What to expect from the new Detroit Public Schools Community District

eanna Manigault is the kind of parent any school would be happy to have. Her 4-year-old son, Roman, already knows how to count. He knows a little addition and subtraction.

“We’re making a book together,” says the 25-year-old Detroiter. “I want him to keep being pushed.”

Manigault and her son recently visited a farmers market stand run by the Detroit Public Schools in her northwest Detroit neighborhood. She talked at length with one of the teachers there. A graduate of public school herself, Manigault would like to send Roman to public school.

“I’ve seen success stories come from Detroit Public Schools,” she says. “There are still good schools and good teachers in the Detroit public school system. If you’re looking for a good education, I believe you can find it, even in Detroit.”

Still, Manigault is not sure what school she’ll send Roman to when school starts Sept. 6.  

Her uncertainty is well-founded. Well-documented problems beset the city’s school system. Stories of overcrowded classrooms, rodent-infested buildings, crumbling facilities and dismal test scores – including a national report that ranks the city’s schools dead last in academic achievement among urban school districts – have made national headlines.

On top of all that, there’s widespread discontent and deep distrust of a years-long state takeover that left the district deeper in debt than when the state first took control in 1999.

“I don’t think (the state has) the children and families of Detroit in their best interest, just like they didn’t have the children and families of Flint in their best interest,” says a Detroit teacher and parent who asked not to be named. Many city residents see the state’s involvement as a ploy to push charter schools while stripping Detroiters of local control.

Yet despite monumental challenges, a whisper of hope hovers over the Detroit’s ailing public schools.  As the new school year approaches, conversations with teachers, administrators, students and parents reveal cautious optimism.   

A major reason for the optimism: Alycia Meriweather, the interim superintendent of the recently named Detroit Public Schools Community District. She was appointed by the state’s transitional manager, Steven Rhodes, in March. But her assignment is secure only through December. A school board election is scheduled for November. When the new board takes office in January, it will have the responsibility of selecting a permanent superintendent.

Many Detroit public school educators hope she’s the choice.

They see her as a proven, dedicated educator who is committed to improving education for all Detroit students – not just those in a few select schools. She’s a DPS grad herself and a city resident who sees educating children as a mission to improve options and opportunities for children and generations to come.

And it’s not just her track record as a hard worker in multiple roles in the district – from science teacher to top curriculum leader – that people find appealing. She comes without a lot of the pomp and circumstance fancied by previous district leaders.

“She has driven herself to our school without the bodyguards and fancy cars that others have used,” says Janine Scott, a math teacher at Davis Aerospace Technical High School.

Scott echoed others when she spoke of the disrespect she felt in the past when district leaders paraded in with an entourage.

“I’d think, ‘I can’t get a raise, I’ve given a pay cut, and you get a security detail and a driver?’’

If Manigault exemplifies the kind of parent a school would be happy to have, Scott represents the kind of teacher a school would want. But Scott is actively seeking positions outside of the district because of poor pay, lack of respect and appreciation and disdain for what she calls the state’s ill-advised experiments on black children.  

Scott left a well-paying career as an engineer to answer a calling to teach that she had long ignored. A life-threatening health scare prompted her to do what she had been thinking about for years.

“As much as I loved corporate work, the only gratification was money,” she says. “I want to help kids who look like me succeed.”

So she took a teaching job in 2003 that paid her half as much as she earned as a systems engineer for IBM.

Then came pay cuts and stagnant wages and more state-sponsored oversight, while charter schools flourished, despite studies showing they do no better – and in some cases worse – than public schools.

“I made more in 2010 than I did last year,” says Scott. She came close to losing the Detroit home she purchased in 1997.

She now works two additional jobs and started a tutoring service to supplement her income. She teaches part-time at Schoolcraft College in Livonia and at Detroit’s Wayne State University and runs Math Queen Tutoring, as well.

But she, too, is heartened by Meriweather’s appointment, noting that not only does the interim super show up without guards and fancy cars, she’s accessible in a way others haven’t been: She answers emails.

“When she speaks, she speaks from a place of honor and integrity,” Scott says. “She has the best interests of students and staff at heart.”

Meriweather hopes she gets the opportunity well past December to prove worthy of that trust. And she’s confident the district will improve because, she says, the overwhelming majority of educators are highly qualified and dedicated to children.

With input from an advisory team, she’s working on a school-improvement plan that she believes will result in improved learning throughout the district. The Academic Advisory Council of 160 teachers, principals, clerical staff, parents and others met from May through June to develop a plan of attack on the district’s woes.

“All these people responded to the call to help make us better at a time when we were at our most tumultuous,” Meriweather says. “We didn’t even know if we’d have funding, and 160 people said, ‘I want to make this district better.’ That’s part of what gives me hope – that we have people who are so dedicated to providing high-quality education that they’re willing to keep working no matter what.”

She expects to be ready to roll out the school-improvement plan as soon as the school doors open for its students.

The plan focuses on five key areas: literacy, career pathways, innovation, parent and community involvement and wrap-around services, all of which are initiatives to address societal issues like poverty, violence and health complications that impact a child’s learning. Parents can also expect to see a renewed focus on attendance when the school year begins Sept. 6.

Meriweather points to other positive signs for the coming school year, including the state plan that left the district’s massive debt with the former Detroit Public Schools. The new system – DPSCD – began in July with $617 million from the state. While much of it will go toward debt and transitional costs, $25 million will be invested in the new district, she says.

“We’ve been given a fresh start,” Meriweather says. “For the first time in many, many years, we’ll be receiving our full per-pupil allocation. In the past, $1,100 per pupil was taken right off the top to pay debt.” 

Amber Arellano, executive director of the Education Trust-Midwest, an advocacy and information resource for urban schools, says it’s a step in the right direction.

“The legislative bargain passed earlier this year was very important and needed for short-term stability,” Arellano says. “The Detroit public schools now have some breathing room to focus on academics and supporting talent, which is critical for dramatically improving student achievement.”

Meriweather says being free of heavy debt also makes the district more attractive to outside entities.

“A lot of philanthropic partners have made it clear they didn’t want to pay for debt,” she says. “Now that the debt has been relieved, all kinds of partners are coming out of the woodwork.”

With new funding, she says, will come innovative approaches to helping children learn. But she’s not tuning out the concerns of critics.

“We’re looking at ways to duplicate successful programs, and looking at what’s not working and how to fix it,” Meriweather says. “We’re being very, very intentional about improvement.

“We have a lot of great things happening in Detroit public schools,” she adds. “What we want to do is make sure great things are happening everywhere, in every single school, in every single classroom, every single day.”

Detroit parent Norrel Hemphill says parents themselves have to become more active and supportive of schools. She heads the parent group at Chrysler Elementary School – long one of the district’s top performers – where her 7-year-old daughter, Brooke Bowers, will begin second grade. She says she’s pleased with the fact that Chrysler has a strong principal and great staff.

“You can make any school a Chrysler as long as you’re actively involved at home and at school,” she says.

Brooke spoke highly of the school, too. “The teachers are nice and they help me learn a lot of things,” she says.

Reanna Manigault says she’s willing to take a chance on Detroit schools because of her own desire to see public education succeed – not just for her son, but for the city and beyond.

“In order to produce members of society who benefit the world, everyone should have exposure to a good education,” she says.  “And I know that even if he’s in Detroit public schools, he’ll come out with a good education because I’ll be totally involved. And education starts at home.”

Cassandra Spratling is a Detroit-based freelance writer and veteran reporter.

CASSANDRA SPRATLING IS A DETROIT-BASED FREELANCE WRITER AND VETERAN REPORTER. Follow @cassprat