Detroit Public Schools Community District is working diligently for a return to a normal school year following the disruptions of the Covid pandemic, but a lot has changed.
In the decades before DPSCD Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti was hired, Detroit’s school district was one of the most challenged districts in America. In his first three years, Vitti was able to make stark improvements to turn the district around, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, sidelining much of the progress being made.
In an exclusive interview with Stephen Henderson of One Detroit, Dr. Vitti, now in his sixth year at the helm of DPSCD discussed the impact of the pandemic on student attendance and academic achievement. During the interview, he shared his outlook on DPSCD, ongoing challenges and the urgency of stabilizing and improving school attendance rates.
The overview …
In the 2022-2023 school year, our students were back, with the exception of about 2,000 students who remain in virtual school. But there were a lot of stops and goes last year because of covid surges, infection rates were high and quarantining and close contact were a concern. So, although we were back last year it just didn’t feel normal – we were [primarily] managing covid … probably 80 percent of my job, as well as teachers and principals was heavy on covid management.
This year feels more normal, but we are dealing with some lingering challenges from the pandemic. There is a positive energy in seeing the momentum and a clear pathway moving forward to get back to the work of student achievement.
Lost ground …
When you look at just running the district and the challenges we are facing, the number one challenge is enrollment. When you look at [our numbers] from March of 2020, we lost 3,000 students from when the pandemic hit. In 2020 we were at the highest level of enrolment, and it was the first time we have seen an increase in two decades, we went to about 51,000 students.
We had just turned the corner on student count, [but now] we are down now about 2,000 to 1,500 students compared to our peak before the pandemic. The other issue is just disrupting the normal flow of attendance over online learning. Parents were feeling uncomfortable and young children were not comfortable online… just a lot of disruption with coming to school on a day-to-day basis.
Last year even though we were in person, 80 percent of our students missed 18 or more days. So, the regularity of coming to school every day was highly disrupted. That negatively impacted student achievement.
But on the positive side when you look at last year’s state testing DPSCD showed less learning loss than the entire state of Michigan and Detroit charter schools.
During the pandemic we were nationally recognized for our home visit process. Central office staff, school level staff and even some volunteers went door to door saying, “schools are open, and we were online saying “we have a laptop for you, and we’ll facilitate internet access.” That face-to-face contact has continued to be highly effective.
So, we are stressing daily attendance through data. What was true last year was that if a student was only absent less than eight days, they were four to five times more likely to be at and above grade level in literacy and math.
On DPSCD’s $700 million infrastructure improvements …
The biggest impact for students and staff will be air conditioning. Right now, only 20 percent of our students have air conditioning. People say, ‘well when I went to school, we didn’t have air conditioning.” Well, it is 2022 and air conditioning is part of life. When we get into June and even in September when students return it can get hot, and it is uncomfortable. We have to close schools or go to half days, so air conditioning will be a significant improvement.
We are investing in a brand-new Pershing [high school] building, a brand-new Cody [high school] building and a new building in southwest Detroit with an arts focus to feed into the Detroit School of the arts. On a day-to-day basis [we will be] building so that we are not disrupting learning while providing better HVAC systems, better roofs and mundane systems which can be disruptive to learning if we don’t.
But beyond that investment in some new physical buildings to preserve some neighborhood schools is our objective.
Expectations for recovery …
There will be long lasting negative impact from the pandemic. … It was not easy managing the district during the pandemic. It affected our teachers, our parents, our children who lost loved ones, so there is no magic wand … we have to live with that history.
I’m confident with telling any parent that by the end of this academic year – if you send your child to school consistently – we’re going to not only show a year’s growth, but probably two years of growth and students will be even closer to being at or above grade level performance.
It’s not a matter of “I wish, or I hope.” In the 2018-2019 school year we moved the needle academically. So, this year is not about doing things radically different; it is just going back to the work that we were doing and filling some gaps around mental health and some broader wholistic approaches to supporting families. The average parent needs to know that at the end of this year we are going to see improvements in student achievement.
We just need parents to do their part by sending their children to school on a day-to-day basis.
See the interview in its entirety here.
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