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.