade social studies and English teacher at the school in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, was going around to different classrooms to check on the new teachers at DIA. Spears is in her 25th year teaching and her second year at DIA.

She said her goals for the year are to continue improving reading and writing scores for her students. Some of the strategies she uses include having students read 20 minutes a day.

“They did wonderful last year. They continued to grow in both reading and writing,” Spears said. “Fifth grade in particular did wonderful on M-STEP and i-Ready. We’re looking forward to continuing showing them some positive strategies to continue with reading growth.”

Students sit in class on the first day of school at the International Academy for Young Women.

Spears said she is enjoying her time at DIA. As a mother of two sons, teaching boys was more familiar for her, but said teaching at an all-girls school has been rewarding.

“I’ve been teaching a long time, and I’ve been waiting a long time to find a place like this where you’re happy and willing to serve. The girls are really eager to learn here. I feel like I’m a better teacher now.”

Vitti begins his ninth year as superintendent with school visits

DIA was DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s first stop.

As he visited classrooms and walked the halls, Vitti said he is looking forward to starting his ninth school year leading the district. He decided to visit DIA on the first day because of the school’s improvement in English, math, and social studies. Vitti recalled that when he first became superintendent in 2017, the building where DIA is housed was closed. It got rebranded as the academy.

“I think DIA is a good example of what we’re doing differently in the district,” he said. “You have your neighborhood schools, you have exam schools, but also single gender opportunities for boys and girls, and it’s just a menu of options for parents in the city.” Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men is the district’s all-boys school.

One of Vitti’s goals for the school year is continuing to improve student attendance and achievement.

“By improving attendance, we’re going to accelerate student achievement,” he said. “We’re narrowing the gap between the district and the state, but we want to accelerate it.”

Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District, greets students in the cafeteria of Bates Academy on Monday.

As school districts wait for the state budget to be passed, Vitti said the holdup will not directly impact the district, specifically when it comes to free lunches, as those are funded through the federal government.

“I would say we’re not going to have any kind of impact unless the budget is not approved by the beginning of October,” he said. If the impasse continues beyond that, Vitti said, “we’ll have to start dipping into our reserves to fill the gap, to keep everyone employed, and to keep student programming.”

Meanwhile, when it comes to the search for Michigan’s next state superintendent, Vitti believes the three finalists–former Virginia state superintendent Lisa Coons, Dearborn Public Schools Superintendent Glenn Maleyko, or Harrison Community Schools Superintendent Judy Walton– will continue the work of current superintendent Michael Rice, who is retiring Oct. 3.

“I’m hopeful that the state superintendent, whoever he or she is, is going to advocate for equitable funding and improve statewide accountability structures throughout the state so the state can start improving academic performance,” Vitti said.

Practice makes perfect, unless you’re dealing with those tricky locks

In Fraser, nerves were on display in the seventh grade hallway as students traveled from the gym to Richards’ main seventh grade artery, a hallway flanked by narrow beige lockers. The new students were particularly bedeviled by the combination locks. One student told another that he’d practiced at home, but the twists and turns required by the elusive lock still tripped him up.

Students rose early to prepare for the 8:05 start at Richards.

Catalina Norberto, 11, woke up — though “woke up” is a stretch, as Norberto said she could barely sleep because she was “overthinking everything” — at 5 a.m. to prepare and call her friend Marley Franchi, 12. The pair said they are particularly nervous about learning how to switch classes.

“I have a class upstairs. I’m scared,” Marley said.

Fraser is a suburban school district of about 4,400 students down from nearly 5,300 in 2015, according to state data. Fewer students means less per-pupil funding, though overall funding levels have risen with recent state budgets. But a school bond approved by Fraser voters in 2023 means that Richards has a new HVAC system, roof, and cafeteria this year. The school bond money makes them fortunate, said Principal Huston Julian. (Not all districts can successfully persuade voters to approve bond money).

“Our community has always supported our schools,” he said.

But the unknowns around the state budget still concern the district, said Kristin Sommer, a district spokeswoman. The district is particularly interested in whether lawmakers will approve universal school meals again, as the proportion of Fraser students eating free breakfast and lunch has risen with the Michigan School Meals program.

Richards Middle School seventh grader Kayla Pittman, center, looks over a friend's class schedule during at Richards Middle School.

In Richards’ seventh grade hallways, students found their first period class, consulting adults eager to help them crack the school’s layout. About 30 students sat in Andy Brodi’s first hour science class as it began. When Brodi first began teaching in 1998, he said even 25 students in a class seemed like a lot. In 2025, around 30 is the norm, and “it’s not a big deal,” he said.

On Monday, Brodi acknowledged to his students that he probably felt the same way as many of them did: With 180 faces, of course he had some first day jitters.

“It’s such an overwhelming thing,” Brodi later said. “They’re seeing seven teachers for the first time, they’re seeing 300 different kids. … It’s more just a comfort level the first day, just to know that we want them here and we can’t wait to teach them.”

Lily Altavena is a reporter for the Detroit Free Press. You can reach her at laltavena@freepress.com.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Detroit families reeling after local nonprofit loses federal Head Start funding

2025-08-13T22:13:24+00:00

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Kyra O’Guinn and her young family have relied heavily on Focus: HOPE’s Early Head Start programming to help raise their daughter since she was just 4 months old.

But that safety net was eliminated when the longtime Detroit nonprofit announced that it has not received federal Head Start funding for the 2025–26 school year.

The closure of the Head Start program affects more than 300 Detroit-area children like O’Guinn’s, leaving her and other parents scrambling for alternative arrangements while as many as 70% of its 107 early learning staff members face layoffs, said Portia Roberson, CEO of Focus: HOPE, which provides early learning, job training, and food support to families.

For 10 years, Focus: HOPE’s Head Start programs were funded through a relationship with Starfish Family Services. Focus: HOPE was a subrecipient of a grant Starfish received from the federal government to provide the program. Last year, though, the two organizations agreed to apply for the funding individually, meaning Focus: HOPE would have to seek the federal money on its own. That funding request was formally rejected last week without explanation.

It isn’t clear whether the decision is connected to the uncertainty facing Head Start nationally due to the Trump administration’s temporary pause of funding and the closure of regional offices.

O’Guinn and her husband both work, and she’s also pursuing a degree in marketing and public relations. She said it’s difficult to consider next steps for their now 3-year-old daughter and another younger child with no nearby options for child care or family to pitch in.

“To take something away like this from us and our neighborhoods is you telling us that you want us to continue to be underserviced,” O’Guinn said during a Focus: HOPE town hall hosted on Tuesday. “It left us empty-handed, and we really needed that support.”

Kyra O'Guinn speaks about the impact Focus: HOPE's early childhood programming has had on her daughter during a town hall meeting hosted on Aug. 12, 2025.

The loss of funding affects families in Detroit’s 48202, 48206, 48211, and 48238 ZIP codes, which are located in city neighborhoods like Midtown and Forest Park and includes neighboring cities like Hamtramck. In addition to having one of the highest rates of poverty in the state, three of the four ZIP codes were characterized as having “insufficient” licensed child care access, with three or more children for each available slot, according to data analyzed by Boston University’s Child Opportunity Index.

Roberson said Focus: HOPE will continue to operate some of its early childhood programming through state funding it receives for 4-year-olds enrolled in its Great Start Readiness Program, or GSRP, Michigan’s free prekindergarten program.

In the meantime, Roberson encouraged parents attending the town hall to advocate for restoring the agency’s federally funded programming provided by Head Start, designed to promote school readiness for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers from families that meet income eligibility requirements.

Roberson said Focus: HOPE plans to work with the city of Detroit, community partners, and other child care providers in the area to figure out where children can enroll without significant disruption.

In addition to educating children through its preschool program for 4-year-olds, Focus: HOPE’s early learning programs provided more than 250 mothers with peer-to-peer support for pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and early parenting — all services impacted by not receiving the grant.

“We’re actively working to figure out how many classes we can run with some of the other funding we receive,” Roberson said. “We’re looking for other funding sources so that we can try to serve as many of those 300 children as possible and then pivoting and trying to figure out where are some affordable, solid places that we can send other children that parents can access easily.”

Focus: HOPE Chief Executive Officer Portia Roberson speaks about the impact of not receiving federal funding for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

The decision to seek the Head Start funding independently came because Starfish Family Services had indicated it no longer wanted to serve as a grantee with subrecipients, Roberson said. Starfish Family Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Focus: HOPE applied for the funding on its own in December, Roberson said, while continuing to operate under the Starfish’s grant funding that ran through the end of July. Expecting to hear from the federal government early in the year, Roberson said she first was updated in March that there could be a delay in decisions on funding due to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Head Start announcing it was shutting down five regional offices.

She said she contacted Michigan U.S. Sens. Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin, both Democrats, in June to see if they could find out more after hearing rumors that some organizations might not be receiving funding.

Late last week, Roberson said she was informed by the federal Administration of Children and Families, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, that it had not received funding, but that Starfish and MiSide, another Detroit agency, had.

“We really don’t know why, because, to be honest, while it was a competitive grant process, it was not competitive in the sense that anyone else was applying to service the kids in the four ZIP codes we were currently servicing,” Roberson said. “So, essentially, by not funding us, it wasn’t as if they said, ‘Oh, we think that the application from some other organization was a better application, and we’re sending the kids there.’ They just said we’re not going to service you in these ZIP codes.”

Officials from the Health and Human Services department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

‘I don’t need a day care … I want her to be learning’

Roberson said Focus: HOPE applied for 100 additional Head Start slots and $14 million in total federal funding to serve around 400 children, a significant increase from the $6 million it operated on this past year. The intention, she said, was to see if it could accommodate children who were on a wait list.

“We were hoping this would be our opportunity to grow our program a little bit and have even more students participate in a Head Start program,” she said. “This obviously is not that and it’s going to be a significant hit to our overall Focus: HOPE budget.”

After enrolling her 4-year-old daughter in the Head Start program through Focus: HOPE a few months back, parent Sade Walker said she was concerned about having to potentially find a new place for her daughter this fall.

Though the Great Start Readiness Program might still be an option this fall, Walker said she’s concerned about receiving the news so close to the beginning of the school year.

“It’s probably going to be hard to find a school,” Walker said. “I don’t need a day care or a babysitter. I want her to be learning.”

Head Start overall has been dealing with uncertainty, beginning in January when the Trump administration paused federal funding for the program via an administrative order. That pause was eventually rescinded, but a later decision to shut down five regional offices raised more concerns. One of the regional offices that closed was in Chicago, which oversaw Head Start centers in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

In a statement about the closure of the Focus: HOPE programs, Peters said Head Start provides Michigan families with access to early childhood education while helping parents enter and stay in the workforce.

“That’s why we must ensure that every single community in our state receives the funding needed to administer this important program and support our working families,” Peter said in the statement. “I’ll keep working to ensure Focus: HOPE can continue serving children and families in Detroit.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, who attended Tuesday’s town hall, said the decision not to fund Focus: HOPE Head Start programming in some of the poorest ZIP codes in the country is another example of the administration’s “reverse Robin Hood” approach of “taking from people who need it and giving it to billionaires.”

“We cannot rest,” he said, “until this is reversed.”

Fighting chronic absenteeism key issue as Sheffield and Kinloch gear up for November mayoral race

2025-08-06T15:25:03+00:00

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The two contenders to be Detroit’s next mayor both say they will invest city resources into addressing chronic absenteeism, one of the biggest challenges facing schools in the city.

Mary Sheffield, the president of the Detroit City Council, and Solomon Kinloch, the senior pastor at Triumph Church in Detroit, were the top vote-getters in the mayoral primary in Detroit Tuesday and will face off in the general election in November.

Just 17% of Detroit residents voted in the primary election, according to city of Detroit data. Sheffield, who led polling throughout the campaign, received 43,572 votes, or 51% of the vote. Kinloch came in a distant second, with 14,893 votes, or 17.4% of the vote.

They were among a field of nine candidates who said they intended to play a role in collaborating with schools across the city and improving outcomes for young people.

Mary Sheffield was the top vote-getter in the Detroit mayoral primary Tuesday.

The desire to get involved in education issues is happening at a critical moment in the city. Low academic achievement and high rates of chronic absenteeism are among the biggest challenges schools face. But contributing factors such as poverty, housing instability, transportation, and safety concerns — issues schools alone can’t resolve — impede school success for many students.

There has been a growing realization among many community leaders that the city’s rebirth from bankruptcy won’t be complete if schools continue to struggle, and student achievement won’t see substantial improvement if the city doesn’t partner with the education community.

Rev. Solomon Kinloch, right, hugs a community member on election day, Tues., Aug. 5, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

So what would the two mayoral contenders do?

In her response to a Chalkbeat Detroit survey on education issues, Sheffield said her role would “be a solutions-oriented advocate on behalf of parents, teachers, students and community members.” She said she would “commit significant resources” toward improving conditions that impact education that the city oversees.

“I will establish deeper collaborative ties with DPSCD first and foremost, acknowledging that a strong school system means a strong Detroit,” Sheffield said. “Everything from Detroit’s public safety to workforce to small business and entrepreneurship have direct ties to our educational system. So as a goal, we will understand the gaps and create solutions together.”

Kinloch, who didn’t respond to Chalkbeat’s survey, told the Detroit News that he would be an “educational mayor” and would appoint a chief educational officer who would work with Detroit school officials.

On his website, Kinloch said he would partner with Detroit’s school community to address social barriers to education.

The person he would appoint to the senior cabinet level position would be “specifically tasked with working with our school administrators, educators, parents, and children to coordinate city services that support student success.”

Both candidates say they would tackle attendance challenges. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, about 60% of the students were considered chronically absent during the last school year. That’s down from a high of nearly 80% at the height of the pandemic, but still far above state and national averages. Charter schools have similarly high rates. A student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10%, or 18 days, of the school year.

“Together, we will attack the root causes of truancy, such as housing instability, financial need, lack of transportation, and mental health, and set our students up for success,” Kinloch wrote on his website. “My administration will prioritize it, set metrics to track progress and keep us accountable.”

Sheffield said attendance and literacy rates must be addressed together.

“We have to make sure that we are having conversations about both, because they are inevitably linked. And possible solutions have to take this into account as well,” Sheffield said in her response to the Chalkbeat survey.

“If students are not showing up to school consistently, we are not able to accurately gauge the quality of the educational system itself,” she said. “I am committing to piloting realistic wraparound services solutions that include transportation, housing, employment and childcare supports to our students and households with the highest barriers to attendance.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

‘Fight for the future’: Why education has become a key topic in Detroit’s mayoral race

2025-08-04T13:52:34+00:00

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High absenteeism rates, youth fearing for their safety, and a fragmented education scene with dozens of governing bodies overseeing 185 public schools mean Detroit’s next mayor will have their hands full if they want to improve outcomes for young people.

Next week’s primary is the first open race for mayor in more than a decade, and nearly all of the candidates racing for the top two vote-getting spots say they have plans for how the mayor can play a more effective role in education.

But it will be a tough challenge in Detroit, because the scope of the problem includes low academic achievement and high rates of students missing far too much school, and also because factors such as extreme poverty, housing instability, and transportation woes impede school success for a majority of students.

Community leaders like Angelique Power, the president and CEO of the Skillman Foundation, see this election as a “liminal moment” for Detroit public education, because along with a new mayor, the city will elect new city council members. Next year, Michigan residents will elect a new governor.

“This is sort of a fight for the future and the soul of Detroit.”

While Detroit’s mayor doesn’t have control or oversight of schools, the person elected in November will need “political will” to create cohesion in the city’s schools when there is pushback, Power said. (The Skillman Foundation is a Chalkbeat funder. To learn more about our funding, go here.)

That’s important considering the city has 185 public schools. That translates to one elected school board overseeing more than 100 schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, and 56 appointed school boards overseeing charter schools. Meanwhile, city leadership must take into account the nearly 30,000 school-age children who live in Detroit but leave the city every day to attend suburban schools.

“There’s no cohesive vision or strategy that crosses over the different types of public schools that we have here,” Power said.

That matters greatly. While DPSCD can boast of some high-performing schools, and charters can too, many schools in the city are struggling academically.

Nine Detroiters are running for mayor. They are Jonathan Barlow, James Craig, Fred Durhal, Joel Haashiim, Saunteel Jenkins, Solomon Kinloch, Todd Perkins, Mary Sheffield, and DaNetta Simpson.

Just five of them (Barlow, Durhal, Jenkins, Perkins, and Sheffield) filled out a Chalkbeat Detroit survey first sent to the candidates July 2. Between those responses and a candidate forum hosted recently by the Detroit Federation of Teachers, Chalkbeat got a clear picture of what the candidates would prioritize on education.

They say there needs to be better coordination between the city and schools to align resources. They want to improve attendance and other outcomes such as safety for city students. They want to work to ensure that schools receive adequate state and federal funding. They want to improve access to a number of services, including after-school programs and career and technical education programs. You can read their responses below.

“The need to fix the broken bridge and communication between City government and schools is pressing,” Durhal wrote in his response.

Wayne State University researcher Sarah Lenhoff, whose team has done extensive research about Detroit education issues, including chronic absenteeism, enrollment, and housing, is pleased to see candidates making education a focus. She’s long believed that Detroit’s mayor should play a bigger role in improving the city’s education landscape as well as the conditions that support student success.

“It should be the responsibility of the mayor,” said Lenhoff, director of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research, or Detroit PEER. “Just because they don’t have direct authority over the schools doesn’t mean they don’t have a lot of influence over how well the schools are doing, how well students are doing in the city. It’s overdue, and I’m hopeful that whoever becomes mayor will carry that through into action while they’re in office.”

Playing a role, but leaving control to the schools

If Detroit’s next mayor plays a key role in education, they’ll have to overcome skepticism from residents who may still be wary after more than two decades of reform attempts.

Helen Moore, a longtime education activist in the city who has pushed back against school takeovers, said she’s not opposed to the next mayor having some input on education issues.

Detroit’s mayor “should have a role, but they should not be taking over,” Moore said. “That’s happened before,” and it didn’t work, she said.

Moore said the mayor needs to send their representatives to school board meetings to listen to the public and understand the district’s challenges. They need to be focused on helping students succeed, she said.

“We’re going through hell trying to get them (students) to the place they should be,” Moore said. “There are too many people trying to keep our children from getting the quality education they deserve.”

Mayoral control became an early reform effort when Michigan lawmakers transferred control of Detroit Public Schools to the city mayor in 1999, allowing then-Mayor Dennis Archer to appoint a seven-member school board that answered to him.

That experiment ended in 2005, when Detroit voters approved a ballot initiative to return to an elected board. But in 2009, mounting debt in DPS led then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm to appoint the first of what would become a series of emergency managers who had almost complete control of the district. By the time emergency management in the district ended in 2016, the debt had ballooned to catastrophic levels.

To ward off bankruptcy and unsaddle classrooms from the debt, Michigan lawmakers implemented a controversial plan to create a new district — DPSCD — to educate students and operate schools, while DPS remained intact to collect tax revenue and pay off debt. DPSCD has been on relatively solid financial footing since it had that fresh, debt-free start.

But the many years of state and mayoral oversight decimated the district. Enrollment declined from around 160,000 just a few years after mayoral control began to around 49,000 today. Dozens of schools closed, leaving some areas of the city with no neighborhood schools.

And the emergence of charter choices, which began opening in Michigan in the mid-’90s, has created intense competition in Detroit, giving parents a plethora of often dizzying options for where to send their children. It’s also created instability in the system as parents move their children frequently from school to school, often in the middle of the school year. Those frequent moves happen for a number of reasons, including a desire to find the best option for their children but often because housing instability forces families to move unexpectedly.

In a 2018 special report on the effects of frequent moves, Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan explored how they create instability and makes it difficult for schools to improve academically.

Tackling chronic absenteeism will be a key issue

Lenhoff and Jeremy Singer, her colleague and fellow researcher, coauthored a book released earlier this year about chronic absenteeism in Detroit in which they argued that schools alone can’t solve the intractable problem and called on city and community leaders to get more involved. Detroit PEER recently released several fact sheets that highlight areas where it sees the mayor having “the most direct influence over the conditions for learning and education in the city.”

About 60% of DPSCD students were chronically absent during the last school year, meaning they missed 18 or more days of instruction. Citywide, the rates have hovered around 50%.

“Many of the big reasons why kids miss so much school in Detroit have little to do with the schools themselves and have much more to do with the conditions in which they’re living, with their access to transportation, with their housing and neighborhood situations,” Lenhoff said.

Those are mostly within the control of the mayor and city government.

So what could the city do? According to Lenoff, it could make it easier for kids to ride public transit to and from school, strengthen the safety of neighborhoods so students who live close enough can feel safe biking or walking to school, and invest in family-friendly affordable housing.

The city has invested in affordable housing, but for Lenhoff, the key question is whether there’s an emphasis on housing that can accommodate families and is located near schools.

Those housing efforts, she said, don’t necessarily require working with school systems, but they might be more effective if they were coordinated with DPSCD and major charter school operators “to ensure alignment between where the city’s investing and where schools are prioritizing their efforts.”

Many families in Detroit lack reliable transportation, making it difficult for kids to get to school every day. The Detroit PEER fact sheet on the top notes that a third of families in Detroit don’t own a car, and 30% of families don’t have a fixed way to get their children to school.

DPSCD doesn’t provide yellow school bus transportation for most high school students, who can receive bus passes to take city buses. But just 4% of students use those bus passes to go to school daily, according to the fact sheet.

The city can look for ways to make riding city buses more palatable and convenient for teenagers, perhaps by letting teens use their student identification cards instead of bus passes, Lenhoff said. Crucial steps would be researching bus routes to ensure they are located in areas that are more easily accessible for students, making sure buses arrive on time, and making sure bus stops are safe.

Another area the next mayor can collaborate on is promoting district schools. DPSCD and charter schools in the city would be far more stable enrollment-wise if they were able to reengage with students who leave the city to attend suburban schools.

“Our city’s leaders have an interest in those children coming back to the city for school, and, you know, for neighborhoods to have thriving community-based schools,” Lenhoff said. “So figuring out ways to promote that … could be really worthwhile.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated after a fifth candidate, Jonathan Barlow, filled out Chalkbeat’s candidate survey after publication.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

2025 Detroit mayoral candidates on education issues: An election guide for voters

2025-08-04T13:50:50+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy.

Detroit’s next mayor will likely be someone who wants to create more cohesion between district and charter schools, help the city to play a role in reducing chronic absenteeism, and ensure students have more access to after-school, career and technical education.

Nine people are running to replace Mayor Mike Duggan, who has served as mayor since January 2014. Five of the candidates — Jonathan Barlow, Fred Durhal, Saunteel Jenkins, Todd Perkins, and Mary Sheffield — responded to a Chalkbeat Detroit survey about whether and how they plan to play a greater role in education issues.

They will face off Tuesday in a primary election that will decide the top two vote-getters who will compete in the November election.

There’s been a growing push for Detroit’s mayor to take a more active role in addressing some of the conditions that lead to school success or struggles. Low academic performance is prevalent in most schools and the city has alarmingly high rates of students who are missing too many days of school. City youth say they’re constantly worried about their safety.

Below is the candidate guide with background information on those who responded to the survey and answers to the questions. You can read more about the importance of this election here.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after a fifth candidate, Jonathan Barlow, filled out Chalkbeat’s candidate survey after publication.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit teens describe safety fears in school, at home, and on the street

2025-07-11T10:00:01+00:00

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This story was published as part of Next City’s Detroit News Hub, a reporting project funded by the Kresge Foundation. The hub includes BridgeDetroit, Planet Detroit, and Chalkbeat Detroit.

Detroit youth say they generally feel safe in school, but they fear the unknown, both within the school building and in their communities. That fear, some say, affects their mental health.

“Sometimes I just overthink it,” Natalina Cawthon, a student at Detroit School of Arts, told Chalkbeat.

Violent crime may be on the decline in Detroit, but youth who must navigate the city and its schools say fears about their safety can often feel overwhelming. Interviews with more than a dozen youth and adults who advocate on their behalf illustrate the challenges young people face — and the ways they cope.

Here’s what Chalkbeat heard from them:

Malaya Ramsey, 15, the School at Marygrove

Malaya Ramsey gets tense in places where teenagers gather in large numbers. Fights tend to break out, and she can’t forget the times she’s heard gunshots at carnivals, or the acquaintance who was killed at one.

“I’m always on edge, basically, watching my surroundings,” said Malaya, 15, a student at the School at Marygrove.

She generally feels comfortable at school. Marygrove, located on the former Marygrove College campus in northwest Detroit, is the newest high school in the district and has a focus on social justice. But safety can be an issue — like the time some teens from another high school came onto the campus with weapons to try to fight a Marygrove student.

“Luckily, my school, they get on top of these things quickly, so they de-escalated the problem,” she said, adding that the police arrived within minutes.

Though she’s concerned about incidents like that, Malaya said she feels supported.

“I talk to my parents and stuff like that a lot, so I tell them what’s on my mind, even my principals and stuff — I’m close with them, so I’ll tell them if I don’t feel comfortable,” she said. “But other people — some people don’t know how to express that.”

Detroit youth say they generally feel safe in school, but they fear the unknown, both within the school building and in their communities.

Tristian Grant, 16, Cody High School

Tristian Grant sometimes worries about violence. He feels unsafe when people start fighting, or in large crowds, where “it’s really unpredictable — anything could happen at any moment.”

Grant said he has been in a few fights but wasn’t seriously injured. “Someone was trying to bully me, so I had to stand up to them,” he said. Over time, the situation resolved. “They stopped bothering me, and we went on with our lives,” he said.

Social media is another safety concern, Grant said. “A lot of people like to threaten others and also start drama through social media.”

Have concerns about safety and fights affected his mental health? “I’d say for a short amount of time, yes, but eventually it goes away.”

Dulce Bravo, 18, Western International High School graduate

One of Dulce Bravo’s biggest fears is the ever-present threat of gun violence at school. She said she feels safe at school only half of the time.

Bravo said she has missed school because of a reported threat every year except her senior year. There’s “always random posts saying that they’re gonna shoot up the school, and specific dates and times, so I would miss school on those specific days and even the next day.”

She’s happy that the schools perform drills, so everyone can prepare in case something happens, Bravo said. But it bothers her when people don’t take the drills seriously. In a recent drill, she said, “People just kind of brushed it off as, like, it’s not a big deal — why are we even doing this? And I don’t like to see that.”

Chalkbeat talked to teens across the city to hear their concerns about safety issues.

Paola Negrete, 16, Cass Technical High School

Paola Negrete is involved in a few community organizations that address youth safety. She’s part of a coalition of organizations, including 482Forward, that has developed a school facilities bill to address unsafe conditions. She said students have reported ceiling tiles falling down, broken windows that make it too hot or too cold in classrooms, and dirty lunchrooms.

These community groups give youth a place to be with others their age who may be going through the same things, but Negrete and her peers also lean on the adults there, she said.

“The adult allies do a really good job with providing that mental health support when we come after school. They’re very understanding. They like to bond with us as well, so that’s where we get the time to just kind of relax, unfold,” and talk about the issues they’re dealing with, she said.

Safety for Negrete isn’t just about being free from violence. “Safety is more of a feeling, like a comfort. It doesn’t really involve police or metal detectors. . . . In community spaces, I feel very safe because I’m able to share my ideas and talk about how I feel, and not being judged or anything.”

Tiarra Hall, 18, WAY Academy West Campus graduate

Tiarra Hall uses public transportation to get to school. “I keep myself safe by not outwardly speaking to strangers and that sort of thing,” she said. “I don’t talk to anyone when I’m out unless I know them.”

When Hall was in elementary school, she walked to school. At the time, adults were volunteering to help students get to school safely. Knowing that someone was looking out for students going to and from school made her feel safer. Her mother was part of the program, helping to document things, she said.

When she sees fights, her thoughts go to how the fight could have been prevented, and how someone might intervene to talk the person down.

Natalina Cawthon, 14, Detroit School of Arts

Natalina Cawthon poses for a portrait on Fri., May 16, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

Natalina Cawthon is concerned about gun violence at school and in her neighborhood.

She generally feels safe at her school, where the doors stay locked and there are metal detectors. Teachers often keep their classroom doors locked, too, she said.

But the potential of a school shooting sometimes affects Cawthon’s mental health. “Sometimes I just overthink it,” she said.

In her neighborhood, she would like to see more police officers. She added that it’s good for young people to be aware of their surroundings, including “setting boundaries with strangers and stuff because you never know. A lot of young people have gone missing.”

Ja’Nya Street, 16, the School at Marygrove

Ja’Nya Street feels the least safe at school.

She knows that incidents have happened when kids have been bullied, and schools don’t have enough mental health resources for the kids who need them.

“Anything can happen. Anybody can be feeling different. Anybody can be having a bad day. Some people just get on edge” and then may do something — from getting a gun and killing somebody to harming yourself, she said. “You never know who’s getting bullied,” she added.

Angelica Williams, 22, Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Youth Advisory Panel, Wayne State University student

The possibility of violence makes Angelica Williams feel unsafe, especially when she’s alone.

“Being a young Black girl, there are several different avenues where any situation or interaction could go wrong,” she said.

Angelica Williams, 22, poses for a portrait on Fri., May 16, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

She feels anxious when stopping at a gas station at night, for example. “There will be men that come up and make comments, or they’ll try to pump your gas. … And there’s just this level of knowledge — like the wrong word or wrong move or just his bad mood could end up making that situation unsafe.”

Gun violence is a concern of the Youth Advisory Panel — and Williams. “I’ve never watched it happen in real time, but there’s been shootings in my neighborhood that I’ve been home during,” she said. In some areas of Detroit where she’s lived, she’s woken up to shootings. “I think that there’s a culture of nonchalance about guns and firearms.”

Williams sees violence as a perpetual cycle that’s often inherited from parents and authority figures.

“There’s a lack of intentionality ensuring that youth have a safe space to congregate, to exist freely, to entertain themselves,” she said. “I think that a lot of youth conflict in particular comes from a place of not having active spaces and outlets for expressing oneself, for addressing conflict in productive ways.”

Ayme Head, 18, treasurer, Detroit Heals Detroit, Eastern Michigan University student

Ayme Head feels the least safe when she’s surrounded by people she doesn’t know.

“A rivalry could happen in Family Dollar while I’m just trying to grab some tissue, or someone could decide to do a drive-by while I’m at the park with my younger cousins. You don’t know everyone’s intentions, and you don’t know what everyone’s going through or what they came to do,” she said.

Ayme Head, 18, poses for a portrait on Fri., May 16, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

Head is treasurer and financial advisor of Detroit Heals Detroit, a youth-led nonprofit that works to combat trauma and foster healing for Detroit youth. Through healing circles and in other ways, DHD has created “a place where people could come and share something that they won’t feel comfortable sharing with their family,” Head said. “If they don’t have that reliance or that safe space with their family, then we could be that second family for them.”

To improve safety, Head would like to see “community events with the police so they can try to better understand the community and the needs” and to build connections between the police and the community, she said.

If community members are connected to each other, they’ll protect each other, she said. “The bond’s so strong that when crime does happen, it’s going to be a real no-go.”

Camille Hollenquest, 24, executive director, Detroit Heals Detroit

To feel safe, youth need “third spaces” where they can be in community with other youth, said Camille Hollenquest. “Sometimes you just need to be in a space with other youth where it’s like, ‘I understand and I hear you, I feel you,’ as well as making sure that the youth who are in that space — they have the tools to further navigate situations when another young person is coming to them with the heaviness of their experiences,” they said.

Camille Hollenquest, 25, poses for a portrait on Fri., May 16, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

Hollenquest has seen, from the high school students Detroit Heals Detroit works with, that these students are experiencing a critical point in their development, and “it becomes a point where everything feels like it’s on fire.” If that happens, by the time they’re in high school they may “become less open to talking about it, and they also begin to kind of normalize it. And I think that’s a major problem, because when situations and experiences like that, which are very negative, become kind of like a normal occurrence for folks, it’s hard for them to actually be able to identify when something is unsafe or something is not right,” they said. “It’s kind of like that light bulb isn’t turning on all the way.”

Another safety problem is that, through fear and propaganda, people are “conditioned and socialized” to believe that certain people — like Black boys and unhoused people — are unsafe, Hollenquest said. “When groups of people who are the most vulnerable become villains in the eyes of their community members, it creates this feeling of unsafety that’s not grounded in truth,” they said.

Alexis Escoto, 23, Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Youth Advisory Panel

Alexis Oscoto feels the least safe in his community park, where he goes to jog and ride his bike. “Sometimes I have to be super aware because there’s a big parking lot right next to the park, so sometimes people make donuts or drag racing,” and he’s afraid they might drive onto the park.

Alexis Escoto, 23, poses for a portrait on Fri., May 16, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

Another concern is that “there’s a lot of drug needles there. So I’m afraid, not just for me, but also for other people, that they can accidentally stumble upon those needles.”

With the Youth Advisory Panel, an issue that many youth and community members are concerned about is “the usage of facial recognition or AI technology within the police department,” Escoto said. People have experienced cases of mistaken identity, such as going to the gas station and then getting arrested a couple of weeks later because of mistaken facial recognition, he said.

In Escoto’s majority-Hispanic community, people feel unsafe because of ICE. “In today’s climate, they’re afraid of getting out,” he said. He carries “know your rights” cards in his car and gives them out to people. People’s fear of ICE extends to distrust of the police, he said.

“More and more people I noticed are starting to have the mentality of ‘F the police,’ and when something happens, they try not to call the police because they’re afraid the police might make the situation even worse,” Escoto said.

He’d like to see workshops or other events that provide education on policing.

Armani Arnold, 23, Detroit Phoenix Center Youth Action Board

When Armani Arnold was growing up, she was in and out of homelessness, and she went to Detroit Phoenix Center for support. It provides physical resources, like housing assistance, food, and hygiene necessities — but also emotional support. “I feel most emotionally, mentally, physically safe there. I feel like I’m able to speak my mind and not be judged,” she said. Now Arnold is on the organization’s Youth Action Board.

Armani Arnold poses for a portrait on Thurs., May 29, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

Some youth act out because they don’t understand their emotions, but they should be able to “feel safe, to share and be vulnerable, and to … understand your emotions and why you feel that way,” Arnold said. “I didn’t know any better growing up, because I didn’t have my parents … I didn’t know how to control my emotions or deal with my emotions, because it was all over the place, because nobody was there to actually try to help me.”

Sometimes, adults can make youth feel stupid because of something they just don’t know and never learned, Arnold said. This could be “making them feel bad for something that happened to them but they didn’t know, or they just made a simple mistake.” So providing safe spaces to help youth with “understanding your emotional intelligence, your emotional patterns, and how that can affect you — that’s a big thing,” she said.

‘Didn’t feel safe anywhere’: How fears of violence shape life for Detroit youth

2025-07-09T17:50:37+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy.

Armani Arnold was a 16-year-old Detroit high school student walking home from a bus stop when a man in a car pulled up next to her, catcalling and trying to get her to talk to him.

Arnold ignored the stranger and began walking fast to get away from him. He persisted.

“I’m scared because I have a heavy book bag. I have on a dress and I just — I can’t run,” she told Chalkbeat. She started to cross the street, but he cut her off with his car in the crosswalk. So she pleaded with him.

“I’m only 16,” she said, thinking she was about to be kidnapped. “Please leave me alone. Please don’t hurt me.”

The plea worked, and he left.

Safety is a serious issue for young people in Detroit. Chalkbeat talked to teenagers — and the adults who advocate for and with them — to understand how their daily lives are shaped by such concerns. The possibility of getting attacked on the way to or from school is a constant safety issue in Detroit. But youths also worry about bullying, school shootings, and detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Some youth say walking to and from school and bus stops can make them afraid. This is a city bus stop photographed May 22, 2025 in the Banglatown area of Detroit, Michigan.

Crime rates in Detroit suggest that the city has become a safer place. Between 2023 and 2024, the number of homicides in Detroit dropped 19% — the lowest number since 1965. Rates of nonfatal shootings and carjackings decreased during the same time period by 25% and 15%, respectively.

Although Detroit’s gun violence has declined, school shootings across the country have increased since 2020 — a persistent fear for many students.

While some measures indicate that Detroit is a safer place, the city’s youth consider many factors — not just violence statistics — when describing what makes them feel safe or unsafe.

Fears of violence have likely seemed valid given recent events: A 4-year-old and an 18-year-old were fatally shot last week at a Detroit park, prompting a citywide effort by community violence prevention groups to reach out to youths and get them connected to activities this summer that will keep them busy and safe. Over the weekend, a 15-year-old was killed and his 13-year-old sister was injured in a home shooting. During the annual Ford Fireworks on June 23, a popular event that attracts lots of youth, a dispute fight led to gunfire. And in May, gun shots rang out near King High School on the night of the senior prom, leaving teens dressed in their fancy attire running for cover.

A sense of uncertainty or fear can affect young people in many ways, from mental health and well-being to school attendance and academic performance.

“Those traumas or those fears — those are barriers to learning,” said John Carlson, professor of school psychology at Michigan State University.

“If you can’t even feel safe — that basic need of safety that we all have — then how can we expect you to do something a little bit more complex,” like reaching your academic potential, or being fully engaged in the learning process, he said.

Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, agreed that feeling unsafe or unsupported can cause “stress, anxiety, and reduced confidence.”

In an emailed statement, Vitti said the school district has students complete a mental health screener, offers mental health services, including access to therapists, ensures schools have guidance counselors, and asks students to take an annual survey to “better understand how students perceive their learning environment.”

When students are safe and supported, “they are more resilient and better positioned to succeed,” he said.

Common stressors for youth, like trauma and feeling unsafe, may be more acute in Detroit than they are in some other areas. “The data clearly show that in urban environments, those stressors are much greater than in rural or suburban communities,” Carlson said.

Armani Arnold poses for a portrait on Thurs., May 29, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

On the day Arnold was harassed, she was simply trying to get home from a day spent learning at Cass Technical High School.

The Detroit school district doesn’t provide school bus transportation for most high school students (students with disabilities are among the exceptions). Instead, it pays for bus cards to take city buses. Her city bus route was out of service that day, so she took another one home.

When she made it home, she told her guardian what happened.

“She basically blamed me … she said, well, that’s what you get for taking that route home,” Arnold said. She felt like no one cared about her.

That lack of support is part of the reason Arnold, now 23, serves on the Youth Action Board for the Detroit Phoenix Center, an organization that provides programs and services for youths in the city experiencing homelessness, as Arnold once did. She wants them to have the support she lacked.

Students learn to assess unsafe situations

For years, students in Detroit have had to deal with dangerous commutes to school.

Calvin Colbert, executive director of Detroit Impact, started a Safe Routes to School program in 1995 in which community members monitored kids on their way to and from school. The program, which succeeded in reducing violence, became a model for a similar federal program. But its funding eventually dried up, Colbert said.

“Everybody felt like, ‘well, it’s over,’” he said. “No, the intensity of it may be over, but the existence of violence is still there.”

Colbert said sexual predators pose a threat to students trying to get to school.

“What they do in the early mornings — they scour the bus stops. They identify students who catch the bus. They follow them. They become aware of them,” he said.

Although she could walk to the School at Marygrove, Malaya Ramsey gets a ride from her mother to avoid unwanted attention from men.

“I’m a 15-year-old with a more mature body. So when I go into the outside world, it be like men trying to talk to me and stuff like that,” she said.

Some students carry pepper spray and personal alarms to protect themselves on the bus or walk to school. They make a point not to talk to strangers on public transportation.

“There’s a lot of things happening right now in the world. … People go missing, or somebody can just do something to you at any point if you’re alone,” said Dulce Bravo, 18, who graduated from Western International High School this spring. She carries pepper spray and a personal safety alarm.

“I didn’t feel safe anywhere, or I would always have to keep an eye out,” she said.

Having to be so aware of her surroundings used to weigh on her. But, she said, it doesn’t bother her as much anymore. “As time is going on, I think I’m just starting to accept the fact that things do happen.”

Crime rates in Detroit suggest the city has become a safer place. But youths interviewed by Chalkbeat say they routinely worry about safety, at school and in the community.

School security measures don’t make all students feel safe – and the effects of trauma linger

Schools’ security practices vary widely. Some have metal detectors, security guards, and locked doors, but they may not make students feel safer.

Some students said their peers, or even strangers, can get around the metal detector — their security guard isn’t adequately equipped or trained to protect them.

At one school without metal detectors, students reported that teens from a rival school have come in and started fights.

Other students were concerned that their schools’ active shooter drills or fire drills haven’t gone smoothly — and some students don’t take the drills seriously.

When fights and conflicts break out, multiple youth said they’d like to see teachers and administrators get more involved in resolving the problems. Sitting down with the students involved helps sometimes, but “some are more mature than others,” said Ja’Nya Street, 16, a student at the School at Marygrove. Sometimes, the bullying doesn’t stop.

Teachers “tell us to ignore it, ignore it, ignore it until somebody — sometimes people just reach their breaking point,” Street said. “Check up on the incident that happened … don’t just tell them to ignore it and just act like it’s nothing anymore.”

Tiarra Hall, 18, who graduated from WAY Academy West Campus this spring, is a safety ambassador with Detroit Impact. She said fights are the most common safety problem that comes up in her work with the organization.

Detroit Impact helps youth “stay calm in a situation that might disrupt their future,” Hall said. “We’re trying to help them with resolving their issues without beating each other up, and giving them ways to resolve their anger without hurting themselves or people around them.”

When conflicts arise, “they just go to whatever seems the most convenient, and in those cases, it’s physical violence,” she said.

Situations that make youth feel unsafe can cause lasting trauma.

Responses to trauma can be cognitive, psychological, or behavioral — and “our emotional responses can wax and wane,” Carlson, the MSU professor, said. “When we get support, we can have improvement. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have something arise in our life two months later that brings us right back to that traumatic experience.”

And if someone keeps experiencing the stressor, their responses to it can accumulate, so “it doesn’t make it easier the next time, it actually makes it worse,” Carlson said.

