Trying to teach in DPS amid decay: 'It's a travesty'

• Teachers have used sick-outs in recent days to draw attention to working conditions in the schools.
• District struggles to provide basic building maintenance in an era of deficits.
• Custodial services have been outsourced to save money.

Temperatures outside are in the 20s, but the windows in the principal’s office at Detroit Institute of Technology Preparatory High School are cracked open and two fans are running to keep the indoor temperature from reaching 90 degrees.

Fifteen ceiling tiles are missing over the head of Principal Latoya Hall-King as she explains that her side of the building must tolerate desert heat to keep the other side of the building from freezing in the January air.

"We have a boiler that needs to be fixed," Hall-King said. "But it's very expensive with a cash-strapped district."

Hall-King was hosting Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who visited Detroit today for a meeting and toured the school to see first-hand some of the conditions that have prompted teachers across Detroit to call in sick in recent days, forcing more than 70 schools to close.

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In addition to temperatures that were either too cold or too hot, Weingarten saw hardwood floors buckled with moisture, restroom stalls with the doors ripped off, an auditorium where the wooden seats have decades of graffiti carved into them and a computer laboratory with plenty of computers but no Internet access.

"There are two temperatures, arctic and the hottest summer day," Weingarten told the Free Press after the tour. "This is an abandonment of children. It's a travesty."

Detroit teachers have complained for years that the buildings provide unsafe environments for both students and teachers. Beginning last week, teachers across the district began using sick-outs to call attention to the district's plight. The district faces mounting debt and risks running out of cash in April or May unless the state, which has run the district for 14 of the past 17 years, comes up with money.

State Sen. Goeff Hansen, R-Hart, introduced two bills today to help DPS, but the district's debt is $515 million and some Detroit lawmakers say the $250 million in the legislation is not enough.

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On Tuesday, Mayor Mike Duggan toured several schools saying what he saw was a mixed bag, but noted that conditions in some of them "break your heart." Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Darnell Earley said in a statement that the average building in the system is 47 years old.

"To the extent that areas of concern are called to our attention, we remediate the issue based on the resources available," Earley said in a statement. "In every case where an issue has been brought to our attention, we have responded in as timely a manner as possible."

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The city on Wednesday said it would inspect all public schools in Detroit by April and enforce compliance where violations were found. Twenty of the most problematic schools in DPS will be inspected by the end of this month, including Cody. It was not immediately clear whether Osborn also was on that initial list.

Cody High School was dedicated in 1955 when postwar Detroit was booming.  Architectural details such as hardwood floors, oak cabinets and polished tile hint at a time when money was abundant.  Now the campus houses three distinct high schools and the building is showing its age.

A leaky roof has spilled water over the years onto the hardwood floors in many classrooms, buckling the board with foot-high bumps that form tripping hazards.

Henrietta Freeman teaches economics and history in a second-floor classroom, where she stacks old textbooks on the radiator vents to reduce the hot air flow that makes the room swelter in the wintertime.

"It's 15 degrees outside and 90 degrees inside and that's with the windows open," she said.

Down the hall, Sara Hennes teaches English and journalism in an overheated classroom. One day last week, she left the windows open during her preparation to keep the temperature down. When she returned after an hour  way, a squirrel had climbed in the open window to enjoy the warmth.

"I shouted him out," she said.

In the second floor gymnasium, some of the glass-block windows at the ends of the basketball floor have been knocked out. The wind makes a slight hissing sound as it blows in the cold air. ​A computer lab in the building was recently refurbished by a group of volunteers including members of Oak Pointe Church in Novi, who provide mentors at the school.

"The principals have been very cooperative," said Pastor Kurt Alber.

But even as the lab includes computers, it doesn't have Internet access, said Brandon Johnson, a counselor at the school.

"We are the Detroit Institute of Technology — where is the technology?" Johnson said.

The tour also included a trip to the former Osborn High School at 7 Mile and Hoover, which like Cody, now houses three distinct high schools. It opened in the 1950s.

Life Remodeled, a nonprofit, reroofed the building last summer, but water damage inside is still evident. A third-floor restroom for faculty is locked and a step inside shows why. Visitors are greeted with a nose-curling smell of mold coming from a hole in the ceiling tile. The roof over it has been fixed, but the damage remains.

"We keep it locked," said Dennis Myles, principal of Osborn Collegiate Academy of Mathematics, Science and Technology.

A first-floor classroom at Osborn sports two bullet holes above the windows from a drive-by shooting along Hoover. Ceiling tiles in the auditorium are missing from previous leaks.

But other parts of the building remain intact. The carpeting is still in good shape. New paint covers most of the walls.

"We do the best we can," Myles said.

Back at Cody, Hall-King tells Weingarten that in the absence of money to fix up the building and add services, the school partners with churches like Oak Pointe, local businesses and other community groups to help kids.

"So basically you’re dependent on the kindness of strangers?,”  Weingarten asked.

“Exactly,” Hall-King said.

Contact John Wisely: 313-222-6825 or jwisely@freepress.com or on Twitter @jwisely.