Twenty-two candidates are running in the November 5, general election for Detroit Public Schools Community District school board. Three of the board’s seven seats are up for election. Board members are elected at large. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo is the only incumbent running for re-election. Misha Stallworth and Sonya Mays are not. The Michigan Chronicle’s Donald James wrote that Stallworth and Mays declined to run for personal reasons.
This is the largest number of candidates to run for the school board since 2016 when 63 candidates ran. From 2018 to 2022, an average of 13.7 candidates ran for school board. There are 7.3 candidates running per seat up for election. Between 2016 and 2022, an average of 5.7 candidates ran per seat up for election.
Chalkbeat’s Alex Klaus wrote, “New members could determine whether Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s direction for improving student achievement, school climate and culture, and increasing teacher pay will move forward, or be stalled by board division. Members have strongly supported Vitti since his hiring in May 2017, just a few months after the first DPSCD board was seated, and nearly a year after a historic legislative initiative created the district as part of a broad effort to address mounting debt.” Klaus also wrote, “Board members are responsible for hiring and firing superintendents, and Vitti’s evaluations could change as new members replace long-standing ones who’ve served throughout Vitti’s entire tenure.” In an interview with Chalkbeat, political analyst Mario Morrow said, “New board members tend to have a higher bar for superintendents because they want to prove they are making a difference sooner than later.”
On March 20, 2024, the board voted 6-1 to renew Vitti’s contract through 2028. Gay-Dagnogo was the only dissenting vote. Gay-Dagnogo said she took issue with the timing of the vote and that the board should have waited until after the election to consider Vitti’s contract. Chalkbeat’s Lori Higgins and Micah Walker wrote that Gay-Dagnogo also said she believed there were culture and climate issues in the district.
Detroit Public Radio’s Jerome Vaughn wrote that district staff and community members mentioned “insufficient staffing and classroom materials, poor maintenance of school buildings, and toxic work environments for educators” during the public comment period of the March 20 meeting.
Vitti was hired in 2017, one year after the board regained control of the district from a state-appointed emergency manager. The state of Michigan appointed the emergency manager to oversee the district’s operations and resolve $305 million in lingering debt in 2009.
On July 1, 2016, a state law divided Detroit Public Schools (DPS) into two districts: DPS and the Detroit Public Schools Community District. DPS was transitioned into a legal entity to pay down more than $400 million in debt. The Detroit Public Schools Community District managed day-to-day operations for public schools in conjunction with the state-appointed Detroit Financial Review Commission.
Among the candidates running are two former Detroit school board members: Ida Carol Short and Tawanna Simpson. Short and Simpson both lost in 2016. Simpson completed Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection survey that year. Click here to read her responses. For a full list of candidates, click here.
Ballotpedia is covering all school board elections in Michigan this year. Detroit Public Schools Community District is the largest district in the state, with around 48,500 students. For more information about Ballotpedia’s 2024 school board coverage click here.