History of Mckerrow School

Mckerrow School is a abandoned School on the west side of Detroit, opened in 1927. In its first year 1,750 students attended Mckerrow. Originally Mckerrow served as a K-8 School for much of it’s major life as a school, and was mainly black until the 1976 desegregation order inside Detroit Public Schools which changed the boundaries of students. Many students from Mckerrow were transferred to mostly white schools. Leading to mass protests from parents, which would lead to many parents pulling their kids from Detroit Public Schools and moving them to suburb schools. In 2004 Mckerrow was restructured into a special education center for young adults aged 20 to 26. Originally named the John Deiter Center and was later renamed the Detroit Transition West School, which was the western compliment to tbe Washington trade school later called the Detroit Transition East School. Both the Transition East and West Schools closed within a year of each other, with East being closed in 2010, and West being closed in 2011. Since then the Old Mckerrow building has remained abandoned and faced the wrath of scrappers harder then most abandoned Detroit Public Schools.