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Mayor Mary Sheffield made Pershing High School the first stop after her public swearing-in ceremony on Friday.
The stop at the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s neighborhood school reflected her campaign promise to focus her term on initiatives that will improve the lives of young people.
Lines of cheerleaders and a hallway booming with applause greeted Sheffield. As students and adults clamored to point their cellphone cameras at the mayor when she walked in, girls talked to each other about how excited they were to meet the city’s first female mayor.
“I’m very grateful to be in the presence of such a person,” said senior Neveah Washington.
Sheffield, who was sworn in during a private ceremony on Jan. 1, spent 30 minutes with nearly 90 students in the school’s library. She talked about partnering with the city’s schools to address systemic issues that affect the quality of students’ education, from improving city transportation to offering more after-school programming and wraparound services.
The mayor said she also wants to give youth reasons to stay in Detroit, such as more career opportunities and affordable housing.
Though the mayor does not have control over schools, Sheffield told the students, “that does not mean that the mayor cannot be a great partner, that we cannot be visible and hands-on with our youth – and that is what I intend to do.”
Education became a key issue in the mayor’s race as more advocates pushed for the office to address underlying systemic challenges that contribute to poor academic performance and chronic absenteeism in the city’s schools.
Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told the students that Sheffield’s presence at the school reflects her interest in investing in opportunities that will benefit neighborhood schools.
“Being here at Pershing, being here at DPSCD, in a traditional public school, and a neighborhood school on the east side, all of that is intentional,” he said. “If we don’t have strong neighborhood schools, you can’t have a strong city.”
Sheffield told the students she is creating the city’s first youth department. Jerjuan Howard, the city’s new director of youth affairs, said each department in the mayor’s office will make a “youth priority statement” to detail how decisions may affect young people.
“What that means is that you all will be at the center of decision making for anything the city is talking about moving forward,” he said. “No other city in the nation has done this yet.”
Sheffield talked to the students one-on-one and collected their written questions.
DeAngelo Allen, a junior who takes a city bus to school every day, asked Sheffield how she will improve the city’s transportation. Allen said he is often late to school because the buses he relies on either come far earlier or later than their scheduled times.
The teen said he feels like he has to be vigilant about safety when he rides the bus.
“You have to watch your surroundings,” he said. “You see some pretty disturbing stuff.”
Mac Sconi, 17, asked Sheffield how she will address safety concerns – an issue many students say affects their ability to learn and get to school.
The teen said he was optimistic about the response he got from the mayor after she expressed she would take a holistic approach to improving safety with crime prevention programs. The city’s new neighborhood and community safety office will promote long-term solutions like mental health and conflict resolution programs, Sheffield added.
“There’s a lot of things right now that are threatening the safety of our students,” Sconi said. “It’s something that needs to be addressed, because what is the importance of anything if we are not safe?”
Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.
