In September 2023, four DUSD high schools were named 2023-2024 Best High Schools by U.S. News & World Report. Three of the four were also named A+ Schools of Excellence by the Arizona Educational Foundation. Although DUSD has a lot of work to do, school board members across the Valley now have a model for governing with sense and sensibility.
Of course, every free-thinking, constitutional, conservative board member will have progressive dogs nipping at their heels. Such is the case with the uprising of emotional activists after DUSD opted to not renew Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.
Save Our Schools Arizona—a leftist group that identifies as a “nonpartisan community based organization”—led the campaign of oppression by posting a hack opinion editorial on social media. Anxiety-ridden constituents (including the director of an anti-God organization) manifested in the comment section with cries of outrage. Wow. I didn’t know saving Arizona schools meant converting every campus into psychiatric medical facilities!
With sensational clarity, Arizona’s Family reported that DUSD’s decision came amid “a fiery exchange after [board] members voted to eliminate the role of social workers within their school district.” Did anybody in the bullpen even watch the November 16 board meeting? I did. Of course, I don’t have a predisposition to rage, so I viewed it as a thoughtful discussion with differing opinions. Board Member Jo Grant blessed me with her deliberate and persistent, social-emotional vantage point. She got outvoted. Where’s the fire?
Board Members Dawn Densmore and Jennifer Drake personally assured me that because ESSER funds were drying up, it was in the district’s best interest not to renew without a financial plan to supplement looming deficiencies. They also confirmed the district would retain numerous student support positions, including psychologists, counselors, and behavior interventionists.
Densmore said, “For me…it’s not a slam on the profession of social workers. I genuinely don’t think all of them [have a leftist agenda]. But at the same time…places of education should not be healthcare institutions. If parents have children who go through issues where they need additional support—and I [personally] had one child who needed it—take them out of school and get them into counseling. I would have never expected the school to take care of that and replace me as a parent in that situation.”
Drake agreed, “It is the parent’s responsibility [to take care] of the health and wellbeing of their child—not the school. When a child is at school, their priority is safety and education. If your child needs mental health or medical services, then as a parent, it is your responsibility to provide that. The school can get outside resources, but having these services inside the school is unacceptable. Taxpayers should not be paying for this.”
Densmore and Drake also emphasized that educators should not bear the consequences of attendance deficits and low test scores when emotional needs become disruptive to learning environments.
In response to the small faction of obnoxious critics who branded DUSD “cruel” and “irresponsible,” Densmore and Drake said, “Parents need to start parenting. Stop using schools as a crutch—for vaccinations, for dental work, etc.…If your kid is sick, whether it’s physical or mental, take them to the doctor. If your kid is suffering mentally, why would you rely on a school [district] for something like that?”
I’ll wrap this up by pointing out that 2020 was America’s Enlightenment period where we discovered a supposed new and improved job function for social workers. According to the National Association of Social Workers, these mental health warriors are now equipped to practice a more inclusive, equitable, anti-racist approach. And they want us to rest assured that no matter what issues students face inside or outside the classroom, affirming their gender-identity and empathizing with their skin color is sure to be the cure.
Seriously, parents, why haven’t you pulled your kids out of Arizona public schools?
For nearly two decades, Tiffany Benson’s creative writing pursuits have surpassed all other interests. When she’s not investigating Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories, she enjoys journaling and contributing to her blogBigviewsmallwindow.com. She encourages average citizens to take on an active role in the grassroots fight for future generations.
Depravity abounds in Arizona’s public education system. From Buckeye, to Phoenix, to Tucson—and many school districts in between—the Valley is infested with radical board members, sleazy administrators, and predatory educators. All of these are working overtime to usurp parental rights and corrupt the next generation.
When creating the following list, I took into consideration cases of child sexual exploitation, race- and gender-based curricula, dangerous bathroom policies and failing test scores. Readers are cautioned against ranking these districts from “worst” to “best.” The list is purely based on the volume and severity of complaints I’ve personally investigated—seven is a very modest number!
Without further ado, here is my top seven list of Arizona’s worst school districts:
1. Mesa Public Schools. In 2015, MPS adopted a secret transgender support plan to aid in the social and sexual transition of minor students without parental knowledge. Shout out to Board Member Rachel Walden for exposing the plan. In the summer of 2023, a majority of the board, led by President Marcie Hutchinson, approved contracts for an unvetted suicide prevention program as well as Brain Solutions—a network of psychiatric clinics that appear to have no medical physicians on staff. In an alleged attempt to bypass public discussion, Hutchinson violated Open Meeting Law 7.7.5 by arranging both contracts under the Consent Agenda. Parents are in danger of losing their children to the LGBTQ+ agenda that’s overtaking this district.
