School Board Appoints New Trustee, Parts with Petrowitz

During a nearly four-hour meeting on Monday (Oct. 9), the East Lansing Public Schools (ELPS) Board of Education interviewed six candidates to fill the seat left vacant by Monica Fink’s resignation. J. Estrella Torrez was unanimously named to the trustee position.

Board members also went into closed session to discuss a personnel issue, likely a separation agreement reached with Dennis Petrowitz, the MacDonald Middle School teacher who used the N-word in two classes in the spring and was suspended again last month for an “unprofessional verbal interaction” with a student and staff member. No details on the agreement were provided.

The meeting began on a high note.

GLP Financial Group of Farmington Hills presented a $5,000 check to the district, part of its ongoing support of K-12 education and community nonprofit organizations. Accepting the award, Superintendent Dori Leyko remarked that at an upcoming professional development day, teachers would fill out tickets to be drawn to earn one of 10 $500 scholarships to be used for classroom supplies. Two teachers would be selected from both the middle and high schools while one educator from each of the six elementary schools would be selected.

Presentations on the district audit and the professional development plan for the coming year followed, coming before public comment.

ELEA president speaks out in defense of Dennis Petrowitz as a “maligned” “imperfect human.”

Mark Pontoni, president of the East Lansing Education Association (ELEA), the district’s teachers union, rose during public comment to offer a defense of Petrowitz. He characterized the long-time teacher as being maligned in an ongoing (symbolic) reality show.

“Welcome to The Imperfect Human,” Pontoni said, “a reality TV show where we are all the lead characters. As events have unfolded during the past few weeks since a teacher was accused of using harsh language toward a student, many of us have been more than willing to broadcast our own imperfections. 

“I want to take a few minutes to try to set the record as straight as possible in an atmosphere where facts and due process have too often been sacrificed,” Pontoni said. “Dennis Petrowitz has served this district for 30 years, has volunteered countless hours outside the classroom in maintaining our facilities and working with student athletes. He’s consistently shown remarkable dedication to the district, seeing that things are done correctly on many levels. But as one of the stars of tonight’s episode, Dennis is an imperfect human. He is, however, not the demon he has been portrayed on in social media and even in this very board meeting. I sat here and listened to people, perhaps due to their own imperfections, who berated him and showed very little interest in the truth. If your only source of information about Dennis is what we’ve said in this room or on social media, you’d have to believe he runs around all day shouting the N-word at students, and that has never happened.

“In the incident last spring, due to his imperfections, he did use the N-word in addressing a situation between students. In his attempt to defuse that situation, he used poor judgment in using that inflammatory word,” Pontoni said. ”But it was not in any way, at any time, directed at any student. Instead of learning the context of the incident, Dennis was demonized. He paid his price for his mistake last spring and this summer before returning to school, prepared to do the job he loved so much. Now, we can and do criticize Dennis’ judgment, and we can criticize his choices without endorsing the tactics used to demonize him. This fall, he raised his voice trying to get some misbehaving students to come to order. At no time during his exchanges with students did he use any racial slurs or exhibit any racist behavior. Because the child he was addressing was Black does not make Dennis a racist. It makes him a frustrated teacher who is having trouble getting students to come to order. Welcome to middle school.”

Brandi Branson, representing the East Lansing Parent Advocacy Team (ELPAT), reminded the board that they are still requesting a tool for parents to monitor district happenings.

“[We’re] still waiting for a dashboard for all of the schools, for the district that can report, one, what’s happening in their schools, what’s happening with this plan, what are some of our success marks, what does that look like,” Branson said. “We’re also looking to have the principals of each school come into the board and report monthly or quarterly what’s going on in their schools. So, it’s not just we’re coming together in a crisis situation.”

Majority of the Monday meeting involved interviewing candidates for the open board seat.

The bulk of the meeting was spent interviewing the six applicants hoping to fill Fink’s board seat. Each candidate was asked the same questions, helping board members learn about the candidates’ priorities and perspective of their possible role.

Four candidates have been faculty at Michigan State University (MSU) and all have been parents of ELPS students. After the question-and-answer periods, however, board members were quick to offer their support to two of the candidates, Tiffany Matthews and J. Estrella Torrez. Matthews is a financial officer for the State of Michigan while Torrez is an associate professor at MSU. 

It was their real-world experience, however, that caught the attention of the board.

“I did not have an interest in serving on the board until the last school board meeting,” Matthews said. “There was a parent who spoke and what she said was that, as a school of choice parent, she didn’t feel that she had any representation in the district or on the board. That hit home for me because my family joined the district as a school of choice family. We did not move into East Lansing until 2019, so for about five years, my children were school of choice children. I also currently have a son who is finishing high school through Graduation Alliance. I have a daughter in the 10th grade who’s just a regular high school student and she’s on Portrait [ELHS student newspaper] and in clubs, and I feel like I can relate to a majority of the families in the district because of my experience with my children in the district.”

Torrez explained her own connection to parents in the community.

“My intent has always been and continues to be to create spaces where students and parents and teachers and community members across the demographics feel supported and heard,” she said. “I take a very intersectional approach to my work. I look at the multiple identities that the families and students hold. They aren’t flat, right? I’m not looking at someone just from a racial or ethnic perspective. We’re looking at abilities, we’re looking at sexual orientation, we’re looking at gender, we’re looking at language, we’re looking at socioeconomic status, and on and on.”

After taking a five minute break after the interviews, Board Treasurer Kath Edsall said her top two candidates were Matthews and Torrez.  

“I see strengths in both candidates, amazing strengths in both candidates,” Edsall said. “I appreciate Ms. Matthews brings up the issue of coming here as a school of choice parent, because we’ve had many parents say to me, they don’t feel like they’re part of the community if they are a parent of children in the district via the schools of choice, and that oft times children who are schools of choice end up with a different experience than kids who come into this district.”

“The comments that have been sitting with me are what we are losing with Trustee Fink leaving this board and her connections to our community and how important that is, and what a deep loss that will be and is on this board,” Board President Terah Chambers said. “And I’ve been listening all across the interviews for that community connection, and for me, Dr. Torrez, her comments are what take me there. Her authentic connections that we have lost with Trustee Fink and that I’m really thoughtful in making sure are still represented.”

After a bit more discussion, the board unanimously approved a motion made by Board Secretary Tali Faris-Hylen to name Torrez to the board.

For just under 30 minutes, the board moved into closed session to discuss a personnel issue, presumably the separation agreement with Petrowitz. That agreement was one of five items quickly approved at the end of the meeting, including ones to replace boiler parts and to adopt a revised religious and cultural calendar.

The next board meeting will be 7 p.m. Oct. 23 in the boardroom on the lower level of East Lansing High School. The board meeting video can be viewed here.