For that reason, continuous monitoring of youth who need support should become a natural part of procedural safety processes, he said.

Some young people in Detroit aren’t safe at home or face homelessness

As a child, Alexis Escoto, 23, a member of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Youth Advisory Panel, dealt with violence at home because of a family member’s drug problem. And one of his cousins was killed in a drive-by shooting.

Alexis Escoto, 23, poses for a portrait on Fri., May 16, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

Escoto said those traumatic experiences caused him to withdraw. He started skipping school and acting out enough that his teachers would kick him out of class.

“I didn’t want to talk to no one,” he said. “I was paranoid. If I talked to someone, I’m afraid they’d hurt me somehow, or I’d hurt them if they pushed my buttons.”

Children and teenagers who live in unstable home conditions or experience homelessness face extra layers of safety concerns.

Some may live in unsafe situations, such as in homes without running water or heat, said Courtney Smith, CEO of Detroit Phoenix Center, which provides housing and mental health resources and other assistance.

Two children who died in February while living in a van drew widespread attention to the dangers for children living unhoused.

Some families also don’t feel comfortable calling the police for a variety of reasons.

With the Trump administration’s widespread efforts to detain and deport undocumented immigrants, students are concerned about ICE agents coming into schools and communities and taking people away. Escoto said that in his majority-Hispanic community, some people avoid the police because they think they are working with ICE.

When police are around, some youth say they feel more policed than protected, but others want police to be more present in their neighborhoods.

Relationships are key, some advocates say

Even in seemingly safe home situations, youth may feel unsupported.

Many children and teenagers don’t have strong relationships with their parents or guardians, said Camille Hollenquest, 24, executive director of the youth-led organization Detroit Heals Detroit. In those situations, the children “can’t come to you about the things that they’re going through,” they said.

Camille Hollenquest, 25, poses for a portrait on Fri., May 16, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

“If you’re not actually curious about what their experiences are, other than just, like, how your day is … actually being invested into who they are as people,” that can cause safety issues, they said.

Many organizations around Detroit have built safe spaces for youth, where they can be who they are and get the support they need. Some of the services they provide respond directly to safety concerns. Others have different functions but also give youth access to trusted adults and peers they can connect with.

Darrell Hall, youth director at Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance, said relationship building is key. “You don’t know anything about what safety issues are present if you don’t know the youth,” he said. “How do you build relationships so youth can say, ‘I’m unsafe at home, or when I’m walking down the street by these abandoned houses,’ or whatever it may be?”

Several of the youth included here go or have gone to these organizations for support, but they also give back themselves, to create safe spaces for others.

One way Escoto moved forward from trauma was by leaning into the community advocacy work he’s been doing since high school. Through various organizations, he has worked “to help the community to be more engaged, get the resources they need, and live in a safe, friendly environment,” he said. “I love seeing the younger kids now having a space in the community center to play soccer or make art or do whatever they want in a safe space.”

Sirrita Darby, co-founder of Detroit Heals Detroit, turned over her executive director role to Hollenquest, so the organization is fully youth led. Hollenquest said they appreciate the opportunity “to be able to show up as a young person in these spaces that aren’t traditionally familiar with catering to the voices and the wants and needs of youth.”

“Sometimes you just need to be in a space with other youth to where it’s like, I understand and I hear you, I feel you, as well as making sure that the youth who are in that space — they have the tools to further navigate situations when another young person is coming to them with the heaviness of their experiences,” Hollenquest said. “Until we have that, I don’t know if youth will be able to actually feel safe.

Youth are coming up with solutions to the safety challenges they’ve faced, Smith said. “They’re building food pantries inside of schools, they’re advocating for policy changes. They’re talking with their state legislators,” and in addressing safety issues, “we need to center solutions that are rooted in youth voice and youth power,” she said.

Can financial incentives and holding students back improve attendance in Detroit?

2025-01-10T23:07:29+00:00

The Detroit school district is employing some new methods in its fight to improve attendance, including paying students up to $1,000 each for perfect attendance and holding back students with extremely high rates of chronic absenteeism.

The new initiatives will add to work the district has had in place for years, much of it centering around attendance agents whose job is to improve attendance, connect with families of absent students, and provide resources families need to prevent absenteeism. That work has led to decreases in the rate of chronic absenteeism.

Incentives and negative consequences for repeated absences aren’t particularly new, though there is mixed research about their effectiveness and some experts worry that they potentially ignore the often insurmountable at-home challenges, much of it related to poverty, that prevents students from coming to school regularly.

Students are considered chronically absent in Michigan if they miss 10%, or 18 days, in a typical 180-day school year. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, 66% of students were chronically absent in the 2023-24 school year, down from nearly 80% at the height of the pandemic in the 2021-22 school year.

The still high rates impact efforts to improve academic performance in the district, leaves absent students far behind, and affects learning for all students.

Here is what the district is doing:

The district launched “Perfect Attendance Pays” this month, allowing high school students to receive a $200 gift card for each two-week period in which they have perfect attendance. The first two-week period began Monday and runs through Jan. 17. The final two-week period runs from March 10-21. Students who have perfect attendance in each of the five periods will earn up to $1,000 in gift cards. Students must be in class for every hour of the day in order to have perfect attendance. Detroit one million first reported on the incentives in December.
The district previously announced a new grade promotion policy. Students in grades K-8 who miss 45 or more days over the course of the school year may be required to repeat the grade. High school students who miss 23 or more days of a single course in a semester will need to retake the course or enroll in credit recovery.

Schools for years have provided incentives throughout the year to promote attendance, particularly on the two important days in the year when student enrollment counts are used to determine how much state aid districts will receive. In the Oakland Unified school district in California, students who were severely chronically absent were paid $50 each Friday if they attended school each day that week. That program differs from what Detroit is doing because it was targeted only at students who were struggling to attend school.

Also, state law allows students who are persistently absent from school to face penalties through the county court system. Parents also can face charges, and those who receive public assistance can have that money revoked if their children aren’t attending school.

In both instances, the district cited the need to improve attendance as part of the reasoning for the two initiatives.

“Consistent attendance is an essential part of students’ success and we know that when District students miss less than 18 days of school in our District, they are 3 to 5 times more likely to be at and above grade level in reading and math and to be college ready as defined by the SAT,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a letter to families.

Angelique Peterson-Mayberry, president of the Detroit school board, told the audience at a December meeting that students who end up being held back won’t be surprised because they will be communicated with throughout the process about their risk.

“This is not meant to be punitive. However, we are trying to foster accountability and enforce a set of excellence and standards with our young scholars,” Peterson-Mayberry said. “We know that there are extenuating circumstances, and so those will be dealt with on a case by case basis, but we have to make sure people understand the importance of being in school every day.”

Vitti declined an interview and didn’t respond to questions that were sent at the district’s request on Monday.

Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, said it is important to assess interventions that offer incentives or retain kids “in terms of how do they actually address the underlying reasons that are causing students to miss school. Any intervention is more likely to work if this is the case, and less likely to have an impact if that is not the case.”

Students appreciate the financial incentive

Raymond Kennedy, a senior at Davis Aerospace Technical High School, said he’s excited about the new initiative, and the gift cards are a positive incentive for his peers.

“It’s something I’m grateful for,” the 18-year-old said. “It will get a lot of people to come to school.”

Kennedy said due to family circumstances, he usually goes to school four days a week. However, Kennedy said when he’s in class, he’s there on time and is able to catch up on his schoolwork. Knowing that he can get awarded with a $200 gift card every two weeks will make him more willing to come to school for the full week, he said.

Meanwhile, Bavion Buford, 18, makes sure to be at school every day. The senior agrees that the incentive is a good idea, saying it could be a way for students to transport themselves to school when parents are unable to drop them off and pick them up.

“If they miss a day of school because they couldn’t get a ride, now they have the money to get themselves to school,” Buford said.

Kennedy said the program could also be beneficial for elementary and middle schools students if the program were to expand.

“I know some middle school and grade school parents have trouble getting them to school or from school, so I know if you use the gift card for an Uber or a Lyft, you’ll be able to have a guaranteed ride for your kids to school,” he said.

Like her students, Davis Aerospace Principal Michelle Davis is hopeful about the perfect attendance plan. The school has a 94% attendance rate, while the rate of chronic absenteeism is 30%. She said she supports any incentive that will push more students to come to school daily.

“A lot of the kids have extenuating circumstances like Raymond, so it would give them more of an incentive to come,” she said. “It’s an amazing opportunity for the kids.”

Davis added that while it’s important for the district to find alternative ways to get students to attend school, it’s also important for schools to create a welcoming, child-centered environment and be committed to excellence.

At Davis Aerospace, for instance, staff members offer students cups of hot chocolate during the winter and a hot breakfast throughout the school year when students arrive in the morning. And teachers are there to help encourage and uplift the students, Davis said.

“We believe that whatever children need in this building is our responsibility, but more than our responsibility, it is our pleasure to give it to them,” she said. “We have a high attendance rate because we are totally student-centered and we believe that if you create that space for students, then they’ll come.”

Studies show incentives have small effect on attendance

Still, studies on attendance incentives haven’t shown such policies to be a game changer.

The Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research in 2021 published a brief on the issue that highlights what researchers have found about the effectiveness of incentives: their review of research has found a small effect, if any, and one major study found negative consequences.

The report drew from PEER’s own interviews with Detroit families.

“Incentives do not necessarily address the contextual factors that are demotivating,” the report said. “For example, one east side parent we spoke to explained that her son takes DDOT to school, and that repeated instances of missing the bus (along with unsafe conditions and too-far distances to walk) have changed her son’s behavior around attendance. He does not see the bus as reliable, and that influences his decision to attend school on some days. Motivation may play some role in missing school for this student, but it is not clear whether incentives would increase his attendance, absent other interventions that changed his relationship with the bus.”

Chronic absenteeism is a national problem for the nation’s public schools. The pandemic, with the quarantine policies that kept students out of school for days and the long stints of at-home learning, worsened the problem. Like in Detroit, rates have begun to improve. But there are some lingering effects from the pandemic.

“There is some sense that kids and families don’t necessarily, especially post pandemic, recognize why showing up to school in person every day matters,” said Chang, of Attendance Works. “That’s connected to a number of challenges. One is that we put kids online for two years and said now you have to show up in person. That’s a little hard.”

She also wonders whether parents are receiving the message of the importance of daily attendance. The academic argument is strong. But parents also need to understand that the social development skills students develop when attending school daily is also crucial.

“I think sometimes people think that by saying there are consequences, or I’m going to incentivize, it helps to convey that showing up is important. I don’t know what the evidence is that that actually serves to convey that.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Detroit’s high childhood asthma rate contributes to chronic absenteeism

2025-01-10T11:00:00+00:00

This story was produced as part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat and Planet Detroit. Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy. Sign up for Planet Detroit’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with local environment and public health news.

In second grade, Joshua missed two to three days of school per month because of his asthma. He had to repeat the grade.

His mom, Mayra Hernandez, said Joshua was so embarrassed that he had been retained that he wore a hoodie “so that the other kids [wouldn’t] see that he was still in second grade.”

In Detroit, children have especially high rates of both asthma and absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism – when a student misses 10% or more of the school year – is a complex and pervasive problem nationwide, with a variety of causes.

More than 50% of the students who attend district and charter schools in Detroit are chronically absent. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District alone, the rate is nearly 66%. Asthma isn’t the only reason students miss school in the city, but its contribution to absenteeism fuels an attendance crisis that hurts students and their futures, disrupts school improvement efforts, and leaves a majority of students performing at extremely low levels and in a constant state of catch up.

“We know for sure that [asthma] can be one of the main reasons why kids miss school,” said Dr. Dee Poowuttikul, chief of the Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s allergy center in Detroit. “We can see it firsthand when school starts here in September, October — that’s usually the highest time when we have asthma hospitalizations.”

One in 10 Michigan students with asthma miss more than six days of school each year due to asthma, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Neither DPSCD nor any other government agency tracks how many school days students in Detroit miss because of asthma, however, making it difficult to understand the pervasiveness of the problem.

Rates of asthma are worse in Detroit, though, than they are elsewhere in Michigan. A 2021 state report showed 14.6% of Detroit children had asthma, compared to 8.4% statewide. This report also showed differences between Black and white adult residents of Detroit: The rate of asthma hospitalizations for Black residents was more than three times the rate for white residents.

Kids in Detroit also may face multiple barriers to getting the care they need to keep their asthma under control, including lack of access to health care, the cost of treatment and medication, and an inadequate understanding of the condition and how treatment should work.

Asthma gets in the way of school – and kids being kids

All three of Hernandez’s children have asthma and have missed school because of it, she said.

Five-year-old Gael loves to run around, but his asthma used to stop him. He would start coughing and need to sit down, and then his cough would linger, making it hard for him to sleep at night.

He missed half of his preschool year because he kept getting sick and his asthma would kick in. His asthma was more severe than that of his siblings. His 7-year-old sister, Dayami, didn’t miss much school because her asthma was easier to control. Now, thanks to health care providers who have pinpointed the appropriate treatment for all three kids, their asthma is under control, Hernandez said.

Now 10, Joshua is doing much better. But having to repeat second grade was difficult emotionally. “It was really hard because I had to support him and tell him, everything will be fine, you’ve gotta keep going,” Hernandez said. “And here he is now — he knows how to sing the happy birthday song in three languages ... I always tell him, ‘You’re gonna shine, regardless of if you’re behind a grade.’”

Many kids with asthma end up in the emergency room when the condition flares up. Such episodes can result in missed school and disruption for the entire family.

“The act of having to go to the emergency room is something that typically is at least a six-hour, eight-hour experience,” said Dr. Maureen Connolly, a pediatrician and the medical director of the Henry Ford Health School-Based and Community Health Program.

Hospitalizations may increase because kids get viruses that trigger their asthma, or because of ragweed allergies that are prominent in the fall, Poowuttikul said. Allergies often go hand in hand with asthma.

But the right treatment should prevent attacks, doctors say.

Two scenarios are common among Detroit kids with asthma: Child A has an asthma attack and goes to the ER. Child B starts to have asthma symptoms, like difficulty breathing, while at gym class, or playing sports. They stop their activity and their breathing later goes back to normal.

Neither scenario should be accepted as normal, doctors say. “You should actually be symptom-free if your asthma is well controlled,” Connolly said.

Many parents also think that if their kids have asthma, it’s normal for them to be wheezing, or to have an asthma attack, Poowuttikul said. But she explains to them: “I can get asthma to the point that they don’t have symptoms.”

Because of this gap in expectations, patient and parent education is key.

This involves helping people understand their disease process and how to mitigate their triggers, said Kathleen Slonager, a registered nurse and executive director of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) Michigan Chapter. Often, no one has sat down with the patient and said, “Here’s what it is. Here’s how it presents. And here’s what you can do,” she said.

Mayra Hernandez, center, poses for a photograph with her children, Joshua, back, Gael, left, and Dayami near their home in Warrendale, Michigan.

Hernandez’s three children were diagnosed with asthma when they were babies. But each needed different treatment.

“My kids are really active, so they couldn’t do much of activities like running, jumping, playing soccer — things they love to do — because their asthma was just attacking them,” she said.

Mi’Kah West is a senior at Cass Tech. When she joined the track and field team in middle school, she remembers needing to take more breaks than other kids, but she didn’t know why. At a doctor’s appointment when she was 13, her doctor diagnosed her with asthma. Now she plays lacrosse and, when she needs to, uses an inhaler.

“A lot of the girls on my team have asthma,” either sports-induced or set off by seasonal allergies, West said. “I wonder how many girls on my team when I did track and field in elementary and middle school had asthma, and I didn’t even know, because I didn’t know what that was, or I just felt like I was the only one that had that feeling.”

Sometimes, when patients go to the ER or urgent care for asthma, they’re sent home with what’s known as a “rescue” medicine.

But “rescue medicine is not a controller medicine — it doesn’t do anything for the inflammatory process of asthma,” Slonager said, adding that it’s important to help people “get the right medicine and take it the right way,” and understand what triggers their asthma.

Programs improve understanding of asthma, access to care

Both outdoor air quality and indoor air quality can exacerbate asthma — and many Detroit schools are located near highways, contain mold and mildew, or don’t have air conditioning, all of which can trigger the condition, Slonager said.

The Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America is working with partners to install air quality monitors in every zip code in Detroit, to “start tracking and trending what’s going on exactly, and how it impacts somebody with asthma,” she said.

Inside families’ homes, using air filters, replacing old carpets, cleaning up mold, and fixing leaks that can cause mold can help keep kids’ asthma from flaring up. AAFA’s HEAL (Health Equity Advancement & Leadership) Asthma program helps Southeast Michigan residents learn about their asthma, their disease process, and lifestyle changes that can help, Slonager said. HEAL provides some tools, such as air purifiers.

Having health care providers in schools can also make it easier for kids to get the asthma care they need. Every DPSCD school has a school nurse. About 90% of kids who go to the nurse can then go back to class, said Alycia Meriweather, DPSCD’s deputy superintendent of external partnerships and innovation. “The 10% of kids that don’t get sent back to class either go to the emergency room or they go home,” so more kids would miss school if they couldn’t see the nurse at school, she said.

Some Detroit schools house their own medical clinics. Henry Ford’s School Based and Community Health Program is a network of school-based and community clinics, including nine inside Detroit schools. These clinics provide integrated care, including primary and behavioral health care, to students and other young people from the community, ages 3-21, at no out-of-pocket cost, regardless of insurance.

Students may go to the clinic because they’re not feeling well, or because they need a physical or vaccines, for example. The clinics aim to “increase wellness in communities and also decrease absenteeism,” Connolly said.

The program sees 100-200 kids with asthma per year, Connolly said. If a student with asthma is having trouble breathing, they can get an albuterol breathing treatment at the clinic and avoid an ER visit. “Having those resources there can be really helpful, and it’s sometimes life saving,” she said.

The clinics collaborate with Henry Ford’s pharmacy. “We can order the medications and have them delivered to the school on the day of the visit,” and at no charge, Connolly said.

At some schools with these clinics and other school-based health centers, DPSCD has begun opening Health Hubs that expand the services offered. This includes a family resource distribution center to help meet basic needs, such as shelf-stable food, and a full-time navigator who helps families address their challenges. “The overall goal of the Health Hubs is to create a tangible, visible response to helping families address barriers that they face,” including asthma, Meriweather said.

Last year, Heath Hubs opened at five schools, and three more will open this year, she said.

Poowuttikul said she’d like to see stock inhalers in schools. Students often have their own inhalers at school, but many schools don’t have inhalers on hand in case someone has an asthma attack and doesn’t have theirs.

It’s similar to having automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, available places like airports, in case someone has a heart attack, she said. “There has been some discussion in medical societies for schools to have this kind of stock albuterol inhaler.”

Twenty-four states have laws or state administrative guidelines that allow schools to stock quick-relief medications for students with asthma. Michigan is not one of them.

Some kids with asthma are getting some treatment but not what they need to keep it under control. “People with asthma should see a specialist at least twice a year,” Slonager said. Asthma specialists, usually called allergists, can provide a baseline management plan and share it with the primary care doctor, she said.

Pediatricians sometimes refer children with asthma to Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s allergy center, where they can get more specialized care. Many families are seeking “medication that they might not be able to access, or getting allergy testing to identify triggers for asthma,” Poowuttikul said. Some newer medications for asthma, like biologics, usually require a specialist’s care, she said.

“The important thing to treat asthma is to prevent asthma,” Poowuttikul said, adding that identifying triggers and learning how to avoid them and use medication properly can control symptoms, so that patients get to what she calls an “asthma remission.”

“It is possible to be in remission for asthma [through] allergy shots and allergen avoidance, and at some point, certain patients might not need to be on daily medication,” she said.

Joshua’s asthma often flares up when the weather changes. So when it does, Hernandez said, “I know I have to be ready with the albuterol and the nebulizer. And in case he’s still having trouble, then I will contact his doctor.”

Hernandez relies on Children’s Hospital to keep her children’s asthma at bay, and that includes medication for seasonal allergies. “Sometimes having great medical support, it’s good because then they’ll be able to tell, OK, that treatment didn’t work, and we have a plan B where we can try an alternative medication. . . . If that helps, then we stick to that plan,” she said.

Detroit charter students make gains on M-STEP, but lag behind pre-pandemic results

2024-10-07T21:02:20+00:00

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Charter schools where Detroit children account for at least half the student body showed progress on Michigan’s standardized tests, though their results trail statewide numbers and are below pre-pandemic figures.

In English language arts, 20.6% of students tested proficient or better on the 2024 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP. That result was more than 2 percentage points higher than the 2021-22 school year, but nearly 4 percentage points lower than the 2018-19 school year.

Statewide, 44.5% were proficient or better, according to the Michigan Department of Education.

In math, 9.7% of students tested proficient or above, a 1.8 percentage point improvement in comparison to the 2021-22 school year. But that number is lower than the pre-pandemic figure for the 2018-19 school year, when 14% of students tested proficient or better. Statewide, 35.1% tested at this level.

Detroit has one of the highest percentages of students attending charter schools in the nation, with roughly half the city’s kids, or about 50,000 students, in charter classrooms.

Chalkbeat’s analysis of charter test results includes schools in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties where Detroit students make up at least half the student body. The state categorizes a student’s performance on the Michigan standardized test as either advanced, proficient, partially proficient, or not proficient. For this analysis, Chalkbeat looked at the percentage of students whose test results were proficient or advanced.

Charters, which are independently managed public schools, often rely on management companies to oversee day-to-day operations, or to handle key functions such as balancing the books or hiring teachers.

In Michigan, most charters are managed by for-profit companies, which aren’t subject to public disclosures about how they spend money on behalf of schools or how much they profit. Entities like community colleges, universities, and school districts have the ability to authorize charters, meaning they approve charter applications and monitor the schools’ contract compliance.

Some education advocates have cited a lack of accountability and transparency among these authorizers as a persistent problem in the sector.

Earlier this year, the State Board of Education, passed a resolution urging state lawmakers to approve legislation that would strengthen oversight and accountability among the state’s charters.

Detroit’s charters tend to perform better academically than the city’s traditional public schools, though the gains are minimal, and one 2023 study found the Detroit Public Schools Community District enrolled a higher percentage of students from families living in deep poverty.

Michigan students in grades 3-7 take standardized tests in English and math. Fifth graders are also tested in science and social studies, and eighth grade students take the PSAT (the SAT pretest) for English and math. High school students take several different exams depending on their grade, including the PSAT and SAT.

Students in Detroit’s charter schools saw gains in science and social studies too.

In science, 15.4% of charter students tested in the subject were proficient or better, a nearly 4 percentage point increase from the 2021-22 school year. (Data is not available for the pre-pandemic 2018-19 school year when the Michigan Department of Education withheld science test results.)

In social studies, charter students saw small gains – and they slightly exceeded pre-pandemic results. However, the overall percentage of students who tested proficient or above remained low, at 4.3%.

Detroit students face a number of barriers to academic success, including housing insecurity, concentrated poverty, and structural racism. The majority of Detroit charter students come from low-income households, which plays a profound role in how they perform in school.

“Poverty has consistently had a substantial, adverse effect on student academic performance,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a recent press release about state test results.

Tara Kilbride, interim associate director of the Education Policy Initiative Collaborative at Michigan State University, said in a recent interview with Chalkbeat that even a one percentage point increase is notable when looking at the number of kids in Detroit who are still working toward proficiency.

“That one percentage point is bringing students to a point of being able to do more and have more of the fundamental skills, versus a one percentage point somewhere else where it means students are further ahead,” she said.

Broken down by grade, test results indicate younger students whose first years of school were affected by the COVID pandemic were a few percentage points below the overall average. In English language arts, for example, 16.8% of fourth graders tested proficient or better in comparison to 20.6% overall.

The challenges young students in Detroit charters face mirror some broader trends across Michigan. At the state level, 43.3% of fourth graders tested proficient or above in English.

Meanwhile, 38% of Detroit’s eighth grade charter students were proficient or better in English. Statewide, that number was 64.5%.

Chalkbeat contacted representatives from some of the largest authorizers of Detroit’s charters, including Central Michigan University and Grand Valley State, but both declined to comment. Daniel Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, did not respond to a request for comment.

Taking ‘small bites out of the overall problem of accountability’ in Detroit’s charters

Tinu Usoro has three children attending Detroit charter schools, including a second grader with disabilities.

Last year, Usoro’s daughter received a certificate for increasing her standardized test results, but Usoro wondered if her daughter’s results really reflected learning.

“I don’t feel like she’s learning the things that she needs to learn,” Usoro said.

Students with disabilities scored low across the board in Detroit’s charters — following a trend in Michigan and nationwide. Just 4.8% of Detroit’s charter students with disabilities tested proficient or better in English language arts, compared to 15% statewide, according to the state education department.

Nationwide, students with disabilities and English language learners have had a hard time recovering from the cascading effects of the pandemic, according to a new report, The State of the American Student 2024, from Arizona State University.

“Many parents struggled to take on the role of educator during the pandemic, particularly for children with disabilities who missed essential services like speech therapy,” the report reads. “Schools were often insufficient in their outreach, and many families were unaware of their rights to compensation for missed support.”

Charter school parent Sade Williams said the only reason her kids have thrived in the wake of the pandemic is because she was able to stay home during school closures to help with their studies.

“I am a pretty hands-on parent. So if there’s a problem with anything, then I’m normally there to help,” she said.

Usoro said the ways schools can help students bounce back hinges on things like transparency and accountability — two things she is trying to strengthen within Detroit’s charters.

She heads a charter school committee through the local nonprofit 482Forward, made up of parents, educators, retired teachers, and community members who are taking “small bites out of the overall problem of accountability,” Usoro said.

They recently created an interactive tool listing charter schools and things like the schools’ authorizers and demographics. The committee proposed making a similar tool for the state Department of Education’s website that shows that information for all the charters throughout the state. They received $150,000 in state funding to launch the tool, which should be implemented this year.

In comparison to traditional public schools, “with charters, it’s so nuanced,” Usoro said of the quality of each school. That means the test results contain nuance, too.

Robyn Vincent is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit, covering Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. You can reach her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org

Detroit public schools adds another tool to combat chronic absenteeism: laundry machines

2024-09-10T18:53:40+00:00

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When Janine Scott taught middle school, she had a student who often showed up smelling bad. She sent him to talk to a male teacher, thinking it was a hygiene issue.

It wasn’t.

“It’s not him, it’s his hoodie,” the teacher told Scott.

Scott, who now teaches mathematics at Davis Aerospace Technical High School and is a member of Chalkbeat’s reader advisory board, said she still sees at least a handful of students come to class in dirty clothes. But the problem is often more visible among younger kids, she said. That’s because older students know better how to conceal the problem, “or they just don’t come to school,” she said.

In Detroit public schools, where 84% of kids qualify for subsidized meals, district officials plan to put laundry facilities in all schools to help tackle one of the district’s most pressing issues: chronic absenteeism, defined as a student who misses at least 10% of the school year. Last year, two-thirds of Detroit students fell into that category, according to data from the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

More than half of the district’s 108 schools have washers and dryers so far. District officials hope all schools will be equipped with them next year. The initiative is funded through multiple philanthropic donations and an investment from GE Appliances.

“Through the GE investment, we can scale a strategy that helps address one of many causes of chronic absenteeism — students having access to clean uniforms or clothes due to concentrated poverty,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in an email to Chalkbeat.

Providing laundry facilities at schools is among dozens of strategies identified to address chronic absenteeism in the Attendance Playbook, a report issued by the independent think tank FutureEd at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Other strategies include greater engagement with families, strengthening student-teacher relationships, and investing in full-service community schools, where a school “becomes a hub for the community, providing access not just to education but to health care, social services, extended learning and other support for students and their families.”

Phyllis Jordan, an associate director of FutureEd and the report’s author, noted that adding laundry facilities at school “is a fairly new approach without much of a research base.”

However, she cites data from Whirlpool, a home appliance company that has donated washers and dryers to more than 100 schools, showing that “in the 2019-2020 school year, nearly 73% of the participating elementary students who were on track to be chronically absent improved their attendance after they began using the program.”

Whirlpool also found added social benefits. Both teachers and students “reported increased engagement in class and participation in extracurricular activities.”

Installing the appliances comes with some challenges, though, especially in the many older buildings where Detroit kids attend class.

“Most of the district’s schools were not built with washers and dryers in mind so additional new electrical infrastructure is needed and a room needs to be identified to provide the space,” Vitti said.

The district’s recent addition of “health hubs,” which are located at neighborhood high schools across the city, will also have laundry facilities. The hubs provide families with physical, behavioral, and mental health support and services.

DPSCD received $4.5 million in funding from multiple community organizations to launch the hubs over the next few years, with the first five opening last year.

Detroit’s “uniquely challenging” context for chronic absenteeism

Vitti has made addressing chronic absenteeism a central issue of his tenure leading the Detroit school district, where 66% of kids were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year. That marked a 10 percentage point improvement from the previous year – but it is still more than double the statewide number of 30.8%.

The problem can feel intractable in school districts like Detroit where students must overcome more hurdles than kids in wealthier districts, from concentrated poverty to a legacy of structural racism and inequitable funding.

Researchers at the Wayne State College of Education found that a variety of factors were “significantly correlated with city-wide rates of chronic absenteeism,” including population change, asthma rates, poverty and unemployment rates, violent crime rates, and racial segregation.

Detroit’s rates of poverty, asthma, violent crime, and unemployment were among the highest in the nation for cities with 500,000 residents or more, researchers found, giving it a “uniquely challenging context for student attendance.”

Jeremy Singer, assistant research professor at Wayne State University and associate director of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research, co-authored the report and said many families could benefit from laundry facilities at schools – and it encourages families to engage with their kids’ schools “beyond the types of communication that families might be used to.”

“It’s a great way to lead with a foot forward, saying, ‘We have something to offer you,’” he said.

Installing washers and dryers in schools also acknowledges the families who struggle to keep stable housing in Detroit, he said.

Singer worked with researchers from several local universities to survey Detroit families about their living situations. They found that up to 16% of the K-12 students in Detroit’s public and charter schools were housing insecure or experiencing homelessness during the 2021-22 school year.

But schools tend to undercount these numbers, which means students miss out on vital support services and funding provided under federal law.

Singer said the addition of washers and dryers in schools could be crucial for these students.

Chad Audi, president of the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, which operates multiple homeless shelters and food banks across the city and serves nearly three-quarters of Detroit’s chronically homeless families, told Chalkbeat the number of homeless families seeking help has spiked dramatically.

“In just the last two weeks, I personally received at least seven requests from single women with children who needed a place to go,” he said. “They called everywhere and were told every place was full.”

Audi said he fields calls on his cell phone at all hours of the day and night from city officials to police officers asking for his help in providing people with shelter.

He said he hasn’t seen this level of need since the 2008 recession.

“We’re seeing people who are exactly like you and me, who have just been one or two paychecks away from losing their homes or not being able to afford their mortgages or their rent,” he said. “Now they’re coming to the shelter.”

Every day, his receptionists answer phone calls from families living in their cars. They call in tears saying they have nowhere to go, that they have called multiple shelters, and no one has the space. (DRMM does not turn anyone away, but people must first call a helpline operated by the city called CAM Detroit at 313-305-0311. It connects people to shelters and resources, but it also can present another hurdle if no one answers, Audi said.)

He remembered one family who had been living in their car for a month.

“A lot of those kids, unfortunately, have had their clothes on them for a long time,” he said.

Meeting students’ essential needs in different ways

At Davis Aerospace Technical High School, Scott, the mathematics teacher, has taken over a project this year that goes hand in hand with the addition of laundry facilities and aims to meet the essential needs of her students.

When she takes them into “The Clean Closet,” an idea one of her former colleagues spearheaded several years ago, they stop in their tracks. Some cry when they survey the simple supplies stacked on the wooden shelves — deodorant, laundry detergent, toothbrushes.

Over the years, a few different teachers have overseen the closet and it has been located in several areas, from a spot near the washer and dryer to inside a teacher’s classroom.

“It was amazing to me that every single time I took a young lady in for a pad, she would ask, ‘Oh, can I get a toothbrush? Can I get a bar of soap?’” Scott said.

The closet also has things like socks and washcloths. Scott said both are in-demand items.

She buys a lot of the supplies herself and is building a patchwork network of donors, too.

“I’m very, very careful as an educator to not ask my teacher friends for anything, because all teachers give to their kids till the cows come home, till they’re dry. So my non-teacher friends are the ones that I’m like, ‘Hey, can I get $20 because I want to go buy some pads? Or, ‘Next time you see some detergent on sale, would you buy some more?’

Those donations get a lot of use — every day, kids use the closet, Scott said.

Sometimes they use the closet because they forgot to put on deodorant — they’re just being kids after all, Scott said.

“But a lot of times, in my head, in my heart, I know it’s because they don’t have it.”

Robyn Vincent is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit, covering Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. You can reach her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org

Still segregated and unequal: The reverberations of Milliken v. Bradley in Detroit 50 years later

2024-07-29T15:02:00+00:00

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In the books she read growing up, Nancy Jennings saw a lot of school buses cruising across the pages. She had always wanted to ride in one, but Jennings lived just a few blocks from her neighborhood school in southwest Detroit so she usually walked to class.

When Jennings finally got the chance to step foot on a bus, her 10-year-old mind had no idea just how significant the moment was.

In January 1976, Jennings, who is biracial, was among the students in Detroit bused to desegregate public schools.

In 1976, Nancy Jennings traded her better-resourced school for a "shabbier" one as part of a court order aimed at integrating Detroit schools.

At the time, Detroit’s classrooms were becoming increasingly segregated. Racist practices – such as restrictive covenants that prevented Black residents from buying or leasing property, and policies that denied them housing loans – created and maintained segregated neighborhoods. White residents were fleeing the city for the suburbs, in part because of the 1967 Detroit uprising, a violent rebellion in response to the systemic racism and police brutality Black residents faced.

Jennings’ bus ride, from one part of the city to another, wouldn’t change the trajectory of school segregation in metro Detroit. A landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court just two years before had drastically limited what could be done to address segregated schools. In Milliken v. Bradley, the court ruled 5-4 that suburban districts were not responsible for school segregation in Detroit and could not be forced to be part of the remedy. The decision ended the possibility of cross-district busing.

The ruling, which came 50 years ago this month, has had profound and lasting effects on segregated classrooms in Detroit and across the country. Legal scholars say it eroded the progress made after Brown v. Board of Education, another landmark court decision that declared in 1954 that state-mandated racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional.

Many social scientists who study educational equity lament the decision in Milliken to this day. They believe this type of court-ordered desegregation policy was a necessary solution for segregated schools, a persistent problem that often leaves students and teachers with fewer resources.

Leanne Kang, a professor at Grand Valley State University, said the ruling “was the nail in the coffin” for the nation’s progress toward school integration.

Busing opposition stretched across several divides

On Jan. 26, 1976, a cloudy, 36-degree day, the bus that 10-year-old Jennings stepped onto took her away from her familiar school, where the majority of her classmates were Black, to a mostly white school in the southwest Detroit Delray neighborhood.

It was just four miles from her old school, but it seemed a continent away.

“The kids I was interacting with felt different, not because they were white,” said Jennings, whose father was white and mother was Black. Rather, it was because a lot of them were in need, she said.

Delray is near Zug Island, where, at the turn of the 19th century, industry polluters began wreaking havoc on the environment, contaminating the air and soil in the name of iron and steel production. Many residents have long struggled with poverty and continue to face health problems from a toxic legacy of pollution.

Jennings’ parents weren’t happy about the order to bus their daughter to another school – sentiments shared by many other parents in Detroit.

There was plenty of opposition to busing at the time, including the idea of a cross-district plan, said Ken Coleman, Detroit historian and journalist.

Resistance came from both white and Black residents – some white people didn’t want their children bused to predominantly Black classrooms, while some Black people feared busing would diminish community control of schools.

Pontiac resident Irene McCabe, who was white, took her anti-busing campaign, related to a separate busing order in that city, to Washington D.C., and L. Brooks Patterson, the late prosecutor and former executive of Oakland County, acted as McCabe’s attorney. Patterson was himself outspoken against integration — one seed of many that rooted his racist legacy in southeastern Michigan.

Irene McCabe, center, joins an anti-busing protest on September 21, 1972.

Some of Detroit’s Black leaders, such as then-state senator and former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, also pushed back against cross-district busing.

“Coleman Young and others believed that the remedy wasn’t really about Black kids going to school with white kids in the suburbs,” Coleman said.

For some Black activists, the answer was parity — giving kids from the lower east side of Detroit the same resources as those given to kids in West Bloomfield, Pontiac, and other communities, Coleman said.

Families across racial and ethnic lines also were concerned about the unknown — putting their kids on a bus and sending them across town to a completely new classroom, where they could be bullied or harassed.

At the time, 1 in 5 Detroit residents supported the city busing order that went into effect following the Supreme Court ruling, according to a 1976 survey conducted by the Detroit Free Press. But the survey failed to capture how a lot of parents felt. The Free Press wrote that 70% of respondents did not have children under the age of 18 and 80% did not have kids in Detroit schools.

In the Jennings’ household, Nancy’s parents thought about sending her to a private school. They decided it was too expensive, though, so she stayed enrolled in the under-resourced school in a poorer part of town.

From her 10-year-old perch, Jennings caught whiffs of the social climate — anti-busing protests on the television screen and dramatic newspaper headlines – but it would take her many years to understand the significance of her experience.

Busing opponents stage a mock funeral with children carrying black-draped coffins down West Vernor on January 25, 1976 to protest the start of busing.

At Fleming Elementary in the northeast, bused students received a big welcome on January 27, 1976.

Former Detroit police officer Dale Seaton grew up in a southwest Detroit neighborhood not far from Jennings, and he remembers being bused from his mostly Black school to what is now Clippert Multicultural Magnet Academy, which was predominantly Hispanic then and remains so today.

The addition of 12-year-old Seaton, who is Black, and his classmates shifted the racial makeup of Clippert, making it half Black and half Hispanic for a time, he said. It was a deeply formative experience for Seaton, whose father, a teacher, pushed him to be part of Detroit’s busing experiment.

Dale Seaton's experience being bused to a new school in southwest Detroit was impactful in several ways. He made lifelong friends and eventually returned to the school to substitute teach.

The students he rode the bus with “became my lifetime friends, because their parents were much like my parents — they saw an opportunity. So I had like-minded kids on the bus with me … literally everybody that’s on that bus, I’m still friends with.”

Seaton eventually returned to Clippert as a substitute teacher, where he understood the weight of his presence in the classroom — fewer than 2% of teachers nationwide are Black men.

Unearthing the deep roots of Milliken v. Bradley

Matthew Kautz, a professor at Eastern Michigan University, sees major and lasting impacts from the Milliken case, from the inequitable state funding Detroit schools receive in comparison to other districts to the state’s history of meddling in the management of the district.

The district also remains predominantly Black.

Kautz traces the origins of Milliken v. Bradley to the Great Migration that began in the 1910s and lasted through the 1970s, when Black Americans moved to Rust Belt cities like Detroit and other parts of the country to escape the racial violence and systemic racism wrought by the South’s Jim Crow laws, which enforced segregation and marginalized Black citizens.

As more Black people moved into Detroit, white residents fled, and city officials continued to redraw the city’s border lines to reinforce segregation, Kautz said.

By the 1950s and 1960s, state officials were playing a more active role in administering federal funds for housing – and also meddling in changing school district lines, something U.S. District Judge Stephen Roth found in his opinion for the lower court in Milliken v. Bradley, Kautz noted.

Meanwhile, a battle for community control and school decentralization was taking shape in the halls of power.

Coleman Young, then a state legislator, helped push through Public Act 48, which decentralized the Detroit school system. The law was in response to the passage of a Detroit Board of Education desegregation plan.

State Senator Coleman Young during his 1973 Detroit mayoral campaign. Young, who was against using busing to integrate schools, became Detroit's first Black mayor that year.

“All of these factors become part of the reason why the NAACP doesn’t just sue the city but also the state, with Governor Milliken becoming identified in the case,” Kautz said.

The NAACP presented evidence in Roth’s courtroom that showed how the state was facilitating residential and educational segregation. And so Roth “opens the door for the metropolitan desegregation plan — the idea that Detroit and 53 of its contiguous suburbs will be part of this,” Kautz said.

But after the case was appealed to the Supreme Court, the makeup of the high court had been “drastically remade” under former President Richard Nixon, who appointed four justices during his time in office, Kautz noted.

The majority opinion put a halt to addressing segregation outside of city lines.

The lasting effects of Milliken v. Bradley in Detroit

In the years leading up to and following Milliken v. Bradley, Detroit’s population plummeted and so too did enrollment in Detroit schools. Between 1970 and 1990, enrollment dipped by 38%. That decline nearly doubled over the next two decades to 73%.

Today, just half of Detroit kids, or about 53,406 students, attend Detroit Public Schools Community District, though enrollment has risen roughly 8% in the last several years.

The district was plagued with financial problems and controversies that ultimately led to state legislation in the late 1990s giving the mayor control of the district until 2005. State-controlled emergency management followed in 2009 for roughly seven years.

In her book Dismantled: The Breakup of an Urban School System, Leanne Kang details the thorny dilemmas facing board members before the state’s emergency managers took over, including rapid population decline and the unpredictability of state aid given the rise and fall of the economy.

The decade after Milliken v. Bradley was particularly tumultuous. It marked “the failure to integrate schools, and then dramatic battles over decentralization, which resulted in the school district splitting into eight regions.”

Detroit’s education landscape changed profoundly in the 1990s, with the introduction of charter schools, a public option outside of district control, and the start of the state’s schools of choice program, which allows students to move to different schools within a district or attend schools outside of the district in which they live.

Leslie Vaughn switched her eighth grade son from Detroit Public Schools Community District to a charter school a few years ago. She said she believes in traditional public education, but her son was in a classroom with students who had behavioral issues and it disrupted his learning.

Vaughn, who is first-generation Caribbean-American, believes DPSCD has not been able to step out of the shadow of emergency management, and that makes the district a tough sell for some parents.

