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The Michigan Messenger going forward

By Staff Report | 11.16.11

I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]

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An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.

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Haslett school official’s staff presentation accused of being culturally insensitive

By Todd A. Heywood | 09.03.09 | 2:43 pm

LANSING — Haslett Public Schools Superintendent Mike Duda is taking heat for a PowerPoint presentation he delivered this week that some teachers and community members are calling cultural insensitive. The 15-slide presentation, which Duda says was meant to bring levity to the first day of work for Haslett employees, concludes with a slide which reads:

“If you want this in another language, move to a country that speaks it.”

haslett ppt slideVeronica Piechotte, a Haslett teacher, took offense to the presentation.

“The room was full of laughter, yet there is nothing funny about the way this presentation finishes. I am sure you will be equally as appalled as I am that this is the way that the staff of Haslett Public Schools … opened their 2009-10 school year,” she said in an email to Michigan Messenger.

Duda apologized for the controversial slide in an interview. “I take responsibility for this. It does not reflect the view of our staff, or myself or our [board of education]. It was meant as a little bit of levity with our staff,” Duda said. “It was not meant with malice.”

The slide presentation pokes fun at the many issues public school officials deal with from students being absent to unfinished homework to changing teachers. Duda admitted it was “over the top.”

Duda said the district has an English as a Second Language program which serves “at most, a dozen students.”

The PowerPoint presentation is not the first incident of alleged insensitvity in the Haslett schools. Duda also told Michigan Messenger that the district’s middle school is dealing with an issue of anti-gay harassment against one child. He would not provide details about the incident, which occurred last school year, but said the principal and parents of the student were meeting to address the problem.

Haslett, which is located in Meridian Township just east of Lansing, was listed as the 42nd best place to raise children in a 2007 Business Week ranking.

Duda’s PowerPoint display in question can be viewed here:

Comments

  • foxfire5174

    I do not understand how a Superintendent of a PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM could have let the slide be presented to a group of teachers! It sounds to me like Duda's sense of “levity” is totally off and he has no business having the position of a Superintendent. Sure, we all make mistakes, but for real! This is not excusable and kudos to Ms. Piechotte for bringing light to this incident. We need more teachers like her who have the ability to focus on all the diversities in our public school system!!

  • mznomer

    Has anyone else noticed that the “English-Only” advocates dangle prepositions; cannot speak extemporaneously; and quake @ semi-colons?

    Perhaps mastery of the English language ought to be a pre-requisite to the silly demand for “English only.”

    Superintendent Duda is in his position because he has catered to the power elite—-the very same Michigan mechanism for small towns everywhere.

    Why not embarrass the school board members' zenophobia? They authorized Duda for this insult. I can predict an “aw, shucks. I had no idea” shuck & jive meaningless apology, but that will not be effective.

    Stop paying Duda & the lesson will be learned immediately & it will “stay learned” for the distant future.

    Boycott! Write Letters to the Editor, etc Start a petition.. Take back some accountability for your community.

    Remember: “All that it takes for evil to prosper is for good folks to do nothing” (Edmund Burke)

    • ric69855

      I don't see any problem with what Mr. Duda did during his presentation. First of all, you might want to look at the whole presentation before passing judgement. Secondly, and this is from an immagrants son, we live in America, where the language is English. When my father arrived here at the age of 30, he no longer spoke his native language because he wanted, more than anything to be American. He studied the language, learned it and could read and write it as well as anyone within just a few short years. He became an American citizen and was proud that he now spoke English. What has happened to our national idendity? Must we all learn every language of every immagrant so that we can communicate with them? Doesn't it make more sense for the immigrants to learn our language?

      How about the actual work Mr. Duda has done? Did you read the paper? There were only five school districts listed in the Lansing State Journal that received “A”s for their AYP. Haslett was one. GREAT JOB, Mr. Duda!!!!!!!!!!

      • mznomer

        Dear ric69855:

        I really did not need further evidence that those who insist on “English-Only” frequently could benefit from more practice with its correct usage.  Your response more than evidences my position.

