Detroit Schools closures, changes add air of anxiety to upcoming year

Detroit -- Detroit Public Schools' unprecedented move to overhaul half of its schools this summer has created a frenzy of activity -- and in some cases confusion -- just days before classes are to begin.

In the midst of a massive shakeup of leadership and staff, many teachers still don't have classroom assignments, parents haven't gotten timely information on transportation and start times, and some aren't even certain about the addresses of new schools.

"The whole thing is a great big ball of confusion," Gwendolyn McKinney said about the misinformation on where her children will need to go this fall. Their school, Mark Twain Elementary, was scheduled to close and still remains on the "final closure list" posted on the district's Web site. Then McKinney learned later this summer the school would not close, but move to the Boynton school building less than a mile away. Boynton is considered closed, but the building will remain open and the school has been renamed Mark Twain.

In recent days, Robert Bobb, the district's emergency financial manager, has spent much of his time on walking tours, a parade and other efforts to rev up attendance and support for the schools, but some stakeholders say they would have preferred to get basic information on what's in store for students and teachers on Tuesday.

The lack of communication from the district has "turned a lot of parents away," said McKinney, who pulled her kids from Mark Twain. "It could have been done a different way."

But McKinney, like others interviewed for this article, hasn't given up hope on the district and is rooting for DPS's success. She enrolled her two children at Clippert Academy, a district-run application middle school.

Rumors spur confusion

Parents and students often hear of monumental changes to their schools through the media or the rumor mill, rather than from the district, said Ida Byrd-Hill, whose twins attend the Detroit School of Arts. That breeds frustration and anger, she said, and makes parents more likely to resist changes they might have accepted if consulted beforehand.

"There is one thing to have change, but you don't have to have it be chaotic," Byrd-Hill said.

She learned Friday that high school classes will be starting earlier, at 7:30 a.m., a decision in which parents had no input, she said. That means her children will be on city buses at 6 a.m. to get to school, which makes her worry about their safety. The district announced Wednesday that by the second semester, start times would be pushed back to 8 a.m.

Bobb, appointed to a one-year term to clean up the district's finances, acknowledges he's "very nervous" about schools opening during this massive transformation.

Despite the upheaval, students will definitely be coming back to better, cleaner schools, he said.

"There will be some issues during the first day of school. But we are going to have SWAT teams at every school to solve the issues on the spot," Bobb said. "I'll be in the field that whole day."

Students, especially young children, who return to a school Tuesday that's disorganized and unstructured may have a tough time adapting, said Steven Abell, professor and chair of psychology at the University of Detroit Mercy. Since they are not mature enough to take care of themselves, they rely on adults for care and if the adults can't provide a sense of stability it's troubling for children.

"Most children can adjust over time, but children can't really adjust to chaos," Abell said. "If the changes in the school are too rapid, then there's usually chaos, and that is difficult for children."

Thousands of kids affected

For about 12,000 students in the district, Tuesday will mean starting in a new school because their school was shuttered. Another 18,000 students among 35 buildings will welcome transfers from the nearly 30 closed schools. An additional 23,000 students will be at schools with new principals and major overhauls of staff and teachers.

At these reconstituted schools, all positions were vacated and employees had to apply to be rehired. Hundreds of staff who were not rehired among these 36 schools are guaranteed positions, but many teachers still don't have a job assignment.

Debra Hopkins, a math teacher at Cerveny Middle School, had no reason to believe she wouldn't be back in the classroom when Bobb announced J.R. King would be closing and its students coming to her building. But by August, the district decided Cerveny would be the "closed" school, renamed J.R. King, and house both Cerveny and King students. The final closure list on the district's Web site still doesn't include Cerveny, however.

The teachers' contract is clear that employees like Hopkins should still have teaching jobs in the renamed building because her students are still there, union leaders say.

Hopkins normally would have completed her bulletin boards by now and cleaned her classroom, instead she doesn't know where she'll be Tuesday.

"You want to prepare the classroom to receive your children," said Hopkins, a DPS employee for 31 years. "You don't want to walk in with your children."

Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, cautioned this summer that massive change would create upheaval for students. The district's human resources department has worked tirelessly but remains overloaded in trying to get so many staffers placed in such a short period of time, he said.

"There has never been a year like this one, where you had so many things going on simultaneously," said Johnson, who has been with the district for three decades. "It's unprecedented and educationally unwise."

Corvell Green, 15, said he'll miss the stability at Chadsey High School, where he knew everyone. Now he worries the merger of unfamiliar faces at Southwestern High School will breed more fights.

"I was devastated because I really want to be with my friends and my teachers," Green said.

Transportation is also an issue. Green and his older brother walked to Chadsey. He planned to take city buses to get to his new school, but only after his mother called Southwestern's principal Wednesday did he learn school buses would be available from Chadsey.

Bobb and district leaders have been asking parents and students to say "I'm In" Detroit Public Schools, the slogan for the marketing campaign to help stem the enrollment landslide.

But if students take a chance on the district "and we aren't ready to receive them, then our credibility goes down the drain," Johnson said.