Magnet and application schools, like Renaissance, Cass Tech, and Bates Academy, have fewer issues attracting students, she said, but neighborhood schools aren’t as appealing to people who have the money or resources to send their children elsewhere.

“They’ve not only made it very difficult for Detroit to get the kids in the suburbs in, but the suburbs have made it very difficult for Detroit students to get out,” she said.

Getting out to districts like Birmingham, or even nearby ones like Grosse Pointe, for example, is impossible for Detroit students. Those districts, where some of Southeastern Michigan’s wealthiest families live, do not participate in the state’s schools of choice program.

As school choice options have proliferated in other districts, though, Vaughn said she has seen more parents taking their kids out of Detroit schools and putting them in districts like Southfield, which receives more per-pupil funding than Detroit.

Still, the conditions for segregation seem inescapable. As students of color from Detroit move outward to other districts, white families at those schools then move even further out, she said.

“Whenever you see something that looks like integration, it’s just this snapshot of this moment in the middle of flight, where one group has moved in and the other group has not yet moved out entirely.”

Sarah Lenhoff’s research tracks with what Vaughn has observed firsthand: The schools of choice program has contributed to enrollment patterns that weaken community schools — where diverse groups would have the chance to come together.

Lenhoff, a professor of educational policy at Wayne State University, said the impacts of Millken v. Bradley hit Detroit’s most vulnerable students especially hard. The ruling deepened racial and economic segregation in Detroit classrooms.

Nearly 80% of DPSCD students qualify for subsidized meals today.

This concentration of poverty “makes it more expensive and challenging to educate your student body,” she said. “It puts a lot of stress on those segregated schools, and frees up non-segregated schools to do more with the resources that they have.”

What further complicates the matter, she said, is that “the state funding model doesn’t adequately fund schools and districts that are serving high concentrations of racially marginalized and economically disadvantaged students.”

Even complex issues like chronic absenteeism have some connection to Milliken v. Bradley, she said, noting that the schools facing problems like chronic absenteeism are often underfunded and lack support.

“It’s connected to historical racism and structural inequity, and we ask schools to solve it, but … we don’t fund them to solve it, and then we call them failures when they can’t solve it.”

Court ruling in Detroit has personal impacts

At the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in Detroit, attorney Erin Gianopoulos frequently passes the bronze plaque commemorating Federal District Judge Stephen Roth’s ruling on Milliken v. Bradley. It is a touchstone she thinks about a lot.

Attorney Erin Gianopoulos studied Milliken v. Bradley under John Mogk at Wayne State University Law School. Learning about the case compelled her to make a big decision in her own life.

The attorney has closely studied the Milliken ruling and its implications.

“There had been a widely held belief that courts could play a profound role in addressing segregation,” she said.

That was mostly due to Brown v. Board of Education. After the Milliken decision, though, “desegregation as a policy goal slowly disappeared because we slowly lost the tools to do anything about it,” Gianopoulos said.

The ruling has shaped some of the key decisions she has made in her own life.

Gianopoulos, who is white, was born in Detroit, but had been living in California until 2018 when her family moved back.

“When we moved here, I really wanted to live in the city because I wanted to vote in Detroit. I wanted to be part of what was happening, not just through my work life but through my whole life,” she said.

That meant sending her kids to DPSCD.

She says without Milliken, or some other force compelling desegregation, the choice is left up to parents. So she is willing to try to help integrate the city’s schools with her own kids, even if it makes just a tiny dent.

When she thinks about the case, Gianopoulos often ponders Justice Thurgood Marshall’s dissent and its chillingly prescient message. She thinks about how, with sharp and painful clarity, it applies today:

“Our Nation, I fear, will be ill served by the Court’s refusal to remedy separate and unequal education, for unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together and understand each other.”

Alex Klaus contributed reporting.

Robyn Vincent is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit, covering Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. You can reach her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org

Wayne State committed to giving Detroit high schoolers a chance at a college experience

2024-06-14T21:04:04+00:00

As president of Detroit’s largest university, Kimberly Andrews Espy is never off the clock when it comes to engaging with students, faculty, and the community.

Nearly a year into her tenure, the Wayne State University leader said she considers that work a key part of her commitment to reaching more Detroit high school students and lessening enrollment barriers.

“We recognize coming to college is an investment,” Espy said in a recent interview with Bridge. “It’s an investment in yourself, it’s an investment in your family, and it’s an investment in the sense of meaning and purpose for a future.”

The university is dedicated to eliminating barriers for Detroit students, including meeting them at their schools, partnering on community events, making test scores optional on applications, and offering scholarships that cover full tuition.

There were 2,828 Detroit students enrolled at Wayne State for the fall of 2023, including 529 incoming undergraduate students, said Ericka Matthews-Jackson, Wayne State’s senior director of undergraduate admissions. The overall enrollment for incoming first-year students was 2,988.

The university’s recruitment team has a regular presence at Detroit high schools, Espy said, and teens are often invited to visit the campus for events like new and admitted student days. Wayne State also partners with the Detroit College Access Network for recruitment events and student assistance in completing college applications and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, orFAFSA.

The university offers a scholarship program specifically catered to Detroit residents called the Heart of Detroit Tuition Pledge, which offers free tuition for students of Detroit high schools or residents earning a high school diploma. Wayne State is also one of 26 Michigan colleges that honors the Detroit Promise, an initiative administered by the Detroit Regional Chamber that ensures that any eligible student graduating from a high school in Detroit will have a tuition-free path to a two-year or four-year institution. For the 2023-24 school year, 443 students received the Heart of Detroit award and 125 students were part of the Detroit Promise program.

With the median annual income in Detroit averaging around $37,000, Espy understands the biggest barrier high school students face when enrolling in college is financial.

“When you couple the Pell (grant), the Michigan Achievement Scholarship and our own financial aid programs … you begin to have a widespread impact on the ability for students to be able to afford college,” she said. “This last fall 59% of our incoming class paid no tuition and no fees.”

Wayne State’s goal is to remove barriers to a college education

When it comes to student outreach in Detroit, Wayne State has a two-person recruitment team that works with high schools in Detroit Public Schools Community District as well as the city’s charter schools, Matthews-Jackson said.

“Typically, what happens is in the fall, we do high school visits and then we have special relationships with several schools, including Cass Tech, Renaissance, and Martin Luther King,” she said. “And we have designated days where our admissions counselors will go and meet with students who are interested in applying to Wayne State, help them complete their applications, and make sure that they’re getting the support and resources that they need.”

To reach students outside of school, the recruitment team partners with the Detroit College Access Network, a community-based organization dedicated to promoting higher education in the city. The two entities host college fairs and application nights, and Wayne State participates in the annual Metro Detroit Youth Day at Belle Isle.

A group of Detroit high school students gathered for the Detroit College Access Network’s Decision Day in May. The organization works with students in metro Detroit to encourage them to pursue higher education.

Wayne State is also working to remove barriers in the application process. In 2020, the university made it optional for students to submit test scores from the ACT or SAT to be considered for admission. In addition, Wayne State is one of 10 universities in the Michigan Assured Admission Pact, which admits all Michigan high school students with a 3.0 GPA or above.

After students are accepted to the college, admission counselors help teens with next steps, like signing up for orientation and reviewing financial aid packages, Matthews-Jackson said. Counselors are busy during the summer too, meeting with kids at Wayne State summer camps offered to middle and high school students.

“We want to have more of a relationship with the students and families that we serve so by the time their student applies and is ready to make their admission decision, Wayne State is very familiar to them and they know that they belong here,” Matthews-Jackson said.

But this year, counselors faced two taxing challenges: DPSCD let go of many of its college transition advisors due to budget cuts, leaving some students with little to no support in school to navigate the college application process.

Then there was the botched rollout of the revamped FAFSA in December, compounded by subsequent processing errors. The rollout has left millions of U.S. families playing a waiting game with major implications for their household budget since the form is the gateway for students to qualify for a state scholarship program that could also reduce the cost of college. Students generally commit to colleges or universities by May 1, but this year several Michigan colleges, including Wayne State, pushed back deadlines because of the FAFSA problems.

In some cases, students are committing to a college or university without knowing how much aid they will receive, which could force tough financial decisions down the road. In other cases, students did not fill out the application, suggesting they may not attend college at all.

“We weren’t able to start sending out award letters until the middle to the end of April, which is very, very late,” Matthews-Jackson said.

Counselors visit schools like Cass and Renaissance on a weekly basis to provide support to students. The university also has a Detroit student ambassador program where Wayne State students who graduated from a Detroit high school talk to current high schoolers, Matthews-Jackson said. When it comes to FAFSA help, the Office of Student Financial Aid hosted several virtual and in-person FAFSA workshops. The next virtual workshop is on Monday while the next in-person event takes place Tuesday at the David Adamany Undergraduate Library.

As of this week, Wayne State has received 2,030 applications from students attending public, charter, and private schools in Detroit, Matthews-Jackson said. The university will accept applications for the fall 2024 semester through Aug. 1.

“So many of the students and families that we serve are Pell-eligible students, first generation students, and so, financial aid and affordability is very top of mind and something that’s a major consideration when they’re trying to determine where they’re going to apply, but also where they’re going to end up enrolling in college,” Matthews-Jackson said.

A key to college access is providing additional support to students

According to 2022 Census data, only 17% of Detroit residents have a college degree. That number is low compared to college rates in other cities and across the state, said Cyekeia Lee, the director of DCAN. That’s why the organization is following Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Sixty by 30 goal, which aims to have 60% of working-age adults obtaining a skill certificate or college degree by 2030.

Lee said her staff of seven works with more than 50 district and charter schools across Detroit to get students interested in college, and they provide professional development to Detroit-area counselors.

“We really work to help ensure that the counselor knows all of the college access things, just like we want every student to know the language,” Lee said. “The counselors are there to be trained and be supported.”

Staff are there to help students complete college applications and the FAFSA. To address the FAFSA fiasco, DCAN hosted FAFSA events at the Capital One Cafe downtown, Lee said.

Wayne State is DCAN’s top feeder school, with most students choosing to go to school close to home, the director said. Along with campus visits, the organization partners with the Detroit Promise to give students admitted to the university a special admissions day during the summer where they can talk to students and professors ahead of the first semester.

“They (Wayne State) offer a robust amount of scholarships and financial aid packages at no cost for students in the city of Detroit and so, that’s always a win with students,” Lee said. “A lot of students are excited to just be at a four-year institution in the heart of the city that can rival many of our neighboring colleges and institutions.”

Lee doesn’t have numbers for the Class of 2024 yet, but noted 1,852 Detroit high schoolers chose to attend Wayne State between 2019 and 2023. In contrast, 816 Detroit students have gone to Michigan State University, and 454 students attended the University of Michigan.

“We work the city,” Lee said. “We are the Detroit College Access Network. We don’t leave any school behind.”

Bridge Michigan Reporter Isabel Lohman contributed to this story.

Micah Walker is a reporter for Bridge Detroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

The FAFSA woes complicating federal college aid are especially acute for some Detroit students

2024-05-20T17:10:06+00:00

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It was College Decision Day at Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School, and Perriel Pace was walking through the halls wearing a sparkly shirt with a Michigan State emblem.

Pace had been excited to find the shirt at a church rummage sale. But on that day, it was a “bittersweet” choice of attire.

The Detroit high school senior was accepted to MSU months ago. She wants to become the first person in her family to go to college. But that hinges on federal financial aid. And with just a few months before the college semester begins, she still doesn’t have an answer about that funding.

Pace is among many students in limbo across the country due to the rocky rollout of a new version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. The process this year has been mired in confusion — the revamped form was released at the end of last year and has come with no shortage of technical issues. Some students are still shut out of the system. Others, like Pace, managed to fill out and submit the form — but still, they wait.

In Detroit, these problems have tested the resilience of vulnerable young people already facing barriers to higher education. It is a roadblock that looms large in a city where just 17% of residents hold a college degree.

Pace has had issues finding stable housing and receives support under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. She lives with her cousin now. Last year she stayed in a shelter. Despite those challenges, she is highly engaged academically and civically. Pace has participated in student government, performed in school plays, and is involved in a number of youth organizations across the city that advocate for social justice.

She wants to convert that advocacy into a career and either become a lawyer for incarcerated people, or get her doctorate in education and sit on the Michigan State Board of Education.

She feels a sense of responsibility to carve a path into higher education — if she can get the money to go.

“Everybody, all my family, is looking to me. No one ever got the opportunity. And that’s what held them back as well — funding,” Pace said.

Students seeking college aid should ‘not despair’

The situation has had a clear impact on the state’s students who are planning to go to college.

According to recent data, 38% of high school seniors in Michigan have completed the FAFSA, a 21% decrease compared to this time last year.

These delays also have many schools on edge and have led them to rework their own timelines. The Michigan Association of State Universities’ Mia Murphy said that many public universities have moved back enrollment and deposit deadlines to accommodate students and their families.

“We want students and their families to know that they’ve done nothing wrong, that this is unprecedented, and it should never be like this again,” Murphy wrote in an email to Chalkbeat.

At Wayne State University, school staff has been working “around the clock” to help students with lingering FAFSA stress, said Ahmad Ezzedine, vice president for academic student affairs and global engagement.

Last year, 54% of the university’s incoming freshman class attended tuition-free thanks to a university program that utilizes a mix of state and federal aid, Wayne State scholarships, and grants to help students from low-income households attend.

“So we are confident that students will have very generous offers if their tuition is not fully covered based on their family situation,” Ezzedine said.

His message to students mirrored what admissions officers at local institutions of higher education like Michigan State and the University of Michigan-Dearborn told Chalkbeat: “What we want is that students don’t despair and don’t let something like this stop them.”

Still, for many vulnerable students, getting the necessary college aid is just one piece of their higher education puzzle.

College roadblocks persist, but so do Detroit students

The FAFSA rigmarole this year is particularly hard on Detroit students who face additional barriers to college, like finances, family responsibilities, and a lack of transportation, said Stacey Brockman, a Wayne State professor of educational leadership and policy who studies the pathways to college for Detroit students.

The latter is especially pronounced in a city ruled by automobiles and lacking robust public transportation.

In a forthcoming study looking at transit barriers and costs that students attending Detroit area institutions face, Brockman found that students using public transit to commute to community colleges spent upwards of an hour getting to class.

“Just objectively, that’s a really long commute,” she said.

More than half of students Brockman surveyed who had stopped going to college said finding reliable transportation was a top reason. Another 40% said they struggled to pay for it.

For some students, that problem begins well before they are thinking about college. In a recent survey, parents with children attending Detroit schools reported frequent challenges in accessing a vehicle.

Brockman’s work also highlights that many students don’t give up.

She found that one in five community college students in the Detroit area were still enrolled and making progress towards a degree in their fifth year. Many are working and supporting themselves. Slowly and steadily, they make it through.

Something similar could be said about the level of perseverance necessary to complete the FAFSA this year.

Trying to create a college-going culture

Katey, a senior at Detroit Cristo Rey High School, started filling out the FAFSA form back in January, a few weeks after it became available. (Chalkbeat is only using her first name because of her family’s immigration status.)

She’s on track to be a first-generation college student. Her parents are from Guadalajara, Mexico, and her household is of mixed immigration status. The federal government’s changes to this year’s FAFSA precluded her from completing the form. The revamped iteration asks for a parent’s Social Security number, something her parents do not have.

So Katey filled out a different form to confirm her father’s identity. The system rejected that form too, “but I never gave up,” she said.

Katey attended a FAFSA event through her school where she met Tanya Aho of Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, one of several community organizations helping people carve a path to college.

For months, Aho and Katey met and tinkered with the form and experimented with different strategies. Ultimately they figured out a workaround. Students around the country faced similar issues.

Aho said the glitch Katey experienced affected many students from backgrounds like hers up until the spring. Meanwhile, getting help in Spanish from FAFSA staff has been nearly impossible.

These layers of red tape are sending a message to students, she said.

“My kids are like, ‘You know, it doesn’t feel like they want us to get this money.’ And I really can’t argue … it doesn’t feel like this population has been a priority,” Aho said.

Katey spent difficult hours researching how to even apply for college. But it was the only way to get closer to her childhood dream of becoming a veterinarian. In the fall, Katey will attend Michigan State. It was her pick given the school’s veterinary program.

At Western International High School in Southwest Detroit, where nearly three quarters of students are Hispanic or Latino, there are two bilingual college transition advisers for 400 seniors, Alicia Alvarez and Gina Dossantos. That’s nowhere near enough, Alvarez said.

Many college advisers were eliminated from several Detroit schools last year after the district made budget cuts, including at Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School, which Perriel Pace attends. At Western, Alvarez turned down a buyout last year but the school was ultimately able to retain her given its high enrollment numbers — more than 1,900 students attend the high school. Dossantos, meanwhile, works at the school through a partnership with the University of Michigan.

Many of the students Alvarez and Dossantos help come from vulnerable households. And they estimate roughly 20% of the students they have been working with are newcomers, often from Central American countries where they and their families escaped violence and death.

“They have to leave everything and come to this country — and then we can’t even help them get into college,” Alvarez said.

The FAFSA debacle has hampered the two advisers’ efforts to nurture a college-going culture at Western, and students are getting discouraged. “They are just like, you know what, maybe this isn’t for me,” Alvarez said.

Still, there are signs these advisers are making a dent. Alvarez is a graduate of Western herself. During her time at the school, there was much less emphasis on going to college, and there were no College Decision Day celebrations. But the contrast between then and now became clearer to her this year, when a Western student got into Harvard.

“It’s nice to see that the school is making progress in that way and to be part of that change” she said. “That feels really good.”

Robyn Vincent is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit, covering Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. You can reach her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org.

Cannabis use is hurting Detroit students. It’s also making more kids too young for school sick.

2024-05-13T17:07:33+00:00

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In the five years since Michigan voters approved recreational pot, cannabis culture has engulfed everyday life, especially in Detroit.

Billboards promising speedy weed delivery are everywhere. So too is a distinct skunky smell that lingers on streets, alleyways, and in apartment buildings.

The increased access to weed is contributing to a growing public health problem: More children are unintentionally ingesting marijuana edibles, getting sick, and going to the hospital.

From 2020 to 2022, the Michigan Poison and Drug Information Center, which takes calls from across the state, recorded 801 incidents of cannabis toxicity among children ages 5 and younger. That represents a nearly 75% increase of unintentional youth cannabis ingestion, a “worrisome and concerning” spike, said Varun Vohra, the center’s academic and managing director. Meanwhile, cases of unintentional cannabis use by children ages 4 to 13 grew by 60% from 2020 to 2023.

These trends have led public health professionals, local leaders, and school officials to search for solutions. In Detroit, school leaders are highlighting the urgency of what is likely a statewide problem. Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti and school board members recently issued a plea for help to lawmakers and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Vitti said cannabis use — intentional or not — is widespread in Detroit schools, disrupting classes and sending students to the hospital nearly every week.

This school year alone, the district has counted roughly 750 incidents involving marijuana as well as vape pens that students use for tobacco. The latter make up a huge chunk of those incidents.

The public climate for cannabis is such that a 9-year-old, Kaydn Mahouli, complained about the billboards for weed to Detroit City Council members.

All of this speaks to a new frontier for child health and safety that has officials in schools and beyond scrambling to address an unintended outcome of cannabis legalization.

Child cannabis poisoning on the rise nationwide

Michigan voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2018, and recreational dispensaries opened their doors in December 2019. In Detroit, the first dispensary to sell recreational weed began operation in January 2023, a delay stemming from legal battles over the city’s marijuana ordinance.

Dr. Kelly Levasseur, chief of pediatric emergency medicine at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, said the number of young patients entering the emergency department after the legalization of recreational marijuana rose dramatically.

“In 2020, during COVID … I’d have maybe one patient come in every few months, and now it’s probably every other week,” she said. “It is so common.”

Levasseur said toddlers and children, from roughly 16 months to 6 years old, comprise the majority of patients suffering from cannabis intoxication. They arrive with telltale symptoms of central nervous system depression: They are disorientated, sleepy, and confused as parents carry them into the waiting room. In severe cases, a child’s respiratory function becomes compromised.

“We can almost recognize these kids when they’re walking down the hallway,” Levasseur said.

Meanwhile, she is also treating teenagers for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, an illness caused by daily cannabis use that results in severe cyclical nausea and vomiting. Levasseur said it typically resolves when the patient completely stops using marijuana.

Dr. Jason Vieder, vice chair of the emergency department at Henry Ford Health, said the issue is especially acute among young children who get their hands on temptingly sweet cannabis gummies, cookies and brownies.

Part of the problem, not only for children but also young people and adults, is that the dosage in these products is an “inexact science,” Vieder said. He said that while prescription pills might have lines scored down the middle to accurately separate half doses, eating half an edible does not necessarily mean people are getting half the supposed marijuana dose.

The issue is certainly not unique to Michigan.

Bart Hammig, a scholar of public health at University of Arkansas, has published research on the rise of pediatric cannabis poisoning nationwide. Although the research is challenging given federal laws about cannabis, Hammig told Chalkbeat that “the rate of [emergency department] visits associated with cannabis use has increased about four to five times in the past decade.”

Even states that pioneered the template for legal cannabis struggle to address this issue.

Colorado became the first state, along with Washington state, to legalize recreational pot in 2013. But doctors like Sam Wang of Children’s Hospital Colorado still see a high volume of children with cannabis poisoning.

“So our state has kind of led the way … with things that include child resistant packaging, marketing and advertising regulations, dose limitations … public education, etc. And we’d like to think that this has helped,” Wang said. “But unfortunately, the rates have continued to increase.”

Wang and other physicians and researchers stressed the need for more public awareness campaigns, especially when it comes to adults leaving cannabis edibles around the house where little hands can grab them.

Searching for ways to reduce kids’ cannabis use

Vitti and school board members have outlined several ways to curb cannabis use among kids, including stricter regulations on packaging and labeling of marijuana products.

They are also calling for detection systems in schools for marijuana and vape pens, and public awareness campaigns funded through cannabis revenues and taxes.

Vitti said the need to address these issues is deepening. In an interview with Chalkbeat, he cited two recent drug-related incidents that involved a second and third grader. “When we have young children involved, there is definitely a greater sense of urgency,” he said.

When asked for a response to Vitti’s letter, a spokesperson for Whitmer referred Chalkbeat to Michigan’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency.

That office has rules aimed at keeping pot edibles and products away from kids. The rules prohibit products that could appeal to children and minors based on shape, label, and overall packaging. For example, cartoons or caricatures are not allowed, nor the word “candy,” and products must be sold in opaque, child-resistant packages.

“Enforcement of these rules has been — and continues to be — a high priority for the CRA for years,” David Harns, a spokesperson for the agency, said in an email to Chalkbeat.

Harns wrote that the image Vitti included in his letter of marijuana edibles masquerading in packages that resemble Sour Patch Kids, Jolly Ranchers, and Skittles does not represent “regulated Michigan products.”

DPSCD Police did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment about how often school police are encountering these products in Detroit schools.

Detroit City Council Member Angela Whitfield Calloway, a former Detroit public schools educator, said she is “beyond alarmed” about the situation.

She said more cannabis revenue should go toward funding robust education and awareness campaigns in traditional public, charter, and private schools.

“We have to have outreach, and we can’t depend on the schools because the schools are reaching out to us. They’re saying, ‘City of Detroit, we need your help,’’ Calloway said.

The proliferation of billboards advertising recreational cannabis across the city is also on her radar after comments to the City Council from Mahouli, the 9-year-old who expressed his concerns about children seeing the same billboards he sees “everywhere” that advertise marijuana.

Mahouli’s grandmother, Jacqueline Miller, explained to council members that Mahouli helps his mother at her substance abuse clinic in Pontiac and wants to become a doctor so he can take over the clinic one day.

Calloway has directed Detroit’s Legislative Policy Division to explore how the city could potentially restrict such advertisements.

Meanwhile, Council Member Scott Benson has proposed earmarking 10% of gross receipts from cannabis sales for youth substance abuse programs. Detroit currently uses 2% of its cannabis tax revenues for substance abuse outreach, and that includes a $40,000 youth program launching this summer through the Detroit Health Department. Benson says that’s not enough.

Roughly $101 million in state cannabis taxes from last year went to the K-12 School Aid Fund.

Although often less novel than marijuana, tobacco is also attracting similar concerns.

State Sen. Stephanie Chang, a Democrat from Detroit, said she is generally open to allocating more cannabis revenue for prevention. But she wants to drill down on more details and talk to stakeholders. And she pointed to her bill to address vaping, which includes banning flavored vapes, earmarking taxes for tobacco prevention and K-12 education, and enacting more regulations on businesses selling tobacco products.

Chang was recently at a student roundtable at Davis Aerospace Technical High School where students were asked if they know someone who has been harmed by vaping. “I think almost every student raised their hand,” she said.

Vitti has similar concerns. “The vape pens are even more dangerous [than cannabis] as far as usage and it’s a major problem,” he told Chalkbeat. “And that’s where we are seeing gas stations, close to school, selling vape pens, to underage children. That needs to be cracked down.”

Karmen Hanson, senior fellow with the National Conference of State Legislatures, has researched how states that were first to enter the so-called green rush, like Colorado and Washington, have incorporated public health into cannabis policy.

“Legislators and other policymakers will come back year after year, and regulators for that matter, too, to try to correct things that they believe need repairing or tweaking,” she said.

Hanson said local leaders now have the opportunity to learn from those examples.

Robyn Vincent is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit, covering Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. You can reach her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit school leaders want action to get pot edibles away from kids

2024-05-02T22:12:53+00:00

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Detroit school district leaders are urging lawmakers to help address what they describe as an “increasingly alarming” rise in student use of marijuana edibles and vape pens containing marijuana.

“A week of school rarely passes where a student is not taken to the hospital due to intentional or unintentional consumption of edibles,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti and members of the Detroit school board said in a Thursday letter emailed to federal, state, and local lawmakers.

From the 2019-20 to the 2020-21 school years, the Detroit Public Schools Community District had 289 drug-related incidents. Between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, there were 1,735 incidents. It is unclear how many of those incidents included marijuana use.

“This school year alone, we have already faced 745 drug-related infractions as of last week,” the letter said. The district leaders noted that the numbers have risen since marijuana was legalized in Michigan in 2019.

Vitti and board members are asking lawmakers to adopt safety measures that include:

Requiring clear labeling that identifies edibles as including marijuana.
Prohibiting manufacturers from using packaging that imitates non-marijuana candy.
Providing each school with funding to purchase detection systems for vape pens and marijuana. The funding from this initiative would come from the profits and taxes collected from marijuana sales.
Initiating a public awareness campaign, funded using marijuana legalization revenues, to educate the community on securing edibles and keeping them away from their children, as well as the potential risks of access to children.

The letter includes an image that shows some edibles packaged to resemble candies such as Skittles and Starburst.

“In some cases marijuana edibles are indistinguishable from regular candy brands, misleading our students and facilitating the ease of their distribution within our schools,” the letter said.

Attorney and DPSCD parent Marcia Spivey isn’t surprised by Vitti’s characterization of marijuana use in Detroit schools. She says she fought hard against zoning rules to try and keep marijuana dispensaries out of her neighborhood. In her work representing children in the foster system in Wayne County, she has clients “who are in middle school or high school that have admitted to using marijuana on a daily basis.”

She wants to see city leaders working more closely with school officials in the district, especially when it comes to policies such as the city’s marijuana ordinance.

“There needs to be better coordination in terms of legislation that impacts our families because the legislation that the City Council passes directly impacts the families in Detroit,” she said.

Parent Aliya Moore echoed Spivey — she wants to see the city and school district working in tandem on this issue. She said there should be a strong focus on businesses that sell to minors and parents should face consequences, too.

“Ultimately we are responsible — we can’t just say they walked to the store and got it on their own,” Moore said.

Still, Moore says the legalization of recreational cannabis in Michigan makes this a thorny issue.

“Basically,” she said, “you can get weed out of the gas station.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Robyn Vincent is a reporter covering Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org.

‘Degree Forward’ is making college more accessible for Detroiters

2024-04-30T21:32:03+00:00

Andrew Linton’s college journey has been more than 10 years in the making.

After high school, the native Detroiter went off to Virginia to attend Hampton University, but left school due to a family emergency. Linton then spent time working in Washington D.C. before he returned to Detroit in 2021 and refocused on his education.

“I always wanted to go back to school. I just didn’t come across the right program,” he said. “But the stars aligned. I just made it my main focus to finish my degree and further my academic and job opportunities.”

Three years later, the 34-year-old received his bachelor’s degree in health care management, thanks to Degree Forward, a Detroit college program geared toward individuals with full-time jobs or family responsibilities that don’t allow for traditional schooling.

Degree Forward partners with Southern New Hampshire University to provide students with affordable, accelerated online classes to earn an associate or bachelor’s degree. Anyone in Michigan can enroll in the program, and Degree Forward has hubs in Detroit and Huron County.

But, “one-on-one coaching is really the core foundation of the program,” said Degree Forward CEO Danielle North, noting the nonprofit’s academic coaches walk students through financial aid options and assistance with their assignments.

Students can choose from three areas of study: health care management, business management, and communications. And unlike traditional colleges and universities, the curriculum is project-based, meaning there’s no lectures, tests, or grades, North said.

“You can’t fail in this format because you receive a ‘not yet’ or a ‘master,’ she said. “You get an opportunity to get in a feedback loop of constantly resubmitting until you actually hit mastery.”

Rather than dividing the school year into semesters, Degree Forward has several terms throughout the year, with the next starting in June. Tuition is $2,332 per term before financial aid, with no books or extra fees, according to its website.

To attend, prospective students can submit an enrollment interest form on the Degree Forward website and get connected with a coach. Then they must fill out a degree program application for Southern New Hampshire University. Once the application is submitted, an academic coach will walk through the financial aid process or set up a payment plan, as well as any paperwork requested by the college. The only eligibility requirement for Degree Forward is a high school diploma or GED diploma.

For Linton, the program’s first Black male graduate, the appeal of Degree Forward was its flexibility.

He works full time at Centria Autism, a provider of applied behavior analysis therapy for children with autism. Linton completed the program in a year with the support of his Degree Forward academic coach, Raylynn Henry, and his mother, a former principal in the Detroit school district. . His next goal is to obtain a master’s degree in accounting.

“Degree Forward changed my life by creating a pathway for me to get my undergrad degree while I was still working full time,” Linton said. “I came across a lot of professional people and I was happy to meet and network with them.”

The organization is also looking to expand its reach through the recently launched Black Male Achievement Initiative, which aims to offer support for Black boys and men in education and careers. North said she’s noticed that some male students find it difficult to ask for and accept help.

“Black men do need support, but how do we create a supportive culture where they can feel safe and comfortable to get what they need to achieve their goals?”

A second chance at an education

Degree Forward was conceived in 2021 when North helped launch another nonprofit, Diploma Equity Project, which works with K-12 schools, colleges, and community partners to improve college completion rates for two key groups: high school graduates entering college and adults looking to earn degrees.

Diploma Equity Project teamed up with Southern New Hampshire University after seeing the success of the college’s online program in Boston called Duet.

According to a study from the Center for Higher Education Policy and Practice, or CHEPP, the graduation rate in 2019 among associate degree-seeking students at two-year institutions in Massachusetts was 20%. Meanwhile, Duet saw a 46% graduation rate among its associate degree students. Fifty-two percent of Black students graduated from the program, compared to a 12% graduation rate for other two-year programs in Massachusetts.

“We said ‘if we could replicate that and bring it to Michigan and Detroit in particular, we could really make a difference,’” North said.

In Michigan, 18% of adults enrolled in community college complete a postsecondary credential in four years and 57% of adults enrolled in a public university complete a postsecondary credential in eight years, according to a 2023 report from The Michigan Center for Adult College Success.

But the rates are lower for students of color. In 2021, 29% of Hispanic adults had an associate degree or higher, , while 27% of Black adults did. Black students also have the highest rate of leaving college without a degree, at 51%; followed by Hispanic students at 35%; white students at 29%; and Asian students at 19%.

Degree Forward started as a pilot program in late 2021 before its first official cohort in January 2022, North said. Last year, the program served 195 students and is on track to serve 300 to 400 students this year.

One of those students is Nkosi Mason, who recently received a bachelor’s degree in business management. Before joining Degree Forward, he had been out of college for 12 years and was working as a car salesman with LaFontaine Automotive Group.

Mason, 33, first joined Degree Forward last year as an academic coach. He said it’s the right job for him since he initially went to school to become a teacher.

“Being an academic coach allows me to be in alignment with that since I’m coaching students like I’m in the classroom,” Mason said. “It feels like I’m still accomplishing a dream.”

To become a Degree Forward academic coach, Mason said, individuals must have at least an associate degree and some experience in management.

A couple of months into the job, Mason enrolled as a student in the program.

“There’s not a lot of pressure since you’re able to go at your own pace,” Mason said. “There’s never that midterm and ‘I’m gonna eat 10 donuts and make it happen.’”

Mason found it hard to get back into the flow of a school routine, but said seeing his coworkers also going through the program inspired him.

“My colleagues went through the program and accelerated,” he said. “I wanted to do the same thing, so I had to figure out what it would take to do that and be able to build that into my workflow. It’s made me better as a person, but also being a contributor to the team. It’s nothing like I ever experienced when I tried to complete my degree 12 years ago.”

Nkosi Mason recently received a bachelor’s degree in business management through the Degree Forward program.

A safe space for Black men

When Mason received his degree, he became the second Black male graduate in the program.

Prioritizing Black men’s school success was one of the reasons behind the creation of the Black Male Achievement Initiative, North said.

A majority of students at Degree Forward are women, with only 18% of the population consisting of men. North also noticed that men were lagging behind in their completion efforts.

She said one reason the program works is because participants don’t have to give up their jobs.

“The reason why this program is so powerful is because you don’t have to give that up,” she said. “It may take longer, but you’re gonna have the support to actually get you through.”

Last month, the initiative held a meeting at Degree Forward’s Grandmont Rosedale office with Mason and a group of Black male leaders in the community, including Khary Turner, executive director of the Coleman A. Young Foundation and board president of the Diploma Equity Project.

The group was in the midst of planning a Father’s Day brunch, which will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 15 at The School at Marygrove.

Turner, a speaker for the upcoming brunch event, said the Black Male Achievement Initiative is powerful and bound to impact many mens’ lives. He hopes the project continues to expand to reach other parts of Detroit.

“With initiatives like this, it’s important to allow a certain degree of organic evolution to take place because there’s a point you want it to maintain its authenticity,” Turner said. “If it’s authentic, it will also attract people who are thirsty for that kind of dialogue and interaction. And you never know, you just may help a couple guys that will turn their lives around and figure out their path. That’s important … that’s really important.”

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Birdie’s Bookmobile spreads joy of reading to Detroit children

2024-04-19T23:05:20+00:00

Inside classroom 148, a gleeful Alyce Hartman was telling the tale of three musicians: a squirrel cradling a guitar, a grizzly bear plucking a bass, and a chicken strumming a banjo.

Hartman’s voice rippled like a wave as she read the picture book “I’m Sticking with You-and the Chicken Too!” by Smriti Prasadam-Halls, an author of South Indian heritage.

Twenty-five second graders at Voyageur Academy sat on the floor listening, invested in the plot with every turn of the page.

In the end, the talking animals formed a friendship.

“We make our own music. We’ve nothing to prove. We do our own thing, and find our own groove,” read Hartman, like the storyteller her mother and the gauntlet of children’s theater taught her to be.

Storytime with students is among the hallmarks of Birdie’s Bookmobile, a pop-up literacy initiative launched in 2022 by Hartman.

Through vivid storytelling and mini-book fairs, Hartman increases children’s access to physical books and promotes the pleasures of reading, which could shape a student’s future success beyond classroom walls.

“We want kids to come in and have the opportunity to look and to touch and to feel and to experience” the books,” she said.

In Detroit, many students still struggle to read. The ongoing crisis has lasted more than a decade, angering community members and putting pressure on school officials to reverse the trend.

In the 2022-23 academic year, Detroit’s traditional public and charter school students slightly improved their reading scores on Michigan’s standardized test compared to the previous school year. Yet these results fall well below statewide numbers.

Hartman, a 55-year-old STEM and drama teacher at Detroit Prep public charter school, hopes to spark magical thinking in young readers. She believes books are portals to creativity, cultures across time, and place and potential careers.

Each week, she’ll hit the road and deliver hundreds of diverse books to classrooms, after-school programs, nonprofit organizations, and police precincts in Detroit.

Hartman said she’s also installed little free libraries at Nichols Elementary-Middle School, Detroit Enterprise Academy, and other sites.

“I want children here in the city to really enjoy reading as much as I did,” she said.

Several students from Voyageur Academy pick out books from Birdie's Bookmobile during a book fair on March 8.

A magical girlhood

As a child, Hartman relished the joys of playing pretend.

She transformed into characters from “Pippi Longstocking,” “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” among the abundance of books inside her Worthington, Ohio home. She loved reading with her mother, a kindergarten teacher. She wrote stories to her grandmother she’d send through the mail.

“I think that’s what has really spawned a lot of this,” she said.

In the early 2000s, Hartman moved to Detroit from Los Angeles, yet those childhood memories enriched her life’s purpose, fostering a love of creativity. Hartman chose the name “Birdie’s Bookmobile” for its cute imagery and alliterative sounds.

To date, Hartman said she’s distributed more than 16,000 books, made possible through grant funding from United Way for Southeastern Michigan, the Holley Foundation, and the Junior League of Detroit.

She’s purchased books from local sellers like 27th Letter Books in Southwest Detroit and Next Chapter Books in the city’s East English Village neighborhood and accepts book donations.

Many of the books Hartman picks feature Black and brown characters, written by a variety of authors, including everything from a humanitarian and a politician to a famous painter and professional wrestler.

Some of the titles Hartman curates have appeared on banned book lists that often target literary works by writers of color and LGBTQ+ writers. Although book bans have surged, Hartman hasn’t received any pushback.

Children of color, literacy experts say, are still overlooked or stereotyped in mainstream culture. Diverse books can teach all children to be empathetic toward people who are different from them. They can also boost a child of color’s sense of self.

Igniting Imaginations

The habit of visiting the library, Hartman said, is becoming a lost tradition, as school librarians and school libraries have begun to disappear.

“When I was growing up, that was special,” she said. “We just don’t see that so much anymore.”

In the wake of such scarcity, Hartman’s poised to boost reading culture. Her mini-book fairs, a feast of illustrated covers, showcase a plethora of stories waiting to be chosen.

Once the reading was finished, elementary, middle and high school students picked out their own books arranged in baskets and bins atop tables covered in mustard-yellow cloth. A bushy tree with googly eyes covered a wall and conveyed a message matching Hartman’s purpose written on its trunk: “Watch Us Grow!”

A boy huddled with a group of buddies to flip through a picture book starring Nelson Mandela. High school students gravitated toward graphic novels. Students can keep the books and take them home.

Room 148 is Voyageur’s reading cafe, where teachers hold small group lessons. Dayna Peoples, a reading specialist, oversees the cafe. Peoples helps students learn, pronounce and write words, leading the school’s K-8 reading intervention programs.

Voyageur is a K-12 charter school located on the city’s southwest side. The campus has two buildings. Roughly 1,300 students attend.

The school doesn’t have a library, but the reading cafe has more than 500 books thanks to Birdie’s Bookmobile’s recent visit.

Peoples met Hartman during a call organized by 313Reads, a coalition focused on improving literacy access in Detroit. Thrilled by the bookmobile concept, she welcomed Hartman into the school.

“Some parents don’t have vehicles. Some don’t have time to take their kids to the library. In this way, the library comes to them,” Peoples said.

Eighth-grader Kai Fee marveled at “The Gilded Ones” by Namina Forna, who grew up in Sierra Leone before moving to Atlanta. On the cover is a portrait of teenage warrior Deka, clad in gold jewelry and armor.

The 13-year-old noticed the warrior’s long braids, saying “Black girl magic.” She picked Forna’s young adult fantasy novel, wondering if that warrior was just like her.

“As Black girls, we don’t get very much attention,” she said. “I feel like this could help me. Like, believe more in myself.”

Sporting a purple beanie emblazoned with the ghostly Pokémon Gengar, high school senior Tyler McKinnon scooped up two books wrestling with themes of war.

Sometimes, the 18-year-old can’t find books that entice him. He appreciated the variety Birdie’s Bookmobile provides.

“I like reading, even news articles that help me like, not be ignorant, and expand my knowledge,” said McKinnon, holding the graphic novel “The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees” by Don Brown.

He said he wants to be an informed citizen of the world.

Voyageur Academy third graders looking through books at the book fair held by Birdie's Bookmobile at the school on March 8.

A shining mission

In the afternoon, Hartman went to 27th Letter Books to retrieve another haul of whimsical titles. Nestled on a low-key corner of Michigan Avenue and 25th Street, the bookstore carries historically underrepresented authors.

She greeted co-owner Erin Pineda, who recommended a picture book celebrating body positivity called “Bodies Are Cool,” written by Tyler Feder.

While Hartman shopped, Pineda’s rescue dog Chai sniffed around. Pineda thinks she’s a pit boxer, but her true breed is unknown. Hartman follows the children’s lit scene with zeal.

“I literally haven’t read an adult book in a long time,” Hartman said. “It takes me a long time to go through them now because I’m reading so many children’s books.”

Pineda grabbed “Parker Looks Up: An Extraordinary Moment,” a story she cherishes. Written by Jessica Curry and Parker Curry, the picture book profiles a young Black girl’s trip to see a painting of First Lady Michelle Obama at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

In 2019, Pineda helped organize a reading of the book by its acclaimed illustrator Brittany Jackson, a native Detroiter. She met Hartman during the event’s planning meeting at The Commons, a cafe, laundromat and community space on the city’s east side. The two immediately clicked.

The bookstore fuels Hartman’s mission.

The owners have set up a program where customers can round up their purchases to the nearest dollar. That extra money gets funneled into a fund allowing 27th Letter Books to sell Hartman books at cost.

