In its heyday, Mesa Public Schools (MPS) was the district to attend; the envy of the East Valley. From academics to athletics, from artistic endeavors to award-winning music programs, Mesa provided excellent programming from kindergarten to graduation. So much so, that parents would often bring their own children back to Mesa Schools, often to the same school they attended as children.
In 2011, MPS students were achieving at levels in keeping with the stellar reputation that Mesa had always experienced. But between 2014 and 2015 achievement in MPS, as well as across the state, plummeted, and MPS hasn’t been able to break the 50% achievement rate since that time. There were a few ‘events’ that occurred during this time period, only one in which your school board would have had direct input; unless they were to be extremely courageous and decide to refuse federal education dollars.
The state assessment test switched from AIMS to AZMerit, there was a full implementation of Common Core across the state, and districts began to go down the road of developing a ‘Portrait of a Graduate’. As these took hold, publicly funded schools began to face steep declines in enrollment. MPS, for example, lost a total of 8,979 students as of the 2021/22 school year according to data located here. Consider that our 15-day student count for the school year 2024/25, is 54,339, a loss of 20,610 students since the 2011/12 school year. These trends are not exclusive to MPS, and this is where your vote for school board matters.
I have a friend who has said repeatedly that if an organization, which begins with conservative values, does not hold fast to those values, the organization will ultimately become liberal. The core conservative value which directed education in MPS, as well as many other districts across the state, was focused on developing a solid academic foundation upon which students could build. This value was supported by a few other core values such as individual responsibility, discipline, working hard, perseverance, and merit. These values have been eroding over time, often due to a lack of leadership from a district’s governing board.
The trend in education in Arizona, which has been in works since at least 2014, is the Portrait of a Graduate. This has become the framework upon which other elements have been built into our classrooms such as culturally relevant teaching and social emotional learning (SEL); here is just one example of new ‘science’ curriculum adopted by MPS last spring.
When you really take a look at the Portrait of a Graduate in most, if not all districts which have adopted this framework, there is no indication that we want our graduates to be academically sound in the basics needed in order to participate in society. School boards voted to adopt this framework to develop their strategic plan, and can vote to redirect the district using a different framework; one in which academics and solid, critical thinking is the foundation.
Curriculum adoption is another area in which your school board members are of critical importance. Many curriculum options available today are infused with elements incorporating ideas which are contrary to conservative American values. Rather than using quality literature, which incorporate timeless values, stories are selected that allow students to “see themselves” in the literature. Often the material brings in concepts regarding racism, “white privilege,” oppressed/oppressor, sex, sexuality, sexual orientation, or gender confusion issues. Many examples straddle the edge of pornography and reading the text or displaying the pictures would be deemed offensive and would not be allowed at a school board meeting. Forcing these themes and concepts upon children results in confusion and anxiety. This is clearly evident as we look at the “mental health crisis” within students across Arizona. A strong conservative school board is able to push back against district leadership, and remove that which is not beneficial for our students’ learning.
Policy development is another critical piece in the quality running of a school district over which your school board members have control. Drafting clear, quality policy, and procedures which are not contrary to federal or state law is critical to improving the education students are receiving as they attend our public schools. This is a statutory mandate for school board members, and should not ever be relegated to hired district leadership.
In MPS, there has been much controversy the last few years regarding this very issue as the community became aware of Transgender Guidelines, and the Checklistassociated with the guidelines. Notice, these are guidelines, not policy; no MPS Governing Board has developed or voted on policy regarding gender dysphoria, yet the district has had guidelines in place since 2015. This fact went under the radar for several years, and only became visible because of the social contagion surrounding this topic since 2020. As a result of these guidelines, which in our humble opinion, violate ARS 1-602, and the First Amendment, teachers feel free to introduce concepts of sex and sexuality with minor students, planting seeds of confusion within young minds, which is not acceptable. Voting for a school board which will possess members who uphold parental rights, and the rights of all students will be the only way to reverse this trend, and protect all our students.
Finally, the school board is responsible for hiring the Superintendent, whose responsibility it is on a daily basis, to ensure the will of the elected board members is enacted with fidelity. This is critical, as the elected board members who represent the will of their voters, can do all things right and in alignment with their community, but if the district leadership undermines that, the degradation of our educational system continues. The Board must hire an ethical person of integrity who aligns with the values of the community, as represented by the elected members of the board.
