DETROIT – Starting this fall, 9th graders at 11 Detroit Public neighborhood High Schools will be the first to participate in a new approach to learning. In what is being called a “redesign”, DPS will allow students to choose a pathway to one of 5 diplomas ranging from honors to skilled trade to a dual degree.
“Oftentimes, one of the biggest deterrents from students wanting to go in college is being out of their comfort zone,” Kerrie Mitchell, President of the DPSCD Alumni Foundation, said. “Our strategic plan goals are reducing chronic absenteeism wanting our students to really come to school so they can learn and get the best education that we can provide”
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“Many of the students didn’t have a meaningful connection to high school because we were still delivering it the same way you and I got it 20-plus years ago,” Mitchell said. “Our students are vocal and they want to know how is high school going to prepare them for the future and what it looks like.”
The initiative was officially announced on Saturday night at the Foundation’s Annual Gala. The district says that it’s the most significant structural change to the curriculum in decades.
As part of the plan, every student will be able to choose from one of 5 new diplomas:
- Honors: AP classes to provide students with a competitive application to a four university
- Dual Degree: An associates degree and high school diploma at the same time
- Career Ready: Students graduate with the necessary credentials for a role right after high school
- Arts: A competitive portfolio for college advancement
- Michigan Merit: Signals successful completion of all high school requirements
Additionally, an 8th period will be added to the school day for either a seminar class or an elective that satisfies a graduation requirement.
As part of the plan, by junior and senior year, the students will spend more time outside the school building with the introduction of dual enrollment programs for college credit at schools such as Wayne State, U of M-Dearborn, Ferris State, and Wayne County Community College.
“I’ve always felt, and this goes back to even when I was leading schools in Miami, is that if you can give students a dual enrollment opportunities in high school, they automatically know that they’re college ready,” Dr. Nikolai Vitti, the Detroit Schools Superintendent said. “The real the challenge in getting kids to graduate in four years is really coupled to attendance and I think that’s part of the solution here with the high school redesign.”
The total annual cost for the redesign is $13.5 million. The alumni foundation is also leading a massive fundraising effort to bridge the remaining gap.
It comes at a time when things have gradually improved in the district. DPS’ on-time 4-year graduation rate has reached an all-time high of 83.2 percent, surpassing the previous record of 78.3 percent and placing it near the state average of 84 percent.
Those numbers include the “Big 3” schools of Renaissance, Cass Technical, and Martin Luther King High Schools. In the neighborhood schools, however, the numbers have lagged as 52 percent of 10th graders are currently behind on graduation credits and only 24 percent attend college.
This redesign also addresses the longstanding perception that DPS only cares about three high schools.
“We gotta get beyond this idea that, well, if I don’t get in Cass, I don’t get in King, or I don’t get into Renaissance, then I can’t go to DPSCD,” Dr. Nikolai Vitti, the Detroit Schools Superintendent said. “I’ve always said in Detroit, we don’t have a talent gap, we have an opportunity gap.”
Changing the Approach
Angel Garcia has been the Principal at Western International High School since 2015. This school is part of his DNA.
“My father taught here and my aunt was the principal here years ago,” Garcia, who graduated from Western in 2000, said. “We have over 20 alumni working at Western and I think it’s a testament to the community that we build in the school, but also the programs that we offer.
“We have a lot of students wanting to follow in their family members’ footsteps,” he said. Western is one of two schools where the “redesign” was rolled out this school year as a pilot program, along with East English Village.
Western was chosen because it has one of the city’s largest and most diverse student bodies. The school, which opened in 1898 is one of the city’s oldest schools.
It used to be one of three high schools in Southwest Detroit, along with Chadsey and Southwestern.
The district shut down both schools in 2009 and 2012 respectively, consolidating all the students to Western. It is also the only Detroit Public High School where the majority of the students are either Latino or Hispanic.
“We’re the home of all young people in Southwest Detroit,” Garcia said. “Where Southwestern used to be, in Chadsey as well, those students now come to Western. We’ve become a lot larger”
The other nine schools in the program will be Central, Cody, Denby, Henry Ford, Mumford, Northwestern, Osborn, Pershing, and Southeastern. After initially having questions about how the redesign would it would work, Garcia was all in.
“We’ve been doing the best we can with students with the resources and supports that we could,” he said. “Once we got into the nuts and bolts of what the high school design really meant, redesign really meant I was excited.”
One of the focal points is on advanced placement classes happening earlier. Normally, students don’t start taking AP classes until their junior year. The redesign allows students sophomores to start taking them.
“It’s like my first time taking honors in AP,” Edgardo Camacho, a 10th grader at Western, said. He wants to eventually become a Marine Biologist and is currently taking three AP Math classes.
“This is my first time taking AP exams,” he said. “All these exams are kind of coming in and coming in but, yeah, 10th grade’s been going really smooth.”
The redesign is seen as a shot in the arm to the near dozen schools that have felt overlooked for decades, and for Garcia, it makes the sales pitch of getting a family to choose Western a whole lot easier.
“We know that families face all kinds of challenges, things that come up out of nowhere, things that have to do with socioeconomic status,” Garcia said. “If I were to talk to a prospective parent right now, I would just say that our programming here at Western is built to not allow your student to fail and to fall through the cracks”