Detroit — In a second-floor classroom at Western International High School on a recent Friday morning, a group of ninth graders were asked what comes to mind when they think of college.
“Degree,” one said. “Stressful,” said another.
Their teacher, Lizette Natividad, asked them to draw a quick sketch of what a college campus might look like. On the board, she had a list of factors that might play into a college decision, including the size of the campus, the location, the degrees offered and the extracurricular activities.
“You do not need to decide your future today,” Natividad said. “But this lesson is more about exploring options, asking questions and learning what environments may fit you best.”More: Detroit high school students could get four new diploma options under proposed program
The lesson she wanted them to understand, that “your future is your choice,” is at the heart of what the Detroit Public Schools Community District is hoping to better convey to students through a new approach to high school that is set to begin this fall.
High School Redesign seeks to make school more relevant
Detroit’s school system in August is undertaking a massive overhaul of the high school experience, encouraging students to start thinking earlier about their paths after graduation and taking more advanced classes and career education.
A year after the school board approved the “High School Redesign” plan, the overhaul will roll out over the next five years, starting this fall with ninth graders in the district’s 11 neighborhood high schools.
In addition to their regular, state-required coursework, starting in 10th grade, students will choose a pathway toward a secondary district-awarded diploma by focusing on advanced coursework, the arts or technical education. Students who choose a technical or arts track can still take dual enrollment or advanced coursework throughout high school, and those who choose advanced coursework can still take a career tech course.
Additional support will be provided for college and career counseling, as well as for ninth-grade students, who will now all take a “freshman seminar” course — the class Natividad was teaching at Western — to ease their transition into high school, keep them on track and plant the seeds of what college or a career could look like for them.
Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has been talking about a version of this redesign for the last few years, including in his State of the Schools speech in January 2025. Two high schools ― Western International and the East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney ― have piloted parts of the plan for the last two years, and the board approved the plan last summer.
In an interview, Vitti said the district has to do more than just get kids to graduation, even though the district has improved its on-time, four-year graduation rate from 64.5% in 2021 to 83.2% in 2025. The district has many student post-graduate success stories, he said, but they need to be scaled across the city.
“It’s got to be 100% of our graduates know where they’re going after high school,” Vitti said. “They’re excited, they’re confident and they’re prepared to do that, whether it’s college or the world of work.”
By providing students with a path and a purpose, district leaders are also hoping to create excitement for coming to school, leading to boosts in attendance and reductions in chronic absenteeism.
The district has already experienced a minor decline in chronic absenteeism ― when a student misses 10% or more of school days or 18 days or more in Michigan ― from 66.1% in 2022-23 to 60.5% in 2024-25. The target rate for 2027 is 43%, according to the plan.
But Detroit’s rate remains much higher than the 38.6% average for schools in Wayne County and twice as high as the state average of 27.9% in 2024-25.
“How do we create the 11-12 experience to be more intentional about what their talents and interests are, so they wake up and say, ‘I gotta go to school’?” Vitti said.
Detroit set to offer four additional diplomas
Starting this fall, the school day at the 11 affected buildings will have eight periods instead of seven to allow for the addition of the freshman seminar class, as well as additional career-focused or advanced classes. The district’s plan does not indicate a specific number of AP or dual enrollment classes to be added. The district currently offers 29 AP classes “across our high schools” in the subjects of social studies, computer science, math and science, English and the humanities and world languages and arts, according to the district’s website.
The extra class period will also give students a chance to recover missed credits earlier in their high school journeys, allowing them to focus their later years on electives that support their goals.
In addition to the traditional Michigan diploma, which will continue to be the requirement to graduate, the district will offer four additional diplomas students can earn:
- Honors: Taking a number of Advanced Placement courses.
- Dual Degree: Earning an associate’s degree and a high school diploma at the same time.
- Career Ready: Earning an industry credential.
- Arts: Creating an art portfolio for college submission.
Students who don’t meet requirements to earn one of the new diplomas but meet state requirements for graduation will still earn what the district will now dub the “Michigan Merit” diploma.
Vitti noted the district has spent significant efforts over the last nine years overhauling instruction and offerings at the elementary and middle school levels, including implementing the science of reading approach to improve literacy rates. But less attention has been paid to the neighborhood high schools, he said, and the district’s strongest students often attend magnet schools like Cass Tech High and Renaissance High.
