History of Coffey Middle School/K-8

Coffey Middle School later a K-8 School is an abandoned Detroit Public School on Detroit’s northwest side along Seven Mile Rd. nearby to Southfield Rd. Built in 1925 as a single story elementary school known today as the north wing. The original north wing could hold 180 students and was originally a kindergarten through 3rd grade. The city of Detroit annexed the school in 1926 from Redford Union School District. The school closed from 1933 to 1936 when only 35 students were in attendance at the school. However in the 1940s the population of the neighborhood around Coffey grew in population and the school was reopened. It was later expanded in 1954 with a modern utilitarian design and focused on usefulness over beauty in the case of Coffey it was a concrete design today these wings are known as the east and south wings. Though it is unknown when the school became a middle school it was likely in 1954 along with this expansion. Also in the 1954 expansion a Gymnasium and Auditorium would be added. In 1969 a protest broke out at the school along with many other Detroit schools in northwest Detroit. However this was later accounted in the media as rock throwing between white and black kids. The reason for the protest was against the death sentence of Fred Evans a black man that was sentenced to death from a all white 7 man jury. With the general decline of Detroit leading up to the early 2000s, Coffey was at half of it’s 1000 student capacity. By 2009 the student count at the school was 386 and with that Detroit Public Schools closed the school in 2010 along with many others between 2007 and 2012. In 2015 the school was sold to the city of Detroit via the Lank Bank. Extensive scrapping has put the condition of the school as some of the worst in the Detroit Public Schools system. Also in 2015 the school was supposed to be demolished but never was and still stands today in 2026.