“The work that Alyce is doing is so critical in getting books into kids’ hands,” Pineda said. “Letting them know they deserve those things.”

Last spring, a fire destroyed Hartman’s old ride: a little bus. In the meantime, Hartman drives a van to transport books to the city’s children. This calling, Hartman believes, was bestowed by a higher power.

“This is a vision that the Lord gave me,” she said.

Hartman went to the cash register and paid for her haul. The transaction produced a receipt several feet long. She carried boxes filled with books and loaded up the van. Her next stop: a youth boxing gym.

Before driving off, Hartman took a moment to find the next two books in “The Gilded Ones” series. She wants to give them to Kai.

This story originally appeared in BridgeDetroit and Detroit PBS.

Detroit students getting limited food options due to strike at distributor

2024-01-11T18:18:30+00:00

Meal options will be limited for students in the Detroit school district for the next week or two because an employee strike against the district’s main food distributor is causing disruptions in service.

Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, told district families about the disruption on Wednesday.

“All students in all schools at all grade levels will continue to be fed breakfast and lunch,” Vitti said Thursday morning during a policy conference in Detroit.

“The menu will be lighter, but we’ll continue to feed everyone,” Vitti said.

The disruption to school meals is particularly important in a district like Detroit, where a significant proportion of students come from low-income homes and rely on the breakfasts and lunches they receive at school.

US Foods is a national company that distributes food to schools, restaurants, health care facilities, and hospitality businesses such as hotels. The company has a distribution center in Wixom.

Officials from the company could not be reached for comment.

Angela Angeles’ four children, who attend Maybury Elementary and Priest Elementary in southwest Detroit, began complaining earlier in the week that their portion sizes for lunch have gotten smaller.

The district notified parents about the US Foods strike Thursday morning via text message, she said.

As a former parent outreach coordinator for DPSCD, Angeles said she had seen school cafeterias run short of certain items.

“Sometimes it’d be like, pizza and french fries (for lunch) and then some kids would just get pizza and no french fries, because they will run out of french fries, so we offer them something else,” Angeles said. “Once they run out of french fries or chicken nuggets, they substitute it with corn or stuff like that for different grades.”

Until US Foods is able to resume normal deliveries, Angeles said she will make sure her children eat breakfast before going to school and have them bring a packed lunch.

Vitti said the strike by the company’s truck drivers is “preventing the district from receiving the volume of food regularly received to feed students.” He said the district was exploring other food vendors in order to provide basic food options to students.

Vitti said the closest strike affecting Detroit schools was in Wixom and was resolved Wednesday.

“There are still some lingering supply chain issues, but we will continue to feed all children breakfast and lunch.”

Detroit isn’t the only school district affected. In Indiana, WTHR reported that some districts were experiencing delays in food deliveries.

BridgeDetroit reporter Micah Walker contributed to this report.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach Lori at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Orlando Bailey is the engagement director for BridgeDetroit. You can reach him at obailey@bridgedetroit.com

In their words: The students, teachers, and advocates we heard from in 2023

2023-12-19T21:22:56+00:00

At Chalkbeat Detroit, we take seriously our mission to inform readers about efforts to improve public education in Michigan and explain how inequities create barriers to learning.

Crucial to our work is ensuring that the voices of the people who have the most at stake — students, parents, advocates, teachers, and other school staff — are front and center.

That’s part of our regular reporting. But we also elevate these voices with special features, such as first-person essays, How I Teach features, interview Q&As, and other formats.

As we wrap up 2023, we’re looking back at some of the voices we showcased over the last 12 months. Below, you’ll see highlights of those pieces.

And as always, if you have a story you’d like to share, or know of a voice that deserves to be heard, please reach out to us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Confronting racial violence with tenderness

I am required to teach Abraham Lincoln and how he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but not about the felony disenfranchisement that keeps many of my students’ families from experiencing true freedom.
N’Kengé Robertson

Detroit teacher N’Kengé Robertson tackled issues of racial violence and identity in this first-person piece. She explains that learning materials often leave out “critical conversations of race, gender, religion, language, and sexuality,” and fail to capture the lived experiences of students they’re supposed to reach. To address that, she said, she worked with her high school students to “improve the situation by compiling new resources, reshaping our lessons, and moving away from Eurocentric narratives in our classroom.”

Detroit students shed light on the need for self-love, inner peace

The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me.
TaMyra Smith

Detroit teen TaMyra Smith wrote about mental health and depression as part of Local Circles, a nonprofit that works with youth to research issues that are important to them.

In February, we published excerpts of student-written pieces about mental health that shed light on some of the post-pandemic struggles students are facing. The writing was part of a project of an organization called Local Circles. The participants included one student who said she struggled with depression, and another who urged students to seek help when they need it. For the most part, they agreed that self-love and inner peace are important for their healing. There is still widespread concern about the mental health challenges of students who are grappling with the after-effects of the pandemic. Adults trying to address this must listen to what young people are saying they need.

A Detroit man’s passion for getting kids to school every day

It was heartbreaking to me to see these children squandering an opportunity that later in life they’ll have to pay to get.
Larry Simmons

Chronic absenteeism has been a major storyline for Chalkbeat Detroit for more than a year. We’ve given readers a close-up view of one Detroit school’s efforts to get students to school regularly, the role community agencies have played, and barriers to improving attendance, such as spotty transportation and a state policy that punishes the parents of chronically absent students. In this interview Q&A, retired pastor Larry Simmons talked about what drove his years-long effort to help get kids in school regularly, and what it felt like to see children walking around his neighborhood when they should have been in school.

Looking at the world through a similar lens at Michigan camp

Detroit teen Torrance Johnson wrote a first-person essay about attending a Michigan camp for children with muscular dystrophy.

I rejoice in thoughts that my lost friends are running around happy and alive in the afterlife; at the same time, my heart aches, because they are no longer by my side.
Torrance Johnson

Detroit teen Torrance Johnson wrote a first-person piece, a version of which was initially published by the Detroit Writing Room, about how a camp in Lexington, Michigan, for children with muscular dystrophy changed his life. Going to this camp each year gave him an opportunity to be around other children like him who have muscular dystrophy. He wrote of the joys that brought, but also the sadness of losing friends.

Adults failed her when she was a kid. Now she is a watchdog for children.

No adults ever took the time to ask what was behind my surface-level behavioral issues … despite best practices and what research tells us about kids who “act up.”
Hannah Dellinger

Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Hannah Dellinger wrote a first-person essay about overcoming childhood trauma.

Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Hannah Dellinger, who joined our team in June, wrote an intensely personal essay about her experiences overcoming trauma. The sexual abuse she suffered as a young child led to behavior problems in school — signs of the trauma that adults ignored. Hannah’s piece illustrates not only the importance of having school staff trained to meet the needs of students struggling with trauma, but also how important it is for adults to be able to act on telltale signs that a student isn’t just acting out, but perhaps exhibiting the effects of trauma.

This Detroit teacher’s mission: Bring back school libraries

I really need to impress and stress how important going to school is and the work that students do there, not only because they’re young and they’re learning, but also because it has long-term ramifications for their life. The absence of libraries is an atrocity.
Josie Silver

Josie Silver teaches early elementary grades in the Detroit school district, and one thing she’s passionate about is equipping her children with books that will fuel their love of learning. Chalkbeat highlighted Silver as part of its regular How I Teach column, in part because the educator had been named a Michigan Collaborative Teacher Leader. Silver talked about the need for school libraries, and the challenges she has faced teaching students who are still struggling to rebound academically from the pandemic.

Detroit student who fought for ‘right to literacy’ is still in the fight

We obligate children to go to schools, but we don’t obligate schools to teach.
Jamarria Hall

Jamarria Hall was the lead plaintiff in the historic lawsuit that claimed state officials had deprived Detroit students of a right to literacy.

Jamarria Hall was the face of the historic 2016 “right to read” lawsuit that argued state officials failed to provide a basic reading education when they oversaw the Detroit school district between 2009 and 2016 under emergency management. Hall was a high school student when that lawsuit was filed, and became the lead plaintiff. Now 23, he told Chalkbeat in this interview that he sees the $94 million the state allocated this year to the district — part of a 2021 settlement of the case — as a way for young people to have a say in their future.

Michigan’s History Teacher of the Year helps educators combat racist myths

The world is such a fascinating place. Each student has passion and curiosity inside them, and I am so honored whenever I can play a small part in igniting these things.
Matt Vriesman

Teacher Matt Vriesman was named Michigan History Teacher of the Year.

In 2020, as the nation was undergoing a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd, an administrator asked social studies teacher Matt Vriesman to share resources with other teachers. Vriesman had already adapted his own classroom lessons after realizing that state standards don’t always provide an accurate view of race, slavery, and injustice. That request turned into something bigger than his East Kentwood High School building. Vriesman, whom Chalkbeat featured in a How I Teach piece after he was named Michigan History Teacher of the Year, created a website that provides antiracism resources for Advanced Placement teachers across the nation. This work is important to Vriesman, who teaches at one of the most diverse schools in the state. “We are always looking for new ways to bring in the knowledge and experience of our students into the classroom,” he said. “It makes world history so much more ‘real’ for students.”

Michigan’s top teacher wants more focus on mental health, learning recovery

Many children are dealing with mental health issues themselves or dealing with the mental health issue of a parent or caregiver. In Michigan, we need to put as much time, resources, and funding into meeting the students’ mental needs as we do their physical and educational needs.
Candice Jackson

Detroit educator Candice Jackson was named Michigan Teacher of the Year.

Soon after being named Michigan’s Teacher of the Year, Candice Jackson used her new platform to push for schools to address the academic and mental health needs that have lingered as schools attempt to help students recover from the pandemic. Williams, the first Detroit district teacher to be recognized as the state’s top teacher since the 2006-07 school year, told Chalkbeat that students need counseling services and social-emotional learning programs to get back on track. That will pay off academically, she said, because stronger mental health “enhances academic performance, supports overall well-being, enables early interventions, and has short-term and long-term positive outcomes for students.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

How Detroit community groups are helping schools chip away at chronic absenteeism

2023-11-29T00:44:26+00:00

Sixth grader Ke’Von Thomas and a group of classmates at Detroit’s Durfee Elementary-Middle School sat around a cafeteria table one day last month, running through a list of 10 back-to-school tips and vying to see who had completed the most.

“Early to bed, early to rise,” was the first tip. Others included “establish a routine,” “organize your backpack,” and “limit screen time.”

Ke’Von, 11, said he had accomplished three tips since the school year started, and surveyed the others. “I did No. 1. You did No. 2,” he told one of the other boys. “Who else did No. 2?”

Across from him, seventh grader Miguel Perkins said he had followed five of the tips.

The list and the exercise came from The Konnection, a community group that’s working with Detroit schools to help motivate students to show up for school and “move the needle” on chronic absenteeism. Founder Sharnese Marshall uses the lesson early in the school year to reinforce positive attendance and academic habits with 20 middle school students who participate in a biweekly after-school program at Durfee.

In a city with sky-high rates of chronic absenteeism — meaning students who miss 18 school days a year or more — community groups like The Konnection have taken on some of the work of trying to improve student attendance. Churches, after-school programs, health centers, and other groups have provided services such as driving students to and from school, conducting home visits and phone calls, and building connections with families.

These groups don’t necessarily have the resources to attack what experts agree is the root cause of chronic absenteeism: Detroit’s widespread poverty, whose ripple effects include health problems, housing instability, and job barriers. So it’s hard to determine what impact they’re having on the broader problem.

Nonetheless, they have become an essential complement to the efforts by school officials and education advocates to improve attendance. With initiatives targeted at specific schools, neighborhoods, or family needs, they’re chipping away at a problem that has long undermined efforts to improve student achievement. And school leaders and district officials are embracing some of their efforts and strategies as part of their approach to reducing chronic absenteeism citywide.

Sarah Lenhoff, a Wayne State University education professor whose research includes studies of student attendance, says there’s room for still more community groups and local agencies to get involved at the root-cause level.

“Poverty alleviation, employment, job training, housing stability — these are major factors in whether kids can get to school,” Lenhoff said. “Outside organizations that are working on those issues, even if it’s not connected to the school system, could also make a difference.”

Ke’Von Thomas, 11, center, raises his hand during a wrap-up session during Konnection Klub at Detroit's Durfee Elementary-Middle School on Oct. 19.

DPSCD attendance plan evolves

Community groups have been working with Detroit school communities on absenteeism for more than a decade. But the Detroit Public Schools Community District formalized and standardized their role in attendance interventions beginning in 2018-19, a couple of years after the district emerged from state control.

Related: Detroit community groups have a long record of attendance work

That year, DPSCD outlined a plan that called for a holistic approach to improving attendance through wraparound services for students, hiring attendance agents, and partnerships with community organizations. The plan fell in line with growing consensus among advocates and national experts that districts should collaborate with local partners to support school-based attendance interventions.

Partly as a result of that plan, DPSCD reduced its chronic absenteeism rate to 62% at the end of 2018-19, from 70% the previous year.

The pandemic not only erased that progress, but raised the urgency of improving attendance: If students didn’t show up for class, they would struggle to recover what they lost academically during a year or more of online schooling.

And the effects of excessive absenteeism linger for years, research shows. Students who miss a lot of school are likely to struggle to stay on top of classwork, perform worse on standardized tests, and are more likely to drop out. Chronically absent students are also likely to miss out on high-dosage tutoring and other interventions school systems have prioritized in recent years to counter learning loss.

A 2022 study by the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research found that the district’s 2018-19 attendance plan, while showing early success, “only partially addressed chronic absenteeism as an ecological issue, implicitly downplaying structural and material barriers that families faced.”

It’s those systemic issues, Lenhoff said, that require better coordination between the district and city agencies and social services organizations, such as welfare and employment programs, and housing organizations.

She points to FosterEd Arizona, a child welfare program that coordinated with schools to improve attendance among foster youth, as well as a multiyear attendance effort in New York City that collaborated with city social service agencies. In both cases, school attendance data guided the implementation of interventions.

“There’s potential to really make a difference if we got more groups involved in the community development space who are working on housing, poverty, and unemployment, to be thinking about how might we track the attendance of the families that we’re working with and demonstrate that work like this could be beneficial,” Lenhoff said.

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said that because of federal education privacy laws, the district has to work within some limits on how much information it can share with outside social service groups. It does share attendance data with some community groups that provide programming for students, such as City Year and Communities in Schools, he said.

But that’s not possible for all groups without getting permission from individual families or through clearance. It is unclear how the Arizona and New York programs have been able to share attendance data with social service agencies.

“We could envision our district portal system providing access to partners so they can respond to negative attendance trends,” Vitti said. “However, this would take signoff from families and significant upgrades to the system we are building now. This would be impossible without a robust technology system. You cannot rely on spreadsheets to make this work.”

Middle school students make bracelets after completing their homework during Konnection Klub at Detroit's Durfee Elementary-Middle School.

Since the start of the pandemic, DPSCD officials have rapidly expanded their wraparound services for some of the most marginalized families, embracing the kinds of projects that community groups have been tackling in specific communities.

With the help of $4.5 million in philanthropic donations, DPSCD is launching 12 school-based health hubs across the city over the next several years to address the lack of student access to health care, a major barrier to consistent attendance.

At the health hubs, students, families, and community members can get physical, mental, and dental health services through current partnerships with Henry Ford Health and Ascension. They also have access to food pantry items and legal support.

One of the first few health hubs opening this year is at Durfee and Central High School, which share a building in the city’s Dexter-Linwood neighborhood. At the sites that are already open, families have been making health appointments and picking up health essentials like toilet paper, soap, and toothbrushes.

“We believe in whole child commitment,” Alycia Meriweather, DPSCD deputy superintendent of external partnerships and innovation, said at a recent community meeting on the new initiative.

The Konnection responds to lack of basic supplies

Durfee and Central have among the highest absenteeism rates within DPSCD: 82% at Durfee last year, and 91% at Central. It’s why Marshall and The Konnection began working there as far back as 2020.

Some students told Marshall they were not showing up to school because they didn’t have personal hygiene products or clean clothes. Others said school is boring, or they’re behind on work and don’t have the support to catch up.

On top of those challenges, in-school factors such as student-teacher relationships, bullying and safety concerns also create barriers to attendance.

Marshall responded to those needs by throwing quarterly attendance celebrations at Durfee, and setting up a school-based resource closet at Central, stocked with supplies students need to feel comfortable coming to school.

In the past year, the program’s closet served 275 high school students.

“Bullying is a real thing,” Marshall said. “Kids are bullied every single day because they don’t have the nicest clothes, or because they don’t smell the freshest.”

Enrichment programs help students stay motivated

They also launched the after-school Konnection Klub at Durfee, with enrichment programs that make coming to school more engaging. Several studies find that student participation in out-of-school programs can improve regular school attendance, encouraging students to show up to class.

This year, The Konnection is collaborating with local entrepreneurs and colleges to help students explore career opportunities in culinary arts, podcasting, fashion design, and transit services. Students in the after-school program also receive mentoring from community volunteers, practice social-emotional learning activities, and attend field trips to city sports and holiday events.

Mikaela Pugh, left, and The Konnection founder and CEO Sharnese Marshall work through a budget activity put on by Laurie Rivetto of Michigan State University Extension at Durfee.

“Schools may be supporting (students) academically,” Marshall said, “but enrichment programs can help you mentally and emotionally. They can help you in other ways that other partners can’t.”

Marshall worked with Durfee’s attendance agent and teachers to select participants who could most benefit from the program’s offering. They sought a mix of students who are chronically absent and those who are not.

“We want the students who are not there to feel supported by the leaders of the school who are showing up and who do understand the assignments,” she said. “We try to find a couple in each grade who are great students and do have support at home so that they’re able to pull the other kids up.”

Ke’Von (pronounced “kay-vaughn”), one of the students with strong grades and near-perfect attendance, had been eager to join the program since last year, when he was in fifth grade.

Leona Wright, an eighth grader at Durfee, was one of the students who needed the added support. She has routinely missed school on Mondays and Fridays this year, days her mother, Shavonne Jones, has to work late.

Jones works as a cook in a nursing home in Bloomfield Hills, about a 30-minute drive from Durfee. She says that between her and her fiancé's work schedules, it has been difficult to consistently get Leona to school on days they are both working.

“On Mondays, I have to be at work at 6 in the morning,” she said. “Then on Fridays, I go to work at 10:30, so I can take her to school but I won’t be able to pick her back up from school.”

Jones added: “There’s just a lot of difficulties with that. My job is understanding sometimes, but most jobs don’t want you to leave like that during the day.”

The family lives outside of the school’s boundary for yellow bus transportation as well, and Jones isn’t comfortable with her daughter riding the city bus.

One week in November, Leona was sick with the flu, prompting Jones to stay home from work to take care of her.

Marshall has sought out different solutions to some students’ transportation barriers, offering families Uber gift cards, asking volunteers to offer rides, or directing families to resources already available via the district, such as free bus passes.

Running the after-school program until 5:30, she added, provides some flexibility to families who can’t make the regular afternoon pickup time.

Eight grader Leona Wright, 13, works on a computer program during Konnection Klub at Durfee.

“It definitely helps the parents who are working, because a lot of times the kids are going home by themselves or they’re just hanging out in school,” Marshall said.

Leona says she’d rather be at school than at home. Prior to this year, she was homeschooled for four years and missed connecting with other students in person. Back at Durfee, she’s excited about trying out for the school’s cheer team and studying math, science, and social studies.

And she was eager to join The Konnection. “I wanted to make friends and experience my life and go on field trips,” she said.

The Konnection hopes to extend its reach

With a small team, Marshall has leaned on the support of roughly 150 volunteers in the past year to operate the resource closet, mentor students, and host attendance celebrations. She’s hoping The Konnection’s efforts can make more of a difference at Durfee. Last year’s chronic absenteeism rate was down 12 percentage points from the previous year, mirroring a decline across the district as quarantine restrictions eased.

“It’s still very high, but we’re making strides to be able to get that down,” she said.

She wants to see the program reengage younger students who may already feel disenchanted with school, or who might have lacked access to the resources, instruction, and extracurriculars the program provides.

In addition to attendance rates, The Konnection also tracks grade improvements, personal confidence, and “students’ desire to want to come to school.”

In a survey at the end of 2022-23, she added, 95% of club participants said they felt more motivated to attend school after being in the program.

This year, Marshall’s team is looking to reach at least 1,000 students across all its programs. They’re in the process of setting up a second resource closet at Durfee, and strengthening their relationships with community members outside the school.

The ultimate goal is still the same, she said: that “100% of our students will be on track in terms of attendance.”

“We’re trying to just bridge the gap where we can,” she said. “Until the policies are changed in order to ensure that our kids and our families are really taken care of and they’re not left out, the same issues will continue to perpetuate.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

How chronic absenteeism became part of this Detroit pastor’s mission

2023-09-22T19:17:32+00:00

Larry Simmons was troubled by what he saw outside the Detroit church where he was a pastor: School-age children were strolling the streets of the city’s Brightmoor neighborhood at times when they should have been in school.

That was over a decade ago, and it opened Simmons’ eyes to a problem that was already massive in Detroit: the epidemic of student absenteeism. In the 2012-13 school year, 68% of students in the Detroit school district were flagged as chronically absent, which at the time meant that they missed 10 or more days in a year.

The sight of youth skipping school was “heartbreaking” for the longtime pastor and community advocate, who saw the pattern of absences as a barrier to greater social and economic mobility for Black Detroiters.

Simmons had already been a familiar figure in Brightmoor and Detroit, having served as a political director for Detroit’s first Black mayor, Coleman A. Young, and a pastor of Baber Memorial A.M.E. Church.

But in the next decade, Simmons made encouraging school attendance one of his biggest priorities. He became a founding member of Every School Day Counts Detroit, a coalition of community organizations and schools across the city focused on chronic absenteeism. His work has allowed him to become heavily involved in the attendance efforts at Gompers Elementary-Middle School and other schools in the Brightmoor and Cody Rouge areas.

Larry Simmons has long been a familiar figure in Brightmoor and Detroit as a pastor and former political director for the city’s first Black mayor, Coleman A. Young.

He retired from Baber last fall but still leads Brightmoor Alliance, a nonprofit that focuses on revitalization efforts in the neighborhood.

Years after the initial encounter outside his church, student absenteeism remains at crisis levels, and not just in Detroit. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, chronic absenteeism — which is now nationally defined as missing 10% of school days or more — has skyrocketed in numerous states, with high-poverty school districts seeing higher rates.

In 2021-22, Michigan had one of the highest absenteeism rates in the nation: nearly 39%, compared with 19% in 2018-19, the last full school year before the pandemic struck.

The pandemic also derailed the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s progress in reducing absenteeism. After easing to 54% in 2019-20, chronic absenteeism rocketed to 77% in 2021-22. The rate was down to 68% last year, as the district stepped up its attendance efforts, but that still means more than two-thirds of DPSCD students missed 18 or more days of school.

“The schools alone cannot solve chronic absence,” Simmons said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

“It is measured in school. It is counted in school,” he said, but “it does not start and will not be solved alone in school.”

Simmons talked about the challenges and successes of his early grassroots efforts to address chronic absenteeism, the systemic issues that impede student attendance, and where he wants more help to solve the issue.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When did you first recognize student absenteeism as a problem in Detroit?

I didn’t become aware of attendance really as a challenge until I was a pastor at Baber, and we would see kids during the day who’d be out of school. They would just be walking around in the neighborhood. And I remember at community meetings, folks would talk about “Why are there kids all out on the street like this?” That’s what led us to pay attention to school attendance.

We eventually learned about chronic absenteeism through our research with (Detroit education advocacy group) 482Forward. We learned about this from Hedy Chang at Attendance Works and Robert Balfanz from Johns Hopkins University.

And we began to organize around this. And ultimately, Every School Days Counts emerged as a coalition out of that work with 482Forward. This would have been like 2012. And over the course of this time, we got a partnership with Wayne State University and we just began learning. We tried different things.

What was it about seeing kids skipping school that made you want to do something?

It was heartbreaking to me to see these children squandering an opportunity that later in life they’ll have to pay to get. I’ve basically spent my life working for the proper treatment of African Americans, and while it is absolutely essential that we get others to recognize our intrinsic value, it’s also true that we’ve got to do our part.

Why are young people standing in front of my church two blocks away in the middle of the afternoon? They’re passing up one of the biggest free investments available to help them achieve the life that I know they want for themselves. I know they want it, because when I talk to these young people, they have all these high aspirations. They want to live in these great houses, drive these great cars.

Well, if they happen to be 7 feet tall, and can play, and don’t get hurt, maybe they don’t need to go to school. If they can run as fast as Deion Sanders, maybe they don’t. But the truth of the matter is this landscape is littered with great talented people who didn’t get the training to manage their gifts.

The entrance to Baber Memorial A.M.E. Church in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood. Larry Simmons recalls standing outside the church and seeing school-age children walking around the neighborhood when they should have been in school.

From there, how did you get involved in grassroots efforts around chronic absenteeism? What were some of the early strategies you employed to address student absence?

We mounted this campaign called “‘Present’ in Brightmoor: Our School Attendance Movement” and began to organize around getting parents and churches engaged in this work. And we formed what we call the “Principal’s Table,” made up of principals of all the schools that were in Brightmoor at the time and in Cody Rouge.

When we first got started, we had about seven or eight churches that organized with us. And so we said, we’re going to each adopt a school. And we’re going to take the kids who are absent that the principals tell us about and we’re going to pick them up from home, and we’re going to take them to school, and pick them up and take them home in the afternoon.

We blew out two church buses and my car transmission carrying kids back and forth from school every day. So we realized it was just an unsustainable model. First of all, how many kids are going to fit in your car?

Then when we started to get the numbers back and realized just how many students were absent, it was clear between our burnt-out vans and my burnt-out transmission that we were not going to get anywhere.

So how did things evolve after that point?

Well one of the first things we realized is the data the Detroit Public Schools was passing out didn’t make sense. Back in those days, the statistic being used was average daily attendance.

“All of us were stunned when we first learned that just missing two days a month can make a child chronically absent.” — Larry Simmons

Average daily attendance tells me out of a group of students on any given day, what percentage of them are going to be present in the classroom or in the school. The problem with that is, different students may make up that percentage at any given time. So what you get is this patchwork of attendance. So in seeking to get accurate data, we got online and discovered Attendance Works.

We brought in Hedy Chang to Detroit for a conference of students, parents, and teachers. And over the course of about three weeks is when we learned about chronic absence.

All of us were stunned when we first learned that just missing two days a month can make a child chronically absent, and being chronically absent can lead to them not graduating on time, be more likely to get in trouble, and get excluded from school.

It changed our language and changed our way of thinking. And it turned out that nationally, the U.S. Department of Education had just issued a report on the problem of chronic absenteeism. And so we began to advocate and agitate to have this statistic used in Detroit and Michigan.

We evolved our strategies to try and focus on schools and messaging about chronic absence. We discovered that people didn’t even know what chronic absence was, and some would change their attendance behavior by learning that two times a month would be too often.

When the community first got started promoting this idea, the school system resisted. They didn’t like it, because the chronic absenteeism numbers were so appalling, they just wanted to count average daily attendance, and many of them still do.

It took probably about four or five years for us to win that fight, but ultimately, the state and the city began to use chronic absence as a statistic to evaluate student attendance.

What were some of the lessons you took away from that campaign?

We learned over time that this problem was way bigger than just having people pay attention to the statistics. People may not have known what chronic absence was, but they did know their children are supposed to be in school. There are other things that are operating in the ecosystem.

And we clearly understand that we have to have an all-hands-on-deck approach to solving this problem. The schools alone cannot solve chronic absence.

How do you feel about the recent rise in absenteeism rates?

The disappointing thing is before COVID, all of our work together had started bringing chronic absence rates down. Not transformatively, but significantly, and they were real drops. Not just blips.

COVID has blown all of that work up. We’re actually starting below where we started before. We’re worse off now than we were before. It’s not like we’re back to zero. We’re minus five.

How do you contrast the role of the school versus the role of community partners in addressing chronic absenteeism?

Schools have to be willing to acknowledge that the solution to this problem is beyond their scope of control, and therefore they need other partners to come to the table and bring resources and policy.

I would contend that a school-based challenge is to create the kind of school culture that makes school attractive. Part of our work at Every School Day Counts Detroit is to encourage schools to engage in these kinds of experiences. We had a big event with the Detroit Pistons this past school year where they brought Cade Cunningham and the other athletes to Gompers (Elementary-Middle School). Everybody got a new coat, everybody got a basketball, everybody got a backpack with the Detroit Pistons swag in it.

It creates a connectedness and creates a sense of belonging, and it creates an inviting atmosphere. It doesn’t substitute for rigorous academics, but it does help students want to put up with rigorous academics, because of all the other goodies, benefits, and joys of being present in school.

What sort of discussions or partnerships would you like to see with other organizations in the city?

We have a great partnership with the Detroit Pistons, who have devoted enormous resources and help to address this problem at several schools. DTE Energy also has been a great partner of late. They don’t have anything to do directly with education, but we certainly want somebody like that to be at the table.

We would want labor unions. We would want teachers. We would want the (United Auto Workers). We would want the companies that employ them at the table.

You often hear parents complain that their work schedules don’t permit them to be as attentive to their children’s attendance as they want to be. Changing work schedules or creating flexible work hours is beyond what the school can effect. But maybe the community could effect it.

Maybe labor unions could be brought to the table to say, ‘While you’re negotiating for everything, we need you to ask the companies, be they auto or other, how can we give parents more flexibility in their work schedules? And how can the school create more flexibility in its schedule so students can in fact get to school on time?’ I think it will take both.

We’ve got to come up with some serious structural, systemic solutions that really face the problem that we are confronting. It’s got to take all of us working together to do this — private sector, public sector, philanthropic, clergy sector. It is our responsibility and power to address some of the issues and challenges that cause chronic absence.

What role do you think the city of Detroit can and should play in addressing chronic absenteeism?

We’ve analytically gotten to a place where we really understand chronic absence in Detroit far, far better than we did. It comes from a lot of external drivers that result in children being chronically absent, and the clearest one is poverty.

“One of the things the city could do is to actually plan bus routes around school opening and closing. That’s completely within the city’s scope of power to be able to do now.” — Larry Simmons

Poverty creates certain life conditions. People who are very poor have less stable access to reliable transportation. They have less stable networks to compensate for things like sudden illness or any of the little disruptions that happen in everybody’s life every day when you don’t have as much as folks in higher income categories.

In the case of Detroit, most of its citizens are low-income. So the city should take that into account and either implement or advocate for policies that can address that poverty.

One of the things the city could do is to actually plan bus routes around school opening and closing. That’s completely within the city’s scope of power to be able to do now. That will cause some dislocation, it will cause some struggle, but there’s no solution we’re going to find that doesn’t do that.

Larry Simmons said his organization’s efforts made meaningful progress in reducing chronic absenteeism in Detroit, but “COVID has blown all of that work up.”

You’ve worn many hats over the years: from being a pastor over the past two decades to working under Mayor Coleman Young as a political director. How do you see all those roles intersecting into the work you do now?

We’re always talking about the same people. The person who comes to my church is the same person whose child should be in school down the street, is the same person who should go to vote for the leadership of our country.

We’re just pretending like we can deal with them separately, like I can abstract you as an object of education, and pretend that’s not connected to your spiritual life, your emotional well being, your political sense, or your economic aspirations. All these things are integrated, they’re interrelated, and so my focus most of my life has been on policy change, the policies that affect our community.

But as I grew older, I understood I couldn’t just talk about the policies that other people make. I’ve got to talk about the policies that we create inside our own houses. If my child gets up and tells me she’s not feeling good, the policy in our house may be that she doesn’t have to go to school. That’s a policy. It doesn’t affect anybody outside the four walls of our house, but nonetheless, it’s a policy.

What keeps you going in this movement?

Even though I now understand that the fight is more complex than I recognized when I first saw this, it’s still just as important.

And unfortunately, as a community, understanding where we are and what it is going to take to get to where we want to be is something we still don’t fully grasp. … We have to break that. And one of the essential ways to break it is to acquire the skill sets to compete in the 21st century economy. And you can get that for free down the street until you’re 18. After that, you have to pay.

So it’s just this fire in my belly that I have for the freedom of my people.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit schools are struggling with enrollment. Here’s what they’re doing about it.

2023-09-21T17:05:41+00:00

As students returned to the classroom this fall, early data from Detroit’s public schools showed another enrollment decline — a consistent trend for the last three years.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said this month that about 51,600 K-12 students were enrolled in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, a decline from about 52,300 enrolled at the same time last year, and roughly 53,000 at the start of 2021-22.

The exodus of students during and since the pandemic underscores the need for the district’s continued focus on strategies to boost enrollment such as marketing campaigns, back-to-school fairs, and neighborhood canvassing.

Detroit’s charter schools are also working to recruit new students after seeing their enrollment decline. Grand Valley State University, which authorizes over 25 charter schools in Detroit, including networks such as University Prep and Covenant Schools, has reported a drop of roughly 800 students in its city charters since the pandemic began, according to a university spokesperson. That’s nearly a quarter of their enrollment: In the 2018-19 school year, the university’s charters had about 31,000 students.

District’s enrollment strategies are a mix of old and new

During a summer school board meeting, Vitti laid out district efforts to increase enrollment. During the height of COVID-19, DPSCD lost 3,000 students. But with federal relief aid, the district expanded outreach, home visits, and door-to-door canvassing strategies using staff and parent volunteers. Those efforts resulted in a gain of 1,000 students.

Vitti said the primary strategy DPSCD is implementing is its new pre-kindergarten expansion, which will add 17 pre-K classrooms at 12 schools across the city this school year, including Barton Elementary, Garvey Academy, and Nolan Elementary-Middle School. While the district does not offer transportation for pre-K, families can arrange to have their children ride the bus with an older sibling who is eligible for transportation, Vitti said.

During a June board meeting, the superintendent said the district will annually monitor its preschool expansion “over the next three to four years” to determine whether actual enrollment numbers match projections, and whether it sees high reenrollment rates from pre-K to kindergarten. DPSCD’s K-12 enrollment is projected to remain constant next year, according to Vitti, with a potential bump of 335 pre-kindergarten students.

Vitti told BridgeDetroit this month that the district is already seeing growing demand for pre-K classrooms.

“As they move into kindergarten, most DPSCD pre-K families choose to continue their education in the district,” he said. “We’ve also seen that students who participate in our pre-K programs perform better academically. This year, students who were enrolled in our pre-K classes scored higher on math and reading tests in kindergarten than those who did not participate in our pre-K programs. By expanding our pre-K programs, we can engage more families early, find them a home in the district, and help them to build foundational academic and social-emotional skills that support them through their K-12 journey.”

Other methods include continuing with radio, TV, and billboard marketing campaigns as well as canvassing schools with low enrollment, Vitti said.

DPSCD also hosted Back-to-School Expos at dozens of schools, with most offering enrollment opportunities, school tours, food, and games.

Wanda Walker was among the caregivers who attended an expo at Marion Law Academy last month, a K-8 school on Detroit’s east side.

Walker’s 4-year-old great-grandson Noah Walker is a kindergartner at the school, while her 12-year-old granddaughter Autumn Walker recently started seventh grade.

While her grandchildren could have gone to a charter school or a school outside the city, Walker said having Marion Law located across the street from her house makes it convenient.

Detroit’s roughly 100,000 public-school students are widely dispersed across a mix of charters, traditional neighborhood schools, and application schools, with nearly 50% of children attending charter schools. Students from the city are also attending neighboring school districts through Schools of Choice of programs.

Walker said she’s active in the school community as a member of the parent-teacher association and has gotten to know the teachers and families at the school.

“Being a part of the community, I feel like I’m giving back,” said Walker, who is the primary caregiver for her grandchildren.

Major cities nationwide see decline in school enrollment

As of the end of 2022-23, DPSCD had a little more than 48,000 students — down from 51,000 before the pandemic.

Cities across the country, including New York, Chicago, and Denver, have lost enrollment in their public schools, too. This decline may well continue and even accelerate in coming years because of demographic trends, Chalkbeat has reported.

Between the middle of 2020 and 2021, large urban areas experienced a 3.7% decline in the number of children under age 5 and a 1.1% dip in the number of children 5 to 17 years old, according to a 2022 report from the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization.

Each year, DPSCD officials share enrollment and attendance data from the first couple weeks of the new school year. These numbers provide an early gauge of enrollment patterns ahead of Michigan’s two official Count Days, in October and February, when the number of students attending school is tallied for the purposes of allocating state funding.

Enrollment numbers can fluctuate over the course of the year as families move into and out of the city, or send their children to different schools, even after initially enrolling in DPSCD. The district’s K-12 enrollment of about 48,000 at the end of last year was about 4,000 below the figure of the start of the year.

Recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau found Detroit lost roughly 8,000 residents from 2021 to 2022 — a figure Mayor Mike Duggan has publicly contested, suggesting the city’s population has been undercounted.

The city’s population decline and decrease in school enrollment affected DPSCD’s budget for this school year, which saw more than 300 job cuts for central office positions and support staff including deans, assistant principals, college transition advisers, school culture facilitators, and kindergarten paraeducators. However, most people in those support staff jobs were able to transfer to a different position in the district.

Vitti said budget cuts were necessary due to many challenges the district is facing in addition to enrollment, such as the end of federal COVID relief funding, increases in employee salaries, health care costs, and inflation.

Canvassers worked through the summer

DPSCD is also targeting schools with low enrollment, such as Carstens Academy of Aquatic Science, Nolan Elementary-Middle School, Mark Twain School for Scholars, and Detroit International Academy for Young Women. The district’s Office of Family and Community Engagement has been leading the canvassing efforts. FACE Assistant Superintendent Sharlonda Buckman said canvassing was a key strategy during the pandemic and one that the department continues to use.

“For us, it’s about maintaining relationships with our families over the summer, giving new families an opportunity to court us, and take a look at all the programs and services that we have to offer and know about the schools in their neighborhoods,” she said.

FACE mainly does canvassing through its annual Summer on the Block series, which has been happening for the last six years, Buckman said. Trained canvassers — DPSCD parents, alumni, partners and neighborhood leaders — host community events at schools to connect students and their families to information throughout the summer and school year. The canvassers go door to door within a 5-mile radius of the host school and are paid $25 an hour over the summer, Buckman said.

FACE also invites agencies to its events to assist families with non-school-related topics such as job opportunities, household resources, and tax information.

This summer, FACE hosted 10 Summer on the Block events and had around 20 canvassers. The department also organized the district’s Kindergarten Boot Camp from June to August. The four-week camps prepare children and parents for kindergarten.

By the end of summer, the district enrolled 5,000 new students, which was 500 more new students than DPSCD had enrolled at the same time last year, Vitti said.

But FACE isn’t all about recruiting new students, Buckman said.

“It’s also about retention,” she said. “It’s about helping our families that we have over the summer with resources. There are a number of families already in that school that we also want to engage with over that summer period.”

Incentivizing staff members to recruit potential families could be a strategy to increase DPSCD enrollment, Vitti said during a July board meeting. Incentives could include bonuses for principals, assistant principals, and teachers if select schools meet a certain percentage of new students, or individual staff members could receive a bonus for recruiting a parent or a student to the district.

“In years past, we have considered different incentives for staff to reach out to families and try to increase enrollment, so that’s something that would have to be bargained,” he said during the meeting, referring to agreements with labor groups. “The best way to increase enrollment is at the school level and so, I think incentivizing at the school level would help in that area.”

However, the incentive plans won’t happen anytime soon, Vitti told BridgeDetroit in an email. He said he doesn’t see it being implemented this school year — at least not for the fall.

Detroit charters find barbecues, word of mouth effective

BridgeDetroit and Chalkbeat Detroit contacted several charter schools in the city, but only one, Detroit Innovation Academy, responded to questions about enrollment.

Principal Marina Hanna said 356 students are enrolled for this school year. That’s a little lower than the 375 students the K-8 school had before the pandemic, but Hanna said the school is enrolling new students daily.

“After COVID, we’ve maintained steady at around 350, and that’s typically because a lot of families now are choosing virtual options,” she said.

The small, West Side school is recruiting new students by hosting events, such as a recent back-to-school barbecue. Hanna said the event gave her a chance to invite academy partners and community members out to tour the school and meet the staff.

Detroit Innovation also attends community events such as the family fun day hosted by the Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance. The school also is working on expanding its social media presence.

But the most effective strategy Hanna has seen has been simple word of mouth.

“Word of mouth is honestly huge for us,” she said. “We’ve built a strong reputation in our community and with our families, so they often refer their friends and their neighbors to join our DIA family.”

Chalkbeat reporter Ethan Bakuli contributed to this story.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit, where she covers arts, culture, and education. Contact Micah at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Correction: September 25, 2023: This story has been updated to correct the number of student enrollees city charters authorized by Grand Valley State University lost since the pandemic began.

Detroit public schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti speaks on budget cuts, academic recovery

2023-09-06T04:00:00+00:00

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As federal COVID relief dollars for education begin to run out, school systems across the country are facing a jolt to their finances. But the Detroit Public Schools Community District has fared better than many in limiting the impact of the funding loss.

The district hasn’t been immune to cuts: Hundreds of positions were eliminated, the community has criticized district decisions, and parents remain concerned about the loss of some programs. But it deliberately focused most of the $1.27 billion it received from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, on one-time costs — rather than recurring budget items that can’t be sustained without federal aid.

That strategy will save the district from a so-called funding cliff that many other school leaders may soon face when the federal dollars run out in September 2024, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

Vitti talked about what he thinks the district did right and his recommendations for other school leaders.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was the district’s strategy as you planned for the loss of the federal COVID relief money? What did you prioritize?

One thing that I’ve tried to do as superintendent is be disciplined with finances. … I always think about recurring revenue with recurring expenditures, and one-time revenue with one-time expenditures.

Boards, in particular, can be very vulnerable to spending one-time funding in a recurring way. Because of the concentrated poverty that our families face, you look at our outdated infrastructure, salaries that are not fully competitive, the wraparound services that our kids need — and all of that was magnified and exacerbated because of the pandemic.

