It's a Hot (MAGA) Mess

Whining, Incompetence On Display at the DVUSD Board Meeting

Another week, another board meeting. After witnessing first-hand the absolute WORST example of school board behavior that I have EVER seen, I had to come back to Deer Valley (DVUSD) to check out this week’s meeting. Spoiler alert: It was messy AF.

And it’s not just messy during the meetings. Because of this wave of ultra MAGA deplorables joining their local school boards, they’re essentially trained to behave like children not only at meetings, but online as well. So where professional board members will meet with their superintendents and maintain professional relationships with fellow board members, staff, students, and parents, these extremists tend to paint everything as a conspiracy theory, act as perpetual victims, and talk about non-agendized items online. 

Instead of asking thoughtful questions and behaving in a professional manner, everything is an attack. It’s not productive, but it seems that’s the point. 

So I’m going to keep this short, and again, I’m going to encourage you to upgrade to a paid subscription to support this work. Also, if you’re interested in contributing to our Substack or monitoring your school board shenanigans, help a sister out and fill out this form. 

The first thing anyone attending these board meetings will notice is that it’s not nearly as sexy as the meetings in Scottsdale (SUSD), Mesa Public Schools (MPS), Paradise Valley (PVUSD), or Peoria (PUSD). And by not as sexy, I mean it isn’t a packed house of overtly MAGA god-botherers thumping on their bibles. 

Their public comments, for the most part, are about actual issues in the district…mostly. This week, parents of a student in the district shared their concerns about bullying on the bus, and another couple of speakers asked for more accessibility at meetings for folks with special needs. 

For some reason, some guy named Gary was mad that the superintendent and board secretary sit at the dais with board members (despite them both illustrating exactly WHY their presence is important at every meeting, and EVERY other board in America doing the same thing). 
Another lady was super angry about the possibility of mandatory masking in the district coming back because she heard a rumor on Truth Social the internet.

Christ on a cracker…and I DO mean cracker. 

After public comments, there was a very brief discussion about the Arizona School Board Association (ASBA) political agenda. Board Member Carver will be the acting delegate at this event in the fall. 

I’ve attended this assembly before as a district delegate, and it’s actually a pretty interesting process. Board members from districts all over the state come together to discuss and adopt this legislative agenda. 

I always found it fascinating to hear the differing opinions and needs of members in rural and urban districts. As a former board member in a very urban district, it was eye-opening to me how different the needs are in districts all over the state. 

Once again, Board Member Carver showed how thoughtfully he approaches his role as a school board member. He seems to truly want to do what is best for students, staff, and the district.  I REALLY hope it sticks. 

Remember, Mr. Carver is a member of the III%er militia and has ties to folks involved in the J6 insurrection, but in my two limited observations of the DVUSD meetings, he seems so NORMAL… and I am HERE for it.

And Paul, if you’re reading this, I hope you keep standing up to Board Member Kim Fisher, because I KNOW she’s reading this. She can’t keep anything to herself, though it appears no one reads her “blog posts” so maybe she actually IS keeping it to herself, just not on purpose. 

The next item up for a vote was about employee travel for professional development (PD). Mr. Carver mentioned that it’s tough to explain to stakeholders that these are professional travel requests when conferences are held in places like St. Petersberg, FL, and Honolulu, HI. 

That’s a fair sentiment, but these cities shouldn’t be barred from holding conventions just because they’re near the beach. I’m glad he trusts staff enough to approve this request. Motion passes, with Board Member Fisher voting nay. 

Next, President Paperman and VP Fisher displayed once again how little they understand how school boards work. 

It became clear that there were a few items that were added to the agenda with little notice. One of the items had to do with satisfaction surveys, and how they want an outside group (TPUSA?) to handle all surveying of students, faculty, and staff. This would tack on tens of thousands of dollars to conduct a survey because they don’t think the district is capable of handling this (it can). They tried to put these items to a vote despite having no support for this vote and no justification for their claims of mistrust. 

