Rochester Community Schools (Michigan)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Rochester Community Schools (RCS) is a public school district in Metro Detroit, Michigan. It serves Rochester, most of Rochester Hills, Oakland Township, and small parts of Auburn Hills, Orion Township, Shelby Township, and Washington Township. The district has 22 schools: 13 elementary, 4 middle, and 3 high schools, and it covers grades PreK–12. The current superintendent is Nicholas Russo.

Address: 5285 Dequindre, Rochester Hills, MI 48307
Website: www.rochester.k12.mi.us

As of the 2023–24 school year, about 15,000 students attend RCS. The district employs roughly 804 teachers (FTE) and about 1,347 staff (FTE), for a student–teacher ratio of 18.6 to 1. The operating budget for 2023–24 was about $227.4 million.

Brief history:
- In 1949, Rochester and several nearby districts consolidated to form Rochester Community Schools to guarantee high school education. Districts Avon, Brewster, Hamlin, Ross joined Rochester to create the new district.
- In 1952, additional small districts (Baldwin, Stoney Creek, Brooklands, Kline, Snell, Brush, and others) joined, shaping the current boundaries.
- In the early 1980s, the district faced a budget crisis and closed Woodward and Hamlin elementary schools (Woodward later demolished; Hamlin reopened and was renovated in 1984).
- In 2022, a civil rights lawsuit alleged that then-Superintendent Robert Shaner spied on parents via social media and restricted free speech. The district settled the case with terms kept confidential; Shaner resigned in 2023.
- In 2025, Shaner sued the district over his firing and won a judgment of about $732,631 in damages.
- As of January 2025, the Board of Education members are Michelle Bueltel, Barbara Anness, Julie Alspach, Jessica Gupta, Carol Beth Litkouhi, Jayson Blake, and Shelley Lauzon.