School Board Meeting or Episode of All My Children?

The DVUSD soap opera continues

Hey there, Secular Fam! I hope you all survived the Thanksgiving holiday with as little drama as possible. It’s become tougher and tougher for some of us to spend time with family and the holidays can be hella triggering.

In fact, I have noticed that more and more of my friends have taken advice from RuPaul…

…and created the family they want, opting for a “Friendsgiving.”

While it’s nice to surround ourselves with people who actually just love and accept us for who we are, I also know from personal experience how this time of year is a time for grieving loved ones who are still living, but they’re living in a completely different reality where diversity, equity, and inclusion are dirty words and in some cases the world is flat (!!!). 

So remember folks, it’s OK to talk about how not OK all of that is and how it makes us feel and to surround ourselves with people who make us feel more OK in this crazy world. 

So while last week was relatively quiet, what with the holiday and all, this week, Arizona electeds were back to their old tricks, starting with a sham hearing at the Arizona Legislature where members of the FreeDUMBdom Caucus demonized Arizona State University and President Michael Crow. It was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever witnessed, and plenty of news outlets covered it, so I won’t go into a bunch of details. 

But! Because he’s the poster boy for all things QAnon, I’ll go ahead and mention that (of course) January 6th insurrectionist, fake elector, Mama Fratelli lookalike, AND NOW! the newest hopeful in the absolute shitshow that is the CD8 race, State Senator Anthony Kern (R-27) was leading the circus. 

And because the whole thing was a joke and all for show, I’ll only include one particularly bizarre part of it where Kern mentioned visiting a private Jewish school during student dismissal and men were walking around, armed with AR-15s (AT A SCHOOL). Kern wanted everyone to know how much this titillated him, and he said to the men, “Sweet. I like you.” 

So even though all of this information is coming out about how vouchers will bankrupt the state and that mostly wealthy people are using them… oh, and the climate is collapsing all around us, and also innocent people are being killed worldwide every day, like, this is what the SUPER SERIOUS evangelical extremists are focusing on. Oh, and pronouns. Totally normal stuff. 

Thankfully, for the next month or so, we can ignore the legislature until session starts. I much prefer school board meetings anyway, since they are, after all, the HEART of our democracy. So without further ado, let’s all ponder what happened at this week’s Deer Valley (DVUSD) board meeting!

It started in the usual fashion with the Pledge, moment of silence, etc. Board members Ordway and Simacek were phoning in (remember, Ordway is battling cancer at the moment, and Simacek is running for State House in LD2 - though I don’t know if that’s why she wasn’t there).

Next was public comments, and mostly the regulars spoke, but there was one guy that I just want to highlight here. His name is Jerry, and his public comments remind me of a Trump speech because it seems like just a bunch of whistle words and phrases strung together. 

He basically said that the teachers in DVUSD don’t care about students (they do), and that he doesn’t like that the district celebrates students when they accomplish something. He wants meetings to ONLY be about negative things and that transparency is a problem “big time” and that if he were to grade the district he’d give them an “F minus.”

It was uncomfortable. 

Big time. 

I give him an F minus.

But what I noticed was that every time a speaker had negative feedback for the district, Board VP Fisher seemed absolutely giddy. Maybe she just always smiles when people are complaining, but either way, I find that hella troubling.

Next up was the approval of an English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum. So let’s take a moment real quick to talk about how districts decide which curriculum to purchase. Typically, several public notices will go out to staff, parents, and sometimes students, to invite them to be a part of an ad hoc committee.

For several weeks or months, this committee will meet and go over the curriculum choices. They use a rubric to score the curriculum and eventually come to a decision. After that, the committee members will present their findings to the board, and then the board will vote. Easy peasy, right?

Not so much these days.

Nowadays, evangelical extremist groups like TPUSA or Moms for Liberty seem to find fault with most curricula, unless it comes directly from the Hitler Youth Training Program Hillsdale 1776 curriculum or PragerU. 

VP Fisher talked about the multiple emails the board received from parents complaining about “CRT” in the textbooks. The administrator stated that CRT is not a state standard, therefore, it’s not in the books. None of that seemed to matter, and Fisher insisted the books were pushing a “racial divide” and that she was concerned that Asian and white kids won’t feel included (!!!). 

Board Member Simacek pointed out that 91% of stakeholders supported the curriculum adoption. Board Member Carver said that the emails they received were overwhelmingly against approval (SEE?! THIS IS WHY WE NEED TO STAY ENGAGED WITH OUR SCHOOL BOARDS).

