Hamtramck Public Schools
Hamtramck Public Schools (HPS) is a public school district based in the city of Hamtramck, Michigan (USA) in Greater Detroit. The district has the Schools of Choice program, which allows non-district students to enroll in district schools. As of 2011 the official graduation rate is 62%. In 2011 the United Way for Southeastern Michigan arranged a program, funded by a $27.1 million General Motors Foundation grant, intended to improve the graduation rate. History After Hamtramck became a municipality in 1922, every member of the Hamtramck Board of Education was a Pole and most students of the school system were Polish Catholics. In 1925, of the school district's 7,526 students, about 5,400 were ethnic Polish. Half of the ethnic Polish students were non-US citizens. By the mid-1920s, of the school-attending children in Hamtramck 66% attended public schools. The public schools typically had 45 students per classroom while the parochial schools in Hamtramck had 70 students per classroom. In the early 1920s the annual growth rate of Hamtramck Public Schools buildings was 27% while non-public schools had an annual growth rate of 6% in that period. In the 1920s the Polish language became a part of the curriculum at Hamtramck Public Schools. In 1925 655 students attended Hamtramck High School. JoEllen McNergney Vinyard, author of For Faith and Fortune: The Education of Catholic Immigrants in Detroit, 1805-1925, wrote that Hamtramck High had "substantially more students than were in all of Detroit's Polish Catholic high schools combined." In the 1920s Hamtramck families often sent their children to public school for Kindergarten due to convenience, then moved their children to parochial schools during the periods with the most important religious instruction. Therefore, the age group 7 to 12 had the largest Catholic school enrollment. After the critical period ended, many students returned to public school. In 1925 the public schools had 1,467 students of ages 14–15 while the non-public schools had 217 students aged 14 and 15. In a period in the 20th Century, 8% of HPS teachers were Polish. In February 2003 the district had an annual budget of $35 million and had 3,800 students. In April 2003, George Ward, a former assistant prosecutor with the government of Wayne County, Michigan, investigated the spending practices of the district. The investigation described how the district spent $80,003 and took 18 months to build the Veterans Memorial Park picnic pavilion. It originally had been purchased as a picnic shelter kit at a home-improvement chain store for $2,000. In 2003, a five-year plan for the improvement of the district was revealed. The Detroit News, that year, described the district as "troubled". In June 2004 the Detroit News called the financial situation of the district "troubled". On Thursday June 24, 2004, the Michigan Department of Education sent a team of academic and financial experts to conduct reviews of the school system. The Detroit News stated that under Michigan law, the first step for the state to take in order to take over the operations of a school