A water-damaged, mold-infested elementary school building in northwest Detroit will be closed for the rest of the school year while crews replace the roof and make other repairs. District superintendent Nikolai Vitti notified the school board about plans for the Palmer Park Preparatory Academy during a board meeting Tuesday night...
After largely steering clear of education during his first term, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is now looking for ways to become more invested in the city schools. City Hall is already leading an effort called the Detroit Children’s Success Initiative that will put more social workers, therapists, and family...
Detroit’s main school district is changing the way it decides which students gain entry to the city’s elite high schools. Students applying to Cass Technical High School, Renaissance High School and two other selective high schools will no longer be judged primarily on the results of a single...
The two major foundations behind the creation of a ten-year plan to improve the lives of Detroit’s youngest children are putting up $50 million to help put the plan into action. As they unveiled the new Hope Starts Here framework Friday morning, the Kellogg and Kresge foundations announced they...
More than two dozen struggling Detroit schools will likely be added to the state’s “partnership” program after posting years of rock-bottom test scores. That will bring to 50 the number of Detroit schools in the program, which requires schools to meet certain improvement targets or face consequences. Those consequences...
Schools across the state brought out donuts, dinosaurs, smoothies and all manor of special events on Wednesday to lure as many students to school as humanly possible. It’s all part of a school funding system in Michigan that determines how much money schools receive from the state based on...
When the school year began at Detroit’s Central High School last month, a beloved teacher was missing. Quincy Stewart, who was featured in a June Chalkbeat story about his innovative use of music to teach students about African-American history, had been determined to stay at Central. “I do this...
It could be years before Detroiters see significant improvement in their struggling city schools, but Detroit’s new schools boss says there are some very specific ways that he expects to see some progress by next year. Among them: improvements on test scores, attendance rates, teacher hiring and the amount...
Three months after taking on one of the most daunting tasks in American education, Nikolai Vitti was having a fit over pizza — $340,000 worth of pizza. Vitti, Detroit’s new school superintendent, had just discovered that the district had set aside that eye-popping sum of money last year to...
Furious teachers at a recently shuttered Detroit charter school were notified Wednesday that they won’t be paid thousands of dollars they earned during the last school year. Teachers at the Michigan Technical Academy had contracts that required the school to pay them through the summer for work they did...
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is getting ready this morning to announce a major effort to lure teachers and other school employees to the city of Detroit: Offering them half-priced homes. According to a press release that’s expected to be released at an event this morning, the mayor plans to...
It’s been more than a year since the tearful, emotional night when a divided state legislature blocked a major effort to bring order to Detroit schools. Now some of the parties involved in last year’s fight are regrouping and looking for new ways to improve city schools. Only...
As soon as Quincy Stewart started teaching music, he realized that harmonies and melodies would never be enough — not nearly enough for a man determined to connect his students with their history and culture. “I’m a black man and these are black children,” said Stewart, 59, a music teacher,...
LaWanda Marshall and Candace Graham both teach pre-kindergarten at the Carver STEM Academy on Detroit’s west side. Both have colorful, toy-filled classrooms, computers for students to use and assistant teachers to help guide their four- and five-year olds as they learn and explore. But Marshall’s classroom has other...
Detroit schools have been buzzing these last two weeks with what feels like a fresh start. A new superintendent — Nikolai Vitti — has landed in the city and started his job as the first new leader of what is officially a new district. He uses words like “transformation” and “vision” and...
The creation of a new school district last year gave Detroit schools a break from years of crippling debt, allowing the new district to report a healthy budget surplus going into its second year. It’s the first time since 2007 that the city’s main school district has ended...
When new Detroit schools chief Nikolai Vitti arrives in Detroit as soon as next Monday, he plans to make daily school visits with an early focus on some of the city’s most struggling schools. Those visits will include trips to the schools in the state-run Education Achievement Authority, which...
Stefanie Kovaleski loves teaching kindergarten at Detroit’s Bethune Elementary-Middle School. “I love this building. I love the kids in it,” she said as she doled out hugs and high-fives to her young students while they lined up to get their backpacks at dismissal. “I love that I have autonomy...
