West Central Michigan News

Highland Park District’s newly hired management company will be facing an uphill battle in fixing the struggling school district, according to an article by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

“Seven years ago, Highland Park Schools went through a highly publicized period of turmoil and organizational upheaval,” Director of Education Policy Ben DeGrow writes in the article. “The troubled time for that Detroit-area district was brought on by a steep drop in enrollment and the deep financial crisis that followed. By contrast, the district’s newest upheaval is rooted less in obvious signs of distress than in conflicting visions of what success looks like.”

Nonprofit educational management organization Promise Schools has been given the task of increasing academic achievement at the school and regaining the trust of families who sent their children, former Highland Park students, to other schools.

“Educators and officials in Highland Park have struggled with the task of preparing the city’s poor and often transient student population for college and career,” DeGrow writes. “The new school operator has a hard task in front of it. The school is improving yet still fragile, and its new leaders will have to find a way to preserve and build on the cultural gains of the last few years. They will also have to help student achievement, which has started to make gains, improve more and improve faster — all while dealing with the disruption that brought them to Highland Park in the first place.”

Michigan-based charter management company Leona Group previously helped oversee Highland Park’s operations.