Detroit Public Schools - History

History

Detroit Public Schools has grown in area with the city. Some of the schools in the district began as part of other school districts, such as various Greenfield Township and Springwells Township districts before these districts were made part of the Detroit Public Schools as the areas they covered were annexed to the city of Detroit.

In 1917, the board membership was changed from ward-based to at-large elections.

In 1999, the Michigan Legislature removed the locally elected board of education amid allegations of mismanagement and replaced it with a reform board appointed by the mayor and governor. The elected board of education returned following a city referendum in 2005. The first election of the new eleven member board of education, with four chosen at-large and seven by district, occurred on November 8, 2005.

Before the district occupied the Fisher Building, its headquarters were in the Macabees Building in Midtown Detroit. The district paid the owner of the Fisher Building $24.1 million in 2002 so the district could occupy five floors in the building. This was more than the owner of the Fisher Building paid to buy the building one year earlier. The district's emergency financial manager, Robert Bobb, said in 2009 that he was investigating how the school board agreed to the lease in the Fisher Building. Reginald Turner, who served on Detroit School Board from 2000 to 2003, said that he was told that it would be less expensive to occupy the Fisher Building than it would to remodel the Maccabees Building.

In May 2011, Roy Roberts was appointed DPS's emergency manager by Governor Rick Snyder. In September 2011, a new statewide district, Education Achievement Authority, will take over some of Detroit's failing schools as selected by the emergency manager with up to 16 expected.