Detroit Schools Try to Lure Students Back

Felicia Harvey has two reasons for sending her children to the Detroit Academy of Arts & Sciences: They are learning at the charter school and she doesn't trust their education - or safety - to the city's historically poor public schools.

Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Robert Bobb is walking some of the city's toughest neighborhoods to bring back Harvey and other parents who have abandoned the district by the thousands.

It's an imposing sales job, especially with the district's $259 million deficit and his decision to close 29 schools and lay off more than 1,000 teachers before classes start Sept. 8.

"You hear all the negative," Harvey said this week following a surprise visit from Bobb to her west side home. "My theory is change doesn't come overnight. I'm not saying I'm willing to put my foot in the door. I have to wait and see."

That's a start for Bobb, a career public administrator given a one-year, $260,000 contract in March by Gov. Jennifer Granholm to rescue the district. Each student coaxed back brings along $7,550 in state funding.

Bobb has to convince skeptical, angry and disillusioned parents that decades of mismanagement, corruption and subpar standardized test scores - not to mention classrooms without textbooks and bathrooms without toilet paper - are over.

Since Aug. 10, he has taken five neighborhood walks of about three hours each, speaking to more than 100 parents.

"Some parents are changing their minds about coming back to DPS, coming to DPS for the first time or not going someplace else," Bobb said. "Just as valuable has been the opportunity to get real-time intelligence on the ground directly from parents."

Detroit Public Schools had 182,516 students in 1992-1993. Enrollment dipped below 100,000 last year; Bobb is budgeting for 83,777 students this fall.

He is battling charter schools as well as suburban schools - facing their own declining student base and less state revenue - that are opening their doors to Detroit's disenchanted.

A $500,000 "I'm In" student-retention campaign is featuring celebrity help from the likes of comedian Bill Cosby and a downtown display of 172 blue doors, each representing what Bobb calls a "solid education and a promising future" at each school. A parade and back-to-school rally will take place Thursday.

"I want to keep your kids in DPS," Bobb told parents at soon-to-close Birney Elementary in Harvey's neighborhood. Designed for 559 students, Birney has struggled to bring in 230.

This fall, another school, Durfee, will absorb Birney's students. Low enrollment is dictating similar scenarios citywide.

Since taking over in March, Bobb has revamped academics at 41 schools failing under federal No Child Left Behind guidelines; required about 2,500 teachers, aides and counselors at struggling schools to reapply for their jobs; and cut 72 administrative positions.

The contracts of 33 principals have not been renewed.

Another concern for leery parents is safety. District records show 35 fighting offenses at Durfee - where Birney students are supposed to attend this year - between the start of the last school year and April. One student was found with a gun, and there were four physical assault cases and two sexual assault incidents.

"I'm going to send them to charter schools. I'm not sending them to Durfee," 34-year-old Markita Wells, whose two youngest children were to attend Birney this fall, initially told Bobb during his walk Tuesday.

But 15 minutes later, her mood was softened by his pitch that changes are coming, especially at Durfee.

Wells later said she would give Durfee a chance.

"He made me feel comfortable where my child is going to go," she told The Associated Press. "He does have a plan. I feel better."