While Detroit Public Schools will shut 32 schools this month — nearly a fifth of the district’s schools — it’s also launching new approaches to instruction with a teacher-run academy and a medical training-focused high school.
In releasing the long-awaited final closure list Monday, Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb saved 18 schools that were headed for closure under his original plan released in March while adding several new buildings to the list. In all, the district will have closed 166 schools (176 facilities) between 2001 and 2012 because of shrinking enrollment.
“The reality is that schools must close, but we have done our best to ensure that in every case children will benefit from the decisions that we’ve made,” Bobb said.
District officials hope that will be the case at Northwestern High School and Barbara Jordan Elementary School.
Northwestern, which was slated to close and become home to alternative education students, will become the site in 2011 for Ben Carson Academy, a small high school program focusing on medical professions. It’s being developed with the help of Wayne State University and a $50,000 planning grant.
Barbara Jordan also will be reconfigured to become a new teacher-run University District Preparatory Academy, which will be a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school.
It will give teachers an opportunity to build a school from the ground up, said Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. They would run everything: staffing, budget, curriculum and scheduling.
Even with nearly three dozen closures this year, the district’s dramatic makeover isn’t finished. Nine more schools will shut next year and four more in 2012 for a total of 45 schools over three years under Bobb’s facilities plan.
Closure is also an option if dramatic improvements aren’t made under a new state law that puts the lowest 5 percent of performing schools in the state into a special recovery zone. That lowest 5 percent includes 47 DPS schools: 25 elementary schools and 22 high schools, Bobb said.
The closure plan is designed to save the deficit-ridden district $28 million annually for three years and to transfer students out of crumbling schools to ones slated for upgrades. The final number is fewer than originally announced by Bobb, when he suggested closing 41 school facilities, which marked the largest school closure plan in the nation and added to the nearly 100 other closures since 2005.
Community feedback and planning for how to spend money from the $500.5 million school construction bond program approved by voters in November helped shape the final decisions, district officials said.
The news was met with cheers from saved schools and sadness at those that will close after June 17.
“It’s devastating that our high school is closing,” said O’Shay Howell, a junior and football player at Cooley High School. He was upset he’ll miss his senior year playing for the red and black.
“It’s a unit,” he said of his school. “It’s more like a family. When you are slacking you have people there to pick you up. You have a great principal who is helping everybody.”
Cheers from saved schools
The schools removed from the closure list were Communication Media Arts High School, Glazer Elementary, Dossin, Bagley, Carstens, Kettering High School, Detroit Day School for the Deaf, Detroit City Alternative High School, Catherine Ferguson Academy for Young Women, Hally Magnet, Kettering West Wing, MacDowell, Mason, Sherrill, Robeson Early Learning Center, Thirkell and Drew, which will be renovated and repurposed for special education students and those with disabilities.
Southwestern High was slated to close next year, but has been saved and will house Earhart Middle in a wing while a new pre-K-8 school will be built under the $500.5 million bond proposal.
New schools added to the closure list were Barsamian Preparatory Center, Hancock and Detroit Transition Center East and West.
Cheers broke out at Carstens Elementary when Bobb announced that school was among those to stay open.
“It’s like ecstasy,” said a delighted Abby Phelps, parent and a community liaison. “(It’s) confirmation of what we already felt and believed.”
The decision means Breeanna Dixon, a 10th-grader at Communication Media Arts, will head into vacation without having to worry about finding a new school.
“This school is good,” Dixon said outside CMA. “There’s nowhere else to go.”
Glazer parent Angela Beavers also cheered the decision. Her daughter is in second grade and has a strong bond with her special education teacher.
“I’m glad that it’s staying open because she looks forward to coming to school every day,” she said.
Many changes ahead
In contrast, several students at Cooley were confused why their historic school will close while other schools they feel have more troubles and violence will remain open and receive upgrades. They fear gang problems after transferring to another school and believe others will drop out.
Traveling far away to another school means taking at least two city buses while it’s dark outside, sparking fears of being raped or harmed waiting for the bus, several female students said.
“A lot of people like this school. I don’t see why they are closing it down,” said Sherri Payne, a Cooley student along with her twin, Terri.
Cooley, once slated for a major renovation under the bond program, is closing because of declining enrollment, building conditions and the high cost of operations, DPS officials said.
DPS, the largest district in the state, has been hard-hit by enrollment declines throughout the past decade, plummeting from about 150,000 students five years ago to about 87,000 today. District officials predict enrollment will drop to 79,000 next year and continue to fall to below 57,000 by fall 2014.
It also faces a budget deficit of $317 million.
Some schools will have major reconfigurations under the plan.
Detroit International Academy, which serves middle and high school girls, will be expanded to a K-14 school. Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, which serves boys in grades 6-12, will expand to K-14.
The final decision on the school closings was to have been announced in April. Factors considered in closing include enrollment, building condition, academic performance, cost of operation and the demographic trends of the neighborhood.
“We never like to see a school closed,” said Johnson, the union president. “But we’re faced with the reality that this school district must restore itself to fiscal solvency and part of that is going to be right-sizing our school district.”
Source:The Detroit News/ Marisa Schultz
