Dabblers in Deception, Masters of Buffoonery

How to spot deeply unserious school board candidates

A friend reached out recently, thinking for sure I’d write about the most recent Deer Valley (DVUSD) meeting, and my response was, “It’s taxing, friend,” because it most certainly is. But given what’s currently taking place on a Deer Valley education Facebook page, I figure I better take my anti-nausea medication and suck it up. 

This meeting took place on August 27, 2024. You may recall that Board Member Fisher has decided to livestream the DVUSD meetings, and seems to enjoy saying things under her breath for her online viewers. This time, she put the camera on the audience, so that was an interesting choice and a huge violation of the privacy of attendees. 

Respecting others and their boundaries doesn’t really seem to be Board Member Fisher’s jam, though, so for any of us who have been paying attention, this abnormal behavior is normal for evangelical extremist board members. 

The meeting started with a bang right out the gate. President Ann Ordway launched the meeting by reminding board members how to participate in the meeting. This is Boardsmanship 101 stuff. She gave a brief tutorial about appropriate voting and reminded everyone that if they’d like something pulled from the agenda, they just have to reach out to the board president prior to the meeting. 

So of course, Board Member Fisher couldn’t help herself. 

She insisted that the agenda doesn’t follow district policy (it does), and talked over President Ordway (of course). A routine vote that should have taken five seconds took five minutes because evangelical extremists seem to enjoy bringing any kind of collaboration or productivity to a screeching halt. 

After that, district leadership gave a presentation about their Teacher Prep Program (TPP) which was created as a response to the teacher “shortage” (remember, it’s not a shortage - there are tens of thousands of certified teachers in AZ, myself included, who choose NOT to teach because of *gestures broadly* working conditions in Arizona classrooms). 

DVUSD may not do everything right, but they sure do seem to roll up their sleeves to solve difficult problems like the teacher retention crisis, and this TPP initiative is just one example of this kind of innovation and collaboration. The number of teachers who complete this program has increased year-after-year, so good job, DVUSD! This is such important work. 

The meeting went on with a discussion about the ASBA law conference and the legislative agenda. President Ordway invited Board Member Fisher to speak first, and lo and behold! This board was in agreement about some things! The thing is, I bet they agree about more than they even know about, but when individual board members refuse to listen to or work alongside their colleagues and constituents, progress becomes nearly impossible. 

Consent agenda was next, and once again, President Ordway gave a brief Boardsmanship 101 class for a board member with many years experience, so that was another waste of time and taxpayer money. 

Next up was a discussion of staff travel to the AdobeMax Creativity Conference. This is a trade conference and connects industry leaders with teachers. It provides training for Career & Technical Education (CTE) instructors. It’s pricey, so I believe that Board Member Fisher actually had some relevant questions about the cost. 

But it’s the way she does it. 

Don’t get me wrong. Her questions were valid. She wanted to know why the cost was so high, and why they weren’t choosing the virtual conference option. The thing is, after she was given very reasonable, logical answers, she refused to see the value and insisted that she was the expert about industry conferences. 

So many of these extremist board members seem to believe that when they ran for their school board, they were running to be the superintendent of their districts. I served alongside a board member like this, and she wanted an office at every school in the district, and to be able to visit classrooms any time she wanted. She wanted to be able to contact the school district’s attorney any time she wanted. She tried to micromanage the superintendent and staff, and then she resigned a year into her term.

She really was a trendsetter for bad boardsmanship way back in 2019, now that I think of it. I really hope she’s having ALL the days she deserves. 

The travel item passed in a 3-1 vote, with Board Member Fisher being the lone ‘no’ vote (Mrs. Paperman was not present during this meeting). 

There were a couple of routine policy updates that were up for a first read and then it was time for public comments. You may remember that DVUSD quietly moved their public comments towards the end of the meeting, and the result has been that most of the deeply unserious commenters don’t ramble on about conspiracy theories, so that’s nice. 

Now, public comments come from people with genuine concerns in the district, and the first speaker shared her observations about how easy it is for students to access inappropriate websites on DVUSD devices. She even came with ideas for improvement, and it reminded me of a simpler time, when our board meetings weren’t public circuses. 

Next up was board member reports, and Board Member Fisher was first. 

She started by complaining that families with kids in special education are being turned away by DVUSD, and I wondered if this was about voucher families. Superintendent, Dr. Finch, recently spoke publicly about how public schools end up footing the bill for special education testing for voucher families. She then complained about how her comments get removed from DVUSD social media posts, so let’s go ahead and talk about her social media engagements, shall we? 

First, it’s pretty standard for all organizations - schools, government agencies, nonprofits, corporations - to monitor their comments on social media channels. Like, if DVUSD posts on an official page about their sports team’s victory, and someone comments about pArEnTaL RiGhTs, that comment will likely be hidden, since it’s off-topic. If someone comes in like a wrecking ball bashing district employees, that comment will likely be hidden as well. Also, social media is a land of make believe, and if you want progress, it ain’t gonna happen on Facebook. 

While districts expect negative comments on social media, it’s really weird when those comments are coming from a sitting board member. Good board members may have problems with policies or practices in their district, but they know that collaboration and working with others are the best way to solve them. 