So the normal challenges that we have as a district linked to concentrated poverty, linked to historic racism, you see that money and it’s like, “Wow, we can solve a lot of our problems,” because we’ve been talking about the need for revenue, because our kids need more than the average student.

When we paid for things that needed more people, we tried to rely on contracted services rather than increasing employment.

One focus of the dollars was let’s fill the revenue gap because of the loss of enrollment. Right when the pandemic hit and the first year we came back, we were down about 3,000 students. We’ve picked up some since.

(We kept everyone employed) that normally would have been laid off. You know, let’s not close schools, let’s not cut programming — that’s the last thing we want to do during the middle of the pandemic.

We funded things that were very specific to COVID, like masks, temperature check machines, ventilation systems, COVID testing, moving to smaller class sizes in order to have social distancing, the virtual school, nurses in every school, expanding mental health in all schools — we did all of that through contracted services, or it was one-time. There were things we did that weren’t linked to contracted services like expanding summer school.

About half of the dollars went to fund facilities, which was a clear one-time expense, one-time need, and an enormous gap in our district, which is that we have a $2 billion infrastructure problem with no revenue to solve.

There is a way to use the money to, for example, increase salaries, but you have to do it through bonuses if you’re going to be responsible. If you link it to salary increases, you’re going to hit a cliff.

Was getting kids back into classrooms in person with things like smaller class sizes, masks, hazard pay for teachers, and upgrading HVAC systems a focus to improve academic outcomes in the long run?

I think if we go back to the pandemic, the greatest sense of urgency I had was to get kids back in school, without a doubt. That literally kept me up at night and led to my own mental health issues. I did deal with mental health issues, because I didn’t feel like we were serving children the way they needed to be served. … Our children in particular needed in-person learning in order to continue to show the improvement we were definitely showing before the pandemic. I knew every day they were at home, we were getting farther behind.

2021-22 was the first year that everyone tested on M-STEP, and we really saw the impact of the pandemic that year. But in 2021-22, DPSCD showed less learning loss on average than the state of Michigan and less learning loss than city charter schools. That showed me that having this urgency of getting back in person and keeping schools open in that 2020-21 year was important (along with) fully implementing our curriculum online.

Which cuts were the most difficult to make, and which programs do you wish could continue but had to end due to the end of ESSER funding?

I never want to be the superintendent that has to reduce staff to get to a number, because I understand that there’s a human being behind it, and that human being is connected to a family. It’s never easy for me.

The next hardest decision probably came to not having summer school at the scale that we had before.

We heard from some parents and students that the loss of college transition advisers is disappointing. Do you wish the district could keep those positions?

What we said was, we have to protect direct impact on student achievement, so we definitely protected the classroom. We didn’t increase class sizes. We definitely have invested in our academic interventionists and even expanded them.

When looking at the college transition advisers, there’s no question they had an impact on children — no doubt about that — but not a direct impact on student achievement.

What we tried to do was convince college transition advisers to go into the On the Rise Academy program and become counselors, because that was something we could see expanding in future years, maybe with more (state money for at-risk students).

Did you anticipate the amount of criticism from the community you received about the cuts? Has it been difficult to communicate to the community that the end of some of the programs and resources funded by ESSER was due to the federal relief money expiring?

Detroit children have great need, and the school system in and of itself does not provide the resources that children deserve to be competitive with their peers in more affluent neighborhoods and school districts. That’s not a function of an incompetent, corrupt school board or superintendent. It’s the nature of how the schools are funded.

Although Gov. Whitmer has made strides in narrowing the gap between wealthy districts and DPSCD, the gap is still there. We not are not even equal yet. We are definitely not equitable.

People are very passionate about what we should be doing for our children. And there’s a sense of anger because our families know our children are capable.

What do you think other districts need to consider as they get to the point DPSCD reached last school year with the remainder of ESSER money being earmarked? What should they prioritize as those dollars run out?

My recommendation is to communicate often, frequently, and honestly about the advantages and disadvantages of the funding, and be upfront about how you’re spending the money.

DPSCD had less learning loss than our counterparts. And as we move into the 2023-24 school year, undoubtedly we’re narrowing the gap in performance, which means not only did we use the money effectively, we used it efficiently.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit students show slight gains on Michigan’s standardized test

2023-09-01T17:56:32+00:00

Detroit students across charter and traditional public schools performed slightly better on Michigan’s standardized test this spring than a year ago, a reassuring sign for school officials eager to see academic achievement recover after the pandemic.

But local results remained well below the statewide numbers in math and reading, a gap that community advocates said highlights the need to redress historical disinvestment in Detroit education.

The results also spotlight the challenges the Detroit Public Schools Community District faces now that it has run through its federal COVID relief funding. The district received $1.27 billion in aid, and that money has helped pay for academic recovery work such as expanded tutoring, summer school, and after-school programming. Only some of those initiatives will continue when the federal aid runs out.

Results of the 2023 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, known as M-STEP, were released Thursday.

In reading, DPSCD students made small improvements across grade levels, in most cases exceeding pre-pandemic results. In third grade, 12.4% of DPSCD students scored proficient or higher in 2022-23, compared with just 9% the previous year, and 11.9% in 2018-19. Fifth grade reading results remain below pre-pandemic levels, but improved a bit from last year.

On math tests, DPSCD students improved on last year’s results, and topped pre-pandemic results in fourth and sixth grades.

Wide as they are, the gaps in performance between DPSCD and the state appear to be narrowing, particularly among Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students, who are moving toward the statewide average faster than those demographics across the whole state.

“We are not surprised by this improvement,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said. “The significant investments made in our staffing, curriculum, professional development, and school student resources over the years are reflected in these results. We have more work to do, and I want our community to know that the formula we have at DPSCD is working. Results do not lie.”

The results, however, cannot mask how much progress needs to be made to bring Detroit students in line with surrounding districts. Statewide, 43.9% of students scored proficient or higher in reading, and 35% did so in math.

Among charter schools in Detroit, results were mixed.

Detroit Edison Public School Academy saw year-to-year gains in both math and reading, but was still below 2019 results. Math results for grades 4 through 7 declined, while third grade saw an increase.

Detroit Enterprise Academy surged above its pre-pandemic results in math: The biggest gain was for seventh grade, where 32.9% of students were proficient in math, compared with 15.3% in 2019. However, reading results in many grades lagged behind pre-pandemic levels.

At Detroit Innovation Academy, fourth and seventh graders made improvements in math, with proficiency rates of 6.8% and 11.1%, respectively. Reading results for grades 3 through 6 were all below 2019 results.

Local education advocates said that despite the improvements, the 2023 results signal that more investment is needed to close gaps in Detroit and accelerate the recovery from the pandemic.

“I think we should be grateful that these scores were not lower, said Christine Bell, executive director of Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, adding that “it’s criminal that before the pandemic less than 50% of our kids were reading at grade level.”

Peri Stone-Palmquist, executive director of the Student Advocacy Center of Michigan, said Thursday’s results were a call for state legislators to pass literacy bills and “invest more deeply in equity, high quality tutoring, and special education supports.”

Education Trust-Midwest, an education research and advocacy organization, said the results pointed to “persistent opportunity gaps for our most underserved students, including Black and Latino students, students with disabilities and students from low-income backgrounds.”

There is more money coming, even with the loss of federal COVID relief aid, which districts have a year left to spend.

Michigan’s new school aid budget includes funding for early literacy and expansion of pre-K programming, and increased funding for special education students and at-risk students.

Districts can also apply for a share of a new $150 million state program to fund tutoring and other academic support initiatives. The funding is based on how many students are considered to not be proficient on statewide assessments.

Among the measures DPSCD has budgeted for is the placement of academic interventionists at select schools. Those educators will work closely with students struggling in reading and math, and are funded in part by a $20 million donation DPSCD received from billionaire MacKenzie Scott last fall. Individual schools also had the option going into this school year of using their Title I dollars to fund after-school tutoring.

The biggest boost for DPSCD will be the $94.4 million it received from the state to settle a 2016 lawsuit that claimed the state denied Detroit schoolchildren proper instruction in reading. The funds are dedicated to programs that support literacy.

Vitti has said he would like to use the money to hire more interventionists, increase literacy support for high school students, and expand teacher training on how to help students who are several grades below reading level.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit, where she covers arts, culture, and education. Contact Micah at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Michigan schools will see big funding gains for neediest students under budget deal

2023-06-29T00:07:36+00:00

Michigan lawmakers approved a $21.5 billion K-12 budget Wednesday that includes a significant funding increase for students considered to be at risk of not meeting educational goals.

It’s the first K-12 budget since Democrats took full control of the Legislature this year, and reflects an aggressive approach to addressing significant learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among the state’s most vulnerable students.

Under the budget, districts will receive more money in the upcoming school year for economically disadvantaged students, English language learners, and students who receive special education, according to a House Fiscal Agency analysis of Senate Bill 173.

The budget also funds free school meals for all students, expands eligibility for the state’s pre-K program, and increases per pupil funding for tutoring.

In separate higher education budgets that total $2.8 billion, the state’s public universities and community colleges will receive 5% increases in operating funds.

The House and Senate voted on the budgets along party lines late Wednesday as they worked to beat a July 1 budget deadline.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer expressed satisfaction late in the afternoon, tweeting that the budget deal was “done.” After the Legislature’s vote, her office sent a press release in which State Superintendent Michael Rice said, “This is another outstanding budget, one that again works hard on funding adequacy and equity.”

Republican Sen. Thomas Albert, of Lowell, opposed the state education budget and said in a speech ahead of his no vote that both the school aid and general budget “simply spends too much money and it is not sustainable.”

But Republican Sen. Jon Bumstead, of North Muskegon, who served on the conference committee for the school budget, voted for the Democratic-led package.

He said ahead of his yes vote that “no budget is perfect,” but that the budget deal on schools reflects several Republican priorities.

“And just as Republicans did for many years in the majority, this budget makes a record investment in our schools,” he said.

Supporters say budget addresses ‘past wrongs’

More than half of Michigan students are considered economically disadvantaged. Advocates say the additional funding will help the state better support school districts and their students.

“This year’s school aid budget represents a giant step toward righting past wrongs and ensuring that all Michigan students have access to an excellent public school education,” said Alice Thompson, of the NAACP Detroit branch, who co-chairs a coalition that advocates for school funding reform.

“The unprecedented funding for students with the greatest needs, particularly those living in concentrated poverty, will be tremendously important to address the wide and unfair opportunity gaps that exist for students who are most underserved, especially Michigan’s Black and Latino students,” Thompson said.

The budget includes a 5% increase in the school “foundation allowance,” which is the base amount schools receive per student from the state. School districts will receive $9,608 for each student in the 2023-24 school year, an increase of $458.

The same increase will not be available to online schools, which will continue to receive $9,150 per student. Democrats and teachers unions have long argued that online schools require less money from the state because they don’t pay for buildings, transportation, sports, or other extracurriculars as traditional public schools do.

Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a charter industry group, said online students deserve equal funding.

“Students in online schools include many of the most vulnerable students in the state, many of whom are minority students, LGBTQ students, children living in poverty, and students facing medical challenges,” Quisenberry said. “It would make no sense to fund students differently. That’s not who we are as a state. While we’ve made great progress, we’re not there yet. All kids deserve equal funding, and we will continue to advocate for that principle.”

Funding for ‘at risk’ students uses new calculation

The education budget sets aside $952 million in additional payments for districts with students deemed “at risk.” That’s an increase of more than $200 million over what was set aside in this year’s budget, which provided schools with 11.5% more funding for each eligible student.

Under the new budget, schools will receive at-risk student funding using an “opportunity index” that considers a district’s concentration of poverty, based on the number of economically disadvantaged students, which could mean an index boost of up to 15.3% for some schools.

Democratic lawmakers said they hope to one day raise at-risk student funding far higher.

“As we’ve seen from study after study from those in the field and education researchers, we need to get to higher levels of reimbursement for at-risk students,” Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, told Bridge Michigan. “And so we want to put a target in this budget to have at least 35% reimbursement be a goal for us in Michigan.”

Thompson and other education advocates in the Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity coalition have urged policymakers to adopt a funding structure that aligns more closely with Massachusetts, which revamped its education funding in 2019 to provide more for low-income students.

Massachusetts and Michigan have similarly large achievement gaps between low-income and more affluent students on standardized tests. But low-income students in Massachusetts scored 11 points higher in fourth grade reading last year than Michigan’s low-income students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The gap was even wider among Black students, with those in Massachusetts testing 17 points higher.

Under the new budget, school districts will receive 100% of base funding for students who receive special education, rather than 75% provided under the current budget. There is also more funding for English language learners.

“The budget finalized today represents a solid investment in schools for the upcoming year but, more importantly, represents an investment in students for years to come,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance, which represents more than 100 Michigan school districts. “Funding for special education, at-risk students, and universal meal programs will give more students additional opportunities to succeed both in and out of the classroom.”

Longtime community activist Helen Moore, who has championed literacy programs in Detroit schools and currently volunteers tutoring third graders at Detroit Public Schools Community District’s Barton Elementary School, said it will take more money than the Legislature is able to give in the upcoming school year to reverse years of underfunding.

“How do you make up for all the money that was taken from children who have been neglected and treated like slaves?” she asked. “There is no answer for it. There’s not enough money to do it.”

The budget includes $94.4 million for DPSCD as a result of a literacy lawsuit settled in 2020. The settlement required Whitmer to propose the funding, but she needed legislative approval for the funds to be awarded.

The budget prohibits the district from using the funding to supplant existing literacy programs and requires the school district to create a task force and spend funds in a way that aligns with the literacy settlement.

Isabel Lohman is an education reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com

Hannah Dellinger is an education reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

A guide to finding school transportation for your child in Detroit

2023-03-22T17:48:24+00:00

Getting students to school in Detroit can be tough. Transportation options are limited, and they vary depending on where your family lives and which school your child attends.

The lack of transportation resources helps explain why so many Detroit students frequently miss class and lose out on learning opportunities.

Here are answers to some of the common questions parents ask about school transportation in Detroit, and resources to help families get their students to school.

Why don’t most Detroit schools provide buses?

Part of the reason is that they don’t have to. Most students in Michigan don’t have a legal right to transportation to and from school. Only children with certain disabilities or some who are experiencing homelessness have a right to school transportation.

Buses, drivers and fuel are costly, so Detroit and other districts that have financial constraints limit the amount of busing they provide.

Citywide, around 20% of students this year get to school on a yellow bus.

What transportation options are available to Detroit families?

Walking or biking may be an option, though some families report safety concerns. Some kids living in Detroit do have access to free yellow buses (more on that below). DPSCD pays for transit passes for students who want or need to use city buses. The passes can be picked up at each school’s office. Some families rely on commercial ride share companies, such as Uber and Lyft, though students technically must be 18 to use those services.

Which options are available to my child?

The answer depends on where your child attends school.

Charter schools

Nearly half of Detroit charter schools offer some form of transportation, though options may be limited. For instance, the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences runs buses from a handful of stops across the city, but stops may not be within walking distance of each student’s home.

The Detroit Schools Guide provides a list of charters that offer some transportation, but the guide hasn’t been updated since 2020.

Before enrolling, call the school or visit its website to learn more about transportation options.

Detroit Public Schools Community District

DPSCD recommends that parents and guardians use PowerSchool, the district’s online information center, to find transportation options. Once you verify your address and contact information, you should be able to see your child’s scheduled transportation route. Parents can also call their child’s school directly, or the district’s Transportation Call Center at 313-945-8600.

DPSCD parents can access bus route information through Powerschool using the student reports tab, as this screenshot shows.

No matter where your child attends school, they are eligible for yellow bus service if it’s guaranteed through their individualized education program or the McKinney Vento Act for kids who are experiencing homelessness.

K-8 neighborhood public school: You qualify for yellow bus service if you attend your neighborhood school and live at least three-quarters of a mile from the school. Find your neighborhood school by entering your address on this district webpage.

If you move into a new neighborhood and the neighborhood school is full, DPSCD provides transportation to the next closest school.

High school: High schoolers are guaranteed a free pass to ride the city bus. They can pick up the passes at their school office. High schools in areas with limited DDOT service provide door-to-door buses or shuttles to school.
Application school: Children who go to these schools do not qualify for yellow bus service.

Schools of choice (districts outside the city)

Many of these districts do not provide transportation to Detroit students. Here are transportation policies for the handful of districts outside the city that enroll the largest numbers of Detroiters.

Oak Park Public Schools offers busing to Detroit students, though they must re-register each year. Parents should fill out a transportation request form or call 248-336-7601.
River Rouge School District operates bus routes across Detroit. See this map for bus stops. For more information or to select a stop, call 313-203-1497 or email transportation@rrsd.me.
Hazel Park Schools does not offer any transportation to general education students.
Ferndale Public Schools and Redford Union Schools do not offer transportation to students who enroll from outside the district.

Preschool

Some centers in the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan’s state-funded preschool, are eligible for free transportation, but there are strict rules about parents signing children in and out of preschool. Some schools allow an older sibling attending the school to accompany the preschooler. See this list of preschool programs in Wayne County that offer transportation.

What if my child has a disability?

If your child’s individualized education program specifies that they need transportation, they are entitled to that transportation no matter what public school they attend. A little more than 2,000 kids attending DPSCD schools get this curb-to-curb service.

What if my family is homeless?

If your family doesn’t have stable housing and you want your child to continue at the school they attended before you lost your housing, they can have access to transportation under a federal law called the McKinney-Vento Act. Families who are staying in a shelter, temporarily staying in someone else’s home, or otherwise lacking stable housing should call their district (DPSCD: 313-748-6383).

High schoolers covered under this law get DDOT bus passes, unless they wouldn’t be able to get to and from school this way. In these cases the district may also offer shuttles or gas cards.

I’m having a school transportation problem. Whom can I call?

The DPSCD transportation help hotline is 313-945-8600.

DPSCD bus service for general education students is provided by the following contractors:

ABC Transportation: 313-835-2700
Trinity Transportation: 313-228-4522
DHT Transportation: 313 895-1300

DPSCD bus service for students with disabilities and homeless students is provided by the following contractors:

City Cab Company: 313-576-6344
New Detroit Cab Company: 313-633-5646
Checker Cab: 313-963-5000
Trinity Transportation: 313-228-4522
Regency Transportation: 313-615-0504

The Detroit Department of Transportation customer service phone number is 313-933-1300.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Sarah Alvarez is the editor-in-chief of Outlier Media.

Tackling Michigan youth mental health crisis: Detroit teens say it takes self-love, inner peace

2023-03-02T16:45:48+00:00

About 20 Detroit teens last summer set out to answer some important questions about how their peers are dealing with mental health struggles.

These high school students, part of a city youth organization called Local Circles, wanted to know two things about their peers: How they practice self-love, and how they find peace in a world in which they constantly feel judged.

They are relevant questions. Schools across Michigan are struggling to address the mental health needs of students. Those troubles existed before the pandemic, but the isolation, lingering effects of remote learning, and challenges coping in the midst of a global health crisis have deepened them.

The Detroit teens detailed their findings, and in some cases confronted their own mental health worries, in written pieces. Chalkbeat is publishing excerpts of those pieces today.

Local Circles is an organization that employs young people to research issues that are important to them. Nicole Jurek, the executive director of the organization, wrote in her own piece that adults too often think of young people in terms of what they can do in the future. But they have a voice today, she said.

“Young people have value (intrinsically, as we all do) for what they can do now, in their youth,” she wrote.

Read the pieces below from high school students TaMyra Smith, Torrance Johnson, Amaya Nard, Drew Smith Jr., and Stephanie Haney.

When depression takes control

TaMyra Smith is a sophomore at the DPSCD Virtual Academy in Detroit.

There was a time in my life where the bad days outweighed the good days. Depression took control over my emotions, school became more depressing by the minute, I faced personal problems at home, and, worst of all, COVID had just come out. I could see that I wasn’t the only kid dealing with these issues, yet since 2020, our tears have been hidden in the crowd, and there are fake smiles everywhere.

I’ve heard people say, “Life isn’t all that bad,” and that might be right. But if that were true, we would have more mentally stable teens in this world. Unfortunately, it is the other way around. It has gotten to the point where we’ve all become distant from one another, with no one to talk to, so that pain is just sitting within. A friend of mine once said, “The world feels like a ton of bricks have just landed on my chest, and the load won’t get any lighter.” Why should we have to live like this if we’re the future? What are we supposed to do in order to make life a bit easier for us?

“The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me.” — TaMyra Smith

About six months ago, a few of my old friends from middle school and I got back in touch via Instagram. Man, oh man, did it feel like we were getting to know one another all over again, and the energy wasn’t the same at all. By the way they talked, I could feel and hear the sadness in their voices while trying to hide what was deep down. I’m not the smartest, but I can tell when something is wrong.

The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me. Just recently, I had five assignments from four different classes that had to be completed the same day. I convinced myself that all of it wouldn’t get done, and I was right. And then I received a C in three of those classes since the work was turned in late. See what I mean?

Just the thought of school makes you wish it was already Friday again. More work, more engaging with your classmates, sometimes I don’t even want to talk. Many of my peers say that they’re being overworked, as if this is college, and I agree.

There is only so much teens can take before we begin to not care and want to give up. You never know what goes on in our heads. It could be built up stress and anger that will soon be released. Us teens need to come together, build our own safe environment and stop going against one another.

TaMyra Smith is a sophomore at the DPSCD Virtual Academy in Detroit.

Music as love and therapy

Torrance Johnson is a junior at Clarenceville High School in Livonia.

What makes me feel the most like myself? If you were to look at me, the first thing you would see is the bulky power chair I’m in. For me, my power chair, or rather my disability, is a key part of my being, as the chair and I operate as one. The chair is the first thing most people notice, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I feel it’s one of my defining characteristics.

Beyond seeing it, whenever I move you can hear the whirring of my chair as my wheels go around. Once someone gets to know me, the chair will become what I use to go from one place to the next. However, this can cause me to struggle to view myself as an individual separate from my chair. I have found a way to remedy this, and I’ve found it in music.

“You don’t have to play like Bach or Beethoven to make something beautiful or something that allows you to let feelings out.” — Torrance Johnson

When I’m creating music there’s no wheelchair, no disability, there’s just me and a piano keyboard where I’m free to let my heart and soul create. Music is my love, my therapist, my peace, my freedom. To explain why I feel such relief and freedom in making music to express myself, I asked music therapist Matthew Bessette. “When you’re creating music, you connect with your emotions and express them on a different level of understanding and connection,” he said.

When using music to express yourself, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. You don’t have to play like Bach or Beethoven to make something beautiful or something that allows you to let feelings out. Since I started playing the piano in February, it has become a passion of mine and something I love to do.

While crafting the survey, my peers and I would meet once a week at a facility in Detroit. I couldn’t wait to go there and was typically the first to arrive. In the facility, there was a piano I would play while I anxiously awaited the arrival of my cohort.

I’d begin by playing a single note which can sometimes be the beginning step in describing how you feel. I’d glide my fingers across key by key, letting the anxiety flow from me into the piano, and what came to exist was beauty and freedom. The piano from left to right goes from low to high. As you might guess, a person who is sad would play slow, somber notes compared to a happy person playing upbeat lively notes. I typically experiment with different notes and chords that I don’t always know will reflect the emotion of my heart, brain and soul.

For however long I play, I feel safe and unjudged. I simply feel peace! And that is more than okay with me. Playing allowed me to give my burdens away and be able to enjoy being there in the moment with my cohort.

Torrance Johnson is a junior at Clarenceville High School in Livonia.

Families must practice and model self-love

Amaya Nard is a senior at My Virtual Academy.

One of the findings that stood out to me from the students we surveyed last summer was that people who said they had a positive view on self-love also had someone older in their life who told them the importance of self-love.

My experience with self-love was different. The importance of self-love was a foreign concept for me growing up. Things like rest and relaxation were not allowed for children in my environment. I often saw adults using unhealthy forms of coping, like substances, instead of practicing self-love. I didn’t follow their example. But I can’t say the same for other children in my family. That’s not to say I wasn’t affected. Self image issues are something that I struggle with a lot. According to our survey, the older people got, their view on self-love became more positive. This makes me think that your environment as well as the people around you growing up can affect your view on self-love.

“Everyone should understand that children needing rest isn’t laziness and parents taking care of themselves is not selfishness.” - Amaya Nard

As children we follow the adults in our lives. Learning the importance of self-love in your most formative years will have an effect on how you view yourself then and in the future. Having positive influences in your family can reduce stress and conflict, according to a 2022 study in the journal Wellbeing, Space and Society. Besides family, your environment also plays a role in your well-being. Things like stable housing, food security and overall safety can affect if you practice self-care. That being said, while family and your environment can play a role in how you care for yourself, the main thing is really how you feel about yourself.

Everyone should understand that children needing rest isn’t laziness, and parents taking care of themselves is not selfishness. Learning how to love yourself can be challenging, but having supportive people in your life can help a lot. Even if you don’t have people in your life like that, you can be that person for yourself.

Amaya Nard is a senior at My Virtual Academy.

‘Alarming’ data on youth depression

Drew Smith Jr. is a junior at Metropolitan Junior Academy in Plymouth.

Teens go through a lot, and have been especially impacted by COVID. Sometimes adults might brush off what teens say and feel, and think that we don’t know better. We have the same feelings they do, and we wanted teens to know that they are heard and important.

A 2022 report from Mental Health America found that in Michigan, nearly 17% of youth ages 12-17 had a major depressive episode in the previous year. That’s higher than the national average, which was around 15%, or 3.7 million youths.

The data are alarming.

Here’s what we found after surveying our peers:

A lot of teens practice self-care by relaxing, there were a lot more people who had good relationships with self-love than people who didn’t, and more younger kids had negative relationships with self-love than the older ones. We concluded that as people grow older, they learn to love themselves more.

When practicing self-love, females will say motivating quotes about their beauty and looks, while males did not really have anything motivating to say other than, “You got this.” Female teens had deeper responses to the open-ended questions. Ultimately, we learned self-love impacts what you do in a day, how you react to people, and how much confidence you have.

“Respondents said things like, “I am loved,” “I am worthy” and “I am beautiful/handsome.” Ever since then, I’ve tried to implement “I am” statements into my everyday life to let myself know what I am.” — Drew Smith Jr.

These findings really made me think about myself and how I practice self-love. What I do to calm down and relax is lay down in my bed and watch a TV show that I enjoy. I never really thought about that being self-love until then. Spending time with my friends and family is also a way I practice self-love.

I started to ask myself, “What can I do to improve love for myself?” Then I remembered one of the questions we asked in the survey: “What are some motivational things you say to yourself?” Respondents said things like, “I am loved,” “I am worthy” and “I am beautiful/handsome.” Ever since then, I’ve tried to implement “I am” statements into my everyday life to let myself know what I am.

I’m so grateful for this experience, memories and knowledge learned this summer. And if any teens are reading this in the Detroit area, I want you to know that you are loved and you are heard and that Local Circles cares about you.

Drew Smith Jr. is a junior at Metropolitan Junior Academy in Plymouth.

Seek help when you need it

At times you may not have the best mental health or you won’t love yourself as much as you would like to, but that doesn’t have to stop you from being you.

“If there is no bright side, make one.” — Stephanie Haney

Over time you will go on a self discovery to understand yourself better and what makes you happy. Keep negative things out of your life, and if they keep coming back, take a different route to keep them away. There are going to be SO many ups and downs in your life. Try to look at the bright side of things and see how it will make you better. If there is no bright side, make one. Think of a positive situation and stick with it.

If you need help, call or text the mental health hotline at the number 988 (Michigan’s access line to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline).

Stephanie Haney is a junior at Cass Technical High School in Detroit.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit literacy and transportation programs get big support in Whitmer budget proposal

2023-02-10T19:31:58+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s education budget proposal includes $103 million in new funding for Detroit education programs, signaling a commitment from state government to invest directly in the city’s education future as Democrats take control in Lansing.

Whitmer is proposing a $1.5 billion increase in state school funding, or 9%, including a 5% increase in per pupil spending that would reach every school in the state. Her budget taps an estimated $4 billion school aid surplus to fund a wide range of new programs.

While Detroit isn’t the only local beneficiary of the proposal — schools in isolated rural areas, for instance, would get extra funding — the city stands out as a big potential winner if Whitmer’s proposal becomes law.

That’s welcome news for a city and school system working to recover from generations of declining enrollment and disinvestment.

The governor’s proposal includes “the kind of investments Detroiters have long championed,” said Angelique Power, president of the Skillman Foundation, in a statement. “This is parents’ and educators’ voices being heard.”

Skillman is a Chalkbeat funder. Click here for a list of our supporters.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District would get $94.4 million to support literacy programs. The GOAL Line, a local after-school and student transportation program, would get a one-time $6 million investment, and the Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit, would get $3 million to help with outreach about literacy programs.

That’s in addition to proposed funding for tutoring and mental health programs, which will benefit students statewide but are particularly needed in Detroit, given the high rate of COVID deaths and widespread virtual learning.

Whitmer proposed the DPSCD literacy programs as part of a settlement in the 2016 “right to read” lawsuit against the state, in which a group of DPSCD students charged that the state violated their constitutional right to a basic education by failing to teach them to read. Whitmer settled the case, agreeing to pay damages to the students and to propose $94.4 million for literacy programming in DPSCD every year as long as she was in office.

Republicans rejected that expenditure, but with Democrats in control of the state Legislature, there’s a stronger chance that it will happen this year.

“I’m all in for it,” said Helen Moore, an education activist who was a prominent public champion of the lawsuit. “The children are really behind, I think they’re worse off than (district officials) are reporting to the public … We need all the help we can get.”

If the district were to receive the settlement funding, according to DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, officials would consider allocating the money toward hiring more academic interventionists for small group and one-on-one sessions, continuing literacy intervention for high school students and for teacher recruitment and retention.

To help with outreach for the new literacy programs, Whitmer is asking lawmakers to send $3 million to the Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit that helps parents get involved in their children’s education.

The GOAL Line, which launched in 2018, serves children at 11 schools in northwest Detroit. The program is funded by the city, local foundations, and participating schools with the goal of helping working families.

Under Whitmer’s proposal, the GOAL Line would get $6 million in one-time federal COVID aid to supplement its $2.5 million annual budget and help expand its operations.

The GOAL Line currently serves 300 students, according to Adrian Monge, director of the Office of Early Learning for the City of Detroit. The Community Education Commission, which oversees GOAL Line operations, hopes to expand its services to as many as 525 students city-wide next year. The program currently transports students to Northwest Activities Center to participate in after-school activities. In the long term, Monge said, GOAL Line intends to open smaller sites across the city.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit isn’t dedicating any of its COVID dollars to early education. Advocates are upset.

2022-11-14T11:00:00+00:00

The city of Detroit isn’t dedicating any of its $826 million in federal COVID relief funds to local child care providers — a missed opportunity, advocates say, to support a critical service for children, families, and the local economy.

While other large cities put aside COVID funds specifically for child care facilities and early educators, Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration shelved a planned $6 million investment in child care infrastructure to make more room for investments in home repairs, internet access, and job training.

Officials plan to send a sliver of the federal aid to the child care sector — roughly $775,000, or 0.09% of the total — through economic development programs that will support child care programs along with other businesses.

The $6 million plan is still in place, but the city will look to philanthropies and corporations to cover the cost, said Adrian Monge, director of the city’s Office of Early Learning, whose position is also funded by philanthropic contributions.

Critics say the decision is a sign that the city isn’t putting skin in the game to support a child care sector bruised by the pandemic. They’re calling on city officials to back up their talk of supporting early education and use the city’s federal funds to pay for the plan.

“It is inconceivable that city governance would not dedicate available funding to offset the challenges like living wages for early educators and more,” said Denise Smith, director of Hope Starts Here, a Detroit-based early childhood initiative backed by some of the same nonprofits that fund Monge’s position. She noted that the city has a “deficit of 22,000 licensed quality options for families needing child care.”

“The Office of Early Learning has proposed a solid plan that has been endorsed by early childhood stakeholders,” she added. “It feels untenable that the funding to support this plan has not been granted.”

Duggan has said for years that he wants to expand the city’s early childhood offerings. But his latest efforts to expand the city’s role in preschool ran aground during this year’s state budget negotiations, and the city’s other early education initiatives, like the Office of Early Learning, are supported by outside funding.

Child care providers say the city could make a big difference with the COVID relief dollars.

“Help us with that funding so that the children have a cleaner and safer environment for children to play in, and we can beautify the city,” said Denise Lomax, owner of Child Star Development Center, a highly rated child care center with two locations in Detroit. “Help us with funding to employ more people, so we can give them a decent wage.”

Lomax added that she put in a request nearly a year ago to purchase and clean up vacant lots owned by the Detroit Land Bank near one of her centers, but she said officials haven’t responded to the request.

Monge said the city is focusing on using its existing resources to support child care programs.

“The city’s departments develop plans and strategies and drafts all the time to figure out how to get the most funding to Detroiters and to best serve our city,” she said. “Those things are always in process and subject to change.”

Other major cities have set aside COVID funds to directly invest in child care educators and facilities, according to data from April collected by the National League of Cities. Milwaukee plans to improve its educator pipeline by paying for Black male high school students to obtain child care credentials. Baltimore will provide direct aid to providers negatively affected by the pandemic. Phoenix plans to build a child care center for airport workers. Boston will pay providers to hire new staff.

Detroit received $826 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, the largest of several relief packages approved by Congress during the pandemic. The city has so far spent only about 5% of that, mostly on community health workers, foreclosure prevention programs, and administrative costs.

While Detroit’s allocation was among the largest of any U.S. city, it has a wide range of urgent investment needs resulting from the deterioration of its industrial and tax bases over several decades.

“There are so many competing priorities, and there’s a lot of need,” said Tonja Rucker, director of early childhood success at the National League of Cities, which tracks ARPA spending.

“But on the early childhood side, we have clear evidence that the return on investment is real,” Rucker said.

To be sure, the city’s shelved $6 million investment in child care facilities and the early educator workforce amounts to a tiny fraction of the $1.4 billion in COVID relief aid that the state is devoting to child care. That money is being distributed to child care programs across the state — including in Detroit — through grants and other programs.

But advocates and providers said the state’s spending doesn’t relieve the city of the responsibility to make its own investments. Even with recent COVID aid, the current funding model for child care — a mix of public dollars and private parent payments — doesn’t allow providers to pay early educators a living wage, resulting in extremely high turnover that makes it very difficult to maintain quality programs.

“It’s unacceptable,” said Jametta Lilly, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit advocacy group. “Our children need and deserve our best. I would hope that our mayor, just as our governor has, will listen and say, ‘OK, let’s make sure that this budget is significantly weighted towards building up child care infrastructure.’”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s where candidates for the Detroit school board stand on education issues

2022-10-11T14:14:53+00:00

Detroit voters are getting their chance this election season to weigh in on the future of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, as they decide who will fill four school board seats that are up for grabs.

Chronic absenteeism. Mental health. Learning loss. Enrollment losses. These are among the issues most of the candidates weighed in on in response to questions Chalkbeat Detroit posed to them for this voter guide.

The Nov. 8 general election comes at a pivotal time for the Detroit school district. The pandemic has created or worsened a number of challenges, among the top ones being chronic absenteeism, which has surged. Students have left the district in large numbers in recent years. Youth leaders are advocating for increased mental health resources and safe spaces. And the district is investing federal COVID relief funds toward tutoring programs to address student learning loss in reading.

All that will be on the agenda of the school board. The seven-member board oversees the roughly 49,000-student district, approves contracts, and votes on policies that are implemented by Superintendent Nikolai Vitti and his staff.

School board members are the connective tissue between district officials and the broader student, staff, and family community that makes up DPSCD. A change in the board’s makeup could have significant ramifications for the district’s long-term reform efforts.

Over the last month, Chalkbeat reached out to all 18 candidates running for board seats with questions about their positions. Among the candidates are the four incumbents, several former school board members, a couple of parents, a few former educators, and a recent graduate.

Below you’ll find responses from 14 of the 18 candidates. The other four did not complete the questionnaire, despite our multiple attempts to get responses. Entries were lightly edited for spelling and punctuation.

Chalkbeat Detroit will continue to provide coverage leading up to Election Day. And at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 13, Chalkbeat and WDET 101.9 FM will co-host a virtual candidate forum. Voters can hear directly from candidates on the topics that matter the most to them.

This event is free to attend, but you must RSVP to receive the Zoom information. You can also let us know what questions you have for the candidates when you sign up. Register for the event here.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

‘We all know what we need’: Detroit youth work to boost mental well-being

2022-10-03T21:47:09+00:00

Across Detroit, young people responded to an ambitious pitch this spring: Come up with a strong idea for a program that would address the emotional and mental well-being of their peers, and possibly earn thousands of dollars to pull it off.

The result was scores of ideas that were as diverse as the young people themselves: A wellness room with Zen and calming activities. A spa day for male youth with incarcerated parents. A kitchen renovation so youth can come together for dinner and fellowship. A safe haven for LGBTQ students.

Those are just a few of the 40 ideas, proposed by people ages 9 to 23, that have received a piece of a $544,000 pot of money provided by the Skillman Foundation (a Chalkbeat funder), part of a new grant program aimed at addressing mental health and wellness. The awardees received between $5,000 and $20,000 to develop their plans.

The one thread through all of these concepts is that even though there are adult allies helping, the students were in charge. They came up with the ideas, they decide how the money is spent, and they decide how to turn their ideas into reality.

“We all know what we want. We all know what we need,” said Charles Patterson, 16, a junior at Davis Aerospace Technical High School.

What they need, Charles said, is connection with one another.

Charles is part of a youth group at the Eastside Community Network whose grant will go in part toward renovating a kitchen at the center and turning it into a place where young people can go to cook, eat meals, and spend time together.

Young people like Charles “are ready and capable leaders,” who are “enriched with lots of ideas,” said Lindsey Barrett, an associate program officer at Skillman who led the effort.

Charles said the pandemic left him feeling isolated, and turned him into an introvert because he spent so much time learning remotely. Things are better for students now that they’re learning in person, he said, but not all young people have re-engaged.

“You have to consider that maybe certain students went through something over the pandemic, maybe they had a family member pass away,” Charles said. “For me, three of my family members passed away during the pandemic and it was hard for my family, and for me personally.”

Report after report has highlighted the heightened mental health and emotional needs of students due to the pandemic. Long stretches of remote learning left students feeling isolated and disconnected from school and their classmates. Educators are trying to address that by investing COVID relief money into mental health, but staffing challenges have hampered efforts.

In Detroit, young people have been telling officials at Skillman that they need safe spaces to connect with their peers and the community. They also said they wanted to use physical activity, the arts, and creative expression to create these safe spaces, Barrett said.

“We know that these bright young people are really prioritizing their wellness, and they’re doing it by leading their own solutions,” Barrett said

On a recent Saturday, dozens of the grantees gathered in a room at the Northwest Activities Center in Detroit to receive training on project planning that was facilitated by the Neutral Zone, an Ann Arbor youth-led organization. They spread out on the floor, working in groups as they plotted their goals and the steps they need to take to accomplish those goals.

The young men from Developing Despite Distance, a program for males ages 10-24 who have a parent who is incarcerated, already knew one of their signature ideas was to take the group out for a spa day. Their adult leader, Tiffany Brown, guided them through the steps they would need to take to get there, like finding a spa and booking it in advance.

“We passed one coming up here,” Michael Glenn said as the group tossed around spa ideas. Michael, 16, is a junior at the School at Marygrove, and he’s looking forward to the spa day to help him nurse an old back injury from football.

Getting young people involved in addressing their mental health needs is important, Michael said, because many of them would otherwise stay silent about their struggles.

“Young adults don’t really express themselves,” he said. “It’s not that we’re afraid to. I guess it feels uncomfortable or unnatural. We don’t want to be a burden to others. So … this really helps out.”

Developing Despite Distance provides group counseling to the young men. The organization also works with them to connect with their incarcerated parents and helps them with visits.

The grant program “is a blessing,” said Brown. Not only will it allow for the spa day, but it will also pay for fitness training, more counseling, and a stipend for the young men for participating in Saturday counseling sessions. It’s the first time the participants will receive pay.

“When we have money in our pockets, we feel better, and that is really a form of self care,” Brown said.

Brown has often talked to the youth about her own self-care practices, which include getting massages. It gave the students the idea to do the same for themselves. Society, Brown said, doesn’t always give Black boys and men “the space to act like their wellness matters.”

“They’re often just putting on this mask like they’re OK. And so places where we can intentionally make them pause and really identify how they’re feeling in a safe, non-judgmental way, and provide support so that they can refill and recharge — that’s the root of what we do.”

Having an incarcerated parent means these young men have challenges that go beyond the pandemic.

“My biggest challenge is that they’re in schools, community centers, on our sports teams, and we’re not acknowledging that they even exist as a community … as a system. So the biggest challenge is that they are often suffering silently,” Brown said.

Over at the Eastside Community Network, cooking was the most popular program before the pandemic. Students would come together, cook, and then dine together.

“The students have said that … builds community,” said Tanya Aho, the adult leader for the group. But the kitchen was in need of a remodel, so the cooking sessions ended.

“This is completely student-led,” Aho said of the kitchen remodel. “They did the budget, they did all the research of the cabinets and the stove. They’ve done the design. They did the demo. They’ll be painting the cabinets.”

Charles, who has relied on sports and drawing to stay connected, wasn’t there for the demolition. But he’s involved in all of the planning and helping choose the finish on the cabinets, the color of the floors, and the type of countertops. He said bringing back the cooking program will be good, in particular, for students who feel disconnected.

“It brings a family atmosphere to our youth group,” he said.

KIPP charter school to open in Detroit

2022-08-30T23:03:45+00:00

Charter school operator KIPP, which canceled plans to set up in Detroit last year, is opening its first school in the city next week, bringing a nationally recognized network to a city dominated by small, locally grown charter schools.

KIPP Detroit Imani Academy will start out with 60 to 75 kindergarteners in a community center in northwest Detroit. The school, which received its charter from Central Michigan University, will eventually enroll students in grades K-12.

Some education advocates in Detroit have aimed to bring a KIPP school to Detroit for years. But national charter school operators have largely shied away from Detroit because of high rates of child poverty, relatively low school funding, and loose regulation that fuels fierce competition among local operators.

Supporters of the school said KIPP Detroit Imani Academy would raise the bar for Detroit schools, pointing to its well-documented record of improving test scores in communities of color. Originally called the Knowledge Is Power Program, the network now enrolls more than 100,000 students across 20 states, largely in urban communities with many students of color. It emphasizes high expectations for students and a culture of college-going.

Maria Montoya chose the school for her rising kindergartner because it is close to her family’s house, and because she believes that the KIPP network’s success will transfer to the new school.

“They get stability and support from having a national network of folks who’ve been learning together for a good number of years,” she said. “I feel confident that even though this is a new team, they’ll have the support they need to get this off the ground.”

Critics of the proposed school, including Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, have argued that with enrollment declining citywide, Detroit has enough schools already, and that competition from a new school would hurt existing schools.

The new school will be based at the St. Suzanne Cody Rouge Community Resource Center at 19321 W. Chicago Street. Candace Rogers, superintendent of KIPP Detroit, said the network plans to purchase a plot of land in the Cody Rouge neighborhood and build a K-12 campus.

“We aim to be a community-focused school, and believe that launching inside of a building that is considered the heart of a community is aligned with our beliefs as an organization,” Rogers said in an email, referring to the Community Resource Center.

When classes begin on Tuesday, Sept. 6, four kindergarten rooms will hold between 60 and 75 students, Rogers said. The school had aimed for more than 100 students in its first year and is still accepting applications. It has five teachers and four assistants on staff.

KIPP scrapped plans to open a school in a different part of Detroit last fall. The network had planned to purchase a vacant parcel of city-owned land and build a K-12 campus there. Amid public criticism of the sale, KIPP backed out of the deal.

Following a decade of rapid expansion, fewer charter schools have opened in Michigan in recent years. The state received a five-year, $47 million federal grant in 2018 to expand charter schools but has so far spent less than half of the money. The national KIPP network also received a substantial grant through the same program. The new school is funded in part by federal charter school startup grants.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

What we’re watching as Detroit district students return to school

2022-08-29T11:00:00+00:00

Happy first day of school!

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will reopen classrooms to students Monday morning for another year of learning amid a pandemic. This will be a critical year for efforts to address enrollment losses, chronic absenteeism, and facilities. The year will also feature a school board election in which a majority of the seats are up for grabs.

The Chalkbeat Detroit team will be following these issues and more. Here’s a closer look at them:

Will students return to the district?

Students have left the Detroit school district in large numbers, wiping out some of the small enrollment gains the district had experienced in the years before the pandemic. It raises important questions about the district’s future.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti puts the loss at nearly 3,000 since the pandemic began. During the 2019-20 school year, the district enrolled nearly 51,000.

A slimmed down district has some dire consequences. In Michigan, state funding for schools is based largely on enrollment. The district will receive $9,150 in state per-pupil funding this school year, which means a decline of 3,000 students could add up to about $27 million in lost revenue.

The district has managed to weather the declines so far, because a big injection of federal COVID relief money has helped fill in the gaps. But that money will run out, and the district could soon face a reality in which it must operate with much less money. In the district’s past, steep enrollment declines forced major budget cuts, led to numerous schools closing, and put the district under state control.

District officials have been urgently attacking this issue with initiatives that include a door-knocking campaign and fun events designed to attract parents back to the district. But will they be enough? What will it take to get parents to bring their children back? And where are they, for that matter? Are they being homeschooled? Are they enrolled in charter schools? Did they flee for suburban districts? Are they attending virtual schools? These are all questions Chalkbeat Detroit will be seeking to answer this school year.

Can new initiatives address chronic absenteeism?

The pandemic has created or worsened a number of challenges. Among the top ones in the Detroit school district is chronic absenteeism, which has surged.

The district had seen a reduction in its chronic absenteeism rate in the year before the pandemic, when about 62% of the students had missed 10% or more of the school year (the definition of chronic absence). In July, Vitti reported the rate had risen to 77%.

That rise has district officials planning more aggressive efforts. Vitti has repeatedly said that if the district can’t get kids back in school consistently, efforts to recover from the pandemic won’t succeed.

These new plans involve broadening the circle of district and school officials with responsibility for monitoring student attendance, using data to understand the challenges that prevent students from coming to school, and resolving them.

Chalkbeat Detroit has identified chronic absenteeism as a crucial storyline to follow this year. We want to write about efforts, in Detroit and beyond, to get students in school, explore reasons why students aren’t coming to school, and highlight success stories.

Wayne State researcher Sarah Lenhoff told Chalkbeat recently that the district’s plans to beef up its attendance teams is a start, but she believes fixing chronic absenteeism will require coordinating with city agencies to address employment, health, transportation, and housing inequities.

When Detroit’s kids don’t make it to school, Lenhoff said, “it really speaks to the need for the city to invest more in employment, invest more in stabilized housing, (and) make sure that families have the food and the health care that they need, so that they can give their children what they want to give them … get them into school.”

How will the school board election affect the district?

November’s general election could be a pivotal one for the Detroit school district.

Four of the school board’s seven seats are up for election, and 18 people are running for those four-year terms. Among the candidates are the four incumbents, several former school board members, a couple of parents, a few former educators, and a recent graduate.

Why are we watching this race? Because a change in the makeup of the school board could affect turnaround efforts in the district. Relations between the school board and superintendent are a key part of a district’s success, and Vitti and the current board have had a seemingly strong relationship since he was hired in 2017.

If any of the district detractors — and there are some among the candidates — is elected, that may change the dynamic on the board.

Stay tuned for Chalkbeat Detroit coverage. We’ll be profiling the candidates and holding an event so you can hear from the candidates directly.

Will a $700 million investment transform school buildings?

The Detroit school district has had longstanding facility problems, but lacked enough cash to fix them. COVID relief money is changing that. The district is investing $700 million of the nearly $1.3 billion of COVID relief funds it received to address its facilities.

What to keep an eye on this year: Work is expected to begin this fall on some of the projects. Work overall will continue through 2025.

The district will spend $281 million to rebuild five schools, $296 million to renovate buildings, and $128 million to reopen previously closed school buildings, expand pre-K, build additions onto existing schools, and demolish or sell some vacant buildings.

Earlier this year, Vitti said the district “has been using a bandage approach to our facilities districtwide.”

Vitti, who was hired in 2017, inherited a district that after years of state control had a number of schools that were in poor condition. When he interviewed for the job in 2017, he told reporters he was enraged that “our children have to go to schools where there are holes in the wall, tiles that are not replaced.” He has made investments since being hired, but the district has had limited funds.

“One of the most repugnant examples of the injustices our students and staff face is having to learn and work in school buildings that do not meet the standards of wealthier cities and school districts,” Vitti said in a statement in May, after the Detroit school board approved a facility plan.

A feature of the facility plan that will please students and teachers? When all the projects are finally done, nearly every school building will have air conditioning. That will make learning conditions better and it will mean the district won’t have to shorten school days because of stifling heat.

Will the district be fully staffed?

Two weeks ago, the district expected to begin the school year fully staffed with teachers, with some openings among support staff. But last minute resignations have put that in jeopardy.

“We have had about 30 unexpected teacher vacancies surface over the last two weeks,” Vitti told Chalkbeat Friday. “Most of these vacancies are related to teachers leaving the district for suburban districts for additional pay.”

As of Friday morning, he added, “about 80% of our schools are still fully staffed with teachers.”

As we noted Friday, the district is still in a better position than it was in previous years. In 2017, for instance, the district had 200 vacancies in the month leading up to the school year.

Detroit’s back-to-school enrollment efforts take on new urgency

2022-08-12T15:11:42+00:00

The quiet southwest Detroit block around Roberto Clemente Learning Academy pulsed with summer heat and back-to-school excitement on an August afternoon.

Community members mingled among the food trucks, arts and crafts activities, and information tables lined up across the school’s front lawn, where the Detroit Public Schools Community District was hosting the latest in its Summer on the Block event series.

The block parties have been part of the district’s back-to-school enrollment push since 2017. They’ve taken on increased significance in the wake of a pandemic that has seen the district lose 3,000 students since 2020, when it enrolled nearly 51,000.

Similar enrollment drops have struck school districts across the nation during the pandemic. But in Detroit, which has experienced decades of enrollment declines as families fled to charter and suburban schools, they’re particularly worrisome. The pandemic reversed what had been a period of stability — and some small gains — in enrollment after 2017, when an elected board regained power and Nikolai Vitti became superintendent. And since school funding in Michigan is directly tied to enrollment, drops in enrollment affect the district’s budget.

So the district is stepping up its enrollment drive with help from federal COVID relief money. DPSCD plans to invest $15 million of the nearly $1.3 billion in COVID relief funds it will receive into outreach with families and new community programming.

“That was the benefit of having equitable federal funding for the first time…We could make sure we had the tools and resources to help families,” district spokeswoman Chrystal Wilson said.

In addition to more Summer on the Block events, the district used its COVID relief funding to support a door-to-door canvassing initiative first launched in 2017, and to boost summer school programming.

Wilson said over 9,000 families enrolled in the district’s Summer Learning Experiences 2022 program, so “our families are telling us they want to get back to the business of learning, the fun of learning … finding that normalcy even though we’re still addressing wellness and mental health exiting from the height of the pandemic.”

Sharlonda Buckman, assistant superintendent of family and community engagement, said that checking in on families through door-to-door canvassing or hosting outreach events is all about “making deposits in the community.”

Buckman said this year’s Summer on the Block series is particularly important, providing families with the resources to help their students recover from pandemic learning loss.

By distributing summer learning materials such as free books, Buckman said, the district “helps parents close gaps in their home space.”

The Summer on the Block events also feature tables with representatives from a number of local agencies and organizations, as part of the district’s commitment to attract families to its schools through wraparound services. At the Roberto Clemente event, for example, families visited tables for the City of Detroit’s health and family services departments educating parents on the importance of vaccines and distributing home cleaning products.

According to state data, Roberto Clemente began the 2019-20 school year with 604 students; the most recent numbers show an enrollment of 530 students.

Principal Maria Hernandez-Martinez said her team is executing a number of initiatives this summer to bring students back.

In addition to going door to door to promote Roberto Clemente, Hernandez-Martinez’s team has organized parent meetings for each grade at the school to review the curriculum and schoolwide expectations before classes begin.

Because the school is located in a neighborhood with many Spanish speakers, she said, it is essential that her team include several bilingual people and that they provide all materials and send messages to parents in English and Spanish.

Roberto Clemente Learning Academy’s principal, Maria Hernandez-Martinez (center), talks a parent through the informational material distributed at Summer on the Block.

Hernandez-Martinez hopes to have more Summer on the Block events at Roberto Clemente in the future as she and principals across the district work to bring enrollment to where it was before the pandemic.

Looking around at the flurry of activity on the block that afternoon, Hernandez-Martinez said, “The main purpose of all this is to bring back my families.”

Grace Tucker is a reporting intern at Chalkbeat Detroit. Reach her at gtucker@chalkbeat.org.

Graduation rates and literacy levels top concerns at Detroit’s July school board meeting

2022-07-15T22:02:45+00:00

Reports of falling graduation rates, increased chronic absenteeism, and low high school literacy levels had Detroit school board members pushing for change during their meeting this week.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti noted that the district’s reading intervention efforts are working, based on K-8 reading placement levels. But board members expressed concern about the number of high schoolers still reading below grade level, and graduating without basic literacy skills.

Vitti faced questions specifically about the district’s choices on literacy tutoring programs, and whether it was underutilizing a local volunteer-led program called Let’s Read.

Also during Tuesday’s meeting, the school board unanimously adopted a resolution recognizing Pride Month, as well as other months and observances that “celebrate the vast diversity of our community.”

Here’s a look at some of the highlights of the meeting:

Is the district underusing ‘Let’s Read’ program?

The district is using federal COVID relief funding to help cover intensive literacy tutoring programs to help students recover from disruptions during the pandemic. It awarded contracts to a group called Beyond Basics to serve high schoolers, and to a company called Brainspring, which is providing literacy intervention for K-3 and virtual school students.

Beyond Basics is a Southfield-based nonprofit that specializes in providing one-on-one and small group literacy tutoring. The organization has partnered with the Detroit school district for over two decades.

Vitti reported that reading intervention programs like Beyond Basics have improved overall literacy levels for K-12 students. He said he’d like to see Beyond Basics and similar programs implemented for future academic years, but cautions that funding them will be difficult after the federal aid runs out. Under its 2021-22 contract with the school board, services from Beyond Basics were financed with COVID relief funding and money the district received through a “right to read” lawsuit settlement.

Board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo asked Vitti if the district could be making better use of Let’s Read, a program the district created in early 2019 with longtime Detroit education activist Helen Moore. Let’s Read, which was launched in advance of a new reading proficiency law for third-graders, connects adult volunteer tutors with K-3 students to help them improve their reading comprehension.

Apart from printing reading materials and offering training to the volunteers, Vitti said the district has not invested in Let’s Read. The choice of Beyond Basics was “not to undermine other tutoring services that are provided,” Vitti said. “But when a student is two or more grade levels (behind), they need intensive, research-based, multisensory intervention. And that’s what this intervention method provides.”

Vitti said 10th and 11th graders should see about two years’ worth of literacy growth in a semester of Beyond Basics intervention. There is no comparable data regarding the impact of Let’s Read on literacy levels, he said.

Vitti said he believed the pandemic limited the potential of Let’s Read by making volunteer tutors nervous about working in person with students. Out of the 99 Let’s Read volunteers who signed up online for 2021-22, just 29 showed up to participate, he said.

Some meeting attendees challenged that explanation. Aliya Moore, who is not related to Helen Moore, said she thought the low response was due to the district not reaching out to many of the volunteers who signed up.

Another attendee, Theo Broughton, said during the public comment period: “I’m hearing there were 99 tutors … but not to call the tutors, if that’s what happened, it’s as if you want the children at DPS to fail.”

Gay-Dagnogo urged the board to get rid of any barriers that might keep interested Let’s Read volunteers from participating.

“I don’t know if we’re presenting a barrier, or just the perception that there’s a barrier, but either way, I think we need to do a better job with transparency so that we can neutralize the ongoing disappointment of those who feel like we are somehow holding (Let’s Read) back.”

Vitti promised that 2022-23 will be the year the district “ramps up Let’s Read.”

Chronic absenteeism worsens for another year

The proportion of Detroit school district students who missed 10% or more of the school year worsened, Vitti said, in large part because of the district’s quarantine requirement for students who came into contact with COVID-infected people.

The chronic absenteeism rate rose to 77.6% in 2021-22, from 68.5% the previous school year. Before the pandemic, Vitti added, the district was making strides to improve attendance.

Vitti said the district still needed to address other reasons for absenteeism among high school students. A districtwide survey of students found students felt less loved and appreciated as they went into high school.

“The high school experience, bottom line for students, has to improve,” he said.

Between increased academic rigor in the classroom, better relationships with students, and continued investment in wraparound services and mental health, he added, the district needed to reprioritize its efforts to support high schoolers.

Board members weigh a new test to measure reading proficiency

As Superintendent Vitti outlined end-of-year data, some board members questioned how and when the district would improve graduation rates and reading proficiency among its students.

DPSCD’s four-year graduation rate fell 8 percentage points to 64.5% for the 2020-21 school year. The rate for the latest school year is expected to be reported in August.

Moreover, the percentage of students who are two or more grades behind reading level increased over the course of the pandemic, Vitti said.

To improve the graduation rate, Vitti said, the district is taking steps to help students make up coursework. It’s offering teachers extra pay to teach additional courses during the day, and offering after-school courses to help students make up missed credit.

“The graduation rate is not going to move overnight, but I do believe it’s going to incrementally improve,” Vitti said.

But board members and members of the public said they were disappointed by the students’ trajectory.

“I am really outraged at the numbers,” said board member Sonya Mays.

“At this rate … we are still having hundreds of students leave this district without something as basic as a high school diploma, and I just find that really outrageous,” Mays said.

Board President Angelique Peterson-Mayberry said in conjunction with improving the graduation rate, she supported testing students in reading proficiency before they graduated from the district.

“We’re doing a disservice to send students out into the world and not prepare them with basic skills,” she said.

Michigan does not currently have a standardized literacy assessment required for students to graduate, Vitti said. The only tests that the Detroit school district uses as the “best indicator” of a student’s reading grade level are the PSAT and the SAT. But both tests are designed to determine if students have the skills and knowledge to enroll in college.

Vitti said one option would be to create a literacy test for 12th graders, but he cautioned against requiring students to take more tests, adding that he preferred focusing on college readiness.

“I think we also have to be very careful when we talk about who is literate and who is not literate, because a standardized test does not always define that,” Vitti said.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Grace Tucker is an intern with Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at gtucker@chalkbeat.org.

Too few metro Detroiters are earning post-high school degrees, report says

2022-04-06T18:48:54+00:00

The number of metro Detroiters enrolling in college or post-high school training programs was already declining pre-COVID, but now it’s falling even lower. The number of residents earning degrees is also declining, raising concerns that employers will continue to struggle to find qualified workers.

The Detroit Regional Chamber raised those concerns in a State of Education report released Wednesday. The report uses regional, state, and national data to paint a grim outlook for metro Detroit and students who are Black or Latino or come from low-income homes. The report also says that efforts to get more residents, particularly adults, to earn degrees or certificates have stalled

Currently, just half of the 11-county region’s residents have a postsecondary credential, which includes two-year and four-year college degrees or a certificate in fields such as nursing or welding. The goal is to get that number up to 60%, but that won’t happen if enrollment continues to decline or those in college don’t finish.

“COVID has taken a toll and has made a bad situation even worse,” said Sandy Baruah, president and CEO of the chamber.

If the percentage doesn’t improve, the implications aren’t just dire for employers trying to fill jobs, Baruah told reporters this week.

“One of the reasons this issue is so important is (that) the level of educational attainment has a direct impact on an individual and a family’s economic security,” Baruah said. An individual’s financial stability is also directly related to the financial stability of a community. And “employers will go where the talent is,” he said.

Here are some of the concerning statistics the report highlights:

Even before the pandemic, there were concerns about regional postsecondary enrollment, particularly for students graduating from Detroit schools. The report shows that from 2018 to 2019, the percentage of high school graduates who didn’t enroll in college or a certificate program grew from 28% to 34% for the region. The number rose from 38% to 53% in Detroit.
Undergraduate enrollment in Michigan dropped by 8.9% between 2019 and 2021. That compares to a drop of 8% for the nation. The report says that fewer students enrolling in postsecondary education will mean employers won’t have enough qualified workers to fill jobs that pay middle class or higher wages.
The undergraduate enrollment data is even worse for students who graduate from schools with a large number of students from low-income homes. Their enrollment rate fell by 10% nationally between 2019 and 2020. Regional data was not available.
Nationally, 74% of students who started college in the fall of 2019 returned in the fall of 2020. For Black students, it was 65%, and for Latino students, it was 69%.

There were a few bright spots in the data. The percentage of students who graduated from high school in 2014 and are on track to graduate from a postsecondary institution within six years is on the rise. Postsecondary graduation rates are also on the rise.

The chamber is involved in or leading a number of initiatives to boost postsecondary numbers, including the Detroit Promise, which provides scholarships for students in the city to attend a community college or four-year institution. The chamber is also a member of Launch Michigan, a nonpartisan advocacy group that has pushed for changes to the state’s education system that will ensure more students graduate prepared for postsecondary success.

The Chamber’s Detroit Reconnect initiative is aimed at helping adults enroll in a higher education. In 2019, there were more than 676,000 adults in the region with some college credits, but they had not earned a degree or credential.

“If we can get a big chunk of them, that could make a big difference, you know, right away,” Baruah said.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. Contact her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan districts are running out of snow days. What happens now?

2022-01-28T20:43:17+00:00

It’s been a mild winter so far in southern Michigan, but already Reading Community Schools near the Ohio border is nearly out of snow days.

The district isn’t alone.

It’s not yet February, and many districts are nearing state caps on the number of days they are allowed to close for emergencies. In addition to snow days, there have been pandemic-related closures, attendance challenges and threats of school violence. Administrators want more flexibility, but the state Legislature doesn’t appear willing to grant it.

That jeopardizes school funding and districts’ ability to end the year on time in early June when many teachers and families have plans to start vacations and summer camps.

Michigan’s pupil accounting rules allow six school closures per year, known as “forgiven days.” They’re most often used for snow, but this is an unusual school year of staff shortages, COVID outbreaks, and copycat threats that followed the deadly November shooting at Oxford High School. Those factors are forcing school closures that are rapidly draining districts’ pool of forgiven days.

The 750-student Reading school district has had to close three times because of threats of school violence, once because of a citywide problem with water pressure, and once because of icy roads.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District has used all six of its forgiven days for health and safety reasons, administrators said.

On the snowier west side of the state, Newaygo Public Schools, about 35 miles north of Grand Rapids, already exceeded nine days. The district used five days for weather-related closings, plus 4½ more for “a variety of reasons” including staff shortages, Superintendent Jeff Wright said.

Administrators around the state have been asking the Legislature for more flexibility but so far their efforts have gained less traction than a school bus on an icy hill.

Fewer days versus long year

The closures come at a time schools already are trying to make up for lost learning time earlier in the pandemic when many schools closed or moved hastily to remote learning before teachers and students had the resources to get online. That has sparked some pushback to the notion of allowing fewer days of schooling, as opposed to extending the school year a few days or weeks into June.

“So many kids for the past couple of years have gotten nowhere near the [state-required] 180 days of learning so it’s even more important now to make sure they get as much as possible. We’ve got a two-year deficit we keep adding onto,” said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, an Ann Arbor-based nonpartisan think tank focused on education’s role in bolstering the state economy.

Districts that deplete their six forgiven days can ask the Michigan Department of Education for three more, but some administrators are concerned even that won’t be enough to cover unforeseen challenges in the months ahead.

“With so many disruptions this year, I don’t know if three days is going to make that much of a difference,” Reading Superintendent Chuck North said.

Unless the Legislature acts, districts will have to cut short spring breaks or extend school calendars by the number of days they’ve closed beyond their allotment of forgiven days.

So far, only three districts — Ludington, Muskegon and Newaygo — have applied for additional forgiven days, but it’s still early in the year, said MDE spokesman Martin Ackley. More applications are expected. The department is likely to approve them, but can only allow three additional days (for a total of nine) unless the Legislature provides more flexibility.

Cedar Springs Public Schools, 20 miles north of Grand Rapids, hasn’t applied for additional forgiven days although the district has used all six allowed days — two days each for bad weather, power outages and high teacher and student absences. Superintendent Scott Smith said he will extend the school year if necessary to meet the state-required 180 days and 1,098 hours of instruction.

“This does not keep me up at night. We’ve got provisions and we’ve got a plan … so to me this is really not a big challenge,” Smith said.

“It can be a little bit of a bump for some families who’ve scheduled vacation or some staff who’ve scheduled vacation, but you figure it out and make it work,” he said. “It’s a human business. You’ve got to be flexible.”

Extending the school year has a price

Extending the year could be costly and would require districts to renegotiate with local labor unions.

But money shouldn’t stop schools from doing what’s best for kids, especially in a year of historic school funding, Glazer said.

“If the only reason not to extend the school year is that it costs too much, then they ought to be able to figure that out,” he said.

For superintendents in northern Michigan, that isn’t the only reason. They face extra pressure from the tourism industry, in which businesses would suffer if school calendars are lengthened. They depend on long summers when families can visit and teenage workers can staff their shops and restaurants.

There’s another option, Glazer said. If it’s too unsafe to open school buildings, classes could be moved online, he said.

“It’s not perfect. A lot of homes have trouble getting Internet, but we’re far better off today than we were two years ago,” he said.

That could be a tough sell for lawmakers like Rep. Pamela Hornberger, who has staked out a firm position against remote learning. As chairperson of the Education Committee, the Chester Township Republican controls the House education agenda.

The worst thing the Legislature could do, Glazer said, is hand out extra forgiven days that would stop formal learning entirely.

“With all the disruption in kids’ lives because of COVID, why take additional school days away from them?” he asked. “We really need to figure out how to get as many learning days as possible. That’s particularly important for non-affluent children.”

Unprecedented disruptions caused by the pandemic have put districts in a vise.

There are financial penalties when district attendance falls below 75%. The amount is determined by a complex formula. For example, a district with 2,000 students and a state funding level of $600,000 per day would lose $56,000 on a day attendance fell to 68%, according to the formula.

In essence, schools stand to lose state funding if they open classrooms with attendance under 75%, while school costs (gas for buses, heating bills, and staff salaries) remain the same on those days.

“These penalties end up harming the very students we strive to educate and support. A loss of funding clearly takes away much-needed resources for students,” said Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit school system.

Attendance rules challenge district

Superintendents face a difficult choice when surging COVID cases portend high absences. Some open school doors anyway and take the funding hit. Others close and use a forgiven day, hoping they won’t run out and later have to extend the school year further into June.

Attendance rules are less stringent when school years are extended, requiring only 60% attendance for districts to receive full funding on days after the originally scheduled end of the year.

Superintendents like Smith in Cedar Springs are willing to sacrifice funding to provide consistency for students who are able to attend.

“Let’s say we have only 68% in attendance. We’ll lose a fraction of the funding for that day but at least we can have a meaningful day for 68% of the students. It’s about what you can do, not what you can’t do,” he said from his 3,500-student district. “Let’s do what we can for those who are there, and catch the others up later.”

Petoskey Superintendent Chris Parker is similarly minded.

“To the degree schools are open, it’s better for kids,” Parker said. “If only 70% attend, at least that 70% gets the in-person instruction, social interaction, access to guidance counselors, and nutritious school lunches they need … but it’s going to reach a point where you can’t afford to do that,” he said.

“It’s great to say you’ll give up the money, but if you’re running a district without your full foundation allowance, the (local) board of education isn’t going to be fond of that.”

It isn’t clear whether school districts can make up for those funding losses using federal COVID-relief funds. Some superintendents said it’s possible but others believe that money must be spent in accordance with grant applications they already submitted.

Lowering the 75% threshold would be a big help, said Jennifer Smith, head of government affairs for the Michigan Association of School Boards, but so far the state House of Representatives has been unwilling to consider it. Other groups, including the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, also are asking the Legislature for relief from attendance requirements during the pandemic. So far, the Senate has taken a step in that direction but the House Education Committee has not budged.

The Senate bill would prevent districts from being penalized in limited circumstances when low attendance is caused by pandemic-related quarantines.

The school board association says that bill isn’t enough, but the House hasn’t been willing to go even that far.

Hornberger, the House education chair, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Other House Republicans, though, have resisted attempts to provide any flexibility they believe could encourage districts to return to remote learning or could make it easier for school buildings to close.

“I don’t understand that argument. The insinuation is that superintendents don’t want what’s best for their kids,” said Kevin Polston, superintendent of Kentwood Public Schools, a 9,500-student district south of Grand Rapids. “We know in-person instruction is what’s best for most kids, and the districts across the state have been committed to offering that for our students and families, but safety is always going to be first for us.”

Kentwood used two forgiven days so far this year on consecutive days because of snow, Polston said. When school resumed that Friday, only 71% of students showed up so the district won’t get its full share of state funding for that day unless the Legislature agrees to a rule change.

“Schools that are in person for every kid and doing the best they can shouldn’t be penalized during a pandemic,” Polston said.

The free-market Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which has staunchly advocated for in-person learning, hasn’t taken an official position on the Senate bill but encourages the Legislature to reconsider attendance rules for quarantined students. The organization wants to discourage districts from temporarily switching entirely to remote instruction, as schools in Detroit and Ann Arbor recently did.

“Schools should be given greater flexibility not to excuse them from filling their responsibility, but to better equip them to provide students with effective instruction. That means guaranteeing all students access to an in-person option, as well as giving schools latitude,” said Ben DeGrow, the center’s director of education policy.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is working with Republican legislative leaders on ways to encourage in-person learning and is expected to offer proposals in her budget proposal next month. Bobby Leddy, spokesperson for the Democratic governor, would not say whether those solutions include flexibility on attendance rules and forgiven days.

“Right now 98% of districts have their classrooms open, and we are working to get that to 100% at soon as possible,” Leddy said.

Detroit superintendent proposes solutions.

Schools that have temporarily moved online are in a bind, Vitti said from Detroit, where students have been remote since December. Attendance is challenging on remote days when younger students might not have enough support at home, and older ones might have too many distractions.

On four days in January, Detroit’s attendance dipped below 75%, including once as low as 59%. The highest attendance in January was 78%.

Before going remote in December, Detroit schools closed several times because of building and city infrastructure problems, threats of school violence, and increases in COVID positivity rates. When schools reopen to in-class learning, Vitti said he expects to add five minutes to the school day to help meet the 1,098-hour school year requirement.

“We have felt the impact more than other districts regarding COVID because of the infection rate and because of low vaccination rates,” Vitti said. “I know other districts are in a similar situation, which is why we need some flexibility moving forward.”

Vitti suggests lowering attendance minimums to 60% and eliminating or reducing financial penalties in certain circumstances, such as during extreme weather, high COVID transmission rates, or critical infrastructure failure. The Legislature also could allow districts to close in response to threats of violence without using a forgiven day, he said.

Jennifer Smith of the state school board association said parents can do their part to pressure lawmakers to take action now so districts can plan for the spring, but she isn’t optimistic that they will.

“I don’t think parents will fully understand until we start talking about having to go to school in June,” she said.

“There needs to be an understanding from the Legislature that this is affecting their constituents, and something needs to be done. It doesn’t have to be drastic. It needs to be flexible,” she said.

Report: COVID, finances helped drive absenteeism in Detroit district

2021-12-20T19:58:54+00:00

Chronic absenteeism rose significantly for Detroit district students last year as families continued to deal with financial, logistical, and health ramifications of the COVID pandemic.

A new Wayne State report shows that 70% of Detroit students were chronically absent — missing 10% of last school year — compared with 62% in 2018-2019. About 54% were described as severely chronically absent, meaning they missed 20% or more of the year.

Absenteeism rose in all K-12 grades but especially among 12th graders, 87% of whom were chronically absent, while roughly three-fourths of district kindergartners and students who received special education services missed 10% or more of the school year.

The district had been making some progress to reduce chronic absenteeism prior to the pandemic. Several years ago, the Detroit school district invested in hiring attendance agents in every school. Superintendent Nikolai Vitti and the board review chronic absenteeism data monthly, along with other metrics, and the superintendent has expressed his concern about the rise in chronic absenteeism since the pandemic began.

More than a third of families surveyed reported internet and computer issues during the school year, researchers found, contributing in part to the rise in absenteeism. Because schools pivoted to full online instruction last year, a lack of transportation was less of a factor in students missing school than it has been in previous years.

The report comes from a representative survey of more than 800 Detroit families as well as student attendance records and administrative data provided by the Detroit school district.

At the core of the study’s results, according to Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, an assistant professor of education at Wayne State, are the ongoing social and economic barriers that chronically absent students face, particularly the “really difficult choices that families are forced to make in order to kind of meet the expectation of good attendance without an adequate kind of social support structure.”

“We talked to families who had to quit their jobs to make sure their kids are in school,” Lenhoff said. “Maybe their child’s attendance is better, but then they’re unemployed, and they’re not making any money.”

Among the key findings:

Thirty-eight percent of parents said their child didn’t have access to a computer and 30% said internet troubles led to their child being absent. More than 50% of Detroit district families experienced financial and health-related challenges during the pandemic.
Thirty-four percent of district families had a family member who got sick or died of COVID.
Students in families who experienced economic challenges such as lower incomes, irregular work schedules, unemployment, and eviction were more likely to be chronically absent.

Detroit teen: ‘Dig deeper’ to find and help homeless students

2021-10-19T18:33:39+00:00

There’s a lot Azaria Terrell wants to tell adults about how they can help students who, like her, have experienced homelessness. She’d start with a few simple tips: Listen to them, develop relationships with them, and give them some grace.

Too often, she said, school staff place too much academic pressure on students who are homeless.

“Making sure I’m OK and getting a good night’s sleep … that’s way more important than making sure I’m turning in my assignments,” said Azaria, who is 17 and a senior at Pershing High School in Detroit.

“At the end of the day you can go home and lay in your bed and maybe grade students’ work, but that child has to stay on the streets that night. Not everybody is lucky enough to have friends to go stay with or family to go stay with. Sometimes they’re in abusive households and they literally have nowhere else to go. So, patience is really key.”

Azaria, who has experienced homelessness during her high school years, shared her story during a panel discussion Tuesday co-hosted by Chalkbeat Detroit and the University of Michigan Poverty Solutions (Watch the conversation in full at the bottom of this story).

The discussion was held in the wake of new research that shows schools in Detroit are struggling to identify students who are homeless and entitled to federally required services, such as transportation.

Azaria was joined on the panel by representatives of local schools, a researcher, and the founder of a Detroit nonprofit that works with young people like Azaria.

Here’s who joined her on the panel, and a snippet of what they had to say.

Jennifer Erb-Downward, senior research associate at Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan, an initiative that partners with communities and policymakers to prevent and alleviate poverty. Erb-Downward explained that the federal definition of a homeless student is any child who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. That includes children living in shelters or on the streets, but it also includes students living temporarily in a motel or hotel as well as children living doubled up in another person’s home because of economic hardship. “The reason that definition is important to focus on is that what the research shows is that from an educational perspective, it’s really the instability that children are experiencing that has educational consequences,” Erb-Downward said.
Courtney Smith, founder and CEO of the Detroit Phoenix Center, which provides services to homeless students. Smith said the center began as a drop-in center for students to hang out, take a shower, wash their clothes, access a food pantry, get bus tickets, and participate in recreational activities. Now, there is also an after-school program that provides tutoring and other services, such as counseling. Smith said the programming was built around what students said they needed. Listening to their wants and needs was important, she said. Adults “often create programs without young people being at the table.”
Iranetta Wright, deputy superintendent of schools at Detroit Public Schools Community District, which has expanded its services to better identify and serve students who are homeless. In 2017, when the district’s current administration took the helm, there were only 600 students — out of about 47,000 — identified as homeless. There was no doubt that number was too low, she said. So the district revamped its efforts, ensuring every school identified someone to serve homeless students, and provided staff training. At the end of the 2020-21 school year, the number of identified students had grown to 1,900. Training has been an important part of helping staff understand what it means to be a homeless student, and also how to talk to students who confide in them. “Awareness is important for everyone, from our teachers to our custodians to our cafeteria workers, to our noon hour assistants. Everyone needs to be empowered with the right language,” Wright said.
Terrence George, superintendent at Covenant House Academies, which were founded to help at-risk students obtain their high school diplomas. The academies especially help those living in shelters operated by Covenant House, which the school is affiliated with. “Homelessness isn’t always about staying in a shelter. It can be bouncing around. We have so many kids in our school that couch surf. It’s … now not where do you live, but where are you staying tonight is the question,” George said. The school provides a range of services, and is working to ensure all of its three locations have showers, laundry machines, and close access to a child care facility.

The event began with a documentary clip currently being produced by Sofa Stories Detroit, a community arts program that uses live performance and theater to tell the stories of Detroit youth who have experienced homelessness and housing insecurity. The name of the production company acknowledges that for many youth, surfing on the couches of friends or relatives is common. The full film will be streamed live in November, during National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, said Andrew Morton, director of the project. Find more information here.

Azaria, the Pershing High student, said identifying students who are homeless isn’t always easy. Educators can look out for students who repeatedly wear the same outfits, or students who start secluding themselves from others, she said. But many homeless youth become good at hiding their struggles.

“They’re hiding it not only from the world, but from themselves. They’re trying to erase that part of themselves and build a new character at school so they’re not judged, so they’re not looked at wrongly, so that their family isn’t criticized.”

It’s something Azaria knows really well. She said she’s a different person at school, known there as someone on the right track and on her way to college. At home, she said, she could be struggling. She cited her connection with Smith and the Detroit Phoenix Center with giving her a voice to tell her story. Smith, she said, was “the kindest person” she’d ever met.

“I meet a lot of kind people who really only want to hear your story to benefit them. And that’s sad. Ms. Courtney — she’s kind. She really listened to me. She gave me opportunities to use my voice.”

She wants teachers and other school staff to care not just about how students are doing academically, but how they’re doing outside school. She said they need to “dig deeper, build a relationship with their students, and really see how their life is going.”

New Detroit program puts support staff on the fast track to become teachers

2021-10-13T23:17:00+00:00

The inspirational words were written with large letters and taped to the tops of the light wood desks, a fitting backdrop for an activity that had new teacher Will Cannon connecting with a group of sixth graders he was meeting for the first time.

“You are a champion,” said one of the cards. “Triumph,” “Fabulous,” “Conquer,” and “Passionate,” said others.

“Tell me what that word on your desk means to you,” asked Cannon, who had taped the cards to the desks hoping they would inspire his students.

“A lot,” called back one girl, whose desk displayed the phrase “You are amazing.”

Cannon is among 55 people who entered classrooms in the Detroit Public Schools Community District for the first time this school year through a new program — the first of its kind in Michigan — that trains them during a summer academy tailored to the particular challenges of teaching in Detroit.

On a recent day with a group of sixth graders, Cannon had them talk about inspirational words he’d written on cards and taped to their desks.

This program, called the On the Rise Academy, represents the first time a district has developed its own alternative teacher certification program, which the Michigan Department of Education approved in January. And in May, the department approved a second certification program for New Paradigm for Education, which manages the Detroit Edison Public School Academy network of charter schools.

Around the nation, alternative programs operating outside higher education institutions are growing as districts like Detroit seek to train their own, more diverse, workforce. School districts in cities such as Boston and Dallas already operate similar programs. Indiana lawmakers are weighing whether to allow districts to certify their own teachers to ease shortages.

In the Detroit district, about three-quarters of the fellows, as they’re called, previously worked in support positions such as paraprofessionals, attendance agents, and academic interventionists.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during a recent school board meeting that the district decided to apply to run its own program because there are talented people in those positions who need an opportunity to put them on a path toward certification. The district is planning to launch another component of the academy next year, this one focused on current teachers who want to become recertified in an area of critical need, such as math and science.

“It makes complete sense to develop your own … because those employees know our students,” Vitti said.

The aspiring teachers — who must have bachelor’s degrees and pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification — undergo a hiring process that includes conducting a sample lesson before interviewers and taking feedback on that lesson, then conducting the lesson again.

Once selected, fellows are required to attend a six-week summer institute. There is coursework, but a key part is teaching summer school supervised by a high-performing teacher. Those who make it through the summer institute receive an initial teaching certificate before entering classrooms full time. They earn the same $51,000 salary as beginning teachers in the district.

The fellows receive individual and group coaching throughout the school year. They also are required to take more coursework in addition to teaching full time. Tuition is $6,000 but is waived if fellows teach in the district for six years. Fellows are required to teach in the district for three years.

Damarcus James, a former college transition advisor, is one of dozens of people who are part of an inaugural program to provide an alternative path towards becoming a teacher in the Detroit school district.

All of this was worth it for Damarco James, who previously worked as a college transition advisor at Osborn High School. James grew up in Benton Harbor, a district with similar academic struggles as DPSCD, and he said he’s motivated by a desire to help students who are growing up in impoverished communities like he did. He’s especially motivated knowing how much students have struggled academically during the pandemic.

“You truly have a chance to make an impact,” James said.

Would-be teachers need support and practice

Traditional teacher preparation programs operated by colleges and universities remain the most common way for aspiring teachers to get certified, accounting for 75% of all enrollment in 2019.

But Shannon Holston, chief of policy and programs at the National Council on Teacher Quality, said alternative certification programs are growing quickly, particularly those operated by non-higher education institutions such as school districts.

She attributes the growth to several factors: The decline in enrollment in traditional preparation programs has disrupted the routes school districts traditionally relied upon for new teachers. Some people interested in teaching see the alternative programs as a better option, because it’s a quicker and cheaper route to the classroom.

Just as important: Some local districts “just haven’t been having their needs met” by traditional routes, Holston said. “To ensure that they have teachers that are prepared in the way they want them to be prepared, they start their own program.”

Holston said research on alternative certification programs has been difficult to analyze because the programs are so different.

“There is some data on some programs that are effective. There are other programs that are on probation because they’re not meeting certain outcomes.”

She said successful programs offer strong coaching that helps the new teachers grow, but also have mechanisms in place to dismiss those that aren’t improving. Programs also should have rigorous admissions requirements and a teaching experience similar to student teaching so that fellows get to work with students. Programs vary on the length of such experiences. In some cases, it lasts a year. In others, it’s a summer school program.

In some programs, attendees come in with no classroom experience, and that concerns Holston. It’s imperative that these aspiring teachers spend extended time teaching in a classroom to gauge if this is the career for them.

“Sometimes people figure out that’s not what they want to do. We’d rather them figure that out in July rather than September.”

Holston, who reviewed online information about the Detroit district program, said she’s encouraged by several features, including requiring fellows to take a science of reading course and calling for two coaching visits and an administrative visit each month.

“That ongoing support is really important,” Holston said.

Program seeks to mirror district demographics

Cannon, a Detroit and district native whose path to the classroom came after a 20-year career as an engineer and a few more years exploring social work, is big on creating a positive atmosphere in his classroom. He introduced the sixth graders to a South African word that is central to his teaching philosophy: Ubuntu. Loosely, it means, “I am because we are.”

For a first-year teacher, Cannon seemed comfortable leading a classroom of middle school students. He told them about his background, played a video that showed young people persevering against incredible odds, and emphasized that he was connected with them and they have to work together for everyone to succeed.

“You’re all going to teach me a lot more than I’m going to teach you.”

Cannon came into teaching after a 20-year career as an engineer and after a few years in social work.

In Cassandra Tapia’s second grade summer school classroom, students participatedT in a “me too” game that revealed some common interests.

