An effort by the parent group KeepTroyHonors to recall three members of the Troy schools’ board of education failed earlier this month.
On June 22, a petition was approved by the Oakland County Board of Elections to recall three board members — President Karl Schmidt, Vice President Nicole Wilson, Secretary Gary Hauff.
The group was required to get 8,000 signatures of registered voters before Aug. 4 to have the recall included on the Nov. 7 districtwide ballot.
Alex Karpowitsch, an alumni of Troy High School and organizer of the recall effort, said they were only able to get “just under 3,000” signatures before the deadline.
“I knew this was a long shot, but we sent a message to the board that this is something the people think is important,” said Karpowitsch. “I am not going to stop. This is not over yet.”
The recall started after the school board voted 6-1 to add Illustrative Math next year to the current sixth and seventh grade math curriculum.
The new curriculum removes accelerated math opportunities before eighth grade and “allows students to build a deeper foundation in mathematics, instead of racing through three years’ worth of content in two years,” according to the district website.
The board members targeted by the recall as well as Nancy Philippart, Emina Alic and Matt Haupt voted for the change. Vital Anne was the lone vote against the change.
Alic and Haupt could not be included in the recall because they joined the board within the past 12 months.
“The three board trustees targeted for recall in November are happy that the petition drive was unsuccessful, primarily because that outcome demonstrates that our Troy community supports the district’s curricular strategies designed to increase access to advanced math coursework for a greater proportion of our students in middle school and high school,” said Schmidt. “Although the recall group continues to target Trustee Nancy Philippart for recall next spring, we are confident their ongoing petition drive against her will also fail for the same reason.”
Karpowitsch said they are still collecting signatures to recall Philippart but does not expect them to accumulate the necessary signatures needed.
“We are still out there every night at the library and at this point we have pivoted to just informing people,” he said. “We are now informing people and building a platform for the election in 2024.”
He added, “We are collecting information so that we can build a database of people that support our position so when it comes to the 2024 election we can reach out to that group to build a bigger volunteer base than what we have right now.”
Karpowitsch said he will run for a trustee position on the board in 2024.
Schmidt said the board will move forward with their work.
“The petition group’s stated rationale for recall is simply untrue and our community knows that,” he said. “As a board, we will continue to pursue policies that are research-based and in the best interest of all our students, because that is what the citizens of Troy elected us to do.”
Karpowitsch is optimistic for the future of the district.
“This was by no means a wasted effort,” he said. “I think we got a lot of data and people that align with our position on this and it is just a matter of building out that support and getting more people to come to school board meetings.”