Your vote for school board members may be the most important vote you cast this election season. Being a non-partisan race, it is important to engage with those people who are running and to investigate and research the candidates, so that you are casting an informed vote that represents your values. The future of public education, which still educates a majority of American children, depends upon it.
The abortion lobby has made it clear. It wants to erase every pro-life law and enshrine abortion up to birth in the Arizona Constitution. If it’s successful, that would mean:
No more requirement to inform women of the risks of abortion.
No requirement to inform women of options other than abortion.
No requirement for ultrasounds prior to abortion.
No 24-hour waiting period.
No requirement for parental consent for minors.
That last one is particularly shocking. It would open the door for sex traffickers, sex abusers, and other sexual predators to force women and underage girls into abortions. This is the terrifying reality that could be facing our state.
Right now in Arizona, the abortion industry is hard at work to collect the 383,923 valid signatures they need to put this constitutional amendment on the General Election ballot next November. While this may seem like a daunting task, they are well organized and well-funded, receiving support from the likes of Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and NARAL. Perhaps you’ve seen them at libraries, coffee shops, or the dollar stores asking you to help “protect women’s healthcare” or “support the right for women to make their own decisions about healthcare.” But here’s an interesting fact. The initiative never mentions “women.” It only mentions “pregnant individuals.” So, what are they really pushing?
It’s important to make the distinction between the old abortion debate that’s been raging for the last 50 years and the fight we face today. In the old abortion debate, everyone had a place on the spectrum regarding when it’s ok to take the life of a baby during pregnancy—from the moment of conception all the way up to birth. Both sides were in a constant battle to determine the inflection point where their side had the most support.
But this fight is completely different.
In this ballot measure, Arizona for Abortion Access (the group seeking this constitutional amendment) has drawn the inflection point for allowable abortion right up to the child’s birthday. That means anyone who signs this measure is actively supporting the end of a baby’s life right up until the moment that he or she is born.
Based on polls across the country, a vast majority of the population is not okay with abortion up to the moment of birth and should reject this initiative. But that’s why it’s so important that the general public know what they are being asked to sign.
This initiative is written with intentionally vague language which will allow “healthcare professionals” to use loopholes to perform abortions right up to the moment of birth. But don’t just take it from me. Look at the initiative petition itself, which says that the state cannot act in a manner that:
DENIES, RESTRICTS OR INTERFERES WITH AN ABORTION AFTER FETAL VIABILITY THAT, IN THE GOOD FAITH JUDGMENT OF A TREATING HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL, IS NECESSARY TO PROTECT THE LIFE OR PHYSICAL OR MENTAL HEALTH OF THE PREGNANT INDIVIDUAL.
“…in the good faith judgment of a treating healthcare professional…”? Who gets to define “healthcare professional”?
“…is necessary to protect physical or mental health…”? What about pregnancy could be so dangerous to a mother’s mental health that it could be used to justify abortion up to birth? You can see where this is heading…
There once was a time when Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby repeated the slogan that “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare”? But this is where they were always heading—abortion up to birth and for practically any reason.
Arizona, it’s time to wake up and show up. We need to educate our friends and relatives with the truth about the abortion initiative petition. We need to wake up our church communities, so that our congregations can be properly informed. And we need to stand up anytime we see abortion activists collecting signatures for this petition to let potential signers know that their signature could allow abortion up to birth. (To get an information packet about this effort to share with your pastor, you can email AZdeclinetosign@gmail.com.)
This is literally a matter of life and death. Which side will you choose?
Ed Steele is a husband, father, grandfather, and Mesa resident who is helping to lead the Decline to Sign – AZ Abortion Act Movement. You can find out the latest by following this movement on X (Twitter) @declineabortion.
At the August 8th governing board meeting for Mesa Public Schools (MPS), conservative board member Rachel Walden was attacked and silenced. Apparently, her line of questioning and discussion of agenda items did not fit the approved district narrative and ruffled the feathers of fellow board member Kiana Sears.
Two of the items pulled from the consent agenda by Mrs. Walden were for the renewal and expansion of non-competitive contracts for mental health services to be provided by A New Leaf and Empact on campus at two district schools. In discussion on the first item, the contract with A New Leaf, Mrs. Walden was questioning the wisdom of giving A New Leaf space in schools to provide mental health services rather than simply referring students in need to mental health services available in the community.
“As difficult as the mental health crisis is, we need to stay in our lane and do everything that we can to improve student outcomes. So where are the afterschool tutoring programs? That’s something I’ve been asking for a long time,” said Mrs. Walden. She continued, “We should focus on what we’re tasked with doing and then we can refer out the other services.”
The reasoning behind this discussion was to point out that by bringing mental health services into the schools, the district would be diluting its resources with activities other than the one that is statutorily mandated, which is education. Mesa Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Andi Fourlis remarked, “When we talk about bringing partners into our school system, we use partners only when we have exhausted all of the resources available at the school. That is counselors, social workers, psychologists…that are working to solve the many challenges of children. So, when we have run out of all of our skills and assets, that’s when we would rely upon a community partner.”
Mrs. Walden questioned how the district could be exhausting all resources when it has more than the state average of school counselors. The district has 2.5 times the number of school counselors as the state average on a per student basis.
Superintendent Fourlis commented that having the resources on campuses alleviated logistical issues with parents getting their children to the outside service. She said, “Providing services closest to the student to reduce the amount of instructional time is very important…. Often times, there’s just not enough services available, and so bringing them to school where they can take students out of class for a 30-minute time perhaps versus having to take a half a day out of school, drive, get to an appointment, and so on. It becomes access and convenience for the families.” Mrs. Walden nullified that justification by correctly noting that mental health care providers will come to a student’s home.
In the middle of this exchange between Mrs. Walden and Superintendent Fourlis, otherwise disinterested board member Kiana Sears interrupted the conversation and called for the question essentially silencing Mrs. Walden’s inquiry into the details of the agenda item. The call for the question was seconded by Dr. O’Reilly, thereby ending the discussion and forcing a vote on the agenda item. To his credit, Dr. O’Reilly recognized that seconding the call to the question was a mistake and later apologized to Mrs. Walden for silencing her voice. Mrs. Sears has yet to acknowledge such contrition.
After silencing Mrs. Walden and moving to the vote on renewal and expansion of the contract with A New Leaf, President Hutchinson proceeded to carry water for A New Leaf, lauding its 52 years of service “to our families and our kids” and that it is “very well respected for the decades of work that they have done to keep this community whole.” She went on to say, “A New Leaf has been there, and this is an amazing organization that is local, and they are embedded in our community and in our schools and have been for years, decades as a matter of fact. So, let’s move on to the next agenda item…”
The next agenda item pulled by Mrs. Walden was similar to the first one—the approval of the contract for Empact to provide on-site mental health services on campus. During the discussion, Mrs. Walden questioned how these providers (A New Leaf and Empact) were chosen. Superintendent Fourlis responded, “I will tell you that this is an interesting question. As needs have arised (sic), throughout our community, we have responded, and community partners have responded differently. There is a scarcity of resources available, and so when our schools and our parents are asking for the help, we are grabbing the help that we can. And so there is not a plethora of services…and so to answer your very specific question, we did not do an RFP process.”
Did you catch that? “Community partners responded differently”? Responded to what? Community partners have never received a notice to respond to.
And what does Superintendent Fourlis mean by, “we are grabbing the help where we can”? While she’s making it sound like a desperate grasp for services of a couple of randomly selected organizations, it is actually closer to a pre-arranged preferred selection.
Consider this. Mesa Public Schools and A New Leaf have shared a cozy relationship for years. A New Leaf’s CEO, Michael Hughes, previously served on the governing board of MPS for 20 years from 1994-2014. No doubt, he made lots of close friends in the district during his tenure. In 2021, the MPS Governing Board, including President Hutchinson, approved what appears to be a very favorable lease agreement to A New Leaf for district owned office space. (See image below)
Then, in 2022, no less than 3 members of A New Leaf’s management, including Michael Hughes, donated to President Hutchinson’s re-election campaign. Now in 2023, the governing board, including President Hutchinson, has voted to renew and expand a non-competitive contract for A New Leaf to provide services on MPS campuses. And the narrative the superintendent is pushing is that A New Leaf was chosen because they responded to some non-existent public call for services and that there is a scarcity of services in the community.
As Mrs. Walden was challenging Superintendent Foulis’ claim of scarcity of services, again, disinterested Mrs. Sears interrupted the conversation to express her “outrage” at Mrs. Walden for her line of questioning and discussion. But questions and discussions based on Mrs. Walden’s interactions with her constituents are how a representative government is supposed to operate. She is seemingly the only board member acting as the representative of the community by engaging in such questioning and discussions rather than just rubber stamping every agenda item that is presented.
