On January 25, Excellent Schools Detroit (ESD) and Challenge Detroit (CD) teamed up to host “Enroll Detroit,” a collaborative education forum as part of Challenge Detroit’s Education Challenge.

Through this project, ESD and CD sought to bring greater awareness to the challenges surrounding enrollment that the education sector faces in our city. Together, the organizations focused on the opportunities that could result from collaboration across Detroit’s school system and overall educational environment.

“It’s just nice to be in an environment that is non-threatening, where we can brainstorm all of ideas that are on the table and get out of the boxes that we get stuck in,” stated Margaret Trimmer-Hatchley, superintendent of University Prep Science & Math schools. “I loved the energy of the Challenge Detroit folks, too, kind of turning us up a notch and putting a little fire under those of us who have been around awhile.”

During the event, Challenge Detroit pitched four ideas during an “Idea Fair” to streamline and promote an effective enrollment system for Detroit early learning centers and schools. Proposals included enrollment kiosks to be stationed around the city, and a hotline to inform and field questions about school enrollment from parents and caregivers.

Collaboration and consistency were amongst the primary themes brought up amongst the 30 attendees at the Enroll Detroit forum. The attendees agreed there is a need for smoother transitions between early childhood education and K-12, and in order to facilitate these transitions, the community must be better informed about allaspects of a child’s educational career.

Bernita Bradley, a member of the Detroit Parent Network and mother of two, expressed her feelings about the collaborative event sharing, “It’s good to see someone trying to create something more do-able for parents, considering what Detroit has already been through with schools closing, not knowing what school to send your child, children who have to get bussed out, things like that.”

There was diverse representation including the Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools, the CEO of Cornerstone Charters Schools, parents with children in Detroit schools, and others passionate about the topic. One of the event goals was to facilitate an environment where this diverse representation could openly communicate and discuss their thoughts related to enrollment, a dialogue that led participants to bring up the inter-relatedness of other education challenges. It was understood that all of the city’s educational issues could not be resolved in a couple hours, but the focus on the enrollment topic through interactive dialogues surrounding the four ideas from Challenge Detroit, a round table discussion with all attendees, and time for conversation was a good start!

At the close of the event, Armen Hratchian, Excellent Schools Detroit Vice President of School Systems, and Denise Smith, Excellent Schools Detroit Vice President of Early Childhood Education, asked the group what resolutions they would be open to as part of collaborating to resolve enrollment issues. Some responses reflected educators seeking to come together in cooperation to keep children off the street as opposed to competing for the children who tend to relocate to better schools. Others reflected the need for more communication between early childhood education and K-12. Overall, the resounding feeling was that the key to success in Detroit’s educational system is to continue to look at ways to address enrollment while still keeping a focus on excellent education for children and maintaining open communication with parents.

Challenge Detroit Fellows Ali Beydoun and Jason Zogg discuss enrollment topics with forum attendees over lunch at Enroll Detroit.

Challenge Detroit Fellows Jackie Smith and Sarah Grieb lead an interactive dialogue to get attendees’ input and feedback on one of the proposed ideas around information accessibility and enrollment.