2. Washington Elementary School District. In an unprecedented display of bigotry and lawlessness, WESD board members voted 5-0 to terminate student-teacher contracts with Arizona Christian University (ACU). Despite an 11-year, incident-free partnership with the college, Board Member Tamillia Valenzuela—a cat ear-wearing individual who spurns the Pledge of Allegiance—motioned to cancel ACU due to the organization’s stance on traditional marriage. Valenzuela and her vile counterpart, Board Member Nikkie Whaley, also spontaneously erupt into racist rants against their colleagues, including the night Whaley was unseated from the presidency. While the fully reinstated student-teacher contracts offer a degree of hope, past and present board members have resolved to highlight and celebrate alternative sexualities in prepubescent children. Therefore, WESD remains an unsafe and morally corrupt district.
3. Tucson Unified School District. TUSD is an unforgivable case of sexual perversion and abuse that should send every loving parent over the edge. Notwithstanding one Tucson Magnet High School (TMHS) counselor who organized the first student-led drag show on campus—and was later arrested for sexually assaulting a minor—Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo sought legal advice from Michael Areinoff to host a second event in April 2023. Another counselor and drag show organizer, “Sunday” Hamilton, serves as the point of contact for TMHS’s Q Space club. Board President Ravi Shah, who referred to drag shows as “art,” bragged about attending with his minor children and encouraged community support in the exploitation of gender confused students. Meanwhile, TUSD students are testing below 40% proficiency in math and reading across all grade levels.
4. Catalina Foothills School District. Sadly, this entire board of education, led by President Eileen Jackson, continually proves to be anti-parent, anti-student safety, and anti-common sense. In matters of sex and gender, CFSD has side-stepped parental rights at least since 2021, and in March 2023, Jackson banned all bathroom policy discussions from future agendas. One month later, several concerned CFSD citizens were locked out of the board meeting as radical activists occupied at half capacity to protest the permanent, binary reality of human sexuality. CFSD educators also feel at liberty to bypass parental consent and privately discuss gender ideologies with minor students. Shout out to the Center for Excellence in Public Schools for standing firm amid the onslaught of debauchery in this district.
5. Scottsdale Unified School District. SUSD is a never-ending nightmare of agenda-driven, moral violations. From covert gender-identity student clubs to hidden pronoun surveys, students are constantly bombarded with perversion and secular humanism. Superintendent Scott Menzel—who infamously called white people “problematic”—is the mastermind behind the leftist ideologies and corruption that appear as a recurring theme on the Scottsdale Unites media page. Board President Julie Cieniawski and Board Member Libby Hart-Wells are known to display a lack of decorum as they bully, interrupt, and chastise their colleagues…and anyone else they can’t control. What a shame that Scottsdale’s next generation is being raised by wolves.
6. Chandler Unified School District. During the CUSD board meeting on July 12, 2023, the CFO’s report revealed a steady decline of student enrollments, prompting Board Member Kurt Rohrs to ask:“Why don’t parents want to send their kids to our schools?” The superintendent astutely pointed to parental choice while Board President Jason Olive—in an apparent case of narcissism and willful ignorance—stated: “It sounds like there’s a lot of parents who just don’t know any better…” Perhaps Olive slept through CUSD employees encouraging minors to attend gender utopia workshops, and the district’s alleged cover up of a teacher who reportedly sexually assaulted multiple students. Of course, only the best school district promotes immorality and graduates half its students without basic math and reading skills.
7. Peoria Unified School District. This anti-parental rights district is the epitome of corruption and subversion. Since my last op-ed, interim Superintendent Kevin Molino is now overseeing plans for a third bathroom—an open concept, transgender-friendly facility that offers biological females no protection. Rather than announce the plan, Molino is conducting private meetings with select parents, administrators, and constituents (my meeting with him was a waste of time). Molino acts as if he’s listening but assures community members there’s “nothing he can do” to help during his short-term appointment. Well, at least he’s not lying. Meanwhile, the biological boy—with unrestricted access to female spaces on campus—allegedly assaulted a fellow student. Most parents also don’t know that Chief Student Service Officer Jason Nuttall is researching how to effectively profile children and report data to the federal government via MTSS (“multi-tiered system of support”).
Honorable mention:One-n-ten. While this technically isn’t a school district (yet), One-n-ten is the parent organization of the “Queer Blended Learning Center” in Phoenix. With a mission to “provide LGBTQ and Straight Allied Youth a welcoming and safe space to earn their high school diploma,” QBLC now accepts ESA vouchers to cover tuition for gender-confused middle school students. When One-n-ten hosted sex and gender spring break activities this year, teachers and counselors in Chandler Unified School District gladly made recommendations. At best this is moral kidnapping, at worst our tax dollars are financing the emotional, mental, and sexual exploitation of minors.
