By: Jasmine West
A newly prepared section of the historic Liberal Arts Building at Marygrove will welcome its first middle school students this fall, marking another major step in the school’s growing K-12 educational pipeline.
The School at Marygrove will open its inaugural middle school program for the 2026-27 academic year with approximately 60 sixth-grade students. The students will learn in a dedicated area known as the “Lower Grove,” located inside the same building that houses Marygrove’s high school.
“We’re excited to open the doors in the fall and welcome our inaugural class,” said Lisa Williams, principal of The School at Marygrove’s K-12 campus.
The expansion follows the promotion of Marygrove’s first fifth-grade class, whose students will now move into the new middle school space. The elementary school opened in 2022 with kindergarten through second grade and has added another grade each year.
For Principal Lisa Williams, the opening represents more than an additional grade level. It connects the future of Detroit students to a campus shaped by the legacy of Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin, a Black Catholic nun of Haitian descent who understood education as a pathway to opportunity and whose religious community helped establish the institution that became Marygrove College.
“We have our Black and Brown children able to learn on this beautiful and amazing campus that was started by a Black nun, Theresa Maxis,” Williams said. “This campus is rich in legacy and tradition.”
Marygrove’s high school opened in 2019 with ninth grade and followed the same gradual growth model. Williams said the school expects to have its full kindergarten-through-12th-grade structure completed within the next two years.
The middle school was not a last-minute addition. It was part of a broader plan to create what school leaders call a P-20 educational pipeline, beginning with prenatal and early childhood support and extending through college.
“The vision of the school is to create a P-20 pipeline,” Williams said. “It was always the intention to build out the elementary, middle and high school. We think it’s important that we start to mentor and teach our own. They’re going to matriculate through our system, so they are familiar with our culture and the systems that we are trying to cultivate.”
Marygrove’s academic model is rooted in social justice, engineering and project- and place-based learning. Williams said the goal is to help students connect classroom instruction to the needs of their communities and understand their ability to create change.
“We want our children to be the change that we want to see in the world,” she said. “We are cultivating that from K all the way to 12th grade and then beyond.”
The middle school opening comes after a year of major accomplishments across the Marygrove campus.
The school ended the academic year with a 100% graduation rate among its 71 seniors. Those graduates received more than $9 million in scholarship offers and are heading to colleges and universities throughout Michigan and across the country.
Marygrove students also earned recognition through an annual Detroit Pistons scholarship competition, with two students winning first-place honors.
The school’s robotics team reached the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston, becoming the first Detroit Public Schools Community District team to qualify for the international competition in nearly two decades.
Although the team did not advance at the world championship, Williams said the students gained invaluable experience by competing alongside talented young engineers from around the world.
“It was a phenomenal experience for our students to participate in,” she said.
The accomplishments reflect the school’s emphasis on giving students opportunities that extend beyond traditional classroom instruction. Engineering courses, robotics, social justice projects and partnerships with higher education institutions are central to the Marygrove experience.
University of Michigan students participating in the university’s Learning, Equity and Problem Solving for the Public Good program, known as LEAPS, are also housed on the Marygrove campus and take part in a hybrid academic program connected to both Detroit and the university’s Ann Arbor campus.
Williams said the presence of college students adds another dimension to Marygrove’s educational environment, allowing younger students to see higher education as something visible and attainable.
Families seeking admission to Marygrove must complete an application process. Students applying for grades six through eight are also asked to submit an essay designed to help staff understand how they learn and what support they may need.
“The essay doesn’t determine whether you get in or not,” Williams said. “It tells us what type of student you are, what type of learner you are and what are some things we can do to get ready for you.”
High school applicants must take an admissions examination and submit an essay, but Williams said school leaders consider the full student, including grades, activities and other factors, rather than relying only on a test score.
“We look at the whole child,” she said.
That approach will be especially important as Marygrove welcomes students into middle school, a period often shaped by academic, social and emotional transitions.
Williams said the school wants students to be challenged academically while also feeling safe, supported and confident in who they are. Social-emotional learning is part of the school’s effort to address trauma students may have experienced in previous schools or within their communities.
“With everything that’s happening in the world, we want to create space for joy,” Williams said. “We want to create space for students to discover who they are.”
She said the goal is to develop students who see themselves as thinkers, visionaries and changemakers while recognizing the talents and experiences they already bring into the classroom.
“We want them to feel good about who they are,” Williams said. “We want to hone in on what makes them smart or important and all the things they can contribute to make this a better world.”
For Williams, the middle school opening represents another chapter in a larger story unfolding on a campus rich with Detroit history, educational tradition and the legacy of Black leadership.
“It is just a special place,” she said. “We call it the magic at Marygrove.”