He went on to say that he wanted social studies taught in social studies classes. He said he didn’t think that racial and/or social injustices should be taught in an ELA classroom, but I’m here to tell ya, injustices don’t happen in a bubble. They’re everyday occurrences, and anytime we can expose a kid to the truth about our history and our society, the better adult that kid will end up being.

He also said that in his day, “Dick and Jane” were peachy keen, and that they “didn’t get in the mud with anything” outside of social studies. You know what I wish we’d do more of? 

GET INTO THE MUD OF THINGS. 

Let's talk about the mess of humanity. Let’s talk about how religion has been the driving force of nearly every conflict in human history. Let’s talk about race and squirm and get uncomfortable, because that is how we grow as humans. 

I actually remember those Dick & Jane books, and I’m here to tell you, young Gen Z grasshoppers (another reference you won’t get), that they were BORING AS HELL. Any educator worth their salt will move heaven and earth to stock their classrooms with books that look nothing like Dick & Jane, and that challenge their kids and maybe even sometimes make them uncomfortable. 

Finally, Board Member Simacek shared her alarm about some of the emails, stating that one of the senders said that “there weren’t enough blond-haired, blue-eyed children” represented in this curriculum. 👀

The motion failed, and Board Member Carver joined President Paperman and VP Fisher to block the approval of the curriculum. 

Next, the math curriculum was easily approved, and then we were onto a discussion about a private consultant that DVUSD hired. I still don’t know enough about this topic, but it seems that the district hired some outside consultant to help with Title I school test scores. As far as I can tell, not everyone likes this guy, and I get it. As a teacher, I HATED when districts would bring in outside “experts” to tell me how to do my job and how to get my high poverty students to perform better. 

The idea of children and families living paycheck-to-paycheck is so normalized in our society that we can’t possibly be moved to just provide basic needs to our most vulnerable communities. This bootstraps mentality puts the blame on our public schools and teachers and forces them to jump through hoops rather than acknowledge that unbridled Capitalism chews up the poor and working class and spits them out.

So yeah, grit and determination are important for kids to be able to overcome the obstacles in their life, but also, affordable housing, free school lunches, and robust social programs would do a helluva lot more to boost test scores than educational consulting firms. 

One nice thing came out of this discussion, and that was a glimmer of collaboration between board members. I mean, of course, there was one weird part in the discussion where VP Fisher read a deeply personal email she wrote to President Paperman where it seemed like she was trying to gift-wrap a defamation lawsuit to Dr. Finch (I REALLY don’t understand why he hasn’t sued her for defamation). In the email that she read, she accused Dr. Finch of not doing his job and gaslighting the board, and for a moment, I was like, “Am I in a school board meeting or an episode of All My Children?” 

Aside from Fisher’s attention seeking behavior email recitation, the discussion was downright cordial and a collaborative decision was reached about next steps. It was such a nice surprise, and I hope we can see more of that going forward. 

The rest of the agenda was pretty uneventful until we got to board reports, and I was wistful for the days when board members would use that time to talk about school visits and other basic information, but some people like to use this time to share every thought that enters their mind. And like I used to tell my middle school students, “you don’t have to say everything you think.”

The biggest takeaway I got from her “update” was that she sent her children into stores during Black Fridays so she wouldn’t get trampled by shoppers or something? She whined about not having her own personal attorney, paid for by the district (even though THE BOARD and DISTRICT totally have an attorney). But the thing she said that made me really belly-laugh was when she implored parents to be civil to each other on social media. 😂

So…in a nutshell: I had been pleasantly surprised by Board Member Carver’s open-minded, thoughtful approach to governing over the past ten or so months, but during this meeting, the ultra MAGA crowd CLEARLY had his ear, and because of it, the hard work of the curriculum committee was simply discarded. What will be acceptable to members like him? Hillsdale 1776? PragerU? 

Eventually, these deeply flawed curricula could very well be the only choices for entire districts where there is an evangelical extremist majority on the governing board. (You know, PragerU? The curriculum that says slavery wasn’t all bad?)

I know that I don’t want these dishonest, whitewashed curricula in my public schools, so I already sent an email to the DVUSD board, and if you agree with me, maybe you should too. 

And of course, as always, support the work we do here and donate, volunteer, become a member, or upgrade to a paid Substack subscription. With the holidays quickly approaching, I can’t think of a better gift to give loved ones (hint! hint!). 

Until next time, Secular Fam!