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: