Destruction, Chaos, and Wasting Taxpayer Money

(Oh, and racism. Lots of racism)

What a crazy week it’s been in the world of Arizona school boards!

Last week, I covered the nonsense happening in Peoria (PUSD), where two board members voted to reject their own money in a stunning display of privilege and cruelty.

In that editorial, I touched on the sUpEr SeCrEt “expert panel” training put on by the Arizona Women of Action organization where the presenters essentially lied about the work social workers do in our public schools and encouraged attendees to overwhelm their districts (and the taxpayers) by filing endless public records requests.

I also touched upon the shenanigans in the Higley Unified School District (HUSD) where a parent is targeting an AP English high school teacher for teaching books on the approved reading list, deeming it “pornographic.” 

It’s absolute chaos, and it’s on purpose. 

Let’s circle back to PUSD first. 

After the vote to reject the remaining $275,000 of the mental health grant secured back in 2019, a few local news outlets covered the vote. I’m glad they did, but I wish they’d cover school boards more. I’m not a journalist, and originally, I began covering these board meetings for my own form of therapy. Now, I continue to editorialize these meetings because I don’t see enough coverage from local news. Aside from perhaps LOOKOUT and the Copper Courier, and of course, all these “independent news sites” there isn’t nearly enough coverage. I get it. 

The knuckleheads running the legislature and plenty of municipal governing bodies keep the local media on their toes, I’m sure, but when you consider how many legislators got their start on local school boards, school boards should warrant more attention in the media, IMO. 

Arizona 12 News followed up on the board vote in PUSD on 9.12.2024, and interviewed a former student who benefited from mental health supports, a social worker, and a “conservative parent” in the district. All three of them support this grant, and expressed their dismay at the PUSD vote. In the text of the article, President Proudfit doubled down on her decision, saying “she supports social workers but does not believe temporary grants are the solution.

To me, this just amplifies how little some of these white saviors understand how public school funding in Arizona works. I mean, the educators who write grants for districts can potentially bring in millions of dollars to fill in the gaping funding holes that public education has been dealing with for over 20 years. Just last week, Arizona was ranked 51st in the nation overall in public education. Arizona has seen more cuts to its public education budget than just about any other nation in the country since 2008

Districts often partner with outside agencies to fill in the gaps for “wraparound” services. Despite the evangelical extremists’ aversion to the idea of “whole child” education, every ounce of data shows that we must meet the basic needs of our students so they are prepared to learn every day. Schools help match families with connections to healthcare, housing, meals, and other basic needs. Districts like DVUSD understand this, and this is why AnnE’s Closet is receiving so much positive attention.

Not only does this district understand Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they also prioritize the dignity of the families receiving help by creating a boutique experience for anyone in need. It’s lovely, and just this week, I dropped off about five bags of clothes to the DVUSD district office. 

Only weirdos hate charity. 

The next display of evangelical extremism happened at the Arizona Women of Action “training” with an “expert panel” where Board Member Heather Rooks (PUSD), Board VP Anna Van Hoek (HUSD), and DVUSD school board candidate, Tiffany Hawkins. This little training has caused the ultra-MAGAts to attack the founder of the organization, Tamra Farah. 

I don’t know about y’all, but I think sometimes, cannibalism CAN be fun

I also shared information coming from HUSD about the AP English teacher who is under attack for teaching…*checks notes*...books from the approved AP English reading list. Some of the books mentioned at their August 27th board meeting seem to come from a pearl-clutching parent in the district. 

👀👀👀

This parent asserted that his pArEnTaL RiGhTs were stripped from him, and that she is violating state statute. Folks in that district have reached out to say that they’re escalating attacks on this teacher. If I hear anything else, I’ll keep you posted. 

First, let’s talk about dual enrollment and advanced placement (AP) classes. These classes are for the top scholars in a school district. They’re rigorous, and usually offered to juniors and seniors in high school. Parents have to sign off on their children’s academic choices. High school districts work in partnership with post-secondary education institutions to offer classes that allow students to get college credit. 

Y’all, this doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Experts with decades of education experience work very hard to create curricula. When I was a teacher, I LOVED working during the summer to create unit and lesson plans for the World Literature curriculum in my district. I was even part of the curriculum team when the school district where I worked revamped their literature selections to include more diverse authors, including writers from Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. 

And this is what seems to be the beef in Higley.

Free will, amirite? 

Remember, parents can opt their children out at any time and request alternative assignments. But I guess that doesn’t help their victim narrative.

At this same meeting, a man who said he was a retired commander from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office read from “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, and was trying to prove his point or something? But all he did was make me want to reread the book. 

If you’ve never read this book, first, what are you even doing with your life?! And second, this dude chose to only read the single most horrific passage in this novel about the rape of a young girl. Is it graphic and terrible? HELL YES IT IS. Is it meant to “sexualize” or “titillate” kids? ABSOLUTELY NO, IT IS NOT.

Toni Morrison wrote this book, not to incite the sexual desires of the reader, but to inform the reader of the terrible realities of the world we live in. She wrote it so the reader could walk a mile in the protagonist’s shoes. She wrote it to highlight racial and sexual injustice that surround us every damn day.

