Detroit school board race: What's at stake for parents, students

Welcome back. Some parents have been pushing to change Detroit's public schools, and today they'll have a chance to do just that. Voters will decide the race for five open seats on the school board. Chalkbeat reporter Hannah Dillinger is here to talk about how the district may change moving forward. Good to have you on. How are you? Good. Happy Election Day. Happy Election Day to you as well. Okay, so five of seven school board seats are up for grabs. How dramatically could this election change the direction of Detroit schools? And what should parents be watching for? Sure. So this election is coming as DPSCD is in its 10th year since its creation. So it's really kind of, this could be a turning point for the district. The issues that parents and community members really have honed in on in the past few months really They want more urgency from administrators in the district in improving academic achievement and improving facilities as well as they want more transparency from leadership. And so with the new board majority coming in, a lot of the candidates are calling for Superintendent Nikolai Vitti to leave the district. And the board does have the power to vote to hire or fire the superintendent. And so people will be watching to see if this new majority is gonna be willing to work with the superintendent to build on the current policies and strategies for the district. Or if their criticisms will either push him out or they'll try to remove him. So if you talk to academics and researchers, they'll say that in the last 10 years, DPSCD has really made a lot of progress in improving academics and chronic absenteeism, and they worry that if new leadership were to come in, some of that progress may either stall or go away. That's really important, and I was going to ask about some of the frustration around Nikolai Vitti, but you've really answered that question. So my question to you, with 34 candidates, Candidates competing for just five seats. How can voters distinguish candidates offering like actual concrete solutions from those just simply who are frustrated, who are promising to shake things up, but they really, you know, don't necessarily know how things operate on the board. Yeah, so Chalkbeat, we have a complete voter guide in which we asked candidates their positions on key issues, including academics, improving chronic absenteeism, what should be done with small schools that have high costs. Should they remain open or should they close? So that's all on our website. And there have been a number of different candidate forums that have been recorded as well as video interviews through Citizen Detroit. So that's a way to narrow down who you're choosing. And I should Say that 31 of the candidates are for the four full-term seats and three are for the two-year partial-term seat. A question that comes to my personal Instagram inbox all the time is around more urgency for reading scores. So what's keeping Detroit children from reaching grade-level literacy? And what power does the board have to actually change that? Right, absolutely. That's one of the key issues. And so if you look over time, the district has, if you look at M-STEP scores, you'll see that there has been lasting incremental improvements, but still only 14.1% of third graders in DPSCD scored proficient or better. On the M-STEP last school year compared to 38.2% of all Michigan public school students. And so I think that when you talk to folks, a lot of that frustration and need for urgency comes from years of history of black students in Detroit not getting the education that they deserve. One more question for you before you go. For the parents whose child is struggling right now, after this election, how soon can they see a meaningful difference? So the new board will take their seats in January, and they can immediately vote for changes to curriculum and budget amendments or start to create tension with the superintendent and start to push for change. So this, I mean, it could potentially happen pretty quickly, but it all depends on the majority that voters elect. Hannah Dillinger, Chalkbeat Reporter. Thank you so much for checking in with us today. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back.