Whether readers agree or disagree with my picks on this list, it’s obvious that district representatives and government employees are coming after our children. As long as parents and fearful teachers remain ignorant and silent, mayhem and perversion will increase its presence and influence across the Valley. It’s time to wake up, pay attention, show up, and speak at board meetings. Don’t stop asking questions. Never go silent. Confront the perpetrators and issues that threaten your child’s safety and well-being on school grounds.
Finally, where alternative and private education options exist, every parent is without excuse for not exploring them to the fullest extent.
For nearly two decades, Tiffany Benson’s creative writing pursuits have surpassed all other interests. When she’s not investigating the Kennedy assassination and other conspiracy theories, she enjoys journaling and contributing to her blogBigviewsmallwindow.com. Join her and other engaged citizens at WestValleyParentsUniting.com.
Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) Board President David Sandoval and Board Members Bill Sorensen and Melissa Ewing have effectively silenced all women and girls on school grounds.
Despite hearing concerns from countless community members, the trio remains calloused and uninterested in resolving the bathroom crisis. Discussions and actions taken during board meetings tell the story of an agenda-driven district that couldn’t care less about the well-being of its students.
On April 27, 2023, the pro-transgender board members rejected a bathroom policy proposed by Board Clerk Heather Rooks and Board Member Rebecca Hill. This is the same facility usage privacy policy Rooks advocated for at the April 13 board meeting. Essentially, the policy is intended to “ensure student safety and maintain school discipline” by providing administrative guidelines for accessing restrooms, locker rooms, and showers.
Of course, district leadership was always aware that a cross-dressing male student at Liberty High School regularly used girls’ bathrooms for social media photo-ops. By siding with the disturbed teenager, Sandoval, Sorensen, and Ewing lost all sense of moral decency and respect for half of PUSD’s student population.
No one knows exactly when the district started allowing biological males into female spaces. Formal communication was never provided to the public. Thus, parents were forced to wade through rumors and speculation while relying on reports from their children. It’s possible the district concealed this dangerous practice for nefarious purposes.
In December 2022, Executive Director of Education, Christina Lopezlira, received advice from the district’s attorney to inform administrators about “emerging practices for supporting transgender students.” If parents or students object to the new guidelines, Lopezlira wrote that PUSD must “amicably address the competing interests and rights.” By February 2023, Director of Information Systems, Jill Thompson, relayed that the Synergy upgrade included an option to record students’ preferred pronouns.
PUSD’s willingness to hide this information reveals a blatant disregard for the law and a particular disdain for familial bonds. There’s no length the administration won’t go to overthrow parental rights under Arizona’s Revised Statutes. It’s conceivable the district will soon pursue policy guidance on gender transitioning and clinical referrals without parental knowledge or consent.
Before casting her vote on April 27, Hill stated: “I understand we’ve had multiple instances at Liberty High School where a young man has been allowed to enter the girls’ bathrooms based on his claim that he identifies as a female. The fact that the district has allowed these actions to continue unabated—without establishing an accommodation or implementing appropriate consequences—is both irresponsible and unfathomable…”
Rooks followed suit stating that she had listened to multiple concerns from parents and students while district leaders remained silent on the issue. “It’s very disappointing that this has been going on [and] parents were not made aware of it. I think every parent in this district has a right to know what we are doing with their kids…and I think we need to move forward with this policy,” Rooks said.
Ewing justified her opposition, “If you look at our incident reports in [PUSD], and the narrative about assaults in the bathroom, it has not come as the result of a transgender-identified student. There is not a single incident that has happened. And if you look at the nationwide data, that does not show it as well. As board members, we need to be making sure that we are making data-driven decisions.”
It’s unclear whether Ewing was truly unaware or willfully ignorant of the landmark case in Loudoun County, Virginia. In 2021, a male student—who identified as gender fluid and frequently utilized girls’ facilities—sexually assaulted two female students. A grand jury later found district administrators “failed at every juncture” to properly report the violent crimes, and school board members were “deliberately deprived of information” until the second incident occurred.
Sandoval and Ewing maintained that their votes align with Title IX while Sorensen flat out refused to explain his position. During the June 22 board meeting, one parent’s criticisms finally compelled Sorensen to respond, “What I can tell you is that I was convinced that people don’t really want to listen…the end vote is ultimately what mattered.”
Although Sorenson agreed he could have been more transparent during the voting process, he figured that inclusive isn’t a “bad word” and the policy proposed by Rooks and Hill was “too restrictive.”
PUSD is increasingly becoming a dangerous place for children. If the administration can secretly change a student’s pronouns while advocating for shared private spaces, what’s next? Where are the boundaries?
How much control will the majority of the board take from parents and give to the public education system?
For nearly two decades, Tiffany Benson’s creative writing pursuits have surpassed all other interests. When she’s not investigating Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories, she enjoys journaling and contributing to her blogBigviewsmallwindow.com. Follow her on Twitter andTruth Social @WritingWoman84.
