Metro

ON THE COVER

fi

A back-to-basics
movement
has spawned a
unique political
coalition in the
Oak Park Schools.

Alan Hitsky

Associate Editor

0

ak Park Schools have seen trou-
bled times in recent years:
• One administrator was
accused of using district funds to build a
private "gym" inside a school.
• There have been fights and several
near-riots inside and outside the high
school.
•A controversial "schools of choice" pro-
gram has brought in students from Detroit
in an effort to boost state aid.
• The district's Michigan Education
Assessment Program (MEAP) scores
continue to rank among the lowest in

Oakland County.
• The schools have
a $17 million deficit, but "forgot" to put
a millage proposal on the May ballot to
replace 18 mills that expired in February.
Last year, a couple from Royal Oak
Township decided they had seen enough.
Marie Reynolds, with the help of her hus-
band Lewis, won a seat on the Oak Park
Board of Education. They have several
grandchildren in the schools.
But to push even harder for meaningful
change, this year Lewis turned to a good
friend of 40 years — Maxine Gutfreund

— and to a fed-up Oak Park
parent, Misty Patterson.
With Lewis Reynolds' help, Gutfreund,
the white Jewish bookkeeper, and
Patterson, the black substitute teacher,
handily won the two available school
board seats in the May 5 election. Running
as a team, Gutfreund polled 532 votes
and Patterson 440 out of 2,078 cast. The
next closest candidate had 306. The pair
reportedly tallied one of the highest
school votes ever recorded in the heavily
black Royal Oak Township section that
feeds into Oak Park Schools.

Misty Patterson, Lewis Reynolds and
Maxine Gutfreund

Gutfreund, who served as a school
board member in the 1980s, was more
than a bit skeptical when Lewis Reynolds
approached her about running. "Do you
think the black community today will vote
for a white woman?" Gutfreund recalls
asking him. "He said, 'Yes!'"
Reynolds said Gutfreund was also
concerned about her age (73, which she
revealed, not him!), but his response was:
"Well, Miss Gutfreund — I always call her
Miss Gutfreund — what you need to do is
run and then we can fix this thine
Gutfreund has lived for 46 years in the
same home, southeast of Nine Mile and
Coolidge. She and her late husband, Sander,
raised their four children there. All four
graduated from Oak Park High School.
Although it was a different era then
— Oak Park Schools ranked among the
best in Michigan from the 1950s through
the 1970s — Gutfreund sees no reason
they can't be that way again.
"It's a war zone in the high school: she
said. "There are drugs, weapons and gam-
The 3 Rs on page A18

June 18 • 2009

A17

