History of Weatherby Elementary School

Weatherby is a small abandoned elementary school on the far west side of Detroit. It was a later addition to the Detroit Public Schools District, built in 1956. The school was constructed all in one phase and never received any additions. This factored into its very low student capacity of only 250 students, making it the smallest school and student capacity we have explored on abandonedcommercialdetroit. Even though it only had a capacity of 250, by 1958 it had reached over 400 students and commonly exceeded 300 into the later 20th century. Weatherby had a strong focus on student engagement and being on the forefront of new curriculum, in 1959 Weatherby was one of 3 pilot schools to experiment with a social studies-language arts program in the homeroom and a science-arithmetic program in the science room, a newspaper published by the students of the Waetherby named the Weatherby Star began in 1960, and in 1961 the school began its annual science fair, even into Weatherby's later years, it contined to focus on newer curriculum into the 2000s this was its computer technology based curriculum. However, into the early 2000s, the enrollment at Weatherby declined, and by 2005, the student population was only 144 students. It was among the earliest closures of schools in Detroit in the 2000s, alongside many former private schools that Detroit Public Schools had leased. In 2015, it was sold to the Land Bank. Since 2005, the lockers have been scrapped out, but much of the structure of the building remains intact, with an abundance of papers scattered throughout. Many papers have been set on fire by arsonists, causing small fires throughout the building since its closure. In 2020 a land bank report called Weatherby the best condition city owned Detroit Public School, while abandonedcommercialdetroit agrees the school is within top 3 condition it believes Healy Elementary School is the best intact school in the report.