It had barely been a few days since Dearborn Public Schools Board of Education Vice President Irene Watts resigned, citing her family’s move out of the Dearborn Public School District, when board member Hussein Berry stunned the educational community — and all of the voters in the Dearborn School District — by abruptly submitting his immediate resignation.

Berry resigned without offering any explanation to his constituents, disregarding the most basic standards of responsibility and professional integrity.

Earlier this month, Berry had announced his candidacy for the Michigan State Senate’s Second District, which includes all of Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and parts of Allen Park and Detroit, in the November 2026 elections. It might have been at least somewhat plausible — though not convincing — had he cited his Senate bid as a reason to step down from his seat on the seven-member school board. But Berry did not bother to do even that, leaving his constituents — who had re-elected him three times in a district that serves nearly 20,000 students, the majority Arab American — without answers.

Thus, Berry resigned at a moment when the board already faced urgent tasks and responsibilities, most notably the need to appoint a replacement for Watts within 30 days. His exit piled on a second unexpected burden: choosing yet another new member. This left the five remaining board members scrambling, poring over bylaws, consulting educational associations and seeking guidance from the district’s attorney to find the proper constitutional mechanism to fill both vacancies through interviews with applicants.

According to the school district bylaws, any school board vacancy due to resignation or death must be filled within 30 days until the next scheduled election — in this case, November 2026. Once the board opened applications for Watts’ seat, Berry’s resignation forced them to re-open the process for a second seat.

Typically, a new member is chosen by majority vote of the remaining six members after candidate interviews. If the vote is tied, a second vote is held and if deadlock persists, the decision goes to Wayne RESA (the Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency). But Berry’s resignation created an unprecedented situation, sparking legitimate questions: Should Watts’ replacement be chosen first, then allowed to participate in choosing Berry’s replacement? Should both be chosen in separate processes or in one combined vote? How many votes constitute a majority when filling two seats simultaneously?

After much deliberation, the five remaining board members — Adel Mozip, Amer Zahr, Jamal Aljahmi, Patrick D’Ambrosio and Mary Petlichkoff — finally decided that both replacements would be chosen in a single process, with three out of five votes constituting a majority.

All this turmoil could have been avoided had Berry delayed his resignation by even two weeks.

All this turmoil could have been avoided had Berry delayed his resignation by even two weeks. Instead, he rushed to leave his colleagues burdened with an exhausting task.

And the challenges don’t stop there. Beyond filling the two vacancies, the board faces weighty responsibilities: Selecting a new president for Henry Ford College after the departure of Russell Kavalhuna; preparing a bond proposal for the November ballot to bolster district finances and potentially choosing a new superintendent if Dr. Glenn Maleyko departs for a state-level role, or negotiating his renewal if he remains.

If the two new appointees lack the experience to participate meaningfully in decisions as critical as selecting Henry Ford College’s next leader — who will oversee a $100 million annual budget and more than 10,000 students — the damage from Berry’s sudden and unexplained resignation becomes clear. The situation is even more fraught given that the board has yet to determine the scope of the bond proposal, which will require a citywide campaign to win voter approval.

A further complication looms: Maleyko himself is a finalist for Michigan state superintendent of education, with the state board set to decide on August 26. Should he be chosen, the Dearborn Board of Education will again be forced to fill a critical vacancy on short notice, as the school year is about to start.

Berry, however, chose to sidestep these challenges altogether, leaving his colleagues to shoulder the weight. He showed none of the consideration of Irene Watts, who respectfully explained her resignation on the grounds of moving outside the district, as required by board bylaws.

We called upon you for help, “Abdul-Mu’in”, only to find that you yourself needed lots of help.— Arab proverb

In the end, one is reminded of the old Arab proverb: “We called upon you for help, ‘you the helper’, only to find that you yourself needed lots of help.”

And the irony is that this elected official — who abandoned his elected position in one of its most challenging moments — now presents himself as a candidate for the Michigan Senate, after earlier miserably failed bids for the Michigan House of Representatives in 2012 and the Dearborn mayoralty in 2021.

In 2012, Berry lost the Democratic primary for the state House against Harvey Santana, finishing with 1,725 votes (17.2 percent). In 2021, he fared even worse, garnering just 821 votes in the Dearborn mayoral primary.