Back to school: 5 things parents should know

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Michigan students may be planning to head back to school with their cell phones in tow, but parents should know that new rules will restrict how much they can use those devices.

The 2026-27 school year begins Monday in the Detroit Public Schools Community District and many others across Michigan. Other districts begin Aug. 31, while the bulk of districts will begin Sept. 8.

The new academic year will mean new beginnings, new programs, new everything. It also means new state rules. One of them requires school districts to adopt policies that restrict the use of wireless devices — such as cellphones, smart watches, and smart glasses — during instruction.

How the law plays out locally will vary between school districts.

For more on that, and four other things parents, students, and teachers and others should know heading into the new school year, read below.

School leaders see positive results from cellphone restrictions

Michigan’s new law gives schools a fair amount of leeway regarding cellphone restrictions, and most have established different restrictions for different grade levels.

District policies provide exemptions for things such as medically necessary devices, district-owned devices including laptops and tablets, and devices used by schools for instructional purposes.

In Westwood Community Schools in Wayne County, if elementary students bring wireless devices to school, they must leave them in the main office lock box, or in a secured classroom locker, for the entire school day, Superintendent Stiles Simmons said.

In a practice that has been in place for several years, middle school students in Stiles’ district drop their devices off in the morning in the office, where they’ll be locked away, and pick them up at the end of the day. High school students can keep their devices with them, but they must be locked in Yondr pouches once they enter the school. The fabric pouches can only be unlocked at the end of the day.

Stiles said the district went with a more restrictive policy because the experiment at the middle school had positive results.

“Far fewer distractions, less drama, more social interaction, healthy social interaction,” Stiles said. “We want to replicate that across the district.”

Some districts enacted cellphone restrictions last year, after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called for them in her 2025 State of the State address.

In Ferndale Public Schools, for example, high school students can bring wireless devices, but they can only use them before and after school, and in the cafeteria during lunch. During classes, phones must be locked away in a box that holds devices for all students in the class.

Ferndale Superintendent Camille Hibbler was skeptical about whether students would freely place their phones in a box. While some students have been caught placing an old phone in the box, while keeping the phone they use with them, most have followed the rules.

“It’s a part of their routine now,” Hibbler said.

Time for Michigan kids to get fit

Parents of a certain age may remember slogging their way through push-ups, sit-ups, and running as part of the Presidential Fitness Test. The program ended during the Obama administration, but last year President Donald Trump brought it back. This year, he established awards students can earn by excelling on the test.

And the state budget lawmakers approved July 3 requires all public school students enrolled in physical education classes to take the fitness test.

Students who have an individualized education plan aren’t required to participate, unless their plan requires it. And it would only be required in schools that offer P.E. classes.

The presidential test requires varying fitness feats, depending on the age and gender of the student. The target for a 13-year-old boy: 53 curl-ups in one minute, run one mile in six minutes and 30 seconds, and 39 right-angle push-ups. To win the fitness test award, a student must meet all of the targets.

One fewer essay for high school students

Here’s something high school juniors in Michigan will appreciate: They’ll no longer have to write an SAT essay as part of the Michigan Merit Exam. But they’ll have to wait until the state assessment season begins next spring to benefit.

Whitmer in May signed legislation into law that eliminates that essay from the exam. It also eliminates a requirement that students’ scores on the state exam be placed on their transcripts.

Advocates said the latter requirement was unfair because many colleges have made testing optional, and because Michigan students are competing for college admissions against students whose state test scores don’t appear on their transcripts.

More team teaching on tap in Michigan schools

Team teaching — when two or more teachers share the same students and work as a team, often by dividing up which subjects they’ll teach — is growing in popularity in Michigan.

The Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative, an effort aimed at strengthening educator pipelines in the state, first started taking Michigan educators on trips to Arizona, where Arizona State University researchers have done extensive research on team teaching, a few years ago. Last year, 15 Michigan schools were experimenting with the concept. For the 2026-27 school year, 16 more schools will join.

Teachers have been team teaching for years. But many of the districts that have joined the team teaching program do so because they have teachers already trying team teaching but need help.

“What we do is bring in the structures, the process, the data, the tools, that help those teachers,” said Jack Elsey, the founding partner and CEO of the workforce initiative.

The upside? Effective team teaching can improve student achievement and teacher retention, Elsey said.

Public can track progress of teachers’ literacy training

New rules this school year require school districts to report how many of their K-5 educators have received mandatory training in literacy.

The reporting requirement is part of newly enacted legislation that makes this literacy training a mandate for all K-5 educators who teach reading or language arts, as well as anyone who provides, supports, or oversees such instruction in K-5. However, current educators will have until the 2031-32 school year to complete the training.

School districts will also have to report how many and what percentage of their K-5 educators have received the training to the state, which will publish the data. That will allow the public to track districts’ progress.

This data is part of a broader effort in Michigan to improve literacy instruction. Test scores show a majority of students are struggling with reading.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.