Hazel Park — Hazel Park Schools Superintendent Amy Wilcox stood in the middle of the room at Longfellow Community Center on Tuesday night with a smile on her face.
For an hour, at one point while holding someone’s baby, Wilcox took questions from parents about transportation, the cleanliness of classrooms, the district’s efforts to curb cell phone use in classes and how the schools could show more love for the arts. She asked what the district could be doing differently to meet the needs of its students.
It was a bread-and-butter event for any superintendent. Less so, perhaps, for one whose board just voted to try to end her contract.
Without citing a reason, the Hazel Park school board on Monday night voted 4-3 in a contentious and confusing meeting to direct the district’s attorney to begin negotiating a buyout of Wilcox’s contract.
In a bizarre twist, immediately after the vote, one of the board members who voted in the majority asked to change his vote. He was too late. What happens next remains unclear. Board President Beverly Hinton, who voted for the buyout, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
But there is no buyout as of yet, and the board did not put her on leave, so Wilcox is still serving as Hazel Park’s superintendent, a job she’s held for 11 years. She went to work the next day and kept her commitment for the parent engagement night, which she had dubbed “Coffee with the Superintendent.”
Superintendent calls Hazel Park ‘a family’ as board seeks contract buyout
“You know, in Hazel Park, we’re a family,” Wilcox told the crowd of about two dozen parents and teachers.
Wilcox made only a small reference to what had happened the night before, noting she had been getting calls of support throughout the day from former students.
Wilcox declined to comment on the board’s actions, but her attorney, Heidi Sharp, released a statement on her behalf.
“It is disappointing that certain school board members continue to let personal motivations and crusades drive their decision-making rather than what is in the best interest of the students of Hazel Park and their fiduciary responsibility as elected officials,” Sharp said.
The attorney said Wilcox does not control the actions of the school board.
“Dr. Wilcox has served as Superintendent of Hazel Park Schools since 2015 and continues to hold that role with pride and determination on behalf of the district’s staff and students,” Sharp said.
Attempted buyout comes after Wilcox was given five-year contract in 2024
Wilcox has 27 years of experience as a superintendent, working in Illinois before coming to Michigan in 2015 to lead the Oakland County district of about 3,000 students, with a large population of students who are economically disadvantaged.
The board last approved a new contract with Wilcox starting July 1, 2024. They gave her a five-year contract, extending through June 30, 2029. Her salary for the first year of the contract was $180,333.97. For the second, it was $185,743.98. The contract did not stipulate her salary for the remaining years, noting that it “may be adjusted as otherwise agreed by the Superintendent and the Board of Education.”
If Wilcox continued to make her current salary, she would earn $557,231.94 over the next three years. A buyout could involve paying her the full amount, as well as benefits, retirement and vacation days.
At the meeting Monday night, members of the public expressed concern about the toll this would take on a district that has already had to make tough financial decisions. They also wanted to know why this was happening at all.
“As a parent, we’re frustrated with the lack of transparency from the Board of Education on why we’re doing this,” parent and substitute teacher Jennifer Hall said Tuesday. “…There’s been no reasoning or explanation on why they feel she needs to be exited from our district.”
Hall said Wilcox personally hired her, but has also supported her and her family through challenging times.
“You know, ‘anything you need,’ she said, ‘reach out to me personally. I will help you,'” Hall recalled Wilcox telling her.
Board’s action follows putting Wilcox on leave for an investigation
Last January, the board put Wilcox on leave while it conducted an investigation. She was brought back in May with no disciplinary action. A records request for Wilcox’s personnel file is pending.
A letter from Sharp, Wilcox’s attorney, issued to the Hazel Park community in May 2025, stated the board tried then to get her to resign for a partial payout of her contract and attempted to bar her from attending the district’s graduation ceremony.
“Considering that (Wilcox) still has never been told what she is being punished for or what, if any, complaints were made against her, this action has no basis,” Sharp wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Detroit News.
Accusations fly after board takes a 4-3 vote
It only took 15 minutes, with virtually no discussion on the substance of the matter, for the Hazel Park board to vote 4-3 to begin negotiations to buy out Wilcox’s contract.
