Why are Christian Nationalists So Loud?!?

Jeanne attends the PUSD Retreat

Hey Secular Fam, Happy Pride Month!

I can usually only stomach one meeting per week, but when I found out that Peoria (PUSD) was having a board retreat just one week after the last meeting, I decided I should go. We all need to participate in our democracy or it might just go away. These meetings are not live streamed, so I drove to the westside. 

I wanted to see how this board operates outside of the board room. 

I walked into the building located at the Rio Vista Recreation Center, and sat in a room with a few familiar faces. There were a couple of staffers from the district, newly hired Superintendent, Dr. KC Somers, a facilitator, Dr. Steve Joel, and Board Members Ewing, Proudfit, and Sandoval. There were only a few of us in the audience, and Board Member Rooks was phoning in. 

As a former school board member, I thoroughly enjoyed board retreats where we could learn about each other: why we serve; what our leadership styles are; strengths/weaknesses; areas of focus/expertise, etc. In my experience, these retreats served to help us all be the best public servants we could be. Of course, I’ve dealt with school board members who refused to collaborate and one who wouldn’t even participate. Throughout my tenure, there were always one or two who thought they got elected to superintendent, so that’s always fun.

But! When board members take these retreats seriously, the entire district benefits. 

When I walked in, Dr. Somers was sharing his vision for the district, and shared his approach to leadership. You can see his presentation here. It was all very standard stuff, and he used cliches like “it’s a we thing, not a me thing,” and let’s “work smarter, not harder.” He has a lot of experience, and he clearly knows his stuff. 

The facilitator, Dr. Joel, mentioned how studies show that superintendents need a minimum of five years in that position to affect change. Unfortunately, too many of these evangelical extremists don’t even attempt to work with superintendents before voting to terminate them - costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Dr. Joel has an impressive career in education himself. He served as the superintendent of Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) for 37 years, and now acts as a consultant for board retreats like this one. 

In my experience as a former board member and public school educator, most superintendents are fairly conservative. Or moderate. I can’t think of any superintendent that I would consider “far left” and in fact, most stay away from politics altogether. They know their role, and try to stay out of the political fray at all costs (there’s a reason why school board elections are non-partisan). UNLESS they’re a state superintendent. In those roles, they’re quite frequently overtly political. 

Are there superintendents who have acknowledged the fact that the United States was built on the backs of native and enslaved people? Sure, because that’s a sad fact of our country’s history, but acknowledging accurate history does not make you far left.

However, ignoring it DOES make you far right. 

Since 2022, superintendents have been resigning, retiring, and non-renewing contracts in droves, and as I’ve stated many times before, it’s not just teachers who are leaving. The teacher retention crisis is spilling over into administrative positions, and HR directors in districts all over the state are struggling to fill positions. In Arizona last year, nearly 2300 classrooms went without full-time, highly qualified teachers. 

On top of that, over 75% of the teachers who were hired in 2023 did not have the basic minimum certification requirements to teach in Arizona. 

Did you catch that last bit? 

The majority of children in Arizona are being taught by people who do not have basic training in appropriate pedagogy. 

And at the same time, evangelical extremists are encouraging people to remove their children from these schools to get a private or homeschool education that could teach children, well…ANYTHING: that the planet is 6000 years old; that women are holy vessels designed to only give birth and cater to men; that dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time. 

Given that Board Member Rooks celebrated the graduation speech given by KC Chiefs kicker, Harrison Butker, on her Xitter feed, her “concern” for the young women in her district comes across as disingenuous at best. Based on the words of her broflake idol, Butker, girls in PUSD shouldn’t even bother with their education because “the majority of [the girls] are most excited about [their] marriage and the children [they] will bring into this world.” 

According to evangelical theocrats like Butker, Board Member Rooks would take on the role of “tradwife.” In Gilead, she'd be a Commander’s wife, or (depending on her age and ability to procreate), a Martha (I'm never sure if these folks read anything but the bible, so who knows if they’ll understand these literary references). What these MAGA women don’t get is that they’re disposable in this deplorable universe. If/When the theocrats take over, women, people of color, folks with disabilities - even the ones that helped them achieve their goals - will be discarded like an old pair of dirty gym shoes. 

This is why our public education system is so important. Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it, amirite? A lot of Secular AZ’s most passionate members are those who were raised in fundamentalist settings. So many of our members experienced abuse due to purity culture and evangelical churches that protect CSA predators. 

And groomers. 

