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Voters elected two former board members, an incumbent, a newcomer, and a familiar face to the Detroit school board Tuesday in a pivotal election that may change the direction of the district for years to come.
Detroiters cast ballots to fill five open at-large seats on the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s seven-member board, including four seats with full four-year terms and one with a two-year partial term. The election comes as parents and community members push district leaders for more urgency in improving academic achievement, building conditions, and transparency.
The unofficial results showed winners of the four-year terms are Georgia Lemmons, Jameel Smith, LaMar Lemmons and Bessie Harris.
The election was a referendum of sorts on the 9-year tenure of Superintendent Nikolai Vitti,who has in recent months faced harsher criticism from board members concerned that students aren’t improving enough on state and district exams.
While the election of two new members critical of Vitti makes more board clashes likely, his most vocal critics didn’t get elected. And it’s unclear whether Vitti’s job is at stake because not all candidates or sitting members have been clear about their opinions.
LaMar Lemmons was a Detroit Public Schools board member during state emergency management from 2012 to 2016. He was elected to the newly formed DPSCD board in November 2016 and left office in 2018.
He has been critical of Vitti over the years. He initially voted against hiring Vitti in 2017, but later changed his vote because he said he wanted the new school leader to have unanimous support from the board.
Most recently, LaMar Lemmons decried the accelerated closures of small schools.
His wife, Georgia Lemmons, is a retired DPS teacher who served on the DPSCD board from 2017 to 2022. She voted against extending Vitti’s contract in 2020.
Smith, director of psychotherapy services behavioral health service line at Henry Ford Health. Incumbent Harris is a retired special education teacher and principal. She was appointed to the board in October 2025 to fill a seat after the resignation of a member. Terry Whitfield, a self-employed nonprofit consultant, was just shy of earning a four-year term, losing by just 56 votes.
Aliya Moore, a self-employed DPSCD parent, won the two-year partial term. Moore is a longtime critic of Vitti and his administration who has called for his removal from the district for years.
The future of the district was on the mind of voters such as Elizabeth Gist. She said she spent a lot of time researching since she hadn’t heard much from any campaign and selected about seven school board candidates she planned to vote for. She hopes they can improve Detroit’s educational system and its children’s outcomes.
“Children are the future … and I’m concerned. Because critical thinking seems to be a lost art. Even basic phonics, reading, arithmetic,” Gist said.
Thirty-one names are on the ballot for the four full-term seats. Three of them — Natalie Bien-Aime, Henrietta Ivey, and Darious Morris — have said they are no longer running.
Three candidates — Ijazz Jackson, Aliya Moore, and Shawn Vaughn — are running for the two-year seat.
With so many candidates on the ballot, some voters said they were confused about who to vote for Tuesday.
Katherine Jackson, a retiree, said that while her grandchildren attend DPS schools she is not as informed on the candidates as she hoped she could have been.
“I really wish there was someone or something to help me so I just voted for the names I recognized,” she said.
Nichelle Williams, 33, a southwest Detroit home healthcare worker, has a freshman daughter attending the University Preparatory Academy charter school, and described herself as not being familiar with the dozens of candidates. But she is sure of one thing — that it’s time to “shake things up.”
She cited the district’s decades-long struggles with literacy rates.
“They need a change when it comes to reading, a lot of students are really far behind where they have to be and can’t read,” Williams said. “Then they turn into adults who can’t read … something has to change.”
Read more of our DPSCD board election coverage here:
- This November’s Detroit school board election may drastically change the district’s direction. Here’s how.
- Some Detroit school board candidates spent campaign contributions on clothing, travel, and meals
- 1 Detroit school board candidate raised nearly 80% of campaign money, finance statements show
- 4 Detroit school board candidates have felony convictions, analysis finds
- 5 Detroit school board candidates run as a slate backed by ‘militant’ ‘anti-fascist’ activism group
Statewide races on Tuesday’s ballot will also affect education for Detroit students, including the governor’s race and the battle for two seats on the State Board of Education.
Amelia Benavides-Colón from BridgeDetroit and Beki San Martin of the Detroit Free Press contributed to this report.
Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.