For three years, Rachel Adams made a 50-minute trip twice a day from her northwest Detroit home to get her son Eric Rodgers to and from school on the city’s southwest side.
But Adams says she didn’t mind the commute to Munger Elementary-Middle School because Eric was getting a good education from his teachers and receiving the resources he needed for his autism diagnosis.
All of that changed for the 2025-26 school year. As Eric was set to begin the third grade, his mother said he was transferred without explanation to Schulze Academy for Technology and Arts near Detroit’s Bagley neighborhood.
“Nobody had any idea what was going on,” Adams said. “They (Schulze) never had a (special education) program here before, so it’s like my son and the kids in his class are lab rats. It was just a mess.”
The transfer was part of Detroit Public Schools Community District’s changes to its special education department, called Exceptional Student Education (ESE), which increased the number of self-contained classrooms designed for students with disabilities to get the services they need within general education school buildings.
The restructuring aimed to ensure every special education classroom was fully staffed and reduce travel time for families by offering programs in their high school feeder pattern, or the school they would be assigned to based on where they live. But a year since DPSCD redesigned its special education department, reactions to the changes have been mixed. DPSCD says the new model is working for most families, while some parents and staff say implementation has been chaotic and services aren’t consistently meeting students’ needs.
DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told BridgeDetroit that feedback on ESE hubs has been positive, with more than 85% of respondents to a survey sent to families at ESE sites after the first year of implementation saying they were satisfied with the model. Additionally, more than 70% of families that weighed in indicated that this past school year was a better experience than the prior year.
The district, he said, received 166 responses in March and 44 responses in May.
“As we move into the upcoming school year, we will continue to encourage greater family (survey) participation to ensure we receive broader feedback that helps us strengthen our programs and services,” Vitti said.
Munger was one of 21 DPSCD schools that closed its Autism Spectrum Disorder program at the end of the 2024-25 school year, and Schulze was one of 20 new ASD hubs that launched last year.
Adams said progress reports from Eric’s teachers were few and far between and the ASD program was disorganized. Despite living just seven minutes away from Schulze, Adams said she would rather have Eric attend a school in Southwest Detroit again.
“Care is more important than convenience,” she said.
Vitti and other DPSCD officials held a virtual meeting Thursday, giving an overview of the ESE department and services for students with disabilities. The meeting was organized after parents voiced their concerns about special education services at a community meeting earlier this month, with Vitti promising that he would host a meeting specifically focusing on the topic.
The district plans to have an in-person meeting in the coming weeks to discuss improvements in the ESE department over the years and strategies to fix some of the challenges the district is experiencing. A date has not yet been set.
Throughout the Thursday meeting on Microsoft Teams, parents and community members asked questions in a chatbox about things like enrollment, if there are systems in place to track whether students are receiving their IEP (Individualized Education Program) services, who conducts initial evaluations, and not being informed about school activities. Team members from the ESE department responded to the questions directly in the chat and addressed some of them aloud at the end of the meeting.
Vitti acknowledged the parents who are frustrated with the district and have struggled to secure IEPs or services for their children.
Challenges the district has faced include delays in IEP evaluations and re-revaluations, staff not implementing IEP accommodations and delays in speech services.
Vitti said the federal and state governments underfund special education, which makes it harder for DPSCD and other districts nationwide to meet the individual needs of students. But he vowed he and the district are working to improve its ESE services.
“That’s not an excuse to improve services and processes, and customer service, and problem solving in general,” Vitti said about the lack of funding. “There are limitations to the services that we can provide to our students based on funding, but we always try to meet those needs.”
A need for more special education staff
DPSCD’s special education enrollment has steadily increased in recent years.
For fiscal year 2024, ESE enrollment was at 7,132 students while 7,990 students were enrolled during fiscal year 2026, DPSCD CFO Jeremy Vidito said during Thursday’s meeting. For 2027, that number is projected to jump to 8,068 students.
As the district continues to see an increase in students diagnosed with ASD and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MiCI), DPSCD is adding eight new self-contained classrooms in the fall. Burton International Academy will become an ESE hub, Vitti said in an email. The K-8 school will offer ASD and MiCI programs, as well as early childhood special education.
But staffing remains a concern.
Michelle Lee, president of American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 345, said union members complained last school year about issues like overcrowded classrooms and staffing shortages. The union represents ESE paraprofessionals, custodians, bus attendants and food service workers.
Lee said that the staffing shortages caused several of her paraprofessionals to feel overwhelmed and quit.
“There were paras quitting left and right because there was no structure over there in some of these schools,” she said. Lee was unable to give the number of AFSCME paras who left the district this past year.
Vitti told BridgeDetroit 65 ESE paras resigned this past school year, which was the same amount that quit during the 2023-24 school year. The district currently has 550 ESE paras and it has 12 vacancies in that position, he said.
“Our goal is always to be fully staffed for ESE teachers, ESE paras and ESE ancillary staff,” Vitti said. “Right now, we are looking to hire about 40 more ESE teachers, and about 15 ESE paras. Between district staff and contracted staff, we are nearly fully staffed for ESE ancillary personnel (ESE social workers, psychologists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and physical therapists).”
