President of Dearborn Public School Board Jamal Aljahmi shares goals for upcoming year

By Nargis Rahman 

Jamal Aljahmi was elected the President of the Dearborn Public School Board on January 12. He’s also the chair for the Henry Ford College Board of Trustees. 

“Given that I advocate for our community, for our schools, for many, many years, I felt like it was important to be at the table and be a part of the decision-making process,” he says.  

His new role comes as part of a reorganization of the board. 

Aljahmi was elected to the Dearborn Board of Education with an at-large seat, earning 22.8 percent of the votes, beginning his term in January 2025 as a trustee. 

The father of seven children says he’s been a resident of Dearborn for almost 50 years. 

Aljahmi was born in Yemen, earning his high school diploma from Fordson High School. He has an associate degree from Henry Ford Community College. 

Aljahmi has served the community in various roles over the past 30 years – trained professionally as an IT professional, but serving as a Dearborn Parks and Recreation Commissioner for more than a decade, and on the Planning Commission. 

Aljahmi says he was motivated to become part of the change. He says in the last year he’s been able to advocate for school goals.

“Accountability is really, really big in transparency, there’s a school improvement plan that’s that we meet on, and we gage each school goals, and we make sure that there is accountability to those goals,” he shares.

Aljahmi says Dearborn Public Schools has a new dashboard to show how each school is performing, focusing on i-Ready, WIDA, and MISTAR. He says the measures include tracking absenteeism, kids being tardy and M-STEP results. 

He says the schools also keep track of the English language learners.

“We have 8,881 students, our English language learner with 65% of them kids that are born here,” he says, explaining more needs to be more done to support them. 

Aljahmi says Dearborn Public Schools is looking for a superintendent, following the exit of Dr. Glenn Maleyko, who is now the Michigan State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

He says Henry Ford Community College is also looking to find a president, and Dearborn Public Schools is considering an infrastructure bond for voters to vote on this year. 

“There’s three major initiatives that’s going on right now that we are trying to tackle, and they’re big initiatives, because at the end of the day, leadership, the top level impacts our kids’ long term, you know, and they’re going in parallel,” he explains.

Aljahmi says he is engaged with the community, and people know how to reach him. 

“I feel like I have the pulse of the parents, but I also my accessibility to the parents is really important,” he expresses.

He says, however, that more parents need to be involved in children’s education. He hopes parents will get involved proactively, prior to issues arising.

“I went to a PTA meeting once at a high school, and I only saw 12 parents, and some of them were couples,” he says.

He says there is more outreach needed to involve families.

“We need to work on that and do community centers to religious organizations to social media. We need to work on that,” he shares.

Dearborn Public Schools has about 20,000 students, many of whom are Arab American students.

He says different students have different challenges.

But many Arab American students struggle as English learners.

“That’s the focus on is, how do we get the English learners the right support to get them up to speed to be able to be a part of the regular school community, and to exit the English learner designation,” he expresses.

Aljahmi says the school district is diverse.

“From a cultural perspective, there’s no problem people accept each other and they’re used to each other,” he shares. 

Aljahmi says he’s grateful to be accepted and welcomed by the board, school executives, and leadership in his role as board president.

“At the end of the day, the school the board is working together for the best interest of the kids. And this has been a major positive for me, that everybody’s willing and is receptive to turning ideas into changes,” he says.

Aljahmi has previously led youth programs, including co-founding the Concerned Residents for South Dearborn neighborhood association. 

Aljahmi’s term ends in December 2030.