BATTLE CREEK, MI - A group of Ypsilanti Community Schools supporters is asking the Michigan Civil Rights Commission to help remedy what they claim is racial segregation affecting the school district.

Four people representing Ypsilanti Schools will present to the eight-person Commission during a meeting on July 24 in Battle Creek. Kirk Profit, a lobbyist who has been involved in coordinating the presentation, hopes the Commission will agree to partner with the local community to develop strategies for reducing the racial segregation among Washtenaw County school districts.

"What we want to do is ask, 'What can we do about this?'" Profit said Wednesday, July 12. "I think the answer is to be found by having the broader community acknowledge that we have racial segregation and racial inequity right in our backyard, in 2017 Michigan. And then ask ourselves, 'Is this who we are? Is this how we want to define ourselves?' I'm certain the answer is no, so then what are we going to do about it?"

The Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution at its July 12 meeting in support of the presentation to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission and work done by a new "student development program" started at Ypsilanti Community High School in the 2016-17 school year.

Commissioner Ricky Jefferson, who represents District 6, introduced the resolution. He would like to see a regional effort to support students at Ypsilanti Schools.

"The Board of Commissioners did the right thing in supporting (the resolution)," Jefferson said. "I'm appreciative of their enthusiasm to do it."

Profit, a graduate of Ypsilanti High School and former state representative, helped start the student development program that provided additional academic support and other resources for students-athletes on the Ypsilanti football team this past school year.

Fred Jackson, longtime University of Michigan assistant football coach who now leads the Grizzly team, wanted to establish a student development program to help better prepare students for success after high school. The Ann Arbor News/MLive followed the team through the 2016-17 school year to report on its progress and the challenges facing the student development program and school district as a whole.

Profit will introduce the topic of segregation at Ypsilanti Schools during the Civil Rights Commission meeting, and Jackson, who also is the dean of students at YCHS, will offer his perspective on the current state of the school.

Cristal Nichols, a teacher at Detroit Public Schools with a doctorate in educational studies, will give part of the presentation. She has studied the schooling experiences of African American, low-income students. State Rep. Ronnie Peterson, D-Ypsilanti, will give closing comments.

The presentation is not a formal complaint of a civil rights violation, Profit said, but an attempt to coordinate efforts to address the disparity in resources and educational opportunities afforded the students at Ypsilanti Community Schools compared to other area students.

Student achievement and the on-time graduation rate at YCS remains below the state average.

YCS enrolled 3,791 students in the 2016-17 school year, 59 percent of whom are black and 22 percent of whom are white, according to data from the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information. About 61 percent of the school district's staff is white.

Low-income students account for 70 percent of Ypsilanti Schools student body.

YCS enrolls a high number of minority and low-income students, when looking at Washtenaw County's total student population.

The chart shows the 2016-17 student population at traditional public school districts and charter schools in Washtenaw County as a percentage of the county's total student population. Data is from the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information.

Ypsilanti Schools students account for 8 percent of the 46,500 students who attended traditional public schools and charter schools in Washtenaw County in 2016-17. However, YCS enrolled more than 16 percent of the county's minority student population and 20 percent of the county's low-income students this past school year.

On the other end of the spectrum, Saline Area Schools, Dexter Community Schools and Chelsea School District all enrolled a disproportionately low number of both minority and low-income students.

Ypsilanti Community Schools formed in the 2013-14 school year from the consolidation of the former Ypsilanti and Willow Run public schools - two financially and academically failing districts. Voters approved the move as a way to avoid the dissolution of Willow Run schools and state takeover of Ypsilanti schools, Washtenaw Intermediate School District Superintendent Scott Menzel previously told The Ann Arbor News.

In the four school years since the consolidation, YCS has seen a 16.5 percent drop in total student enrollment as families move out of the district or have their children transfer elsewhere. About half of the school-aged population that lives in the Ypsilanti Community Schools district attended school somewhere else in the 2016-17 school year, according to the state's enrollment data.

White students and more affluent students have left the school district at a faster rate since the consolidation, with those populations declining by 26.9 percent and 20.4 percent, respectively, over four years.

Declining enrollment puts financial strain on Michigan school districts, because state funding is distributed on a per pupil basis.

As schools lose students and funding, they are forced to cut programs and other student supports in order to balance their budgets. Those cuts make the district less attractive to families, so more students will transfer elsewhere and the cycle continues.

"People don't want to talk about race and class. It's uncomfortable. ... It's an emotional topic, but I would love to have the conversation to say these practices contribute to where we are now," said YCS Superintendent Benjamin Edmondson, in an interview with The Ann Arbor News/MLive last fall. "Poor and minority together, in this country, they're almost synonymous. People look at things differently when you're a district that's seen as poor or a district that's seen as minority. When it's put together - poor and minority - then people really just would rather opt out. Those that can, have."