DETROIT (WXYZ) — The Detroit Public School Community District has 2,000 fewer students than before the pandemic, which means about $20 million less in funding for the district.
Aliya Moore has a daughter in seventh grade.
“I’m worried about the district as a whole. But at my daughter’s school, Paul Robeson Malcolm X, I’m just worried about after school programming, making sure they have enough tutors,” explained Moore.
She explained why she’s become an advocate.
“I’m a product of Detroit Public Schools. And I know what the district offered me. And I just want those same opportunities for my daughter,” Moore said.
Nikolai Vitti is the superintendent of the DPSCD.
“As we go into next year’s budget, we have to deal with the reality that we’ve lost 2,000 students in the aggregate,” said Vitti. “That 2,000 students equates to about $20 million.”
He explained, the district has worked hard to get as many students back as they can, but he doesn’t think the remaining 2,000 will return.
“Those families have either left the district for suburban charter schools or they’ve moved out of the city,” explained Vitti.
He said the district is prepared to balance the budget but admits it will take some hard decision making.
“We’re going to have to go through some staff reductions in some positions to free revenue,” Vitti said.
How many?
“Over a hundred central office and school based administration positions,” said Vitti.
He explained these include any jobs meant to manage COVID initiatives, assistant principals in small schools, deans, and positions where employees could easily transfer into another job in the district.
Full interview with Vitti below:
“By moving people to those positions, they come with different funding sources, which frees, really generally fund, which is state and local funding,” said Vitti.
One thing that is not on the chopping block: teacher pay.
“Part of the budget proposal is still funding salary increases for next year,” said Vitti. “We have to be fully staffed. If we’re not fully staffed with teachers, we really can’t talk about a high-quality public school education.”
DPSCD parent Aliya Moore suggested that the district could help student enrollment, and thus their budget shortfall, through better transportation.
“I do believe a small investment could be put into transportation expanding the yellow buses. Or getting a stronger partnership with DDOT to ensure that our students get to school on time and that they get to school every day,” said Moore.
Vitti said it certainly would help.
“Absolutely. There’s no question that if we had the resources to go deeper in neighborhoods to pick up children it would improve attendance,” Vitti said.
