Three weeks after taking over the Detroit Public Schools Community District, new superintendent Nikolai Vitti already has a brimming to-do list.
A top priority: Filling hundreds of vacant teaching positions that have swollen class sizes and left kids without qualified instructors.
“There are no excuses,” Vitti told the Detroit school board Tuesday night during his first official board meeting since taking over the district last month. “We need to recruit and retain more teachers. That will be a priority as we go into the summer and fall.”
Though Vitti says he’ll wait about a year before making major changes, he walked the board through the list of fixes he plans to make this summer and during the 2017-18 school year.
Among them: An effort to replace contract workers with “actual district employees that have better buy-in and ownership with the work we do in the district,” he said.
In a presentation at Renaissance High School that was repeatedly interrupted by applause, Vitti said he would make efforts to cut down excessive student testing, conduct an audit of the district’s curriculum and review the district’s code of conduct.
Vitti’s full presentation to the board (below) has the rest of his to-do list.