'No parent is given a shred of hope'
One family's battle with CPS
LANSING – The boy who wandered into the gas station was young, barefoot and alone.
The clerk tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t say where he lived. He seemed agitated and confused.
The clerk called the sheriff. It was the last day the boy would ever be home.
In 85 days, an Arenac County judge would determine his parents had neglected him and his four siblings, because they hadn’t turned their lives around based on six months of services provided two years prior. Ted and Stephanie Jezowski’s children would become another statistic: Five more kids added to the thousands already in foster care.
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“No parent is given a shred of hope in any of this,” Stephanie Jezowski said. “These were my kids. I didn’t abuse them. I didn’t deserve to lose my children, because we can make changes.”
***
It started as a love story.
Ted and Stephanie, both 40, first met when they were 12 years old at church camp on Lake Thumb. They were fast friends and kept in touch on the phone and through letters for more than a year after camp.
Then Ted’s mother died and he moved away. They lost touch.
“About 13 years later, I tracked him down,” Stephanie said. “I had a feeling he was the one, so I tracked him down and called him on his birthday, hoping he hadn’t been stolen already.”
After a few days talking on the phone, she surprised him with a visit. They talked all night, Sunday into Monday. They picked up the ring on Tuesday. She proposed to him.
Dad who lost parental rights: 'I'm trying to be hopeful'
They were married less than a year later, by an old minister who kept forgetting their vows. Stephanie was pregnant with their first.
He was born in October 2003. Stephanie remembers the boy fussing, “but as soon as he heard Ted’s voice, he mellowed right out. It was so cool.”
By 2012, they had four more. The youngest was born at home; labor came too fast, Stephanie said.
“Everywhere we go, we’d always get compliments on the kids, how well they behave,” Ted said.
The family was happy, but “we’ve always struggled,” Stephanie said.
Stephanie said she has multiple sclerosis, which made it difficult to work. Ted works, but it wasn’t always enough. They scraped by.
***
Michigan’s Children’s Protective Services first took their kids away in 2012.
A pediatrician said their youngest was failing to thrive. It turned out to be a tongue tie, a medical condition that restricts tongue movement and can make it difficult for babies to breastfeed, Stephanie said. But the doctor called CPS.
When investigators came to their home, they found “the floors throughout the home were covered with clothes, food and other debris,” according to the investigator’s report. Nothing worse than you’d expect with five kids and two adults living in a small trailer, Stephanie said, but CPS said it was unsuitable for kids.
The state also found the infant boy lacked a safe spot to sleep and that Ted and Stephanie weren’t providing for their kids’ education. Stephanie said they homeschooled the kids. CPS said in its petition to the court that the couple couldn’t provide any evidence of that, though Michigan laws don’t require homeschooling parents to register with the state or keep any records.
The kids were put in foster care for about a month, and over the course of about six months the state offered the parents services. In parenting classes, they received education in cleanliness and time management. They were referred to the Salvation Army. They got educational support. The kids were enrolled in school and Ted and Stephanie were asked to look for a better house. They looked, but never found anything.
In April 2013, CPS closed its case. But the ordeal took its toll.
“After that point, we’d get a knock on the door, we’d jump,” Ted said. “It’s gotten worse since.”
***
In September 2014, their 9-year-old son ran away from home, angry about being grounded from video games because he wasn’t cleaning his room. The boy was picked up by police at a gas station less than a mile from their house.
Ted and Stephanie were out looking for him, but they never called the police. After losing their kids two years before, they were fearful of CPS.
When CPS showed up, they found the home in the same condition they’d found in 2012: Clothes and food everywhere. Mold. The Jezowskis were homeschooling again.
This time, the agency moved for immediate termination of parental rights. They counted the 2012 services as the legally required reasonable efforts to keep the family together.
“My heart was ripped out,” Stephanie said, “and I knew this time it was going to be a much harder battle. I’d never felt so lost.”
***
The Jezowskis were able to hire a lawyer for Ted. Stephanie received a court-appointed attorney. There was a marked difference between the two, Stephanie said. Her counsel, William Engemann, wouldn’t listen to suggestions or spend time talking through her case, she said.
“I reject the notion that there was a lack of quality,” Engemann told the State Journal. “I think that sometimes, some of the motions people want brought aren’t viable.”
No one disputed Ted and Stephanie loved their kids, or that their kids loved them. The family was close. Engemann said the case was over when Judge Richard Vollbach took everyone on a field trip to the Jezowski home.
“It was bad,” Engemann said. "What’re you supposed to do then?"
When the court visited their home, there was no heat or power. Hours had been cut at Ted’s job repairing tube stereo equipment. The Jezowskis had applied for emergency assistance with their bills in October, but the state denied them because they’d applied too early in the year.
Engemann and Ted’s attorney argued that mental health issues diagnosed by CPS’ psychologists in 2014 — never identified or treated in 2012 — could have contributed to the parents’ relapse in cleanliness.
Stephanie told the State Journal she’d tried to keep the house in order, but it was difficult with five kids and the fatigue caused by MS.
“It’s frustrating, because you’re trying to figure out what somebody else wants, and they don’t necessarily articulate what they’re looking for,” she said.
The judge didn’t buy it. Their success two years before showed they were capable.
“At some point in the lives of adults they have to accept responsibility for themselves, and if they have children, accept responsibility for the children,” Vollbach said from the bench in December 2014. “And in this case, these parents have refused to do that.”
***
They appealed, but like most parents who take their fight to the Court of Appeals, they lost. In September, the Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.
Now, Stephanie said she’s trying to find a way to take her case to federal court. It isn’t clear if she can.
“I can keep fighting,” she said, “even if I have to do it myself.”
Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or jhinkley@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley. Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly, at on.lsj.com/somsignup