Kalamazoo Public Schools says it can do a better when it comes to vetting would-be employees. The district has faced an outcry over revelations about Loy Norrix High School principal Rodney Prewitt. KPS says it did not know when it hired him that Prewitt had been disciplined by education authorities in Florida for alleged sexual harassment.
On Thursday, Superintendent Michael Rice said he’s taking steps to make the district is better informed about future job candidates.
Rice declined to say that the district absolutely would not have hired Prewitt had it known about his background.
“We would have peeled the history back harder, at the time. There’s no question about that. We would have peeled it back substantially harder but we did not know at the time,” he said.
A KPS employee has filed a federal lawsuit accusing Prewitt of sexual harassment. Rice says KPS’ own investigation found those claims to be baseless. He would not elaborate on why the district put Prewitt on leave earlier this week.
On Thursday, the school board heard from several people who said the district’s problems with sexual harassment go beyond one person. Carina Hilbert says she experienced it when she taught in KPS schools. And she says her daughter who studies at Kalamazoo Central High School has been harassed by other students.
“We are the district of the Promise. And we hamstring our graduates when we send them out into the workplace and into colleges not knowing that sexual harassment is not only immoral but also illegal. We set them up to fail and that cannot be tolerated any longer,” she said.