But that didn’t stop Mrs. Sears from fabricating a false narrative toward the end of the meeting that Mrs. Walden believes the district should just “turn our backs on our parents and our kids.” Mrs. Sears expressed anger at Mrs. Walden based on that false narrative, and this dangerous and dishonest behavior incited community anger toward Mrs. Walden. You would think President Hutchinson, who was presiding over the meeting, would have stopped this unfounded attack on Mrs. Walden. But instead, she allowed it to continue without calling the meeting back to order and telling Mrs. Sears that she was violating the district code of ethics.
Not only is President Hutchinson complicit in Mrs. Sears’ dangerous and dishonest behavior, but it has become clear. Conservative voices in Mesa Public Schools are not welcome. And any conservative who dares to challenge the preferred narrative will be bullied and silenced. It once again goes to show you: elections have consequences, especially at the local level.
You can watch the portion of the meeting discussing A New Leaf below.
Ed Steele is a husband, father, grandfather, and Mesa resident with a passion for helping the younger generation succeed in education.
On January 24th, the Mesa Public School Board chose to maintain a relationship with and send district funds to the National School Board Association (NSBA). They might as well have also given parents the middle finger.
In September 2021, the NSBA sent a letter to the Biden administration requesting that it deploy the force of the federal government to put down angry parents speaking out at school board meetings. The letter called on the administration to use resources from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), FBI, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, National Threat Assessment Center, FBI National Security Branch, and FBI Counterterrorism Division. The letter equates parents speaking out at school board meetings with domestic terrorists! Immediately and dutifully, the DOJ responded by sending out a directive to FBI field offices to create a partnership with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement to address the problem.
A full 5 months later, the Arizona School Board Association (ASBA) came to the correct conclusion—that the NSBA does not represent the values it believes are necessary to advance education in the state. As a result, they sent a letter to the NSBA severing all relations with them.
Yet, one month later in March 2022, the Mesa Public School Board voted unanimously to send board member Kiana Sears to the 2022 NSBA Annual Conference. Then in September, the board again voted unanimously to send board member Sears to two additional NSBA sponsored training sessions: the Counsel of Urban Board Educators in Miami, FL and the NSBA Advocacy Institute in Washington, D.C. And at its latest meeting on January 24th, the board voted to approve sending board member Sears to the 2023 NSBA Annual Conference in Orlando, FL.
As a concerned Mesa taxpayer, I asked at that meeting that the vote on this item be pulled from the consent agenda. I was hoping that the board would do so to send a clear message to parents that their voice is valued and appreciated. Instead, the board voted 3-1 in favor of sending district money and board member Sears to the NSBA.
The one shining exception to this insult to parents was board member Rachel Walden. Mrs. Walden boldly voted no, keeping her campaign promise to be the voice for parents on the school board.
Mrs. Walden is one of many newly elected school board members across the state who ran for office after the COVID shutdowns—when “distance learning” gave parents a glimpse into the classroom and exposed the failures of school boards. Walden correctly stated what should be obvious, “I feel we do have an obligation to build a sense of trust with our parents. They are stakeholders in this. When we have an entity working with the government to put down the First Amendment rights of parents, then I think we would want to disassociate ourselves with that entity as much as possible.”
But Board President Marcie Hutchinson disagreed, stating, “The NSBA probably mis-stepped.” PROBABLY!?
She continued, “But anytime we make a decision, we have to weigh costs versus benefits, and I believe that the benefits that we as board members can receive, and therefore transmit to our district, far exceed the cost of an association with a group that supports public education.”
President Hutchinson seems to have completely misunderstood the “cost.” The actual cost is not “association with a group that supports education.” The cost is choosing to associate with the group that thinks concerned parents speaking out at school board meetings should be treated, by the full force of federal law enforcement, like domestic terrorists.
The Mesa Public School Board doesn’t get it, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying. Across the country, parents are speaking out against the questionable decisions of school boards and the resulting abysmal academic performance. And while, it is becoming increasingly obvious that governing boards are not inclined to hold themselves accountable, you can make a difference. You can have your voice heard by showing up and speaking up at board meetings. You can email board members with your concerns. And you can get involved with the election of our school board members. The future of our schools—and our children—depends on it.
Ed Steele is a husband, father, grandfather, and Mesa resident with a passion for helping the younger generation succeed in education.