If this dude thinks this is porn, I wonder what the hell his browser history is. He’s probably getting off to some seriously sick sh!t. 

There are dozens of other passages of this book that have nothing to do with rape or incest, but this dude chose the rapeyist-most-incesty part, so I think that speaks more about his kinks that anything else. Also, I wonder if these weirdos use their 15 minutes at the board meeting for fap material that they can watch later? 

*shudder*

Seek help, bud. 

Also, in that August HUSD meeting, VP Van Hoek asserted that the students that stood up for their beloved teacher were being manipulated by the teacher and “acting like activists,” as if activism is a bad thing. Despite the fact that they are 18-years-old, she asserted that they are still “teenagers,” implying they don’t have any of their own original thoughts or something? I guess that means their voice doesn’t matter? 

caption...

Have y’all noticed that these pArEnTaL RiGhTs zealots rarely ever acknowledge the autonomy of children? As an educator, I took TONS of classes and in-services where we learned about brain development and child psychology. I am by no means an expert, but I know a thing or two, and we should all be fostering our children’s independence and autonomy.

We are merely guides, and when we have healthy, honest, open, and loving relationships with our children, we all do better. Parents who seek only to control and micromanage their children’s lives are doing more harm than good. I’m looking at you, “boy moms.”

The last thing I want to talk about this week is all of these other “safe” districts. I attended an event this week where I spoke to folks in the “safe” district of Kyrene Elementary School District (KESD). They shared with me that the evangelical extremist candidate choice is, well, something! 

The cringiest thing about his website (aside from the use of Comic Sans font) is the line, “A school’s primary function is to teach the 4 Rs: Reading, WRitingARithmeticHistoRy”

So I normally only editorialize the most dysfunctional school boards, but when I heard about this candidate, I needed to learn more about what is happening in “safe” districts like Kyrene. There are three candidates in Kyrene who are considered “pro-public education” in the eyes of Save Our Schools Arizona. 

Bunny Davis, Cedric Collins, and Amy Satre are the endorsed SOS candidates. Full disclosure: Bunny Davis has helped the Secular AZ Legal Department a time or two. We also do NOT endorse candidates, we only focus on issues. One of the candidates, Cedric Collins, a Black man, shared with me some tidbits about the “single-shot” evangelical extremist candidate, Russ Rowland. 

He informed me that at an event, Mr. Rowland referred to Mr. Collins as “a BLM…we know what that is…” 👀 and then folks in the crowd booed. You can watch it here: 

Why would anyone be mad at someone who is affiliated with the Bureau of Land Management??

But of course that’s not what Mr. Rowland meant. 

Saying the n-word is frowned upon these days (at least in most circles), so they use words and phrases like “BLM,” “woke,” and “DEI hire.” 

The “single-shot strategy” is a strategy used in competitive districts to try to get just one of your preferred party candidates elected, even when multiple seats are up for grabs. Legislative districts across Arizona have employed this strategy for many years, and now, school board candidates in school districts are using this strategy. So in Kyrene, though three seats are up for reelection, the extremists are only backing one candidate and encouraging their base to not use their other two votes. 

While this probably won’t result in an extremist-majority board, it helps them get a disruptor at the dais who can throw a wrench in the works every chance they get. 

These disruptors, even when they’re in the minority, cause the districts they’re supposed to be serving to spend money on their deeply unserious nonsense. In Scottsdale (SUSD) and HUSD, they now have attorneys present in order to keep these folks in check, despite the fact they are solidly in the minority. 

Is this really what taxpayers want? 

Given the backlash in PUSD over the mental health grant vote, and the media coverage (thank you 12 News!), I don’t think so. After that vote, longtime friends in Peoria who I know who leaned MAGA over the last few cycles have reached out to me, angry about this vote. 

Have we maybe reached a tipping point with all this manufactured outrage at our local school boards? I sure hope so, but I won’t hold my breath. 

If you’ve made it this far into my observations today, I need you to do me a solid. 

I actually went to a few great events this week to share these school board shenanigans. I do this because I am a mother, grandmother (!!!), and lifelong educator who cares deeply about my community and state. I’ve shared with you all of the good that can come to communities when their local elected officials work collaboratively and find solutions to help our most vulnerable neighbors. I’m shocked and outraged at the hostile takeover of public education over the last few decades, and I think it’s important enough to shed a light on it. 

But man, it takes a toll! Keeping up with this nonsense is like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole. Honestly, I NEVER thought I’d weigh in on KESD, but here I am! I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again, but this time in my stern, teacher voice: 

Help a sister out. 

Are you getting these kinds of updates about school boards consistently anywhere else? If so, that’s awesome! And let me know who is doing the reporting, because we’d probably have a really fun happy hour meeting. 

If you look forward to these updates, but haven’t clicked that “upgrade to paid” button, what are you waiting for? 

We have less than 50 days until the election, and I’m writing as fast as my 51-year-old fingers can type. So fully come into the Secular Fam Fold, and support the work we do today. Like, subscribe, restack, and share to all your on-the-fence people. 

Me? I’ll sleep when I’m dead.