Board Members Ordway and Simacek shared their concerns with this last minute agenda item that was incredibly unclear and unjustified. VP Fisher doubled-down on the shady way this item was added, and accused the district of purposefully keeping the board in the dark. Mr. Carver motioned that this item be added to the first meeting in September, and reminded the board that one of their duties is to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Motion passes 3-2. 

Despite people voting on this item, Paperman and Fisher felt the need to KEEP explaining their votes and crying about a “lack of transparency” that they’ve heard about from community members. But here’s the thing, folks, when you’re on the school board, you can actually help make processes more transparent by - and I know this is going to sound crazy - WORKING TOGETHER. 

It’s such a weird approach these days, but it’s a tried and true method for solving problems. 

Also, typically board members have an idea of how things will go down at board meetings. Like, when I was on a school board, I knew which members would vote to keep School Resource Officers (SROs), and which ones wouldn’t.

If there was a swing voter in the mix, I’d likely reach out to that board member, and that board member ALONE (otherwise it’s an open meeting law violation) before the vote to see if I could gauge how they were going to vote, and convince them to see the vote from my perspective. 

So in addition to not working with other board members in good faith, they also seem to want to waste everyone’s time. I’ve only attended two board meetings in DVUSD, and I have a pretty good understanding about how this hail Mary addition to the agenda would go down. 

A good board president would reach out to (ONLY ONE of the other) Board Members Carver, Ordway, or Simacek to get their perspective and then see how they can work together to come to some sort of compromise. Unfortunately, it’s painfully clear that the only two people Board Members Paperman and Fisher are talking to are themselves. 

Oh, and their many follower (this isn’t a typo) on social media.

The next item was about retaining separate legal counsel for board members — but President Paperman read a lengthy statement about a totally different agenda item. Board Member Simacek tried to comment about why she was reading something meant for an entirely different item, but President Paperman shut her down. The rest of us watched, hella confused. 

From what I could understand, she is saying she needs the district to foot the bill for any attorneys’ fees she may personally accrue because she’s violating open meeting laws (OML) by posting on social media. In a nutshell, she wants taxpayers to pay for a separate attorney for her and VP Fisher since they’re not going to stop violating OML. 

President Paperman asserted (without any proof) that Superintendent Curtis Finch is targeting her and trying to get her off the board. Board Member Carver dropped a TON of knowledge about state statute and district policy regarding retaining counsel, and called it “game playing.” Once again, Paul Carver is dropping knowledge all over the board room, and making it painfully clear how little two of his colleagues even TRY to understand their duties as elected officials.

Honestly, y’all, I don’t know how anyone can take the President and Vice President of this district seriously. At one point, President Paperman said “I’m tired of fighting with Dr. Finch,” and all I could think was, “WELL, THEN EFFING STOP FIGHTING WITH HIM!”

But hey, it’s 2023, and the only strategy embraced by the MAGA crowd is to blame everything on the other side and rely on unfounded conspiracy theories to get elected or get what you want. 

I’ve got some good news, though folks. In case you missed it, PUSD board member, Rebecca Hill is stepping down. We did that, y’all. 

We.

Did.

That.

I also heard that at the Mesa Public Schools (MPS) board meeting on the same evening as this one, the haters were severely outnumbered. You did that! 

The book banners in Camp Verde were outnumbered by secular activists 6-1. You did that! 

But there’s so much more that needs to be done. Your activism is making a difference, and now we really need to keep it up! 

Conspiracy theorist board members gum up the works, and so far in Arizona, over THIRTY superintendents have left their roles through resignation, retirement, or termination. This is not normal, so keep it up folks. 

Here’s how you can help: Become a member of Secular AZ, sign up for our action alerts, volunteer… and join the growing majority of Arizonans who are tired of conspiracy theorists and Christofascists trying to undermine our public schools.