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Chairwoman Sherry Gay-Dagnogo won a second term on the Detroit school board with a decisive lead over the next two voters in Tuesday’s election.

With all precincts reported, Gay-Dagnogo had 57,399 votes, or about 13% of the total vote. Gay-Dagnogo, a former state lawmaker and district teacher, was first elected in 2020 and is running for re-election.

Gay-Dagnogo was followed by Monique Bryant, a parent and nonprofit executive, who had 43,006 votes, or 9.5 percent. Ida Simmons Short, who previously served on the Detroit Public Schools board, had 41,378 votes, or 9.1 percent. Short is a community college educator.

Three seats are up for grabs in the Detroit Public Schools Community District in what could turn out to be a pivotal election for the district.

It was one of the crucial education-related elections Chalkbeat covered in Michigan. The others are a A city-wide school millage, a county-wide school millageand Race to the State Board of Education.

There is a lot at stake in each of these choices. For Detroit’s school board, new faces on the board — depending on who is elected — could hurt the district’s turnaround efforts and Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s vision.

The district, the state’s largest, has seen improvements in attendance and academic achievement, but its challenges are immense. Even with the gains, student performance on state exams is extremely low and well below state averages. Meanwhile, nearly 66 percent of the district’s students were chronically absent in the last school year, meaning they missed 18 or more days.

By 11 a.m., about 180 people had voted at the precinct at the Mark Twain School for Scholars in southwest Detroit, according to a poll worker.

One of those voters was Martel Peguese. The 56-year-old Detroiter voted for Kamala Harris, saying she was a good fit for president because of her legal background. But it was difficult for him to choose candidates to lead the DPSCD because of the wide field.

He said some of the topics the school board should focus on when new candidates are in office are school safety, funding and creating new school facilities.

“Kids shouldn’t be afraid to go to school or go to school hungry,” Peguese said. “They (the council) have to paint a brighter future for the children.”

Sherice Ward, 59, a social worker in Detroit, also had a “very difficult” time choosing candidates for the DPSCD school board.

“A lot of them can probably bring a lot to the table,” Ward said.

She believes the current board is doing a good job, but would like to see improved services for students with disabilities. She said schools are lagging behind in evaluating students with disabilities for the services “really needed for them to continue their education, grow and become great citizens.”

She said DPSCD needs more funding and services and that the district is understaffed when it comes to dealing with behavior problems that plague many schools.

“It’s really wait and see,” she said. “It’s hard when a parent can’t get their child to school because there aren’t enough programs or effective staff, it’s very difficult.”

One Detroiter left the DPSCD portion of the ballot blank. Sinatra Thomas, 62, said he hasn’t seen or heard anything about the candidates.

However, Thomas voted in favor of Proposition S, which would allow Detroit Public Schools — which exist only to collect tax revenue and pay debt — to levy all 18 mills on non-homestead property.

“I’m all for supporting our school system even if I don’t support the board,” he said.

Vitti has had strong support from the board since he was hired in 2017. Earlier this year, The board extended Vitti’s contract until 2028which would make him one of the district’s longest-serving supervisors — a rare tenure for an urban district.

He told Chalkbeat in July that the ability to “sustain and accelerate the improvement the District has experienced over the past seven years is largely dependent” on the school board and upcoming school board elections.

The board will have two new faces as Sonya Mays and Misha Stallworth chose not to join Sherry Gay-Dagnogo in running for re-election.

BridgeDetroit reporters Micah Walker and Jena Brooker contributed to this report.

Lori Higgins is the Chalkbeat Detroit Bureau Chief. You can reach her at [email protected].