Two years after taking the helm of Detroit public schools, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti says a reform plan is on track and the district is returning to "normalcy" after a decade of emergency management.

The elected school board meets regularly, the budget is balanced and new systems are being put in place to make the business side of the operation work again.

"We've tackled a lot in two years spanning from teacher pay to procurement to our budget, the strategic plan to new curriculum," he told the Free Press. "I mean, all those things for most organizations and administrations would take five years to do. We've done it in two in a district that had no systems or processes to begin with."

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Hiring Vitti was the first major decision of the newly elected school board, which took office in 2017. So far, the board is satisfied with his work, board President Iris Taylor said.

"I think we've done very well," Taylor said. "When you consider where we were and where we are now, the district is focused and has a strong strategic brand."

Teachers withhold grade

Teachers are more skeptical and some parents are taking a wait-and-see approach.

"We'll hold our grade until we see the outcome of the collective bargaining systems that are on the rise," said Terrence Martin, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. "The reviews have been relatively mixed."

Vitti notes that teacher pay is up by $5,236 on average and the district is negotiating with the union on possibly raising it more. The number of vacant positions have fallen from 275 when he started to about 120 now. The number of fully staffed schools has doubled from 22 to 44, Vitti said.

All of that is nice, Martin said, but Detroit teachers still make less today than they did 10 years ago. He did give Vitti credit for being more accessible than the emergency managers who preceded him.

Vitti even relented on a new calendar that would have started the school year before Labor Day. He insists that a coalition of unions orally agreed to the new calendar, but then after the board approved it, teachers objected and planned to protest it at a board meeting this week.

"So we're at a point now where I respect the fact that the DFT leadership is not accepting the calendar," Vitti said. "So to be true to bargaining and the tentative agreement, we are not going to move forward with that calendar" and not start early.

Vitti said the district is completing the second year of a five-year reform plan. The first year was to analyze problems in the district and rebuild trust. The second year was to improve core functions. The coming year, those efforts should begin to bear fruit, he said.

"I think at the end of this year, we'll start to see some improvement in areas," he said. "We're already seeing that in midyear. So chronic absenteeism is down, overall attendance is up. Our vacancies have improved from 275 when we started to 120 right now, those are all proof points."

Debating test scores

Vitti said upgrades to the language arts and math curriculum align them with national standards and give the district a leg up on many charter schools and some competing school districts. He emphasizes that point when he's trying to persuade parents to try DPSCD.

But those changes have also brought criticism from factions within the teachers union.

"It is a scripted test curriculum and there's no evidence that these test scores are of any educational value, but that's his main focus,' said Ben Royal, a member of Equal Opportunity Now/By Any Means Necessary, a caucus within the Detroit Federation of Teachers, which takes a more militant stand.

Vitti said test scores are only one data point in evaluating students and teachers, but they are an important one.

"The test scores are a barometer of what you're doing. Do they matter?" he said. "I think it would be irresponsible to dismiss them. Because those are kids taking the test. They are showing through one form, because that's only one form, of where they're at as far as grade level performance."

Vitti said he expects to see test results rise under the new curriculum. He also touts bringing back art and music in elementary schools.

"I think it's an absolutely great thing that we are returning to the arts," said Bernita Bradley, a parent advocate who serves as a liaison between parents and the district. "I'd certainly like to see more students have the opportunity to participate."

Bradley said most parents are thrilled to see music and art return to the lower grades because it provides a creative outlet for kids.

"As a kid, when do I get to express myself?" she said. "When do I get to move when I won't be punished. I need some creativity."

Deans of discipline

Kids in kindergarten through fifth grade also are getting 30 minutes of physical education a day.

Vitti said that the district is driving down suspensions and expulsions through the placement of deans of disciplines in the schools. Suspensions overall are down 27% and those that keep a child out of school are down 63%.

"All of our schools have a dean of discipline to work with you if you're making mistakes," he said.

Martin said teachers aren't convinced the dean structure is working.

"The reality of a classroom is that there are students that should be suspended that are not suspended," Martin said. "But there's a level of frustration among our educators that I haven't seen before. A lot of schools don't think they have the latitude to suspend students at the rate that they did before."

Most of the fixes needed in the district will require more money, and Vitti said he has been talking with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer about her ideas to create a weighted funding formula for schools that would increase funding for urban districts like Detroit that face high poverty rates and other obstacles to learning.

The district needs to spend about $500 million fixing things like leaky roofs, heating and cooling issues and other problems. But under its current structure, the state won't back new debt for the district until it pays off the hundreds of millions of legacy debt incurred under emergency management.

Without state backing, the district would be forced to pay higher interest rates on the borrowing, which would make it cost-prohibitive, Vitti said. He plans to lobby state leaders to change that, he said.

He said he thinks the district is where it should be at this stage in the five-year plan, but he acknowledges there's much more to do.

"Sometimes for me, it's not good enough because kids deserve more," he said.

Contact John Wisely: 313-222-6825 or jwisely@freepress.com. On Twitter @jwisely