I’ve spoken to so many women who were only allowed to vote with their husbands present, and had to vote in whatever way they were told. The whole “tradwife” movement is growing, and it’s more dangerous than ever. 

Dr. Joel facilitated an exercise for the board and staff to complete that was designed to identify personality styles. I've done similar exercises before in various roles, and it’s a great way to learn more about your colleagues’ strengths and weaknesses. The point of these exercises is to humanize our colleagues, and to show how we all bring different skills to the table. These exercises exist to show that when we get to know each other better, we’ll be able to work together better. Super common sense stuff. I took the test, and discovered (but not really, right? Because we should all, like kinda know ourselves and be willing to share our humanity with one another, right?) that my personality type is “enthusiast” and “mainstay,” in that order. 

Turns out that President Proudfit and I share these traits. Dr. Somers self-identified as a “taskmaster” whose second & third categories were “analyst” and “enthusiast.” Board Member Ewing and Clerk Sandoval identified themselves as both “mainstay” and “taskmaster.” It was fun to observe, and the group seemed genuinely interested in learning more about each other. Well, almost everyone in the group did. 

When it was Board Member Rooks’ turn to share something about her personality, she said that her personality type wasn’t on the list, because her personality type is “child of god.”

I’m pretty sure I heard Dr. Joel’s eyes roll, but he continued on like the pro he is. 

But really, Secular Fam! 

She had an opportunity to show everyone she takes her role on the board seriously, and she refused that opportunity. 

This tracks though because these Christian nationalists like to portray themselves as martyrs. They think that they’re being persecuted, so they have to pretend to be victims at every turn. It makes working with them nearly impossible since they don’t think rules or norms apply to them. 

Also, Dr. Joel didn’t just fly in to facilitate this retreat out of the kindness of his heart. I’m sure he got paid for this with district funds. Her refusal to participate shows the voters and taxpayers of PUSD just how little she thinks of them. But when board members sue the districts they’re supposed to be serving, they’re screaming from the mountaintops how deeply unserious they are about their roles. 

Dr. Joel continued on and shared an example from his time as a superintendent. He didn’t give details about the issue in his district, but essentially, there was a very contentious board meeting where 40 people complained about an issue in the district where Dr. Joel served. 

He said that his administrative team identified that out of the 40 people who showed up, only five were parents in the district who were actually affected. His team invited all five parents to a private meeting to collaborate on solutions, and only one parent showed up. It seems he shared this to show that a lot of today’s complaints coming to public school boards are fabricated. Don’t I know it, Dr. Joel!

Board Member Rooks pushed back and basically said that because people believe something is true, then it must be. She talked (AGAIN) about getting 42K votes in the 2022 election for some reason. 

I wonder if Board Member Rooks is a tradwife, because it is hard to picture her in a professional setting. She also seemed kind of confused about the strategic planning process. Every organization goes through a strategic planning process (nonprofits, government agencies, organizations), and usually, organizations refer to that plan in everything they do. I may be wrong, but as an outsider, it looked like this was her first interaction with the strategic planning process.

At this point, it looked like one of the Peoria volunteers who shows up regularly to PUSD meetings was recording myself and other pro-public education allies in the audience so that was weird. She insisted that she was recording the meeting, but her phone was sure at a strange angle to capture the meeting. It got me wondering who she would be sharing those videos with? Strange indeed. 

This volunteer also shook her head violently when Dr. Joel asked if PUSD has student board members. This may seem like a strange reaction, since they always say how much they care about the students, but really, hearing their words for the last year-and-a-half, their concern is empty.

If they really cared about children, they would want them to have a seat at the dais, they would advocate for bringing Comprehensive Sex Ed (CSE) to students, since every study shows improved outcomes, and they would demand that religious school staff go through background checks and obtain fingerprint clearance cards. These folks seem to advocate more for parents to have complete control over not just their own children, but everyone’s children. 

And though I left the meeting a tad early to get to my afternoon meetings, I heard that Board Member Rooks doubled down on pArEnTaL RiGhTs, because of course she did. 

I decided to check out this meeting because there’s some extremist stuff happening in the suburb of Peoria. The mayor is bankrolling extremist candidates, and he’s been doing some other shady stuff. In fact, if you’re a concerned Peoria citizen and want to keep folks informed on what happens at those city council meetings, let us know. 

This weekend we’ll be in Bullhead City for their Pride event, and after that we’ll have a table in Bisbee for their 20th Anniversary Pride Parade, so I hope to see some of you there! Until next time, Secular Fam! Stay fabulous!