        I don't know of any requirement that I learn “every language of every immagrant (sic) so that we can communicate with them.”  Where did you find this law?  Was it written in English?

        Any supervisor is accountable.  Mr. Duda's job performance did not measure up in this instance,  Mr, Duda's performance is significantly less than satisfactory & the elected offficials of the school board must hold Mr. Duda accountable.

        If the school board doesn't understand that, the tax-payers must inform the members that that is a reasonable expectation.

        Thank you for your comments; however, they are unresponsive to the issue at hand.

        Have a great weekend!

        Mary Elizabeth Nichols

  • deebert

    Blatantly racist is another description. In addition to an apology, demand a point-by-point action plan for school climate remediation. This is not the first story of ridiculous insensitivity and minimization of bad behavior that I have heard about in the highest levels of this district. I’m sorry is a good start but it is not enough to fix this one.

    Well educated on issues of diversity is not the same as 'getting it'; feeling it in your gut when something is wrong, and not in an 'I could loose my job for that' or a 'we could get sued for this' way.

    If he and the staff really 'got it' 1) this slide wouldn't have made the cut in the slideshow, and 2) every teacher in that room should gotten that same little sick feeling inside that I did when I read it and gotten together and said, that was really wrong. Perhaps this did and is happening. If the school didn't have a climate problem…the teachers would be collectively responding to this internally…rather that the outside world GASPING at what some are calling, “malicious indifference'. If the school does has a climate problem…and I suspect it does…then you would see the teachers laughing at the slide with a bit of an uncomfortable groan…and then blowing it off as no big deal. What this would reveal is a staff unprepared and unmotivated to deal with acts of bullying and cultural insensitivity in the school.

    If the SUPERINTENDENT can get away with a ROOM FULL of teachers not instantly standing up to this, I really cannot see them standing up to the kid who say 'just shut up if you can’t talk right” to the girl from India who speaks broken and scant English whose parents are professors. Or standing up to the kid who tells the two kids from Mexico to 'speak English or go home' who are trying to relax and converse in their native language in the hallway. I can't see them standing up to their fellow teacher in the lounge that mocks the parents who kids have to translate for them at parent teacher conferences. Or standing up to the student who drops a racial slur…or a homophobic slur…. or pushes some kid in the hall and calls them a 'fag'. This incident…in a session intended to set a climate and tone for the school year for all the teachers in the district…is indicative of a perilously bad school climate. And a very bad attitude from the schools highest leader about issues of diversity.

    My advice to Mr. Duda? Continue to apologize, profusely and sincerely and take full-responsibility. Develop a comprehensive retraining and climate remediation plan for yourself and the district. Get an attorney and a good PR guy. This could get really ugly.

  • VeryZenJen

    Unfortunately, while this most recent incident involving Haslett School District is shocking, it is not isolated. I am aware, as are many parents and community members, that Haslett staff and/or administration have orchestrated or responded to recent incidents occurring in their school district in a manner that was at a minimum, insensitive, and on the more serious end of the spectrum, morally bankrupt.

    Superintendent Duda states that the presentation in question, “was meant as a moment of levity” and, ” was not meant with malice.” I do not doubt the truth of this statement. In fact, it is Mr. Duda's sincerity that alarms me. I am far more concerned about incompetence than malevolence. Mr. Dudas statements sounded more like that of a privileged, prejudiced, and careless individual than that of an educational leader.

    This particular incident with Haslett School District is only one symptom of a greater disease. We pass on to our children the legacy of Americans remaining among the most inter-culturally naive people on the planet. Few hold passports, most speak only one language, many can't find their own country on a map, and most domestic news sources provide little international news coverage.

    Ultimately, the goal of any school should be to impress upon students the value of embracing and understanding their own and others' multiple identities — a difficult task to accomplish when our educators do not live this value.

    Most of us aspire to not live in a bubble. Mr. Duda should consider joining us.

    • Guest

      You will never get it, freak.

  • Giff15

    I am a senior at Haslett High School and have attended school in this district my whole life. My experience has been nothing but a positive one, and this isolated incident conveys a completely false image about the Haslett School District.