That board member colleague I mentioned earlier? Her email signature actually said “board member to the okayest district in Arizona” or something like that. Some school board members are thirstier than Tucker Carlson at a Russian supermarket. 

Deeply unserious board members do not want to solve problems. Most of them run for their local school board to destroy their local public school district. They disparage teachers and staff, never meet with their superintendent or prepare for meetings, and bring litigation to the district. It’s like it’s coming out of a playbook or something (because it is!). 

Board Member Fisher’s entire existence seems to revolve around social media. If you’d like to see years of abhorrent online behavior, someone created a website that provides endless examples of abusive, misogynistic, racist, and xenophobic posts. Beware, Joyful Warriors, it may be triggering. 

Next, Board Member Simacek gave a normal update, and then Board Member Carver asked for a presentation about online social media and safety policies and practices (he’s great at following up on Mrs. Fisher’s assertions with actual requests for information). He then spoke about how he had received many messages throughout the meeting about how Mrs. Fisher has her phone camera facing the audience. He wanted people to know that they may be “plastered all over social media”. Mrs. Fisher was scoffing and shaking her head as he said this. 

President Ordway agreed with VP Carver’s sentiment, and reminded everyone that the meetings are streamed to YouTube, so like, maybe you don’t need to record it, maybe? 

Next, Dr. Finch explained how testing for special education services works (again, to dispel myths), and gave general district updates, and we were done! 

Or were we? 

Well, all of “us” were done, but Board Member Fisher was clearly not. At this point, the DVUSD YouTube stream was over, but Mrs. Fisher was still on her phone live streaming on Facebook. She justified her streaming because of “tRaNsPaReNcY” and asserted that it was at the request of a constituent. 

She’s upset that the cameras do not show constituents, upset that public comments were moved towards the end of the meeting, and she even gave Secular AZ a shout-out around 1:42:20 of her Facebook video. She asserted that I don’t want anyone to know what’s going on at their local school boards since I’ve…been…writing about…what’s going on at local school board meetings for almost a year-and-a-half. 

She asserted that I want to keep people in the dark by shining a light on bad board behavior or something. I dunno.

She busted out all of her greatest hits in her online rant, where she said she “refuses to fight with Ms. Ordway.”

She then bashed Mrs. Ordway, saying President Ordway put Board Member Paperman “through hell,” and that she was “harassed…and terrified” because of President Ordway. She said that Mrs. Ordway “stormed out of multiple meetings” and put a “hole in the conference room” when she was slamming a door open (don’t people usually slam doors shut?). 

And of course, no livestream coming from Board Member Fisher would be complete if she didn’t accuse Mrs. Ordway of using her cancer diagnosis to manipulate people. She said that she’s sorry that she got sick, but that she uses her cancer as a tool, and that she’s an “expert of deception.” 

She then continued to complain about the AdobeMax Conference, and being the “expert of deception” that she is, she actually seems to try to deceive her constituents in the comments. 

You may remember that I was actually in New Orleans for the NSBA conference, and Mrs. Fisher visited the Association of Secular Elected Officials (ASEO) table! Her quote about “secular psychos” made their newsletter! 

I think I know why she doesn’t like my Substack updates. She can tell her constituents, well…anything, and they’ll accept it at face value. She even omitted the little tidbit about her own attendance at the NSBA conference in NOLA. And that’s why I torture myself watching these meetings. 

Many of these evangelical extremists mislead potential voters and refuse to answer basic questions about their platform online or on their websites. In fact, there is a great website, called thepollingplace.com that aims to provide information about candidates all the way down the ballot.

In my last Substack, I encouraged all of you to pose direct questions to school board candidates. One of our future speakers, Andra Watkins, has put together a handy article with questions to pose to “Christian” school board candidates, so you can weed out the evangelical extremists. Be sure to check that out. 

Also, a super-easy way to figure out if you’re dealing with a serious candidate is to ask if they support their district’s bond/override ballot measures. Any candidate that is pro-public education won’t miss a beat and will give you a resounding “OF COURSE!” so if they hem and haw or pivot, they probably don’t. 

In the several days since that meeting, the Deer Valley Educators United page has been wild, y’all! I have never seen more unhinged, accusatory posts coming from elected officials and candidates. Again, rather than answering direct questions about policy issues, they dance around like Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. 

Or, they’ll refuse to answer, say something about how the internet isn’t the place for such discussions (answering super-basic questions from possible voters is actually a really great use of the internet), and then offer to meet for coffee. Who even knows what mistruths they spew at the doors? My guess is that they alter their messages depending on their audience, since their websites and social media pages are so purposefully vague. 

Do you know who is running in your local school district? You can plug in your basic information here and find out.

Once you do that, do your research. Some districts are so desperate to keep their taxpayers in the dark, they don’t even list basic information like emails on their website. Far too often, when I’m researching school board candidates, I can’t find ANY information on them online. If you’re running for office in such a stealth matter, I can only assume that you don’t want people to know about you.

And here we are, Secular Fam! As of today, there are 59 days until November 5th, 2024. If you appreciate these kinds of updates, please, become a paid subscriber and/or a Secular AZ member today. And be sure to show up, email your school board members, speak at meetings, or better yet, support a pro-public education candidate today by giving your time, talent, and/or treasure to them. 

Keep it joyful, folks! Until next time!