Chronic absenteeism, protections for immigrant students and continued efforts to raise literacy rates are likely to be among the top education issues next year as students, teachers and staff in the Detroit school district return to school after winter break.
The city will also see its first new mayor in 12 years, with Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield being sworn into office Jan. 9. Throughout her campaign, Sheffield said she intends to play a role in education in the city. On election night, she said that would include creating coordinated transportation and investing in after-school programs and wraparound services. Sheffield’s transition team website includes a job posting for an education liaison.
As Detroit education saw a busy 2025, here are six pieces of news to keep in mind for 2026:
- DPSCD is bringing back its perfect attendance initiative
The Detroit Public Schools Community District announced earlier this month that it is reviving its “Perfect Attendance Pays” initiative when students return to school on Jan. 5. High school students have the opportunity to earn a $100 gift card every time they achieve perfect attendance during a five-day cycle. The cycles will run through March 20, allowing qualifying students to earn up to $1,000 in gift cards.
To qualify for perfect attendance, students must attend every hour of the school day. District-approved field trips or in-school activities count as attendance. Attendance will be monitored through the central office team based on attendance entered into PowerSchool by the student’s teacher, according to the district. At the end of each five-day cycle, the central office team will run a report of all students who had perfect attendance. The office will then issue the electronic gift cards to the DPSCD email address of the qualifying students.
Data from last school year showed that while many of the students who earned the gift cards were already consistent school attenders, the incentive did improve attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism.
- DPSCD’s chronic absenteeism rates
The Detroit district, where 84% of students come from low-income families, has long had high rates of chronic absenteeism. In recent years, the district has significantly reduced the rate with a multilayered approach, like mentorship programs, attendance agents and adding laundry machines to schools. Last year was the first time students in the district were chronically absent at a lower rate compared to pre-pandemic years. Still, more than 60% of students missed too much school.
DPSCD’s chronic absenteeism problems are causing the district to miss out on millions of dollars in state funding. DPSCD will lose $2.2 million for not reaching a 75% attendance threshold multiple days last year, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat the law disproportionately punishes schools in communities with high concentrations of poverty and creates more funding inequities.
- DPSCD’s sanctuary district status for immigrant students
Earlier this month, teachers, students and community members spoke out at a DPSCD school board meeting, asking the district to do more to protect U.S. newcomers, as four students seeking asylum in the U.S. were in federal immigration custody.
Vitti said the district would release a statement and continue to work with advocacy groups to support the students and would distribute information to students about their rights. However, many at the meeting said the letter wasn’t enough. They want the district to take a harder stance against immigration enforcement. Among their demands were mandatory staff training, safer transportation, and counseling for students with immigration concerns.
In November, dozens of people asked the board to update its 2019 “Sanctuary District” policy and train all of its staff in protocols around interacting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The board did not take any action.
There have been at least five DPSCD students detained by ICE in the months since federal immigration enforcement ramped up during the second Trump administration.
4. How will DPSCD spend the rest of its literary lawsuit money?
The Detroit school district spent about $32 million from its literacy lawsuit settlement in 2024 to hire more staff to support students learning to read, reduce class sizes in early grades and pay for tutoring.
Some of the investments are already paying off, said officials in DPSCD. Students in classrooms with academic interventionists and kids who read with in-school tutors showed more improvement on average on the district’s literacy assessments than their peers, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during a board finance committee meeting in November.
The district’s spending on those initiatives accounts for about one-third of a one-time $94.4 million settlement in the 2016 federal “right to read” civil rights lawsuit.
The largest chunk of the district’s settlement spending last year went toward efforts to teach students in K-3 to read.
5. Possible policy changes to the district’s student meal access
In November, the DPSCD board approved a resolution asking the Michigan Department of Education to pursue two key adjustments to the state’s Afterschool Snack Program. The DPSCD proposal, “No Michigan Student Left Behind Hungry,” from board secretary Ida Simmons Short, aims to waive a requirement that children must eat meals on site at school, as well as a provision where at-risk after-school care programs can only be eligible if they have “organized, regularly scheduled activities.”
Simmons Short told BridgeDetroit that she wants to see the changes made so students do not need to be in an after-school program to receive a meal and are allowed to take meals home.
However, Michigan Department of Education spokesperson Ken Coleman said that changes to the policy would have to go through the federal government since the snack program is part of a federal food program. Coleman did not address whether the MDE would advocate for such changes.
6. Davis Aerospace and Cooley projects set to be completed
Davis Aerospace Technical High School is expected to move back to the Coleman A. Young International Airport by fall 2026, and the vacant Cooley High School will open its district and community-based sports facility sometime next year.
Moving Davis Aerospace back to City Airport has been a goal for DPSCD since the district announced its facility master plan in 2022. But inadequate funding had been the main factor in the plan’s delay. Costs to relocate Davis Aerospace to the airport include converting one of the terminals into a school building. However, the district’s philanthropic arm, the DPSCD Foundation, plans to invest more than $32 million toward the two projects.
The Cooley sports complex would include a football field, an outdoor track and community and green space. The school, which closed in 2010, was briefly considered to become a community hub by nonprofit Life Remodeled.