Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy.
Jasmine Ng had mixed feelings about starting her junior year Monday morning at Stoney Creek High School in Rochester Hills. She was excited to arrive with all her siblings — her little sister, who’s at Stoney Creek, too, and her little brother, who’s starting at Hart Middle School, right across the street.
“Usually it’s just me and my sister. Today, it was, ‘Yay let’s go to school together for the first time since COVID,’” Ng said.
But amid the first day excitement, Ng was also thinking about the SAT season looming in the distance. She said she’s not looking forward to taking those tests her junior year, when many kids start the college application process.
Miles away in Detroit, as students at East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney returned to school Monday morning, staff made sure the teens were amped up and ready to take on the day. A DJ played Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It,” as school leaders and community members clapped and cheered on students as they entered the building for the annual “clap-in.”
“Good morning!” the crowd exclaimed as a girl with long braids waved shyly as she passed by. “Happy first day!”
Monday marked the first day of school in some suburban school districts and the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Students returned with excitement and jitters as they entered freshly cleaned schools, greeted their new teachers, and reconnected with their friends. Across metro Detroit, the 2026-27 school year will have a lot in store for students, teachers, and school leaders. Three months from now, voters will elect a new governor who will have the power to push for dramatic changes to address poor test scores.
Students will have to become accustomed to new state rules that restrict the use of wireless devices such as cell phones during instruction, and gym classes that will now have to include a fitness test. On the plus side, the state once again will provide free school meals to public school students, regardless of income. And high school juniors, some of whom are preparing for college admissions essays, will have one fewer to write with the elimination of the SAT essay exam they usually would take in the spring as part of the Michigan Merit Exam.
In Detroit, city and school leaders are expanding efforts to curb chronic absenteeism. The city will continue to provide free bus service to all Detroit students through the Detroit Department of Transportation and is launching a new program offering rideshare service to students at four high schools. DPSCD is expanding its program that pays high school students for perfect attendance, adding middle school students this school year. And the district is expanding a program that provides yellow school bus service at high schools with particularly high rates of chronic absenteeism.
Here’s what the first day looked like in multiple schools:
State’s new policy forces teens to ‘disconnect from our cell phones’
At East English Village, senior Ortez Matthews said he’s ready to begin his final year. He’s taking two advanced placement classes, an honors class, and some career and technical education courses on top of extracurriculars like student council, coaching baseball and serving on Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield’s youth cabinet.
He said he doesn’t mind putting his cell phone away for most of the day to comply with the state’s new student policy restricting the use of wireless devices during instruction.
“I do think that our generation, Gen Z, do need to disconnect from our cell phones for some time because when we were growing up, we always had them. School is somewhere to start because at home, we can do whatever we want.”
The clap-in that greeted students was organized by school staff and the DPSCD Foundation. Kerrie Mitchell Campbell-Mabins, president and CEO of the foundation, said she wanted to make sure students felt loved and supported.
“This is a representation of what they can expect all year, that the community is going to be out to support them and to make sure that they have everything that they need,” Campbell-Mabins said.
Vitti emphasizes good attendance in school visits
DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti visited several schools across the district Monday. He fielded questions from students that touched on a variety of topics, including when they would get paid for perfect attendance, why they have to wear uniforms, and whether he likes Jordan basketball shoes.
Sixth graders at Carstens Elementary-Middle School on the city’s east side shared highlights of their summer breaks: a trip to Cedar Point, dinner at Red Lobster, and lots of swimming.
In a seventh grade classroom at Nolan Elementary-Middle School on the north side of Detroit, some students expressed their dislike of the new cell phone policy requiring them to put their devices away until the end of the day.
“I bet if I come back around December and I ask you to compare this year versus last year, you’ll say you’re more focused on what happens in the classroom because you don’t have your phone,” Vitti said to the kids.
At Southwest Detroit’s Bennett Elementary School, Vitti reminded a class of third graders about the importance of coming to school every day.
Principal Melissa Villarreal helped translate the message into Spanish.
“What do I tell you every Monday?” Villarreal said. “We have to be here because when we’re not, it gets really hard to reach your goals, right?”
A cold start to the first day of school
At Stoney Creek High in Rochester Hills, school buses rounded the traffic circle, dropping kids off in the 50-something degree weather that Principal Brian Shelson said was the coldest first day in the school’s history.
Many older students with driver’s licenses opted to drive to school. Addison Fogler, a senior from Rochester who spent the summer up north with her family, got together with friends last night to decorate their cars in a school-wide senior tradition.
“We wrote like Seniors 2027, lots of dots and hearts,” she said.
Monday morning she picked up some of her best friends and they listened to songs mixing nostalgia with excitement, to match the feeling of finally arriving for the final year of high school.
“‘Ribs’ by Lorde, ‘Where’d Time Go?’ All the classics,” she said.
Mobolaji Akimbiyi, a Stoney Creek junior, is planning to take the SAT in two weeks. He used the summer to study, in addition to resting, doing AP language homework, and watching the World Cup with his dad. He’s most excited for AP Physics.
Like Ng, Akimbiyi has mixed feelings about the first day — a combination of excitement, apprehension, and a bit of relief to be back in routine after a languid few months.
“Summer kind of dragged on,” he said.
A final first day at a Detroit school set to close
A slow trickle of a couple dozen students with shiny see-through plastic backpacks gathered in front of the door at Detroit’s Thurgood Marshall Elementary-Middle School on the city’s north end. They waited patiently as teachers decked out in blue greeted them.
Though the group assembled for the clap-in was small, spirits were high as upbeat music and staff cheers welcomed the children inside.
“Welcome back, welcome back,” staff cheered as they danced with excitement.
The school, which had around 170 students in 2025-26, is set to close at the end of June due to low enrollment and high costs. Its closure follows that of four other DPSCD schools last year.
Evan Pringle, who will start ninth grade at Oak Park High School Tuesday, met up with his brothers outside of Marshall around 8:30 a.m. He attended Marshall from preschool through eighth grade.
“I’m sad,” he said of the school’s impending closure. “But, I already knew it was gonna happen because they’ve been saying that since I was in like fifth grade.”
Chalkbeat Detroit Bureau Chief Lori Higgins contributed to this report.
Beki San Martin is a reporter for the Detroit Free Press. You can reach her at RSanMartin@freepress.com.
Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools 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.
