Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.

Britta Shine’s 7-year-old daughter’s educational journey has been full of changes in the short time she’s been enrolled in the Detroit school district.

Lauren, who has a mild intellectual disability, started her pre-K year at her neighborhood school, Golightly Education Center in the city’s Cultural Center. But after a month, the child was transferred to Thirkell Elementary-Middle School in the New Center area to be part of the school’s special education early childhood program. In the second part of her kindergarten year, Lauren was sent to Sampson-Webber Leadership Academy on Detroit’s west side only to transfer back to Thirkell the following school year. 

With Lauren set to begin second grade next month, they’ll face another change: She will be leaving Thirkell once again to attend Sampson-Webber. 

Shine did not want to use her daughter’s real name due to safety concerns, so BridgeDetroit is referring to her as Lauren. 

The transfer is part of Detroit Public Schools Community District’s revamp of its special education department, called the Exceptional Student Education (ESE) department. According to a district document, the plan will increase the number of self-contained classrooms for ESE students in the fall from 174 to 185 classrooms. Self-contained classes are designed for ESE students to get the services they need, while still being mainstreamed in general education schools. 

However, services will be offered in fewer schools, going from 60 to 38. This means some students will have to transfer in August to one of the new ESE sites that offers a program specifically for their disability. The programs include: 

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
• Early Childhood Program (ECSE)
• Emotional Impairment (EI)
• Deaf or Hard of Hearing Program (DHH)
• Mild Cognitive Impairment (MICI)
• Moderate Cognitive Impairment (MOCI)
• Physical Health or Other Impairment (POHI)
• Visual Impairment (VI)

Last school year, DPSCD served 2,092 ESE students in self-contained classroom programs, said the document. The figure does not include the students served in one of the district’s six center-based program sites for students with severe disabilities, nor does it include students at general education schools receiving resource room or speech-only support.

One goal of the restructuring is to ensure every ESE classroom is fully staffed with teachers and support staff. A second is to reduce travel time for families by offering programs in their high school feeder pattern – the school they would be assigned to based on where they live, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said at a June school board meeting. 

“Those (ESE) programs since I’ve started as superintendent, have been scattered throughout the city and often, a student would have to attend up to four different schools from pre-K to 12th grade, depending on where those programs were at,” he said. “So, the changes were about limiting those to two (schools). Students would go to a pre-K to eighth grade program in one building and obviously, when they’re done in eighth grade, they go to high school. By being closer to their home, it means it will be easier to transport students every day, which should lead to students coming to school every day and therefore, improving achievement.” 

Additionally, the plan will offer five-days-a-week programming for ESE pre-K students, ensure pre-K-8 students can remain at their school and increase wraparound services like counseling support and physical, speech and occupational therapies. 

Vitti later told BridgeDetroit that 1,034 students will receive a placement closer to their homes, reducing the average distance from their homes to school in half.

The proposal was introduced at a March DPSCD academic committee meeting and the district began notifying parents, teachers and paraprofessionals in April about the changes, Vitti said. 

“By reducing the number of programs and concentrating them geographically throughout the city, we can ensure they have certified teachers,” he said. “The more programs we have, even with the few numbers of students in them, makes it harder and harder to staff.” 

While Shine isn’t upset about the new changes to the ESE department, she’s disappointed that her daughter’s learning keeps getting disrupted, she said. 

Lauren was in the MICI program at Thirkell, which was one of 20 MICI programs that closed across the district at the end of the school year. As a child formerly in foster care and someone with attachment and trauma disorders, constantly being moved around to different schools is not good for Lauren’s mental health, Shine said. 

“It’s not helpful for any child to be uprooted from what they understand and placed in a new environment,” she said. “It’s certainly not helpful for children who have experienced out-of-home care, foster-home placement, any kind of disruption to be abruptly moved without any kind of preparation. At least I know Sampson-Webber. The adjustment period will probably be very difficult, and I’m not looking forward to it.”

Finding a way to accommodate more special education students

In addition to reducing travel time for families, the realignment plan was created to accommodate the growing number of special education students, according to the district document. In fiscal year 2017, there were 8,234 ESE students in DPSCD. While enrollment dipped to 6,884 in 2023 due to the pandemic, the number of special education students in the district is rising again. For fiscal year 2024, enrollment was 7,132 students and 2025 enrollment is projected to be about 7,708 students. 

This follows a growing trend in Michigan and nationwide, with more students receiving special education services since the pandemic. For the 2023-24 school year, there were 217,569 students enrolled in special education statewide, according to the Michigan School Data website. This is compared to 209,937 students during the 2022-23 school year and 203,585 students during the 2021-22 school year. 

In the last decade, the percentage of students in special education nationally has increased from about 13 percent of the total student population in the 2011-12 school year, to almost 15 percent in 2021-22, reported Education Week. In 1976-77, students in special education made up 8 percent of the overall student population.

