The Detroit Public Schools held the first in a series of parent meetings about a radical plan to close some schools and turn others into charter schools.
Detroit schools’ Emergency Financial Manager, Robert Bobb, proposes closing six schools and making up to 45 others into charters.
18 of those schools will close this summer if no charter operator takes over. 27 others will have the opportunity to go charter, but would stay open as public schools if that doesn’t happen.
Bobb says that’s a better option than a state-mandated deficit-elimination plan, which would close 40 schools outright.
Most parents who attended the first meeting at Priest Elementary school in southwest Detroit expressed concern and even anger about Bobb’s plan. Many worry what it will mean for their neighborhood schools, student transportation, and special needs students.
Danielle Clark’s eleven-year-old daughter attends the Detroit Day School for the Deaf. Bobb’s plan calls for that school to close.
“This should not be an option, to close the only deaf school in Detroit. I drive 40 miles one way because this is my daughter’s culture and her environment and this is the place where she needs to be.”
District spokesman Steve Wasko says concerned parents will have a chance to make their case directly to Bobb in other meetings this month.
“We may learn something about a school…that it’s not a good candidate for closure or charter. In some cases we may learn that a school that we thought was a candidate for charter just simply has no interest from a charter. And if it’s on the list of 18, it would indeed close. If it’s on the larger list it would remain open.”
Bobb and the Detroit School Board will also hold two town meetings about the plan on April 12th and 13th.