There was first a motion to go into a closed-door session, but that motion needed five votes in support and only received four. That left the board to hash out its business in public.
Board Vice President Deborah Laframboise made the motion to have a law firm negotiate a buyout with Wilcox. Board member Heidi Fortress seconded the motion. Board members then argued about whether they were allowed to discuss the motion before a vote, ultimately deciding they could.
“This is extremely sad,” board member Monica Rattee said. “This is extremely pathetic that after all of these people came up here and spoke from their hearts who work here and are here every day, that you guys are still willing to do this and still willing to ruin our district because you don’t like her.”
“Lawsuits!” someone shouted from the crowd, which grew increasingly vocal, until a board member suggested calling a five-minute recess.
“Hopefully cooler heads can prevail,” board member Nathan Becker said before weighing in on the motion.
Becker said he opposed it because of the support Wilcox had from the community and the district’s unions, and because of the financial impact of paying a buyout, plus legal fees, and then paying to search for a new superintendent.
“What superintendent in their right mind would want to come and work for this board?” he said.
When the vote came down, it was 4-3, with Hinton, Laframboise, Fortress and board member Darrin Fox in support.
Board member tries to rescind vote in favor of buyout effort
A motion was then made to adjourn the meeting early, and it received a second.
Fox then chimed in that he wanted to change his vote.
“Madam President, I have to go back to the vote, and my vote will change to no,” Fox said.
Fox said Wilcox, who was sitting next to him at the table, had just informed him he would be “personally liable” due to a phone call the two had a day prior.
Fox said Wilcox asked him whether they had four votes in support of ending her contract. Fox said he told her that they did. Wilcox was now telling him, he said, that meant they had violated the Open Meetings laws, and he would be held liable.
“You coerced me,” Fox said to Wilcox.
The board and its attorney then debated if they could return to the previous motion, but the attorney noted a motion to adjourn was already on the table. If that motion was rescinded or voted down, the board could have taken a vote to revisit their previous action. But the motion to adjourn passed 4-3.
The meeting ended without the board addressing any of the regular business on its agenda.
Former board members speak out
Wilcox has the support of at least two former board members, Dawn Rice and former President Rick Nagy.
Nagy, who served on the board for 22 years, including a two-year stint that ended last year, noted Wilcox was the first woman to lead Hazel Park schools. He said she works hard and “does a good job.”
“She’s the only superintendent we’ve ever had that is active, goes to the schools, she’s on the floor with the kids,” Nagy said. “She goes to a lot of the sporting events.”
Last year, while he was serving as president, Nagy sent a letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office asking her to begin removal proceedings on three board members: Hinton, Laframboise and Fortress. He said they had not voted on a single item in six months. He gave an example of one meeting where there were votes held on staffing, hiring of in-house counsel and the expulsion of a student.
“Board Trustees Fortress, Hinton, and Laframboise abstained from voting on all eighteen motions,” his letter said. “None of these Trustees stated a reason for their abstention or claimed a conflict of interest.”
Nagy said their refusal to vote “constitutes gross negligence and a breach of their duties as public officials.”
Nagy said nothing ever came of the letter. He accused those board members of trying to “control things,” including the superintendent’s actions.
“That’s not what you do,” he said. “You hire a superintendent, they’re qualified and you let them do the job.”
Rice said she resigned just months before the end of her term because of the actions of those three board members.
“They were wasting our resources on one little minor thing that they were trying to get that gotcha moment,” she said. “I was just angry all the time, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Rice said a previous iteration of Wilcox’s contract included a clause meant to protect her from Hinton, that if they fired Wilcox, they had to pay out her full salary.
Rice said she advocated for that to be removed, in the best interest of the district, but believed Wilcox should keep her job.
“If she had to be fired, I would have walked her out myself,” Rich said.
jpignolet@detroitnews.com
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the last name of a school board member.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Hazel Park superintendent buyout vote takes strange twist after pushback
Reporting by Jennifer Pignolet, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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