State to take over 15 Detroit Public schools

Year-around public schools are coming to Detroit.

Officials with Michigan's new recovery school district announced Tuesday that 15 Detroit Public Schools will be taken over by the state and become laboratories this fall for a new system for low-performing schools.
Six DPS high schools and nine elementary-middle schools will come under the Education Achievement Authority, which Gov. Rick Snyder created to revive the state's failing schools.

An extended-year calendar was approved for the EAA schools, increasing the number of days students are in school from 170 days or 1,098 instructional hours in the current schedule, to 210 days starting this fall. Student will have a quarterly calendar that starts Sept. 4, ends Aug. 6, has 52 to 54 days each quarter and shorter breaks around major holidays.

"I don't know if people understand the magnitude of what just happened," EAA Chancellor John Covington said after a EAA board meeting Tuesday. "This 210 days for students, it puts us at the highest in the nation, only second to Massachusetts." ...

About 12,000 students attend these schools, which were selected because they had the largest percentage of at-risk children, officials said.

www.detroitnews.com/article/20120314/SCHOOLS/203140338/State-take-over-15-Detroit-Public-schools