SOE and DPSCD team up to attract Detroit teachers to The School at Marygrove

Dean Elizabeth Moje and DPSCD superintendent Nikolai Vitti said the incentives would be offered to teachers who stay in the area around Marygrove. "Maybe we think about low-cost teacher housing … (or other) things to encourage our young teachers to live and teach in this neighborhood," Moje said. Vitti said he's optimistic there will be an announcement within the next six months about an effort that would support that goal and bring native Detroiters to work with Detroit students.

Drs. Moje and Vitti discussed their plans as part of a Detroit Homecoming panel on the cradle-to-career approach taking place on the former Marygrove College campus. The preschool-through-college program on the campus, known as the P–20 partnership, is expected to serve more than 1,000 students. Early this month, the first ninth grade cohort began classes on campus.

During the panel session, Moje said that U-M is talking with historically black colleges and universities in a bid to recruit Detroit undergraduates into the graduate teachers program it's launching at Marygrove. "We really want to recruit Detroiters because they're more likely to stay," she said.

About 60-70 percent of the 120 freshmen who began classes on the campus at The School at Marygrove early this month are from the neighborhood around Marygrove, and a handful of families moved from the suburbs to the northwest Detroit neighborhood around Marygrove so their kids could attend the school.