Students Rise. We All Rise.
DPSCD does not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability and/or religion
Contact Compliance for more information at (313) 240-4377 or detroitk12.org/admin/compliance.
Overview
DPSCD (Detroit Public Schools Community District), like other school districts, organizations and businesses, emerged from
the height of the COVID-19 pandemic ready to recover and return to more normal operations in Fall 2021. Students, families,
staff, partners and community members contributed to the District’s successful efforts to maintain safety during the previous
school year while continuing to innovate and improve the way we educate our students. This Fall, we look forward to a return
to at-scale face-to-face teaching and learning while maintaining ongoing safety protocols and best practice mitigation
measures designed to keep our community safe.
The District’s decisions regarding reopening are grounded in recommendations from local and national healthcare
professionals including the Centers for Disease Control, the Detroit Health Department and the Michigan Department of
Health and Human Services, all of which have indicated that a return to face-to-face instruction is not only in the best interest
of students, but can be done safely when proper safety protocols are used. Beyond the recommendations of medical
professionals, the District’s reopening plan is in alignment with local and national leaders, including leadership from the
American Federation of Teachers, who all agree it is critically important to get students back to school safely.
Background
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 led to significant and immediate changes in how DPSCD
educated and cared for its students. In a matter of weeks, DPSCD coordinated with private corporations and philanthropies
to raise $23 million for its Connected Futures initiative, ensuring we could put a device in the hands of every District student.
Our teams worked tireless to transition curricula and lessons to online platforms so students could access their learning
from home, and our Family and Community Engagement team led immediate and ongoing campaigns to go out to
neighborhoods and homes to check in with families, provide support and training, and share important information about
the pandemic. The Office of School Nutrition organized food distribution centers around the city to provide meals for both
DPSCD families as well as those in our community who needed assistance. In short, our District worked tirelessly to meet
every challenge with a solution.
As students in the District returned to school in the fall of 2020, DPSCD, like the rest of the city, state and country, battled
the need to continue educating students and employing its staff while reacting to the peaks and valleys of the COVID-19
infection in the community. When necessary, the District paused face-to-face instruction at individual school sites where
infections surfaced and across sites when community transmission rates and a lack of vaccine coverage meant that
operating face-to-face may have posed too much of a risk. To bolster online learning throughout the year, the District
launched more than a dozen technology support hubs throughout the city where families could receive online learning
support, technology hardware repairs or loaner devices, if needed. Despite operating with some form of face-to-face
instruction nearly all school year, the District saw only 20 examples of defined “outbreaks” (evidence of transmission
between people in a school building).
Through ongoing discussion and collaboration with employee unions, the District negotiated a number of agreements with
to provide additional hazard pay to keep operations running, additional leave options for staff who experienced the effects of
COVID-19, and temporary adjustments to assignments and duties to maintain employment. While many organizations and
Districts were forced to reduce staffing or layoff employees, the District maintained continuous employment for all its staff
and made a commitment to keeping them compensated while they continued to support students and families.