During the pandemic, the number of students with IEPs, or Individualized Education Programs, dropped by 0.1 percent, between 2019–20 and 2020–21, going from 7.3 to 7.2 million students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). However, by 2022-23, that figure rebounded, reaching an all-time high of 7.5 million students, or 15 percent of all public school students. 

The most common type of disability category under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is “specific learning disability,” which includes students who have difficulty reading, writing, or doing math, said Education Week. The disabilities are often called dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, respectively. The second most common is a speech or language impairment, with the third being a chronic or acute health problem that affected a child’s education performance. 

The Detroit programs that saw the biggest increases in enrollment were Mild Cognitive Impairment and Autism Spectrum Disorder. The MICI programs increased to 1,144 in fiscal year 2023 compared to 1,124 the previous year. While enrollment dropped to 1,125 in 2024, enrollment for fiscal year 2025 is projected to be at 1,170. Meanwhile, enrollment for the ASD programs increased by 100 students between 2022 and 2024, from 311 to 411. The number is projected to rise again to 438 students for 2025. 

Some of the new school sites for the MICI program include Sampson-Webber, Hutchinson Elementary-Middle School and Central High School. For the ASD program, new school sites include Noble Elementary-Middle School, Garvey Academy and Cody High School. 

Vitti told BridgeDetroit that the district determined which schools would be ESE hubs by reviewing student data to see where students were living compared to which schools they were attending for their ESE programs. Then officials looked at schools in those neighborhoods to determine seat capacity to add or shift ESE self-contained seats and programs.

Due to the expansion of self-contained classrooms, ESE sites will have supplemental services, such as a fully assigned ESE ancillary staff including social workers, occupational therapists, speech therapists and nurses, said the document. Additional ESE paraprofessionals also will be in school buildings to cover absences and/or support crisis responses. 

Staff will be assigned based on the programs they serve and the IEP requirements of the students, Vitti told BridgeDetroit.

“Those hubs will have a separate assistant principal, lead teacher, parent liaison so that we can improve the completion of IEPs so that those are more timely,” Vitti said at the meeting. 

For years, DPSCD’s ESE department has suffered from delays in conducting or complying with evaluations for special education services. 

Teachers and staff who operated ESE programs that closed at the end of the school year will be transferred to the new ESE hubs in the fall, according to the document. 

In terms of funding, the district receives local, state and federal funding to support ESE programs. That includes:

• $45 million in local funding through Wayne RESA, including $8 million in one-time revenue
• $97 million from the state
• $24 million from the federal government, including $9 million of Medicaid revenue. 

With the passing of President Donald Trump’s megabill earlier this month, the piece of legislation includes significant cuts to health care spending, including Medicaid. Vitti said as families lose Medicaid eligibility, then the district’s reimbursement rates will decline.

“We expect this to happen over time as the work rules are implemented,” he said. “We are also waiting what happens with state funding, and how the state plans to support our neediest families and students and if they plan to shift funding from K-12 to fill gaps for disadvantaged families.”

Communication is key 

Shine said another reason why she has been frustrated with the rollout of the new restructuring plan is a lack of communication from the district. Shine received an email from DPSCD on June 2 informing her that Lauren will be returning to Sampson-Webber next school year. She said that was the only correspondence she received from the district. 

“That’s the only email I ever got,” Shine said. “Overall, I respect what they’re trying to do. My problem is the way in which it was handled. If you’re going to radically change the schooling experience of special education students, you don’t send one email, you don’t even send two emails or five emails or make phone calls. You find a way to make it make it a softer landing, rather than like, ‘Your life is different now.’” 

Board Member LaTrice McClendon also raised those concerns at the June meeting, saying she received several calls from parents that had not heard about the restructuring of the ESE programs. 

In response, Vitti said the district had an engagement process for the new plan, which included talking to teachers and paraprofessionals and hosting an ESE parent meeting in April. 

“From there, the ESE department has called every parent on the phone and every parent received a letter regarding the possible changes,” Vitti said. “We’re problem-solving with parents, explaining why the changes.” 

Vitti told BridgeDetroit that the district also released robocalls and are now starting to conduct home visits to any families staff have not reached.

Shine tried explaining to Lauren that she will be going to a new school next year, but due to her low comprehension level, it’s hard for her to understand, she said. While she’s able to complete tasks at a pre-K level, she still has the mind of a 3-year-old. 

“For her, and I assume for lots of other children, too, it’s going to come as a big, weird surprise,” Shine said. “I am very grateful it’s going to be Sampson-Webber, which is a building that she knows. If she sees me driving there, she’ll figure out, ‘OK, I remember this building.’’ 

Shine hopes that the teaching team that worked with Lauren at Thirkell will be there to help her at Sampson-Webber in the fall to make the move a little easier. 

“When the school year starts, give the students some grace when they have their natural reactions to these radical changes for them,” she said. 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correctly attribute comments to school board member LaTrice McClendon.