Dr. Nicholai Vitti

Dr. Nikolai Vitti was appointed as Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) on May 23, 2017, on a five-year contract. On December 8, 2021, the School Board extended his contract by an additional three years until June 30, 2025. Dr. Vitti is now the second-longest serving Superintendent in the history of DPS/DPSCD. In strong partnership with the School Board, Dr. Vitti has rebuilt the school district after two decades of disinvestment under State Controlled Emergency Management and was most recently named National Urban School District Superintendent of the Year in 2022. Through the development and implementation of a Strategic Plan, along with hundreds of community and family engagement sessions over the years, DPSCD has experienced improvement for the first time in decades in the areas of enrollment; student achievement; student attendance; teacher recruitment, retention, and pay; leadership development and stability; student programming, including expansion of the arts; and financial stability. This improvement has led to reduced levels of financial and program oversight and monitoring by the federal and state government. This school year, 35 schools previously identified by the State to be closed for low performance were recently removed from the State’s lowest performing category.

As was the case for urban school districts throughout the country, the COVID-19 pandemic hit Detroit and DPSCD hard. DPSCD fed over 2 million families during the height of the pandemic. In collaboration with the business community, over $20 million dollars were raised to provide all students with laptops and internet connection to allow students to learn from home. With nearly $1.2 billion dollars in COVID Relief Funding, the District emerged as a national and state leader in COVID mitigation strategies with universal masking and testing, along with high levels of vaccination rates among its employees. DPSCD was also recognized as a national leader with its strategic use and management of COVID Relief Funding, which was used to expand summer and after school programming, address learning loss, provide mental health support for students, develop a virtual school, and build a pipeline for new teachers. $700 million dollars of the funding will be used to substantially upgrade school buildings from HVAC systems to new school buildings.

Before arriving in Detroit, Dr. Vitti led Duval County Public Schools (DCPS), the 20th largest school district in the nation with approximately 130,000 enrolled students in 200 schools, and a fiscal budget of $1.7 billion. During his four and a half years at DCPS, the district ranked among the first to fourth highest performing urban districts in the nation on the National Assessment for Education Progress. In addition, the District’s graduation rates increased from 67 percent in 2012 to 78.8 percent in 2016, surpassing all Florida urban districts in African-American graduation rates. Under Dr. Vitti’s tenure, DCPS was recognized for its expansion of the arts, foreign languages, innovative school programming, and mental health and progressive discipline strategies. Dr. Vitti also successfully secured more than $40 million in local philanthropy to transform the District’s historically lowest performing schools with a focus on human capital and technology infusion. Many of the district’s lowest performing schools avoid sanctions and closures based on his school improvement and reform strategies.

Dr. Vitti was previously Chief Academic Officer of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Assistant Superintendent for the Miami-Dade school district and Deputy Chancellor at the Florida Department of Education. He also served children as a Principal, Dean of Students, and teacher. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in History and a Master’s Degree in Education from Wake Forest University. He also holds a Master’s Degree, and a Doctorate in Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.