“I like robots,” one girl stood up and said.

“Me too,” responded most of her classmates.

“I like soccer,” said another.

“Me too,” the class responded.

Before she became a fellow teaching at Munger Elementary-Middle School, Tapia spent a year there as an academic interventionist, tutoring students who needed the most help.

Tapia said that one year working with Munger students was enough to “completely change my perspective” of what she wanted to do as a career.

Chalkbeat sat down with Tapia, Cannon, and James on one of the last days of summer school as the fellows were looking ahead to the beginning of the school year. They said they felt the academy prepared them for the challenges they would face in the classroom.

“I’m excited,” Tapia said. “I feel like I have a good support system. Teaching summer school has given us a glimpse of what to expect.”

“This program gives us everything that a brand-new teacher who went through a teacher prep program wishes that they had,” James added. “That’s the best way I can describe it.”

Cassandra Tapia was an academic interventionist before she entered a program that provides an alternative path towards becoming a teacher in the Detroit school district.

Tamara Johnson, director of the On the Rise Academy, said selecting candidates who are willing to grow and understand the culture of Detroit and its residents is what will make the program successful. The summer institute focuses on the history of the city and district. At one point, the fellows teamed up for a scavenger hunt downtown.. They also learned about the students they’ll be teaching.

“You want to be a part of that community and not have preconceived notions and ideas about where our students come from,” said Johnson, who is also the district’s senior director of talent pipelines. “You want to be able to learn with them, build relationships with them. That’s important in any classroom and in order to be able to do that, you have to be willing to learn who they are.”

“We pick people who view our students in a strength based way as opposed to a deficit-based way,” said Jessica Haynes, program supervisor of talent pipelines in the district. “We sought to have our demographics in On the Rise Academy mirror the demographics of our students in the district.”

Alternative certification programs have done what traditional programs have struggled to accomplish: Recruit diverse candidates into the profession. Just 30% of students enrolled in traditional programs are non-white, while more than half of those in alternative certification programs are non-white, according to data Vitti shared during the recent school board meeting. In the Detroit program, about 90% of those enrolled are non-white.

Meanwhile, the program could help boost the number of black male teachers, something districts across the country are trying to achieve. About 23% of those enrolled in On the Rise are black men. The district’s current population of black male teachers is 13%, Vitti said.

Ready to teach — and to learn

Two weeks into the beginning of the school year, Cannon was feeling good about his decision to teach. He was developing good relationships with his students, and he felt that the lessons he learned about creating a positive classroom culture were paying off. The fellows learned that community circles — when students and their teacher come together in a circle to talk — is one way they can build that positive culture.

A positive classroom culture and strong classroom management skills are crucial skills for success and were key focuses of the summer academy. Poor classroom management skills is one of the reasons new teachers leave the profession too soon, Johnson said.

“We know if the teachers can run a really well-managed room, all of the academic parts are going to come so much easier. And then we can keep them in the district, in classrooms, and make them better academic teachers because they have the management part together.”

Tapia agreed.

“Your lesson can be perfect but if you can’t manage that class, you can’t have 100% participation,” Tapia said. “If students can’t respect and trust you, you’re not going to teach them.”

For Cannon, the biggest challenge has been trying to help students who are far behind academically.

“It’s hard for me to see it. I feel this responsibility to catch you up immediately and it’s not going to happen that way.”

At that point in the school year, he had spent a lot of time focused on classroom rules and procedures and seeing where students stood academically.

On a recent day when Chalkbeat visited with Cannon and the group of sixth graders, he spent some time emphasizing what he hopes to see from students. He showed a short video about a boy who had persevered against a lot of odds. And then he turned to the students.

A large challenge for new teachers like Cannon is helping students who are struggling to catch up academically.

“That’s the kind of perseverance we’re looking for from all of you,” he told them. “We all have to find a way to make it through.

“Who is it up to?” he asked the students. The responses were varied.

“Us.”

“And me,” Cannon replied, which prompted this response from a student:

“All of us.”

Report: Pandemic ‘wreaked havoc’ in Michigan’s lowest performing schools but didn’t deter teachers

2021-09-27T20:31:47+00:00

A turnaround program had been helping Michigan’s lowest performing schools improve but those gains stagnated during the pandemic, according to a new report from Michigan State University.

The pandemic “wreaked havoc” on these schools, known as partnership schools, even as educators and students made extraordinary efforts to continue teaching and learning, said researchers from the university’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative.

The EPIC study found:

On-time graduation rates, which had been increasing before the pandemic, decreased last year.
Drop-out rates increased, but the number of students transferring to other schools decreased.
Attendance lagged and students were less motivated to learn, but educators said they had a better rapport with those who showed up for virtual classes.
Parent engagement decreased.
More educators — especially novice and Black teachers — left the profession during the pandemic. But those who remained were more likely to stay rather than transfer to other schools or roles. They cited school leadership, culture, and climate as their reasons for wanting to stay.

The backslide doesn’t surprise researchers who were tasked with tracking the schools’ progress since 2017, when the Michigan Department of Education gave them more resources and a chance to improve rather than face closure.

Partnership schools had been making gains in elementary math and English before the pandemic, according to EPIC’s 2020 report.

The new report shows that partnership schools were more likely to offer remote-only instruction than higher achieving districts last year. Learning from home was especially challenging for these students because they also were more likely to experience economic instability, food insecurity, illness, and difficulty accessing health care. Researchers found they also lacked resources for at-home schooling such as internet access, desks, quiet workspace, parental help with school work, and transportation to get supplies.

“I think for the population we serve here that they do better in the building,” one charter school leader told researchers. “We struggle and we continue to struggle with the virtual model.”

Households were loud and chaotic, one teacher said.

“There were children running around screaming, dogs barking and television blasting. All this took the attention away from the lessons. At times, it was the opposite, with the parent sitting out of view of the camera whispering all of the answers,” the teacher said. “Either way, my students were not learning a thing.”

Still, teachers in partnership schools were undeterred. They were less likely to leave their jobs for other schools than colleagues in similar buildings not in the partnership program.

“What impressed me the most was these teachers didn’t just give up. They were really still trying, and they were reporting back that their school culture and climate were improving and their job satisfaction was improving,” said Katharine Strunk, director of the EPIC and a professor of education policy at Michigan State.

The state has identified 123 schools for the partnership program, including 50 in Detroit.

The report bolstered the state education department’s commitment to the program and its efforts to speed up learning by prioritizing the most crucial content over the next school year. The department expects to add more schools to the partnership program next fall.

“Many of the challenges faced by partnership districts are large systemic issues that span beyond the education realm, so any solutions require partners, time, and honest conversations about deep-seated changes that are necessary,” the department said in its written response to the report.

EPIC concluded that partnership schools would benefit from more funding, better recruiting and retention of faculty — especially Black teachers — and more robust socioemotional support.

The report is EPIC’s third on the effectiveness of the partnership program. Researchers said it was hard to isolate the effects of the program from the effects of the pandemic, which were more profound in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods that partnership schools tend to serve.

Researchers considered dropout rates, teacher mobility, district revenue data, educator surveys, and interviews. They used teacher perceptions of student learning rather than test results because the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, known as M-STEP, was not administered in 2019. Teachers estimated that 15% to 16% of students began the school year on track in language arts, math, science and social studies, and even fewer — 11% to 13% — finished on track.

They found the pandemic exacerbated already difficult challenges children in these schools faced.

“For many of our students, making it through the day is all they can do,” one teacher told researchers. “My high school students have shouldered enormous burdens this year. They are breadwinners, babysitters, tutors, cooks, and whatever else is needed in the household.”

Read the full report here.

‘Tiny’ bathrooms, big curriculum: New Marygrove early childhood center boosts Detroit neighborhood

2021-09-17T21:33:42+00:00

When Ariyah Small came home after the first day of school last week at the new, highly touted Marygrove Early Education Center, there was one small thing that had her excited.

“I love my new school,” Ariyah, 3, told her mother, Antoinette Reid, who recounted the conversation Friday as she spoke during the grand opening of the new center.

“I’m like, ‘What about it do you love?’” Reid recalled asking her daughter. “She said, ‘They got tiny bathrooms and I can use it all by myself.’”

The tiny bathrooms are just small features of this big new center on the campus of the former Marygrove College in northwest Detroit. What is most significant about the new $22 million 28,000-square-foot building, is what it represents.

The early childhood center is part of a unique “cradle to career” initiative that was announced in 2018 and already includes the School at Marygrove, a high school operated by the Detroit Public Schools Community District. The initiative will eventually also include a kindergarten to eighth grade school. Construction on the early childhood center, which is being operated by Starfish Family Services, began in 2019. The Kresge Foundation (a Chalkbeat funder), expects to invest $75 million into the cradle to career project, including for the construction of the new center.

Speakers Friday described the opening of the center as an “historic” moment for Detroit, in part, because it represents a full-scale effort to create quality early childhood options that every child in the city deserves.

“It’s not just about the building,” said Wendy Lewis Jackson, the Detroit program managing director at Kresge.

Jackson said “it” is about the curriculum that was developed by Starfish and University of Michigan, about the center serving as a resource for other early childhood providers in the neighborhoods surrounding Marygrove, and about the center providing “essential support for children from birth through higher education and onwards towards a career.”

Principal Celina Byrd poses with student Ariyah Small at the grand opening of Marygrove Early Education Center in Detroit.

The curriculum is focused on literacy, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and social justice.

The cradle to career effort at Marygrove has also spurred development in the surrounding neighborhoods, said Rip Rapson, Kresge president and CEO.

“It is undertakings like these that will define the Detroit of the future, that will give the city’s residents reason to believe that their neighborhood will offer the kinds of opportunities that every citizen has a right to expect and that every citizen deserves,” Rapson said.

Reid toured the new facility in July. It features 12 large classrooms, three interior courtyards that bring in natural light and a connection to the outdoors, and areas dedicated to children’s health and holistic development.

“When I toured the center, I was like finally, someone gets it,” she said. “The building was designed with the whole child in mind, which I’m very appreciative of … Inside is cheerful and just inviting. I like the space for the teachers, for the families. And sometimes it’s the small things that matter, and it was the laundry facilities for me that make the difference.”

The cradle to career initiative is one of the biggest efforts to emerge from Hope Starts Here, an ambitious project publicly launched in 2017 with funding from Kresge and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (also a Chalkbeat funder). The goal of this 10-year project is to ensure that by 2027, Detroit is a city that puts its children first by taking steps such as increasing the number of children in quality preschool programs.

Mayor Mike Duggan, who has been a strong advocate for quality early childhood education programs for all Detroit children, said the Marygrove effort took “what could have been a tragedy for the city,” when the college closed its doors in 2019, and “turned it into a cause for joy.”

He echoed Rapson’s comments about how the effort has spurred growth in the surrounding communities. Duggan said property values in the Marygrove neighborhood and the adjacent Fitzgerald neighborhood have grown faster than any others in the city. Storefronts that were once boarded up are now open for business.

It “has helped the rebirth of northwest Detroit,” Duggan said.

Report: Homeless students are undercounted and underserved in Detroit. Schools struggle to find them.

2021-08-23T22:11:32+00:00

Detroit schools for years have severely undercounted the number of homeless students in the city, leaving thousands of children without the crucial services they’re entitled to and need to succeed. The pandemic has made the undercount even worse.

The undercounting is highlighted in a new report released Monday by the University of Michigan Poverty Solutions initiative.

District and charter schools in Detroit identified 1,785 students, or about 2% of the student population, as homeless in 2017. But the researchers said the number is much higher — between 7,000 and 14,000, according to the report.

The undercounting matters profoundly because federal law provides explicit protections and services for homeless students, including transportation to and from school, the right to remain in the school they had been attending, academic support, and the right to enroll in a school even if they lack proper documents. Those services are crucial because homeless students are more likely to be chronically absent, drop out of school, and be suspended or expelled from school.

The undercount estimate is based on two things: One is 2017 data that shows 16% of households with children in Detroit reported being either evicted or forced to move within the previous year, which meets the definition of student homelessness. The number is also based on state guidelines that consider there to be a likely undercount if fewer than 10% of a school’s population of students from low income homes aren’t identified.

Data are from the 2017-18 school year, the most recent for which detailed information about homeless students was available.

The pandemic has put even more emphasis on the need for school officials to identify homeless students. A November report by Schoolhouse Connections and Poverty Solutions found that during the last school year, schools across the country were seeing big declines in the number of identified homeless students. The declines were not because there were fewer homeless students, but because school staff struggled to maintain connections with them during a pandemic that forced many students into remote learning.

“There are going to be a lot of kids who are or have been homeless in the last year, who have been just totally disconnected from school,” said Jennifer Erb-Downward, senior research associate at Poverty Solutions, a UM initiative that does research on poverty, and one of the authors of the report.

How homelessness affects students in Detroit

Here are some of the key takeaways from a University of Michigan Poverty Solutions report, released Monday, that raises concerns about undercounting of Detroit’s homeless student population, and the educational implications of that undercount.

In Detroit, Black students had a greater risk of homelessness than their peers in other races, accounting for 86% of students who were homeless but 82% of students overall.
Homeless students had the highest rates of chronic absenteeism with 3 out of 4 students in Detroit Public Schools Community District and Detroit charters missing 10% or more of school days. On average homeless students attended just 102 days of school during the 2017-18 school year.
Homeless students struggled academically more than their peers who have secure housing. The report notes that these challenges persist after stable housing was found.
Suspensions and expulsions in Detroit accounted for 12% of all disciplinary actions statewide, the report said. Students in Detroit who were formerly homeless face the highest disciplinary action rates with 1 in 4 suspended or expelled during the 2017-18 school year.
Half of Detroit students who were homeless during high school graduated on time, compared with an average graduation rate of 73% for all. Also, 55% of the students who experienced homelessness during middle school graduated after four years of high school, even when students had secure housing during high school.
Statewide, students who were homeless during the 2014-15 school year were 14 times more likely to enter foster care during the 2015-16 school year than students who were not homeless the previous school year.

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act defines homeless students as those “who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.” That definition includes students living on the streets and in shelters, but also includes other scenarios such as students who are moving from home to home, living with relatives, or living in motels.

“If a child doesn’t have a stable place to live, it’s impacting their health, it’s impacting their education, and we have the data to show that. So, we have to figure out some way to deal with it,” Erb-Downward said in an interview Friday.

From the beginning of the pandemic until now, advocates for homeless children have scrambled to connect with these students.

“We are definitely concerned as to where the homeless students are at and working on ways to best identify and recapture students,” Julie Ratekin, homeless youth services manager at Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency, told Chalkbeat in the spring. In her role she coordinates with the homeless student liaisons at all of the schools in Detroit to train them to support homeless students and connect them with community resources homeless students may need.

Erb-Downward said another pandemic related challenge for homeless students is that families who have struggled financially during the pandemic worry about what the future holds, especially given that an eviction moratorium that has been in place since early in the pandemic will eventually end.

“That fear is very real and there are a lot of families who are likely going to experience homelessness and housing instability.”

Across Detroit, 95% of schools are very likely or likely undercounting homeless students, based on the 2017 data. But it’s not just a Detroit issue. Across Michigan, which has the sixth-highest number of homeless students among other states in the nation, the percentage of schools likely or very likely undercounting was 88%.

The Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal law governing K-12 education in the nation, placed a stronger priority on identification, with state and local school districts required to “provide training and professional development opportunities for staff so that they can identify and meet the needs of homeless children and youths,” according to a 2016 policy letter from the U.S. Department of Education.

Also, schools will benefit from $800 million Congress allocated, through the American Rescue Plan Act, to help homeless students. Finding students is a key part of spending the money. And the federal education department has told schools they can use the money for students to buy cell phones and prepaid debit cards, and pay for short-term temporary housing, such as a few nights in a motel — things that typically aren’t allowed.

“There’s opportunity to really reach kids who are struggling, and to provide them with the support that they need,” Erb-Downward said.

While most Detroit schools are struggling to identify homeless students, there are several charter schools highlighted in the report that are getting it right. At those schools (Cesar Chavez Academy, George Crockett Academy, and Covenant House Academy), determining a student’s housing situation begins during the application and enrollment process.

“Staff find out if students are homeless through enrollment forms, in-person conversations, and just by paying attention to kids and how they show up to school,” the report says. “Schools benefit from building long-standing foundations of trust between administrators and the community, so families will sometimes refer other families in need to staff to get assistance.”

Students generally don’t talk about their housing situation, Margaret Thigpen, homelessness liaison at George Crockett Academy, told Poverty Solutions.

“You just have to ease into it. And you have to build trust. They need to know that you care about them,” Thigpen said.

The report says the Detroit Public Schools Community District has ramped up its efforts to identify homeless students by identifying a homelessness point of contact in each building and increasing training to assist with identification and connection to support services.

“This approach holds potential for improving identification and could be adopted at charter school networks that do not have such a system in place,” the report said.

Ratekin and other experts recommend schools do several things to find students who may be homeless: Posting the rights of homeless students with contact information to support services in public places, adding information and support options to school websites, and creating community partnerships to build awareness. During the last school year, the agency created a 24/7 hotline to connect families to resources.

Sarah Bousley-Crane, the school social worker at Warrendale Charter Academy in Detroit, told Chalkbeat in the spring that homeless students at her school were having more academic struggles during the last school year compared with their peers.

“There’s like the overall struggle that everybody’s dealing with, and then most of our families that are qualified under McKinney-Vento are in doubled up situations,” she said, meaning they are staying at someone else’s house. “Being home, plus being in the home of somebody else is making it more difficult for those students.”

What’s next for abandoned schools in Detroit? Neighbors say almost anything is better than vacancy.

2021-07-26T15:17:17+00:00

The City of Detroit is looking for developers to revitalize dozens of vacant school buildings following years of demands by residents that something be done with the properties.

Over the last year, engineers and architects visited unused schools across the city, measuring the buildings and estimating the cost of repairs hoping to convince developers to find new uses for the schools. The buildings could see a wide range of new purposes, including as housing, community centers, industrial facilities, or — more controversially — charter schools.

Neighbors have long told local officials that almost anything would be better than leaving the buildings vacant. While the buildings are generally structurally sound, some have been left open to the elements, vandalized, and stripped of valuable metals. Typical redevelopment costs are $5 to $15 million according to city estimates.

Those price tags come as no surprise to Sandra Turner-Handy, a leader of the Denby Neighborhood Alliance, who lived near Wilkins, one of the city-owned schools, and knows it’s in bad shape.

“I drive by there and shake my head,” she said. “My daughters went there. They lived on the corner of that street.”

“The disinvestment around these closed schools is so evident. When they don’t pick up these buildings and do something with them it represents their disinvestment in the whole community.”

School buildings anchor communities, serving as gathering places and public resources or more. When they become vacant and deteriorate — as they did in major cities around the country, a trend driven by deindustrialization and white flight — the surrounding neighborhoods often suffer.

Detroit is an extreme example of school closures, and empty buildings remain a painful reminder to residents of two decades of declining enrollment and disinvestment. Two hundred schools closed during that time, and many remain standing. Like other abandoned properties, schools contribute to chronic absenteeism because they increase students’ fears of walking to school.

In 2014, the city forgave millions of dollars of unpaid Detroit Public Schools electrical bills in exchange for some of its vacant properties — 57 schools in total. The most dilapidated buildings were torn down, but 39 stayed standing and have been largely neglected for years.

In total, the project cost $858,000. The city covered the cost of a detailed accounting of the 39 city-owned buildings, while the Detroit Public Schools Community District chipped in $223,000 for surveys of two dozen district-owned buildings. The documentation, which is available online, includes the estimated cost to redevelop each property along with architectural measurements and a survey of existing land uses, population, and community needs in surrounding neighborhoods. Public meetings to discuss redevelopment possibilities are in planning stages, city officials said.

City representatives also created less detailed reports on the vacant buildings still owned by Detroit Public Schools Community District. That information isn’t included on the project website, but it was provided to the district and will be incorporated into an upcoming facilities plan.

“The analysis will inform the district’s 20-year facility plan, which will be presented to the school board in January,” district spokesperson Chrystal Wilson said in a statement. “This plan will make recommendations for the current use of all school buildings, those being used and those vacant.”

Residents have been attending public meetings for years to demand that something be done with the properties. Turner-Handy called them an “eyesore” and said they bring down the value of surrounding properties.

The next step for the buildings is “a three-way match-making process between what the building could be, what the neighborhood needs, and what the developer can do,” said Andrew Wald, a lead consultant on the project and head of the Detroit office for Interboro, an architecture and planning firm.

“We have a good understanding of the buildings,” he added. “Now it’s about going out and finding the developers, the people who have the ability to take on these projects, and getting them talking with the community.”

The community’s response will hinge in part on how the building is being used. Garrick Landsberg, director of historic preservation for the city, said a wide range of new uses are possible, including for new charter schools, though he noted that many of the buildings are too large for most new Detroit schools. The Detroit district has in some cases sought to prevent charter schools from opening in its former buildings, but not this time. The Detroit Public Schools didn’t include a clause preventing future use by charter schools when it gave the buildings to the city in 2014, said city spokesman Dan Austin.

Charter schools enroll a higher portion of students in Detroit than in almost any U.S. city, and new charter proposals can still be controversial. Opponents say charters increase competition for students in a city where many schools are already struggling with enrollment, while supporters point to the relatively high test scores posted by the highest-performing charter schools.

Some Detroiters welcomed the news earlier this year that KIPP, a national charter operator, proposed to build a school on city-owned land. But activists pushed back, and KIPP eventually dropped the proposal and is seeking property elsewhere in the city.

“At this point, I’m okay with charter,” said Aliya Moore, a community activist who was the PTA president at Oakman when the school was shuttered in 2012 by a state-appointed emergency manager. The Oakman building was designed to serve people with disabilities, and Moore said she wants to see it used for that purpose.

Not everyone is ready to accept a new charter school in a former district building. The city shouldn’t take bids from charter school operators, said Helen Moore, a community activist (no relation to Aliya).

“We do not want or need any more charter schools in the city of Detroit,” she said. “If that’s what they want to do with the schools, I think it’s wrong. If they went in the direction of more housing for the city and using the buildings for that purpose, that would be a positive.”

No matter what use is found for the vacant schools, the community should benefit, said Derrick Williams, whose son attended Oakman. The school was an anchor of the community, he said — he played Santa Claus at holiday parties.

“When the school closed, people moved out, the neighborhood went down,” he said. “A lot of people had moved over in that area because the school was right there. The school was family oriented, we all looked out for the kids.”

Today, he said, “you ride past the building and get sad.”

Editor’s note: July 27, 2021: This story was updated with the clarification that the Detroit Public Schools Community District covered some of the cost of the survey of vacant schools in the city.

New Skillman president will bring a passion for racial equity to Detroit children

2021-06-21T19:00:47+00:00

The woman selected to lead one of the most prominent philanthropic foundations in metro Detroit is a passionate advocate for racial equity and social justice — two issues at the heart of discussions about improving the lives of Detroit’s schoolchildren.

“This is an electric city I’m coming into, hat in hand, ready to listen and learn,” said Angelique Power. On Monday afternoon, the Skillman Foundation (a Chalkbeat funder) announced she would become the nonprofit’s new president and chief executive officer.

Her selection wraps up a months-long search to replace Tonya Allen, who led the organization since 2014 before leaving for a job in Minnesota earlier this year.

Power, whose job with Skillman begins Sept. 13, is currently president of the Field Foundation in Chicago, where she led racial equity efforts that resulted in the foundation rethinking how and who it funds.

The Skillman Foundation, which celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, is known as a strong advocate for Detroit’s children and their education.

“Skillman’s approach to philanthropy really resonates with me,” Power said. “It’s admirable. It’s important. Skillman leverages all that it has to offer in service of children,” Power said.

Suzanne Shank, the vice chair of the Skillman Foundation board who led the search for a new president, said Power was a unanimous choice of the search committee and the board.

“She really rose to the top of the pack as being a visionary leader who had a strong reputation for consensus building across a broad divide of people,” said Shank, president and CEO of Siebert Williams Shank & Co. “She definitely has her finger on the pulse of the racial justice movement.”

The latter was crucial, Shank said, “given the time we’re in right now.”

“We felt that someone who is known as a champion of racial justice, but who also can come into the Detroit market sort of fresh and new and give a different perspective, would really provide some value,” Shank said.

“We’re witnessing this generational shift in this past year alone, where we saw all of these uprisings that were youth led, that were calling for systems change and asking us to sort of rise to the occasion,” Power said. “And I feel like Skillman has the track record. It’s been working on this for some time. And that appeals to me.”

Power already has some familiarity with the city. She spent time volunteering here when she was a student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Two of her previous foundation jobs had connections to the city. Power, the daughter of a Chicago public school teacher and a Chicago police sergeant, also spent many summers and weekends traveling to West Michigan, where the family owned a small cottage.

She plans to move to the region this summer with her husband, Sean, and her 11-year-old daughter, Sadie Lousiane.

She said she’s not coming in with any plans to make changes at Skillman. Instead, she wants to build on what Allen started.

“Tonya is a rock star. She’s beloved and she’s brilliant. What she built, she built with love. And I feel a deep responsibility to her work, her legacy, her name.”

That’s why her priority early on will be to listen to Detroit residents. In particular, she wants to hear from young people “what they want from Skillman in this moment.”

She’s well aware that Detroiters at times can be skeptical because “they’ve had too many experiences with outsiders who have an extractive relationship with Detroit.”

For her, though, coming to Detroit is like a calling.

“We all are needed to unlock an equitable future for [Detroit] children.”

KIPP drops plans to build charter school on Detroit-owned site

2021-06-15T22:46:00+00:00

KIPP, the nation’s largest nonprofit charter school network, has dropped plans to purchase a 10 acre parcel of city-owned land for a K-12 school.

This doesn’t mean there won’t be a KIPP Detroit: Imani Academy. The network is already authorized by Central Michigan University to open a school, and it can tap into a $20 million anonymous donation to build a school somewhere else.

But the decision to walk away from the proposed land purchase is an early bump in the road for KIPP, which supporters say will bring a high quality education option to a city that doesn’t have enough. National operators like KIPP have historically avoided Detroit, where student needs are high, public support is low, and there’s no regulatory body to stop another school from opening next door and competing for enrollment and funding.

With its proposed opening date months away, KIPP must now choose another location after spending months working with the city on the sale and convincing its potential neighbors to publicly support the plan. The network’s U-turn also means the project will face less public scrutiny in coming months. City rules require public hearings for sales of this size, and the proposal was headed to City Council this fall for further hearings and a vote.

Candace Rogers, superintendent of the planned KIPP school, did not immediately return requests for comment. Melia Howard, manager for Detroit’s District 5, worked with KIPP on the planned sale. She confirmed that the network no longer wants to buy the land. The city canceled a public hearing set for Tuesday regarding the proposed $125,000 sale of 13141 Rosa Parks Blvd., a vacant parcel of land owned by the City of Detroit.

“We’re really disappointed because we’ve been working on this for six months,” said Teresa Clarington, president of the Longfellow Block Club. The club is named after the school that previously stood on the land KIPP wanted to buy. Clarington and other block club members have spoken extensively with Rogers about the proposed school and advocated publicly for the sale.

The club held a cookout on Monday and was expecting an update from KIPP officials, but the officials didn’t show up, Clarington said, adding that she hoped Rogers would eventually explain to block members why KIPP changed its plans.

Some Detroiters opposed the planned sale, saying the city has enough schools already for its shrinking student population. Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has spoken against it; education activists critical of the plan dominated a public meeting last month.

KIPP’s supporters in Detroit point to the network’s track record of academic success in communities of color. The network enrolls more than 100,000 students in 20 states.

Requests for comment from Mayor Mike Duggan’s office and the Central Michigan University charter schools office weren’t immediately returned Tuesday.

KIPP’s application for a charter, which was approved last fall by Central Michigan University, listed its Detroit address as 11457 Shoemaker Street. The network said at the time that it planned to begin operating at that address this fall with 110 kindergartners. Within a decade the network hopes to enroll 1,300 students K-12.

Detroit kids 12-15 can get the Pfizer vaccine beginning Thursday

2021-05-12T22:46:26+00:00

Detroit children over the age of 12 can start getting vaccinated at city locations beginning Thursday, but they need to have a parent or guardian with them to get the shot.

“Parents are going to have to be engaged,” Mayor Mike Duggan said. “We don’t vaccinate children unless their parents are with them.”

The city is expanding the vaccination age requirements a day after Wednesday’s decision by the federal Centers for Disease Control to approve the Pfizer vaccine for adolescents 12-15 years old. Previously, the vaccines were available only to those 16 years of age or older.

Duggan said there are new rules because children are involved:

Anyone 12-17 years old must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
The parent or guardian must show identification.
The parent or guardian must sign a written consent form.
An adult accompanying anyone under the age of 18 will not be eligible for the city’s “Good Neighbor” program reimbursement, a city initiative that provides a $50 gift card for any city resident who brings a friend or neighbor in for vaccination.

“I don’t want that ever to be a question that somebody took their child in to get vaccinated because they wanted $50,” Duggan said.

Asked whether he would be working with schools to get students vaccinated, Duggan said he will leave that effort to Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.

“My job is to make the vaccine available. I think you’ll see the school district take the proper role,” Duggan said.

The district is already working with its health care partners to provide vaccination clinics for children. On Tuesday, a group of high school students launched Teens for Vaccines, a campaign to encourage their peers to be inoculated.

The students said they embarked on the effort because they want their peers to know why it’s important to get vaccinated.

“I just felt like it was my part to make sure I can at least do something to protect my family,” Demitri Marino, a senior at Renaissance High School, said.

Here’s why a 3-2 Detroit school board vote to suspend in-person learning until the end of the school year failed

2021-04-14T03:30:58+00:00

The Detroit board of education voted 3-2 Tuesday night to suspend all in-person learning in the district until the end of the school year, after several community members urged “just one member” to put the matter to a vote.

But seconds after the vote was taken, the three who voted yes were told the vote failed.

At issue: Jenice Mitchell Ford, the district’s attorney, said the board’s bylaws require a majority of the elected board members to approve a motion for it to be valid. Two board members — Misha Stallworth West and Corletta Vaughn — were absent from the meeting.

“You have to have four to approve any action item on tonight’s agenda,” Board President Angelique Peterson-Mayberry said.

The vote came nearly four hours into the regular board meeting, after a public comment period. Several of the nearly 20 people who spoke urged the district to shut down in-person learning because of Detroit’s high COVID-19 rates. The district has paused in-person learning for three weeks after spring break, with students expected to return to buildings April 26. During the pause, students have been learning virtually.

Benjamin Royal, a district teacher who has been leading protests against in-person learning since last summer, said there is “an urgent necessity of closing the schools now and keeping them closed at least through the remainder of the year.”

Royal said schools “cannot be safely reopened until all students are vaccinated and COVID testing confirms the coronavirus is no longer spreading in our community. This is a decision this board can make tonight. It only takes one board member to make a motion to put it to a vote.”

The board member who made the motion was Georgia Lemmons. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo and Deborah Hunter Harvill supported her. Voting against the motion were Peterson-Mayberry and Sonya Mays. The vote to suspend doesn’t affect students who have been going to school buildings to attend the district’s learning centers. In those centers, students can learn virtually, but under the supervision of school staff.

At the time of the vote, about 200 people were still tuning into the virtual meeting, a board member commented.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said he is concerned that the board action would further disenfranchise district parents who want in-school learning for their children. Earlier in the meeting, he had provided the board with information showing most surrounding school districts in Wayne County offer in-person learning. The Detroit district has about 19,000 families who responded to a survey saying they want their children in school buildings, but the district can’t accommodate them because there aren’t enough teachers willing to be in person.

Suspending in-person learning for the rest of the school year is “going to be shocking for families to hear that. I do believe we risk losing students,” Vitti said.

Mays had said before the vote that she didn’t think it was proper for the board to make such a big decision with two members absent.

“I just would hope that for a decision as weighty and important as this, we can find time and space to ensure all board members are included in the conversation,” Mays said.

But Gay-Dagnogo said the board needs to make a decision now so families have time to plan.

“How do we adequately plan if we keep vacillating back and forth. We need a consistent plan,” Gay-Dagnogo said. “It’s time for us to … make sure people are safe.”

Immediately after the vote, and before the board secretary could finish saying that the motion passed, Mays and Peterson-Mayberry interrupted, saying that the motion didn’t pass. Peterson-Mayberry then asked Mitchell Ford to explain.

Ford read from the board’s bylaw, which was adopted in 2018 and revised in 2019.

It reads: “No act shall be valid unless approved at a meeting of the Board by a majority vote of the members who are: (i) elected or appointed to and serving on the Board; and (ii) authorized to vote. Also, a proper record must be made of the vote.”

The insistence that four votes were needed affected a number of votes the board took after the controversy, with multiple 3-2 votes.

And later, Gay-Dagnogo found another version of the board’s bylaw on the district’s website that said a vote is valid if a majority of the board members present approve it. That prompted her to say that “until we get clarity … the vote we took stands.”

That version of the bylaw isn’t dated, though it is what shows up during a simple web search for district bylaws. But it is not on the portion of the district’s website that hosts updated board policies. Gay-Dagnogo said having an outdated version of the policy on the website created confusion and “that is exactly why the public lacks trust in the district.”

Vitti said district officials would get to the bottom of why the old version of the board policies is still on the website and have them removed.

Prior to the vote, Vitti urged the board to reconsider and have a broader discussion at its May meeting. He said he was committed to not reopen school buildings until then.

“I understand this is the board’s purview to make this decision. The action, if taken by the board tonight, is unprecedented,” Vitti said. He said that in his four years as superintendent, the board has “never taken an action like this without working through it in committee or a special meeting.”

Detroit district pausing in-person instruction for one week after spring break to prevent COVID spread

2021-03-30T23:08:27+00:00

The Detroit school district has decided it will pause in-person instruction next week to prevent the spread of COVID-19 after spring break.

“This is to allow employees and students a week of social isolation after spring break to limit the spread,” a note on the district’s web site said Tuesday.

The decision in the Detroit Public Schools Community District comes as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Michigan and as school district leaders weigh whether they can continue holding face-to-face classes. Many Michigan schools began reopening in recent weeks under pressure from state officials. Bridge Michigan reported Tuesday that there were 241 confirmed cases of COVID outbreaks in state K-12 schools as of March 25. That was up from 201 the previous week. An outbreak occurs when there are two or more related positive cases in a school.

The district is on spring break this week. The move to keep students home next week will affect students who were taking classes in a classroom with a teacher as well as students attending learning centers located in each school building. The centers give students an opportunity to take all of their classes online, but in a room supervised by a staff member.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told reporters last week that the district was considering the pause.

“We know extended families will be visited. We know churches will be open,” Vitti said at the time. “We are concerned about the infection rate.”

In the note on the web site, district officials said they don’t anticipate another district shutdown.

They said the introduction of vaccinations, mitigation and safety measures, and the ability to identify isolated cases and quarantine students and staff “mean that we should expect that schools remain open, even if the infection rate in the community is more elevated than previous months.”

The district said it would continue to consult with public health experts and make adjustments if necessary.

Earlier in the day Tuesday, the city of Detroit cited rising COVID-19 cases in issuing an order barring in-person government meetings. The order noted that the positivity rate in the city was 7% the week of March 14 to March 20. That’s up from 3.2% the week of Feb. 7 to Feb. 13.

During the week of April 5, those who had spent time learning in buildings will learn online. They will return to buildings April 12.

Employees will be required to receive a negative COVID-19 test before returning to buildings. The district also plans to launch random COVID-19 saliva testing for students the week of April 12.

About 9,000 students have returned to attend the learning centers and in-person instruction since the district reopened buildings in February and March. Only about 1,000 students are receiving full-time, in-person instruction. The rest are either attending the learning centers full time or receiving a mix of in-person instruction and online classes.

The district enrolls 49,000 students.

As Detroit classrooms reopen, district hopes safety measures will put teachers at ease

2021-03-08T22:43:08+00:00

Sultana Gambrell had only been back in her classroom at Ronald Brown Academy for a couple of hours, but she was already on a roll with a lesson about the water cycle.

“High five!” she called out to a student who’d just given a correct answer. She started to move toward him, then thought twice.

“Well, we can’t touch, but high five!” she said, miming the gesture to her student, who returned it.

It wasn’t quite business as usual in the Detroit Public Schools Community District on Monday as teachers returned to classrooms in Detroit for the first time in months. Staff kept a close eye on students to make sure they stayed six feet apart and wore their masks over their noses. And many students still took some lessons online because not enough teachers agreed to return to their classrooms to meet demand from families.

Even without full attendance, Monday marked another step toward a pre-pandemic normal. An estimated 20,000 students were expected to report to school, or about 40% of the total. That’s about twice as many as last fall, when the district reopened classrooms until rising COVID-19 cases forced a suspension in mid-November.

At the same time, the district expected 20% of teachers to report to their classrooms, ensuring that some students who wanted in-person instruction wouldn’t get it. Nikolai Vitti, district superintendent, said he wouldn’t know how many teachers and students showed up on Monday until later in the week.

“I was ecstatic,” said Sonya Haynes, an English teacher at Brenda Scott Academy, of the return to work. She hasn’t been vaccinated yet, but she said she strongly prefers teaching in-person to teaching virtually. “I was like a little kid last night getting ready for school. Clothes ironed, lunch made.”

Vitti visited schools on Monday morning with Terrence Martin, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, the district’s largest educators union.

Both said they expect more educators to come back to work in person in coming weeks. Earlier in the pandemic, the district and union agreed that teachers would be able to choose whether to work in person or virtually. Other staff, including assistant principals, deans, and paraprofessionals, were required to report to work on Feb. 24.

“My biggest concern is that we’re not completely matching student demand with teacher willingness to come into the classroom,” Vitti said. “But I’m optimistic that over the next weeks or months, that when these teachers talk to other teachers about the safety standards that we have in place, more will come back.”

Guidelines from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention say schools can be opened safely even if teachers aren’t vaccinated. However, many teachers are leery of returning to work before receiving the shot.

Health officials in Detroit estimate Detroit health officials estimate that they have vaccinated about 9,000 teachers — including charter school teachers — but federal law prohibits the city from telling the district which teachers have been vaccinated without the teachers’ consent. The district sent a voluntary survey to its roughly 3,800 teachers asking whether they have received vaccines, but so far has received only a few hundred responses.

Vitti said Detroit teachers are particularly concerned about the dangers of the virus because many lost family members in the spring, when the city was hit especially hard.

Despite the agreement between the district and teachers union, some teachers are concerned that they will be forced to work once they are vaccinated, Vitti said. Vitti has said that the district will not require teachers and families to get the vaccine.

Martin, the union president, said the district “has done everything that it can do to ensure safety.”

“I’m seeing mitigation strategies implemented,” he added. “I’m seeing small class sizes, students six feet apart in classrooms. It’s going to take some time for folks to get more comfortable. But I’m pretty confident that we’re going to start to see those numbers increase over the next few weeks.”

When a student comes to school and their teacher doesn’t, the teacher will still give lessons online. For older students, that might mean taking a virtual lesson from their teacher while sitting in a classroom supervised by another adult. The next hour, they might have a face-to-face class with a teacher who opted to return.

For younger students, who often only have one teacher, this can mean spending the day in one of the district’s learning centers. Each school has a center where students can learn virtually at school.

There were more than a dozen students in the learning center at Brenda Scott Academy on Monday. Most had laptops on their tables, while a few read books. Several students weren’t using headphones, and all their teachers’ voices were audible at once.

At Ronald Brown Academy, Michael Foster, a fourth grade math teacher, was teaching students virtually and in person at the same time.

As he walked his students through a lesson on fractions, a voice came from a speaker at the front of the classroom: “I can’t see your screen at all.”

There were a dozen students in Foster’s classroom, and several more had been following the lesson at home. At least one of the virtual students was struggling to stay connected.

Foster tried to keep talking about fractions and fix the problem at the same time.

“How many parts are inside two-fifths?” he asked.

“I can barely hear you,” the student interjected. “I still can’t see the screen.”

More than a dozen students from various grade levels at work in a “learning center” at Brenda Scott Academy in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Students are assigned to the centers if their teachers decline to work in person. Each student does classwork independently or listens to their teacher through a virtual platform.

Want to fix the chronic absenteeism problem in Detroit schools? Start with transportation.

2021-02-19T23:10:15+00:00

Transportation struggles aren’t the only reason chronic absenteeism is so pervasive in Detroit schools, but it is the most common reason so many students aren’t showing up for class on a regular basis, Wayne State University researchers say in a new report.

About 50% of students in district and charter schools in Detroit are considered chronically absent, meaning they miss about 10% or more of the school year.

The Wayne State researchers, who are part of the Detroit Education Research Partnership, warn that the pandemic has exacerbated the problem, and that seems to be validated by increased chronic absenteeism so far in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. The researchers predict chronic absenteeism will get worse in the fall unless school and community leaders come up with new solutions for school transportation.

As part of the study, the researchers conducted in-depth interviews with Detroit parents, high school students, and school staff during the 2019-20 school year. They also analyzed attendance trends in the city.

Here, we highlight several key findings from the research. You can read the full report here. And check out the sidebar below to see some of the recommendations.

Solutions to addressing chronic absenteeism in Detroit

A report from Wayne State University on chronic absenteeism in Detroit offers a number of immediate, medium-term, and long-term recommendations for school and community leaders. You can read the full report here. Below are the key suggestions.

Detroit school and civic leaders must develop system-wide solutions for school transportation to ensure students can access public schools. Those solutions include immediately advocating for more resources to maintain health and safety protocols on school and public transportation, developing creative solutions for back-up transportation, and aligning school transportation with other efforts to strengthen neighborhood vitality in Detroit.
Detroit school leaders should provide clear guidance to families about health and school attendance, advocate for resources to ensure that schools are safe when students and staff return to in-person learning, and proactively establish contingency plans for when in-person learning is not safe.
School and community attendance initiatives should prioritize support more than accountability. Partnerships should be developed and strengthened to remove barriers to attendance and strengthen the conditions for student attendance at every level of Detroit’s educational ecosystem.