    Rather than shying away from or discouraging diversity, my school actively seeks it. We are a small high school, and still manage to offer Spanish, French, German, and Chinese language classes, which is a large amount of programs considering our size. In addition to these programs, we have “sister schools” in both Germany and China. Exchange programs are very frequent and all students are highly encouraged to participate. One of the best memories I have of these exchanges took place last year when our school hosted group of German students and teachers. I remember attending a large assembly in the auditorium in which one of the teachers played the guitar and taught us a German folk song. We all started to get the hang of it, and by the end were all on our feet singing right along with her. In addition, Haslett High School hosts a “One World Day” in which class is canceled for the entire day and speakers are brought in from as many countries as possible to teach us about diversity.

    I can say completely that there is not even a hint of anti-diversity feeling in the Haslett School District. In actuality it is quite the opposite. It upsets me that a poorly chosen joke has been taken out of context and that people are claiming that these views are being taught to our staff and instilled in our students. There could not be anything farther from the truth.

  • Chris_Singer

    I know you're still in high school and such so I really won't try and slam your comment above too much. I must say, at the very least, it did make me laugh.

    I was discussing your post with a friend and he stole my thunder a bit, but your school district is 87% white (http://www.schoolmatters.com/schools.aspx/q/pag…). As a result, your school has no choice but to actively seek diversity, because it has none!

    I'm sorry but watching a German folk dance and everyone partaking in a great sing along does not automatically make Haslett Public School the posterchild for diversity education. Your example after all isn't exactly a great stretch in creativity – I mean it's a bunch of white western Europeans watching another group of white Western Europeans sing and dance – I don't really consider that a huge stretch of your personal diversity barometer.

    All of that aside, the bottom line is your superintendent's comments were not appropriate for a person in his position who has to work with ALL people and ALL students in the district – not just the 87% native English speakers. There's also much more to diversity than learning a folk song. Diversity is all about putting yourself in that person's shoes in order to try to understand how they look and perceive the world around them. That being said, my advice to you is to put yourself in the shoes of the 13% of your fellow students and try to gauge how you would feel to see that slide?

    • Guest

      Another idiot

      • Chris_Singer

        clarasue, you have such a way with words…try and put together a full sentence and tell us why you think we are freaks and idiots. Any jackass can post something calling someone names. What's the point of posting if you don't express your view? Please tell us what we're not getting…

  • guest5

    Am I the only one who is actually offended by the WHOLE presentation? I can't believe that all of the issues listed aren't seen as the shortcomings of a high school that doesn't teach responsibility to their students by making them responsible for their own behavior. Seriously, did your parents call in for you when you were in high school…if so, time for this community to grow up! We need to prepare these kids for college where no one calls to change your teachers or make excuses for you. Maybe this district should strive to teach independence to the students instead of always covering up its shortcomings with excuses. Maybe it's time for parents to expect more from their students, teachers and administrators.

  • guest5

    Am I the only one who is actually offended by the WHOLE presentation? I can't believe that all of the issues listed aren't seen as the shortcomings of a high school that doesn't teach responsibility to their students by making them responsible for their own behavior. Seriously, did your parents call in for you when you were in high school…if so, time for this community to grow up! We need to prepare these kids for college where no one calls to change your teachers or make excuses for you. Maybe this district should strive to teach independence to the students instead of always covering up its shortcomings with excuses. Maybe it's time for parents to expect more from their students, teachers and administrators.

  • guest5

    Am I the only one who is actually offended by the WHOLE presentation? I can't believe that all of the issues listed aren't seen as the shortcomings of a high school that doesn't teach responsibility to their students by making them responsible for their own behavior. Seriously, did your parents call in for you when you were in high school…if so, time for this community to grow up! We need to prepare these kids for college where no one calls to change your teachers or make excuses for you. Maybe this district should strive to teach independence to the students instead of always covering up its shortcomings with excuses. Maybe it's time for parents to expect more from their students, teachers and administrators.

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