Staff shortages in special and general education have been a longstanding issue for the district. Recruitment and retention efforts, such as a $15,000 incentive to keep special education staff in the district, as well as programs for current staff to earn new certifications, have driven some change.
‘It was a circus’
One ESE paraprofessional talked with BridgeDetroit about the disorganization she experienced at her school for the 2025-26 school year. BridgeDetroit is not publishing the AFSCME member’s name or the school she teaches in because she’s fearful it could impact her employment. However, she did say she was transferred to an elementary school with a newly added ASD program last fall.
The paraprofessional was initially in a self-contained classroom with a teacher and about eight students in grades pre-K to second. Many of the students had behavioral issues, she said. Since the school day involved rotating classes, she would deal with kids having meltdowns in the hallway or elopers wanting to bolt from the classroom. The para described the classroom environment as “a circus.”
A second paraprofessional was added to the classroom during the second week of school, the para said, but it didn’t help much in alleviating her workload.
“I cried every day,” she said. “It was just chaos.”
The para wants to see ESE staff receiving more training at the beginning of the school year, especially if they’re moving into a new school environment.
Vitti said teachers and ESE paras participate in district-wide professional development days throughout the school year, with six scheduled for the 2026-27 school year. All staff are required to complete annual mandatory courses in areas like de-escalation, mandatory reporting, seclusion and restraint awareness, sexual harassment prevention and workplace bullying prevention, he said. Additional professional learning happens after school through voluntary professional development workshops.
For the upcoming school year, paras will be trained on topics like crisis prevention intervention, universal precautions and toileting training and a paraprofessional boot camp through the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education (MAASE), Vitti said. Topics will include special education law and compliance, instructional support strategies and inclusive practices.
While other paras in the school were quitting their jobs, the long-time para who spoke with BridgeDetroit said that she decided to stay. She, like other district paras, is struggling to get by and said that she wants to see a pay increase for paras in the new, two-year AFSCME contract being negotiated with DPSCD.
“We need enough money where we can at least pay rent, some bills,” she said.
Vitti said the district is hoping to have a contract settled in early fall as staff return to school.
‘Happy to be there’
Britta Shine had some reservations last fall when her 8-year-old daughter was transferred to a new school – or rather, a school she was previously enrolled in.
Her daughter, who has a mild intellectual disability, spent the 2024-25 school year at Thirkell Elementary-Middle School in Detroit’s LaSalle Gardens neighborhood. But as she entered second grade, Shine’s daughter was transferred to nearby Sampson-Webber Leadership Academy, a school she attended for part of her kindergarten year.
Shine did not want to use her daughter’s name due to safety concerns.
Shine thought the constant shuffling to different schools would be too stressful for her daughter to handle. But overall, the transition to Sampson-Webber was a smooth one, she said.
Being familiar with the environment and having her daughter’s kindergarten teacher return as her second grade educator made the adjustment a little easier.
“She was happy to be there, and she was happy to see everyone,” Shine said of her daughter.
The teacher is supportive and remains optimistic about her potential, Shine said. She plans to keep her daughter at Sampson-Webber next school year and wants to enroll her younger brother, who will be starting the first grade and also has a disability.
“She’s in a familiar place, and it seems like the best course of action,” Shine said about her daughter. “Her progress is very slow, but it is there, and I’m proud of her all the time.”
‘Locked into DPSCD’
Adams’ son, Eric, was diagnosed with autism in 2018 when he was one year old. Since his motor skills are delayed, Eric’s IEP requires him to have speech, occupational and art therapy. It took about three months for him to receive those services at Schulze when a case manager began working at the school, Adams said. A case manager is usually a special education teacher or another member of the IEP team that oversees a child’s education plan.
Even when Eric began receiving therapy again, it was for a much shorter time than when he was at Munger, Adams said. During the school year, he received a half-hour of speech therapy three times a month.
“Thankfully, I got him into speech therapy outside of DPSCD with a privately-owned company that gets covered by his Medicaid. It’s an hour once a week, so it’s consistent, and he seems to be OK with it.”
Vitti said the need and amount of time for additional services like therapy is determined on an individual basis according to each student’s unique educational needs.
Adams wants to take her son outside of DPSCD. She has looked at nearby districts like Ferndale, Oak Park, and Southfield, but Eric’s enrollment keeps being denied because DPSCD won’t help cover the costs of special education services outside the district.
According to the Michigan Department of Education, a local school district that enrolls a special education student under a Schools of Choice Program becomes responsible for developing and implementing an IEP. However, the choice district must enter into a written cooperative agreement with the student’s resident district regarding the payment of added costs associated with the student’s programs and as to how services will be handled. If a cooperative agreement can’t be reached with the student’s resident district, they can’t enroll in the non-resident district.
Adams said she’ll give Schulze one more chance this coming school year, and if things still don’t improve, she isn’t sure what she’ll do.
“There’s gotta be a Schools of Choice (program) where I’m living in Detroit and can still have my son transfer there because it seems like he’s locked into DPS. I’m giving it one more year, and we’ll see what happens. I don’t know.”