The Wayne State researchers also released a report Thursday on the tie between chronic absenteeism and third grade reading achievement. You can read it here.

Transportation is a major barrier

Transportation “was the most frequently requested resource when we asked parents what would help them with their child’s attendance,” the report says. But the issues aren’t just about access to transportation.

Some parents don’t own a car and some who did said their car was unreliable, or broke down frequently and needed repairs they can’t afford. Some said taking city buses was unreliable or unsafe. And some expressed frustration that they don’t have access to school transportation. Walking to school, the parents said, isn’t always a safe option because of crime, inclement weather, or because their children are too young.

Meanwhile, some parents pointed to a “lack of social support that often left them with limited transportation options when their routines were disrupted and they had to find backup transportation to get their children to or from school.”

“I don’t have a lot of people, or pretty much nobody to rely on to be able to take her to school if I’m not able,” one parent told the researchers.

The report says that the pandemic is likely to mean more families will have fewer resources to get their kids to school, and they won’t be able to rely on an already limited social and family network to help because of social distancing protocols.

Health concerns are also a barrier

Illnesses — because of conditions such as diabetes, severe asthma, or allergies — added “a substantial number of days on top of other reasons that students were absent.” The researchers said these issues are compounded by problems with access to health care.

Mental health, too, affects student attendance, the researchers said.

The pandemic will only exacerbate these issues, they said, because families “are more likely to keep their children home if they appear sick or if they are concerned about sickness.”

Parents want their kids in school

The researchers found that parents are keenly aware of the importance of having their kids in school because they want “to instill in their children a view that school was important and that they should not make excuses to stay home.”

Some, in fact, reported they go to great lengths to try to get their kids to school — including turning to any relative they can find to help and adjusting their work schedules.

Despite that, many said they often find themselves making trade-offs, prioritizing their children’s safety and health and their family income.

“The fact that decisions about well-being often required a trade-off with attending school reflect the unjust conditions they face — conditions that may demand even more trade-offs in light of the public health and economic impacts of COVID-19,” the report says.

Detroit district will remove Fs, limit graded assignments in push to help overwhelmed online students

2021-02-03T02:18:31+00:00

Students would be able to retake exams up to two times, the letter grades D and F would become a G or a No Credit, and homework largely would be limited to reading assignments or studying.

These are the changes that will usher in a dramatically new way of grading in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, and address mounting complaints that many students learning online are overwhelmed and disengaged. The changes take effect for the current semester.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti detailed the changes, recommended by an online learning task force that includes 200 people, during a school board meeting Tuesday night. The group’s goal was to devise recommendations to improve online learning, as well as student motivation and engagement. Vitti said the task force will continue to meet and present more ideas.

“If we don’t do something, our attendance rates will continue to decline and our failure rates will continue to increase,” Vitti said.

Educators across Michigan and the nation have drawn attention to rising rates of failure and many schools have made similar adjustments to help students be successful.

In the Detroit district, about 20% of elementary and middle school students and up to 35% of high school students failed at least one class in the first quarter. Those rates are about twice that of the previous school year, according to district estimates.

Meanwhile, average daily attendance is 72.5% in the district, compared to the average of nearly 85% during the last school year, before the pandemic forced the closure of school buildings and the transition to remote learning.

Here are the changes, presented at the board meeting:

Students may retake quizzes and tests up to two times to demonstrate their understanding of the content.
The grade letter D would become a G. Students would get credit for the class, but it would not impact their grade point averages. The change would be retroactive to first semester grades.
The grade letter F would become NC, for no credit. The NC would not affect grade point averages.
The changes to D and F grades would apply to students in grades 3-12. Students in lower grades do not currently receive letter grades.
Students who attend and participate in class 80% of the time cannot receive a grade lower than a G.
The number of graded assignments issued by teachers in a week would be limited to one per subject in grades K-2 and two per subject in grades 3-12. There will be no limit on quizzes and tests. Teachers would be required to give students a breakdown of assignments and tests planned for the week each Monday.
Homework will be limited to reading assignments or studying, as well as the limited number of graded assignments teachers could assign for homework.
Students can submit late assignments and resubmit assignments to receive a better grade within a 10-day window.

Vitti said the recommendations “are not about lowering standards.” Instead, he said, “this is about creating a process so our students can feel like they can be successful, and to engage in a way where they can think about what they’re learning and not be so overwhelmed that they’re giving up. We’re hearing from too many students and too many families that students are literally giving up.”

Board member Misha Stallworth West said she appreciated the recommendations. She asked Vitti whether the changes to D and F grades would affect college applications.

“Do we know how that will work for transcripts for college?” she asked.

Vitti noted that the grade point average, one of the data points colleges look at when evaluating applications, won’t be affected by the change. He said another district has already been using G’s instead of Ds, and it “has not raised red flags.”

Marnina Falk, a teacher in the district who spoke during the public comment period of the meeting, said “all this flexibility you’re adding ... is great,” but she said she’s concerned it will put more work on teachers.

“Simply adjusting our grading system is not enough,” Falk said. “My students and I are exhausted,” she said.

KIPP will open a school in Detroit. Can the charter network succeed where others faltered?

2021-01-13T21:10:49+00:00

KIPP, the largest nonprofit charter school network in the U.S., plans to open a school in Detroit. If the school can replicate KIPP’s national track record of academic success, it would immediately be one of the highest-performing in the city.

For years, some education advocates in Detroit have tried to attract KIPP and other organizations like it, but the city’s fiercely competitive, open-market model of schooling and Michigan’s school funding model got in the way.

Now, with the help of an anonymous $20 million donation toward a new KIPP campus on the city’s east side, those advocates hope that the 25-year-old network will give more Detroit students a shot at attending a high-performing school.

“It’s terrific news,” said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, an education think tank that has funded charter schools in Detroit. “KIPP is one of the better national operators. People have been trying to get them here for 20 years.”

Whether KIPP can do more for Detroit children than other schools have done remains to be seen. Its new school, KIPP Detroit: Imani Academy, will open in fall of 2021 or 2022 as a 110-student kindergarten program, with plans to expand to a 1,300-student K-12 school at a rate of one or two grades per year.

That means it will likely be four years before KIPP students take standardized exams, which could measure comparable achievement, in Michigan.

Still, KIPP will stand out immediately in Detroit.

The city is home to dozens of mostly small, locally run charter schools that consistently perform below state averages by virtually every academic measure.

KIPP enrolls more than 100,000 students in 20 states, and has a track record of producing strong academic outcomes in low-income communities of color (almost all of its students nationally are low-income and Black or Latino). The organization is continuing to expand with the help of tens of millions of dollars in federal charter school grants.

Detroit is known for fierce competition between schools for students and funding. KIPP is known for sharing its practices with neighboring school districts.

What’s more, KIPP will have a substantial funding advantage: a $20 million campus plus millions of dollars from the national KIPP organization and federal charter school grants. Many schools in economically depressed areas like Detroit struggle to maintain school buildings, and charter schools don’t receive any dedicated funding for facilities.

Candace Rogers, the superintendent of the new school, said KIPP hopes to continue its practice of collaborating with other education groups. Rogers was previously principal of Detroit Enterprise Academy, a Detroit charter, and has worked with KIPP’s national organization for roughly a decade.

“We look forward to long, productive partnerships in Detroit,” she said in an email, adding that KIPP would also continue its practice of supporting its students until they complete their higher education. KIPP counsels students and their families about applying to college, partners with colleges that provide resources for first-generation college students, and follows up with students throughout college.

“We make a two-decade commitment to our students’ educational journey: beginning in kindergarten and continuing for a decade after eighth grade (to and through college),” Rogers said.

New charter schools in Detroit often encounter skepticism from local school and community leaders who point out that the city already has too many schools, and that adding more fosters competition for funding that hurts students.

“I do not believe the city needs another charter school,” Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, said in a statement. “Instead, energy, resources, and time should be spent on the schools (public and charter) we already have. In addition, there are plenty of ‘model schools’ in our district (and even a few charters) that are examples of higher performance. No one needs KIPP to demonstrate what our students can do with the right leadership, teachers, and systems and processes. We know what this looks like.”

Skepticism will not surprise KIPP officials, especially as leaders of the national Democratic Party take a more critical stance toward charters. School boards in other states have rebuffed new KIPP schools in recent years.

Jack Elsey, executive director of the Detroit Children’s Fund, a nonprofit that recruited KIPP to Detroit, agreed that there is an oversupply of classroom seats in Detroit. “But the more important question is, ‘how many quality schools do we have?’” he asked.

“And the answer to that is: not nearly enough. In fact, the vast majority of schools in Detroit do not perform well. We can discuss all the reasons for why that is the case, but when you have a chance to bring in an organization with a proven track record of academic success like KIPP, you seize it.”

Unlike in many other major U.S. cities, the local school board in Detroit does not have a say in which charter schools open where. KIPP’s charter was approved in December by Central Michigan University, a public university two hours away from Detroit that is one of numerous charter school authorizers empowered to open charter schools in the city.

KIPP has faced criticism as one of the charter organizations that built strong academic results in part through strict “no excuses” discipline policies, which some critics view as implicitly racist. Vitti said he believes “Detroiters will raise questions” about KIPPs “history with student discipline and their approach.”

KIPP and some other charter networks have since relaxed their approach somewhat. “We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but one of the great things about KIPP is we are a learning organization working hard to evolve,” Rogers said.

The national KIPP organization will shape most aspects of the school, including curriculum, teacher training, and discipline policies.

Still, an appointed school board will make key decisions about direction. Elsey said the school and school board would have “local, Detroit leadership.”

Some key details about the project — including where the school will be housed — remain fuzzy. KIPP’s application for a charter specifies an initial temporary address of 11457 Shoemaker Street, a warehouse complex on the city’s far east side that currently houses an early learning program. Backers say they haven’t yet settled on the site, or on the future site of the new K-12 campus.

In addition to standard public school funding from the state, the new school will also receive $2 million from the national KIPP organization, $3 million in federal charter school start-up grants, and $1 million from private fundraising, according to the application.

Charters with substantial philanthropic backing are not a new phenomenon in Detroit. One of the city’s largest charter networks, University Prep Schools, draws heavily from a Michigan philanthropy. The network typically performs better than the city average, but its test scores do not approach state averages.

Detroit education advocates who have been trying for years to attract national education organizations to the city welcomed KIPP’s announcement.

“KIPP has demonstrated their ability to deliver quality education opportunities for students for years,” Elsey said. “Their arrival to Detroit means that now, more children in our city will have an opportunity to receive an excellent education.”

Some speculate that national organizations stayed away from Detroit for many of the same reasons that schools here already struggle: anemic state funding, an oversupply of schools, and a wide-open school market with few quality controls.

“There was so much movement between schools and hyper competition, it actually undermined the idea of quality, because people were going to the highest bidder,” said Robin Lake, director of the Center for Reinventing Public Education, an education think tank, who has conducted research in Detroit. “And sometimes literally: ‘Who can offer me a laptop?’ School quality just wasn’t part of the discussion.”

Lake said KIPP’s arrival could galvanize the city’s schools.

“KIPP can show what’s possible,” she said. “They don’t work miracles. They don’t overcome decades of poverty in one swipe. But they can create powerful outcomes. It’s a proof point.”

It won’t be easy. Detroit public schools struggle from longstanding structural problems such as the relentless churn of teachers and students among schools.

“Teacher turnover rates [at KIPP] have been historically very high,” said Chris Torres, a professor at Michigan State University who worked as a consultant for KIPP and has become a critic of some of the network’s practices.

“They tend to recruit less experienced teachers who are willing to abide by the KIPP model, which given Michigan’s context could be something to pay attention to. There’s already a very low supply of teachers, especially younger, newer teachers.”

Six education issues we’re closely watching in Michigan in 2021

2021-01-04T22:15:12+00:00

The year 2020 may be over, but the challenges it brought to schools across the state because of the pandemic will persist — for months and possibly longer.

This new year brings plenty of questions about how Michigan’s public schools will continue to adapt to new ways of learning, as well as the pandemic’s long-term effects.

It’s been nearly 10 months since the first cases of COVID-19 hit, forcing schools to shift to online learning. The first half of this school year has been marked by debates about the safety of reopening schools, concerns about student achievement and student mental health, and the disappearance of thousands of students.

Here are six issues Chalkbeat Detroit will be watching during 2021:

A return to in-person learning?

A number of schools across the state halted face-to-face classes during the fall because growing numbers of COVID-19 cases were raising safety concerns. Many districts planned to reopen schools for in-person learning in January. But will that happen? And for how long? Much depends on what happens as a result of holiday gatherings. Schools in areas of the state that see spikes likely will have a difficult time transitioning from virtual instruction. And then there’s the question of what effects frequent transitions will have on students and teachers.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District, which halted its in-person classes in mid-November with plans to resume Jan. 11, told Chalkbeat Monday positive COVID-19 cases are still too high and they are now looking at a February return.

The vaccine effect

As Michigan continues to roll out COVID-19 vaccines, some are optimistic life will begin to return to normal. That’s especially the case given that teachers and other school employees will be among the first to receive the vaccine, after frontline essential workers such as hospital and emergency services staff.

But there are a lot of questions, such as whether large numbers of school staff will get vaccinated and whether they’ll feel safe returning to school after being vaccinated.

Some educators have argued that it won’t be safe to return to school until vaccines are widely given to students and staff. There is not yet a COVID-19 vaccine available for children under the age of 16. Also, some residents do not plan to get the vaccine. In Detroit, more than 60% of those surveyed recently said they were not likely to get it.

Improving online learning

We keep hearing that virtual learning is here to stay, even if it’s just for a small number of students. But will it improve? Students have complained about too much screen time, too many classes, too much isolation, and growing mental health challenges. In the Detroit district, a task force is being created to suggest changes.

Meanwhile, there are serious questions about whether schools will do a better job of serving the needs of students with special education needs, some of whom aren’t receiving the services they need to succeed.

Will students return?

Public school enrollment was down by 53,000 students this fall, according to unaudited figures Chalkbeat obtained last month. That’s far above the student count declines Michigan has been experiencing for well over a decade, and it’s particularly concerning because included in that overall number are 13,000 students who are unaccounted for.

Some of those students may be learning at home. Others may have moved to private schools. But some of those students likely aren’t being educated at all, which could have academic implications if and when they return to class.

If the enrollment declines continue into the next school year, they could affect how much money schools receive from the state.

A focus on literacy

Last year, Michigan officials put off requiring some third graders who are far behind in reading to repeat the grade. It’s unclear whether the law will be delayed another year. If it moves forward, the number of students who could be held back would likely increase because of the pandemic.

Also unknown is the fate of bipartisan legislation that would help students with dyslexia. The proposals would ensure students who show signs of dyslexia be identified in the early grades, and give educators more training to identify and work with dyslexic students.

Testing and accountability

Michigan’s standardized testing usually begins in the spring. Last year, the U.S. Department of Education allowed states to skip federal requirements for annual testing. Michigan is among the states that have asked for a waiver for the current school year.

Even if the state exams are cancelled this year, schools still must abide by Michigan requirements that they test students in the fall and spring to monitor student progress.

Tonya Allen, one of Detroit’s fiercest advocates for Detroit children, is leaving the Skillman Foundation

2020-12-14T17:38:50+00:00

Tonya Allen, who has helmed one of the most prominent nonprofits working to improve K-12 education in Detroit, is stepping down to take a new job in Minneapolis.

Allen will officially leave as the president and CEO of the Skillman Foundation (a Chalkbeat funder) in 2021. Allen, who has held that role at Skillman since 2014, will lead the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis.

“The Skillman Foundation and Detroit are my heart,” Allen said in a statement. “Thinking about the impact our team has been able to make for children in Detroit fills me with pride. I never saw myself leaving, but when you are called you must act.”

The McKnight Foundation, one of the largest foundations in Minnesota, has recently evolved toward a “new mission to advance a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive.” In a statement, the foundation cited the global pandemic, a national racial reckoning, and the climate crisis in saying Allen is “the right person to take the helm during this historic time.”

“I’m committed to advancing racial equity, and to do so from the site where our country lost George Floyd, Philando Castile, and so many others is something I could not turn away from,” Allen said in her statement, referring to two Black men who were killed by police officers.

Maria Woodruff-Wright, Skillman’s vice president of operations and its chief financial officer, will become interim CEO as a search for a new leader takes place.

“We’ll have an aggressive search for candidates who represent the foundation’s relentless commitment to children, to Detroit, and to equity. We also acknowledge that Detroit is talent-rich; we’ve had great success at finding local leaders,” said Suzanne Shank, a board member and chair of the foundation’s search committee.

Allen said she is confident Skillman “is well-equipped to continue its mission as a fierce champion for Detroit kids, after all they have done this over six decades.”

Here are some of the initiatives Allen has been a key part of leading, according to Skillman officials:

Serving as one of the co-chairs of the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren, which advocated for the legislative initiative that created the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the return of an elected school board to the district, and more charter school accountability.
The Good Neighborhoods Initiative, a $120 million commitment to improve conditions for children in six targeted neighborhoods.
Creating and expanding Grow Detroit’s Young Talent, which increased summer jobs for youth from 2,500 to 8,200 paid positions.
The Detroit Children’s Fund, a nonprofit that has assembled leading civic leaders to invest in schools and educators to ensure more Detroit children can receive a quality education
Launch Michigan, a statewide partnership of business, education, labor, philanthropy, and civic leaders advocating for a high-quality K-12 education system.
Serving as chair for Campaign for Black Male Achievement, and co-chair of Executives’ Alliance for Boys and Men of Color and My Brother’s Keeper Detroit.

The Skillman Foundation is celebrating its 60th anniversary this month. It has granted nearly $670 million since its inception in 1960 and has assets of approximately $500 million.

“Tonya Allen stands tall among a long line of powerful leaders who have been at the helm of The Skillman Foundation,” Shank said. “It has been an honor to support her and the critical work of the foundation. Both will go on to continue to make meaningful impact.”

Mary Kramer, the incoming chair of the foundation’s board, said Allen’s exit “is a big loss for us and for Detroit.”

“Tonya has been a force at The Skillman Foundation and in Detroit,” Kramer said. “She has held a laser focus on children and Detroit as CEO for the last seven years, including taking on leadership roles in the city and the state.”

Fewer children in Detroit and the rest of the state are eating school meals

2020-11-23T23:21:44+00:00

The number of students eating meals in the Detroit school district is way down this year, a pandemic-related problem that has officials wondering whether children who need meals aren’t getting them, or if their parents have found other sources of food.

In a typical school year, the district distributes 69,500 meals a day. With three quarters of the district’s students learning online since the beginning of the school year, that number has been reduced to about 16,000 meals a day since September, despite the district’s efforts to provide meals that can be picked up by students learning online.

Now that face-to-face instruction has been suspended until January, and all students will be learning online, the daily count is expected to drop to 4,000, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during a finance committee meeting Friday morning.

Here’s where Detroit online learners can get meals during the fall

The declines raise concerns about the well-being of children, especially if their parents are not finding meals elsewhere. Nearly 90% of the students in the Detroit district are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, and many have relied on school to receive meals. Research shows that students who receive subsidized meals from school are less likely to struggle with hunger issues, obesity, and poor health.

It’s an issue being felt across the state and nation, particularly in districts with large numbers of students learning online, said Diane Golzynski, director of the office of health and nutrition services at the Michigan Department of Education.

The state education department has a comprehensive interactive map that helps connect parents to school locations where they can pick up meals, she said.

“But it appears that there are still struggles with getting the food. I don’t have hard data on why but my best guess is transportation, timing, and communication are the largest challenges,” Golzynski said.

Where to find free food:

Families have a number of options if they’re in need of meals during the pandemic. Here are just a few resources:

The Michigan Department of Education’s statewide map will connect families with the closest school meal distribution site.
The Detroit school district provides grab-and-go meals at every school on Mondays and Thursdays (see map above). During the week of Thanksgiving, the Thursday distribution date has been changed to Tuesday.
Gleaner’s Community Food Bank has mobile food sites throughout the region. Check out the list of upcoming dates and locations.
Call United Way’s 2-1-1 hotline, which will connect people to the closest place to access food.

We know there are even more resources out there for families. The United Way of Southeastern Michigan is trying to get a handle on where metro Detroit families are turning for help with food. If you’re a small agency or part of a grass-roots organization, reach out to Bryan.VanDorn@liveunitedsem.org.

You can also share that information with Chalkbeat and reach out at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Vitti, during Friday’s committee meeting, said he believes the numbers are down largely because parents have found other sources of food.

“My sense is that families will continue to rely on other sources,” Vitti said. That may change, though, as COVID-19 cases rise and if the state moves toward a lockdown, he said.

The decline in meals served has community agencies like the United Way of Southeastern Michigan (a Chalkbeat funder) seeking ways to understand the challenges facing families and to get a handle on where families are getting food.

The agency is “engaging both funders and research institutions to study the current state of food security in Detroit as well as the impact that COVID-19 has had on individual family’s access to food resources,” said Bryan VanDorn, manager of health and basic needs for the agency

The drop in school meals also is sparking discussions in the Detroit district about how to keep the 550 staff members in the food and nutrition department employed.

During the Friday committee meeting, Vitti recommended using COVID-19 relief funds or dipping into the district’s $106 million general fund balance, which is set aside for dealing with catastrophes and addressing pressing building repairs. Using one of those two sources would allow the district to cover the $7 million that would be needed to maintain current staff levels.

Another option, Vitti said, would be to proceed with layoffs, but he said “I don’t think our district wants to go through layoffs.” Some employees, though, might be willing to accept a voluntary layoff, he said.

The board will decide what to do at an upcoming meeting.

“This is a really terrible and unfortunate situation, probably one of the most difficult we have faced … in the last few years,” said board member Sonya Mays, the committee chair.

Maintaining food service staff is something other districts are grappling with, Golzynski said. And the issues go beyond serving enough meals to keep everyone employed to also include keeping staff healthy so they can work and finding staff willing to work during a pandemic.

Unlike some other district jobs that can be done remotely, food service workers must work in person, Vitti said.

Every school in the district has served as a grab-and-go site where parents can pick up meals two days a week. On Mondays, they receive three breakfasts and three lunches. On Thursdays, they receive four breakfasts and four lunches, enough to carry them through the weekend. The goal has been to keep as many locations open as possible so parents have easy access to meals, said Machion Jackson, assistant superintendent of operations.

The district also has made meals available to parents and students regardless of whether they’re enrolled in a district school, Jackson said.

“There’s no governance structure when it comes to feeding children,” she said.

After years of state oversight, commission gives financial control back to Detroit district

2020-10-26T17:55:55+00:00

For the first time since 2009, the Detroit school district can operate without financial oversight from the state.

The Detroit Financial Review Commission voted Monday to release the Detroit Public Schools Community District from state financial oversight until the end of 2021, a crucial step in the district’s efforts to control its budget and finances. With the exception of several years, the city district has been under some form of state control since 1999.

“This is a monumental day for all Michiganders,” said Rachel Eubanks, state treasurer and chair of the commission. The district is “on the continued path of good finances, improved academics and services, and paying down of long term debt.”

The commission has had to approve the district’s budget, major contracts, out-of-state travel, and union contracts since 2016. Before that, state-appointed emergency managers controlled the district from 2009 to 2016. The emergency manager law is still on the books, and any future mismanagement of finances could result in another state intervention.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has argued for more than a year that the district met the conditions necessary for a release, including having three consecutive balanced budgets.

“I do appreciate how everyone committed to this process and gave us this chance and opportunity,” Vitti said, thanking the commission members and the school board in their efforts. “None of us are satisfied with where we’re at. We are going to continue to work hard.”

Vitti said the district’s financial progress wouldn’t have happened without an empowered school board. Adopting balanced budgets did not take away from other reform efforts, including enhanced student courses and teacher pay.

“We turned the budget upside down and aligned it to a very aggressive strategic plan,” he said.

“Now we are moving into enhancing and scaling the reform we’ve started.”

Commission member David Nicholson, who’s also a top executive for a chemical manufacturing company, said the district’s work displayed “a much deeper day-to-day knowledge of what’s going on behind the numbers we see.”

Monday’s action is a vote of confidence in the district’s ability to manage finances. The oversight began as part of a legislative solution to save Detroit Public Schools from financial collapse. That $615 million legislative deal created a new district — Detroit Public Schools Community District — to educate students. DPS remains to collect tax revenue and pay off millions in legacy debt. In addition to releasing DPSCD from oversight, the commission also released DPS for one year.

Eubanks said the one-year waivers were granted because that is how the statute was written. The commission would consider rescinding the waivers if there are issues with the deficit or other budgetary or account requirements.

Jeremy Vidito, the district’s chief financial officer, said the district had complied with many of the commission’s requirements, including adopting a balanced budget and satisfying recurring debt obligations. Despite a projected decline in enrollment this fiscal year, the district won’t lose money because the current budget anticipated a 10% cut in state funds. Vidito said DPS was “on track to fully repay its debts.” DPS is projected to repay its operating debt by 2027, and its capital debt by 2050.

“This is an incredible milestone for DPSCD,” said board president Iris Taylor, who is a commission member and running for re-election to the board.

Detroit Superintendent Vitti wants more face-to-face learning to encourage 3,000 missing students to attend class

2020-10-14T02:28:45+00:00

Enrollment in the Detroit school district is down by 3,000 students compared with this time last year, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during a school board meeting Tuesday.

What that number means is unclear because, like last year, the district still has about another month to find these students. When data last year was official at the end of the count period, the district had 51,000 students.

Count Day enrollment numbers must be audited by intermediate school districts, which provide services for schools. The numbers are then sent to the state. The count is more difficult this year because school leaders have to account for students learning in person and online, which is more difficult than last year’s process.

Schools across the state are reporting dips in their preliminary enrollment numbers. Flint Community Schools lost about 500 students compared with last year’s fall count, and Kalamazoo Public Schools lost 248 students.

“I’m very concerned where we stand as a district on student achievement,” Vitti told board members about the large number of missing students. He also was alarmed about students stressed over the academic year, parents struggling to support learning at home, and potential increases in chronic absenteeism.

Losing 3,000 students, even with about a month to boost those numbers, is a significant effect of the pandemic, which has disrupted learning for district students and staff. For weeks, the district has mobilized staff and volunteers to canvass neighborhoods, knocking on the doors of students who haven’t shown up for face-to-face or virtual classes. They’ve been successful in getting 1,000 students in school.

But that still leaves 3,000 students unaccounted for. The loss won’t be a financial hit for the district this year because the state changed the way it is calculating funding for schools. It will, however, hit next year. In Michigan, state funding follows students, so in ordinary years every student lost means a loss of per-pupil funding. The change in state law for this year, because of the pandemic, lessens that blow.

Vitti warned that student absenteeism is climbing this year. A student is chronically absent if they miss 18 or more instructional days in a school year.

In the 2018-2019 academic year, 70% of the students in the Detroit district were chronically absent. The rate improved to 63% in 2019 after the district launched several initiatives, including putting an attendance agent in every school. Chronic absenteeism is also a problem for some of the city’s charter schools.

Although some schools now offer fully remote learning, Vitti urged school administrators to consider offering face-to-face or hybrid instruction during the next grading period to help encourage students to attend classes. A hybrid learning option would have students split time between in-person and remote classes during the week, if enough teachers and staff are willing to work inside school buildings.

“Principals are gonna be at the driver’s seat at this change,” he said.

Board treasurer Sonya Mays asked if the district could improve its efforts to engage students in online learning.

“Is there a way to do online learning better to capture these children?” Mays said. “We’re going to have a lot of kids who won’t be in a face-to-face situation for the next three to six months,” she said, noting that families may still feel it’s unsafe to return to school buildings due to the pandemic.

In the first month of the school year, there have been many complaints from students, parents, and teachers about too much screen time and jam-packed online schedules.

In response to those complaints, Vitti said he is urging school leaders to reduce screen time for students and to offer office hours to support online engagement. Schools may also adjust online schedules based on student and parent demand. The district must approve all schedule changes.

The district is also expanding Parent Academy workshops to help families navigate online learning tools. Yet Vitti stressed that online learning was “not designed for K-2 children.” About 40% of the missing students are in grades K-3.

Parents have been struggling without enough food for their households or a lack of child care, Vitti said, which could also affect the parents’ ability to support learning at home.

“Learning is not the number one priority at this time,” for these struggling parents, he said.

Board member Deborah Hunter-Harvill recommended another board study session to discuss other strategies to support families. A study session was held earlier this year to discuss the district’s reopening plan.

“It all goes back to the fact that our families don’t have everything they need,” she said.

Some Detroit students need more support in college. A new team of charter schools wants to change that.

2020-10-08T16:35:47+00:00

Four charter school management companies in Detroit have entered an unusual collaboration to help their graduates succeed in college.

Detroit students often don’t get the support they need to earn a four-year college degree, especially if their parents didn’t attend college. The companies want to reverse that trend: They promise that within a decade, 90% of their high school graduates will complete a full year of college coursework — much higher than the state average.

People with bachelor’s degrees earn 31 percent more on average than those with an associate’s degree and 84 percent more than those with a high school diploma over their lifetimes. Members of the charter school collaborative chose to focus on improving college outcomes rather than directing their students toward career and technical education.

“You’ve got a group of schools here who are really committed to college or bust,” said Jack Elsey, executive director of the Detroit Children’s Fund. “They recognize that we talk about careers more in places where kids are poor than we talk about college. I think you have a group of schools here who recognize that their kids are fully capable of going to college and doing well. But it’s not going to be easy.”

Strategies may include hiring additional college counselors or staff to follow up with graduates to ensure they’re on track to complete their first year of college.

The group, called the Detroit Charter High School Collaborative, promises to share data and best practices around college attainment, an unusual level of cooperation between private management companies in Detroit. It’s part of a larger effort organized by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce to prepare more people to enter the workforce in southeast Michigan.

Members plan to meet in coming months to settle on shared strategies. The Detroit Children’s Fund, a nonprofit, will provide funding and information about best practices for supporting recent graduates.

The collaboration means “more access to resources for students, it puts them in a better situation of opportunity,” said Ralph Bland, president of New Paradigm for Education, one of the largest charter networks in the city.

The companies, which also include Equity Education, Promise Schools, and University Prep Schools, collectively serve more than 3,000 students, many of whom are African-American and economically disadvantaged.

They are fueling a citywide effort to give Detroit students the support they need to earn a college degree. Individual teachers work to encourage students to follow through on college applications. The Detroit Promise scholarship aims to lighten the financial burden for standout learners. And the Detroit district set aside money to ensure every school has a person dedicated to preparing students for college.

The barriers facing high school graduates in Detroit are daunting, especially if they don’t have family members who attended college, or if they are among the 85% of city students who are economically disadvantaged.

Over the last year, Chalkbeat spent time with recent graduates to show just how much support many need to succeed in college. Nearly half of graduates from Detroit’s main district who make it to college must take remedial courses. Among Detroit charter school graduates, that figure is between 32% and 75%.

Their goal — 90% of students completing a year of college — is ambitious. Between 25% and 60% of 2017 graduates from schools run by participating management companies completed one year of college coursework within two years of graduating. Statewide, that figure is just 52%, one reason Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has made higher education attainment a pillar of her education policy.

Danielle Jackson, CEO of University Prep Schools, said the collaboration would help the network identify new ways to help students choose colleges and navigate challenges once they’ve arrived on campus.

“Every one of our students can graduate from college, we know they can,” Jackson said in a statement. “It’s up to us to figure out how we can get them there.”

After week one, attendance down in the Detroit school district as 78% of students show up for class

2020-09-15T22:38:14+00:00

After a week of instruction in the Detroit school district, just 78% of the students who signed up for online or face-to-face learning have shown up for class.

The number, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during a school board meeting Tuesday, highlights the challenges Detroit and districts across the nation face as “the traditional way of learning and going to school has been disrupted by the pandemic.”

Last year at this time, 90% of the district’s 51,000 students had shown up for classes.

“Active and consistent attendance … is our greatest threat, outside of student achievement,” Vitti said.

Similar drops in attendance are happening across the country. In Chicago on the first day last week, 84.2% of students attended online class, a 10 percentage point drop from the usual first-day figures. But attendance rates varied widely from school to school. In Memphis, district staff in Shelby County Schools are working to contact almost 3,000 students who have been unaccounted for since online classes began two weeks ago.

Vitti said the district will step up its efforts to get students in school, including another round of home visits. Those efforts will intensify up through the period in early October when student attendance will determine how much state aid schools receive. Vitti said the district will keep it up even after this period because “it’s important that we stay engaged.”

He said the district appears to be enrolling more students who are new to the district, but he said it’s too early to be sure.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Vitti gave school board members an overview of what the district has seen since classes began Sept. 8. About 75% of the district’s students are learning online, while 25% are learning in person.

The district provided parents with three options for learning during the 2020-21 school year. In addition to online or in-person learning, parents could choose to have their students learn online while being in a school building in learning centers. A support staff member oversees those learning centers.

Vitti said 2,300 students have attended the learning centers. That number is growing daily, he said.

‘Where are the kids?’ Inside the first day of online learning for one Detroit school.

2020-09-09T21:33:36+00:00

Karlotta Hicks was ready to teach online. Her handmade Zoom background featured numbers and the ABCs, kindergarten concepts she hoped would jog her first graders’ memories after nearly six months away from the classroom. She’d spoken by phone over the summer to the parents of her 14 students, letting them know that virtual classes would begin right after Labor Day at 8 a.m.

“It’s going to be as if the kids were in front of me,” she said confidently a week before classes began at Winans Academy for Performing Arts.

When class began on Tuesday, just one student appeared in her virtual classroom, and his audio wasn’t working. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of students and teachers were troubleshooting their way through glitch-filled first days of online learning. This was going to be tough.

After a spring of incalculable loss, educators in Detroit are scrambling to get students back on track. As the pandemic continues to spin out of control, schools have been forced to choose — with little guidance — from a menu of bad options for resuming classes. Winans Academy, set in east Detroit neighborhoods that bore the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, chose to begin the year entirely online.

This spring, as the virus snowballed in Detroit and the city’s unemployment rate spiked to historic levels, school fell by the wayside for many families. Fewer than half of the students checked in with their teachers in an average week.

“Parents told me, ‘on the scale of things I’m dealing with, school work is No. 5,’” Principal James Spruill said.

Many students at Winans had fallen behind even before the pandemic. The school’s growth scores, which measure student improvement on standardized tests, have remained stubbornly low despite repeated staff shake-ups and state interventions. Experts warn that the pandemic will likely make things worse at schools like Winans, where nearly every student is economically disadvantaged.

The stakes have never been higher for the latest reinvention effort at Winans Academy. After surveying teachers and staff, school leaders announced that classes would be held online until January at least.

Would virtual instruction — a new format for most school staff — allow students to catch up, or at least avoid more backsliding?

Would students even show up?

“Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me,” Hicks said to her lone student. He wore bright blue headphones printed with characters from the movie Toy Story 4. No thumbs up.

Eventually, his mother leaned over the tablet that the school had lent the family, and the audio crackled to life.

“Yay, it’s fixed, wonderful,” Hicks said. “Welcome to the first day of school.”

Karlotta Hicks, a first grade teacher at Winans Academy of Performing Arts, in her classroom on the first day of school 2020. She taught from her classroom via video conference. She chose an outer space theme for her classroom this year, she said, to help students get used to the idea that the pandemic has ushered in a new world.

At 8:12 a.m. Hicks decided to stick with her game plan. She cued up a welcome song she’d found online. She sang along to the video: “Good morning, good morning, how are you?” The student smiled and mouthed some of the words, but the sound was choppy.

“Could you hear me singing when it glitched?” she asked.

“I didn’t hear you because of the glitching,” he said.

“You didn’t hear me, oh my goodness. I was singing, I was going all in!”

“Sorry.”

“No worries,” she said. But she decided to reschedule class for 12:15 p.m.

“I’m going to do the introduction with everyone,” she told the student’s mother. “I just need to call them to see where they are.”

‘I can easily say 100’

On a sunny Wednesday afternoon a week before classes began, it seemed like the entire neighborhood around Winans had gathered at the school to pick up devices and school supplies. Enrollment had been trending down for years, but more than 300 parents had already signed up, and Spruill estimated that at least that many came by. A line of cars snaked around the block.

Near the front door, teachers piled up backpacks stuffed with workbooks, pencils, and other school supplies. Wearing masks and keeping their distance, families and teachers greeted each other as if they hadn’t been together in years.

Lynn Coleman, a middle school math teacher, found one of her top students from the previous year. “Guess who got into Renaissance?” she asked school staff, referring to the selective Detroit high school.

“She worked us hard enough,” the student said, smiling.

Coleman grew up not far from Winans, attending nearby Denby High School, and she takes pride in the easy connections she makes with students.

Those connections took on a painful weight this spring: The coronavirus death rate in the school’s ZIP code, 48224, and in surrounding ZIP codes is more than three times higher than the death rate across Michigan. Coleman says the virus spread rapidly through her large extended family this spring, sickening eight people and killing several.

“I can easily say about 100” friends, family, and acquaintances got sick, she said. “Easily.” Her great aunt and uncle, who had been married for 60 years, died within a week of each other.

“If we are going through that, who knows what our scholars are going through?” she said.

Early in the pandemic, one of her students called her cell phone at 9:30 p.m.

“She said, ‘Miss Coleman?’ I said ‘Yes?’ She said, ‘Oh, I miss you.’” The student got off the phone quickly, but Coleman sensed the call’s significance.

“She only knows what that may have done for her,” Coleman said.

‘Where are the kids?’

Even after the community endured so much grief, the first day of Coleman’s math class felt almost normal.

Her goal for the day was to establish norms for virtual learning and to get to know her students by asking them about their summers, but the kids were playing it middle-school-cool.

“I didn’t do nothing this summer but sleep,” said one student. “I did order some shoes.”

“I didn’t do anything but be in my room on my phone,” another said.

“Were you playing on TikTok?” Coleman asked, referring to the video-sharing app.

That got a surprised laugh.

“Yeah, I know about TikTok,” she said.

They got through the rest of the lesson OK — students agreed that they should mute their microphones while others were talking and refrain from making fun of each other for incorrect answers — but there was a problem: Only nine students showed up of the 25 she was expecting.

Teachers across the school were reporting the same issue. While the school didn’t confirm the actual attendance number, Spruill acknowledged that attendance was low.

“The teachers and I were kind of sad at one point today,” Hicks said. “Like, where are the kids? It was emotional, because we weren’t having that interaction with our students, and that’s what you long for as a teacher. We just had to pull ourselves together, because we can’t let the kids see us like that.”

Hicks got some answers after calling families who had missed her morning class. One family had lost power during a morning thunderstorm that cut power to 4,000 Detroit homes, many of them near Winans. Other families were struggling to log onto their new laptops.

Spruill, who previously worked as a technical consultant for other charter schools in Detroit and who is the primary tech support person for Winans Academy, said he was not surprised by the low turnout.

“It was a constant line of parents not knowing how to log in,” he said. He insisted that attendance will improve throughout the week, adding that many schools in Detroit see attendance fluctuate wildly in the first weeks of school, because parents often sign their children up for more than one school.

Still, a more troubling possibility loomed: What if virtual learning asked too much of families, many of whom had jobs or were looking for one, and didn’t have time to provide full-time academic support for their children?

The phone numbers for three families in Hicks’ class were disconnected — what would happen to those students? And many parents already seemed stretched thin.

“I’m bouncing around to help my other kids,” one parent told Hicks. “I’m here, but I might not be on the screen.”

Amber White, whose son is a first grader in a different class at Winans, said she spent an hour on Tuesday morning just getting her two children logged on.

“This morning, it was really, really rough,” she said. “I was like ‘no, this isn’t going to work.’”

White took a week off work to help her kids get acclimated, but she worries that she’ll need more time. She was among a minority of parents at Winans who said they wanted the school to provide some in-person instruction this fall, and she said the first day of school showed that she was right.

“I mean, I understand the danger,” she said. “But the reality is that y’all might need to open the schools.”

‘We just have to make it work’

By 12:15 p.m., Hicks could breathe a small sigh of relief. Seven students popped into her Zoom class — just half of the total, but much better than one.

Hicks had the students practice what would become their morning routine, starting with the Pledge of Allegiance, then ran through class rules.

The students were visibly delighted to be in class together, virtual or not. They called out each other’s names and pushed their faces right into the camera. One girl wore a T-shirt printed with the words “First Day of Distance Learning 2020.”

“What did you learn today?” Hicks asked.

“Today I learned that school is fun,” said the boy with the Toy Story headphones.

“That makes me smile, my heart is smiling,” Hicks said.

The last part of the first day featured a story. A classroom aide read aloud as Hicks stepped away to take a phone call from a parent. The book, called “I Love School,” traced the routine of a single fictional school day. The pictures showed scenes that must have felt very distant to 6-year-olds who hadn’t been inside a classroom since March: a teacher leaning over students’ desks to look at their work, students eating lunch together in a cafeteria, students sitting in a circle on a rug while their teacher read a story aloud.

“Tell me what the story was all about,” the aide asked when it was over.

“I liked it because it told us about school, and we haven’t been at school for a loooong time,” said a girl with no front teeth and black beads in her braids.

“I miss my school,” said another student.

“And we miss you guys, but it’s so good to see you here now,” said Hicks, sitting back down. “This is our new way of going to school.”

That won’t change until January at the earliest. Winans officials said that they’ll consider moving to a hybrid schedule, bringing students into classrooms in shifts, if local coronavirus metrics take a turn for the better.

Facing nearly four months of online teaching, Hicks says she remains optimistic.

“It’s just Day One,” she said. “Seven came in, and they’re excited. That’s what you want, especially at this age, is for them to want to learn. That’s how you create lifelong learners. I’m excited for that.”

“It’s not like there are other alternatives,” she added. “This is how learning is occurring. We just have to make it work.”

This story is part of a series examining how Detroit schools, including Winans Academy, are adapting to educating students in the pandemic.