The Casa Grande Union High School District (CGUHSD) is facing critical staffing shortages for its Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) curriculum. A total of three JROTC instructors have resigned since the spring semester ended, with the last resignation occurring on Tuesday. Now one instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Jesus Flores, remains.
The last resignation, that of Major Rob Sherwood, was reportedly due to disagreements over new district administration policies. One Casa Grande Union High School JROTC student, commanding officer Blake Snell, explained that Sherwood found the new grading policies, which whistleblower teachers say granted failing students passing grades, to be egregious. Snell said that Sherwood wasn’t the only instructor bothered by the new policies, reporting that over 100 teachers resigned from the district.
“This is essentially rewarding kids for doing absolutely no work,” said Snell.
CGUHSD Superintendent Anna Battle rejected the characterization of the new grading policies.
Several hundred students participate in the district’s JROTC program; CGUHSD has two of the seven high schools with JROTC programs in the state. Concerned community members, which included student cadets and the local VFW 1677 Post, showed up to Tuesday’s governing board meeting for answers.
State Representative Teresa Martinez (R-Oro Valley) and State Senator T.J. Shope (R-Coolidge) also showed up to support the JROTC students’ fight for their program.
Rep. @TMartinez4AZ and I are attending the CGUHSD Gov Board Meeting in Casa Grande with dozens of veterans and some truly inspirational student cadets. You can watch it live here https://t.co/BuLq9uMm9U as CGUHS Admin & school board, including LD16 Dem Sen candidate Taylor Kerby pic.twitter.com/VzgN2xuV6i
Shope asserted that one of the board members — Taylor Kerby, a Democratic candidate for the State Senate — was partly to blame for the program’s jeopardization.
Battle made it clear at the meeting that the district doesn’t plan on ending the JROTC program. The superintendent had nothing but praise for the JROTC program and its students.
“What educator in his or her right mind would not want to support a program that implements and instills the kind of virtues, qualities, and characteristics that we have seen not only in the Casa Grande Union High School District but around the country?” asked Battle.
Battle promised that the district’s search for quality officials to serve the program was ongoing.
Yet, district officials alluded to a disparity between the positive sentiments surrounding the JROTC program and leadership action to sustain the program.
Vista Grande High School Principal Vance Danzy noted during the meeting that the district hasn’t found solutions to maintain the program over the last few months. Danzy shared that district officials’ meetings following the initial two JROTC instructor resignations at the end of June weren’t fruitful.
Danzy explained that several of Battle’s proposed solutions weren’t feasible, such as transporting students between campuses. That would result in students missing classes, argued Danzy.
“We’ve been behind the eight ball, and this is because we were informed about our instructors leaving around June 28,” said Danzy.
Board member Chuck Wright admitted that the district failed to upkeep the JROTC program properly.
“I believe we just dropped the ball, however slightly, and I’d like to apologize,” said Wright.
According to the latest budget reports, JROTC has a $145,000 budget, leaving well over $24,700 after expenditures of $120,000 for employee salaries and benefits.
Watch the full CGUHSD governing board meeting here:
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
On Tuesday, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for requiring schools to adopt gender ideology practices in order to receive free or reduced lunch funds. About half of Arizona’s children rely on those meals.
The federal government supplements states with funds to provide free or reduced meals for low-income K-12 students. As AZ Free News reported, the Biden administration updated its Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) guidelines for its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to clarify that protected classes within anti-discrimination policy included sexual orientation and gender identity. In the context of Biden’s correlating executive order, the guidelines would likely require schools to allow bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams open to gender identity.
Brnovich asserted in a press release that the Biden administration’s actions are unlawful.
“USDA Choice applies to beef at the market, not to our children’s restrooms,” said Brnovich. “This threat of the Biden administration to withhold nutritional assistance for students whose schools do not submit to its extreme agenda is unlawful and despicable.”
I brought Arizona into this lawsuit against Biden because the Left’s fascination with controlling our children is craven, lawless, and vile. @JoeBiden, using their well-being as pawns in your ideological game is wrong and unconstitutional. https://t.co/JB9gbWxJIb
Arizona’s lawsuit is part of a 22-state coalition led by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery. The remainder of the coalition includes Indiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Altogether, the 22 states receive over $28.6 billion in SNAP benefits for over 15.4 million individuals.
The states’ complaint asserted that President Joe Biden directed federal agencies to rewrite federal law in order to align with his January 2021 executive order to “prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity.” The lawsuit further asserted that the USDA circumvented the mandatory legal process outlined in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to implement their new guidelines.
The states described the new guidelines as “arbitrary, capricious, [and] an abuse of discretion.” Specifically, their lawsuit alleged that the Biden administration failed to observe procedures required by law for guideline updates, misinterpreted Title IX, violated anti-commandeering and non-delegation doctrines, and violated the Constitution’s Spending Clause, First Amendment, Tenth Amendment, and separation of powers.
“To be clear, the States do not deny benefits based on a household member’s sexual orientation or gender identity. But the States do challenge the unlawful and unnecessary new obligations and liabilities that the Memoranda and Final Rule attempt to impose — obligations that apparently stretch as far as ending sex-separated living facilities and athletics and mandating the use of biologically inaccurate preferred pronouns,” read the complaint. “Collectively, the Memoranda and Final Rule inappropriately expand the law far beyond what statutory text, regulatory requirements, judicial precedent, and the U.S. Constitution permit.”
Brnovich’s decision to join the coalition lawsuit wasn’t the only action Arizona officials took in response to the USDA guidelines. Earlier this month, Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08) introduced legislation to nullify the gender ideology compliance requirement.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
In a few short weeks, around 200 children will commit to an education that tends to stand out in this day and age: a “Christian, constitutional, classical” one.
These students of the new private school, Tipping Point Academy (TPA), are just a fraction of the thousands upended or seeking alternatives following public schools’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic: a demographic projected to increase due to the state’s recent and historic universalization of its school choice program, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs).
TPA was launched last March by Great State Alliance (GSA), a nonprofit advocating for constitutional liberty since the summer of 2020 when that organization launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
AZ Free News interviewed TPA Founder Jeremy Wood. He was unabashed about God being the core of TPA’s foundations and vision.
“We are working from the presupposition that the word of God is the roadmap for life and living,” he explained. “The Bible is God’s word and truth. It offers knowledge and wisdom and everything you need to be successful in life. Our classes are all taught from a Biblical worldview. Everything we teach is taught from that perspective. We believe that God created the world. He created science, math, astronomy, and the stars, and He made the world to work as a perfect mechanism.”
Wood clarified that core academics and God aren’t mutually exclusive. He explained that TPA operates from Christian premises rather than a secular one. Meaning: TPA offers a classical education that encompasses the likes of Socratic dialogue and natural law and excludes modern, controversial approaches like Critical Race Theory (CRT), Culturally Responsive Education (CRE), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), and Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE). Their version of education includes approaches like “The Noah Plan,” which incorporates the Bible in every subject.
“That’s the difference: the word of God is the foundation of our instruction. That’s not separate from our academics. We’re teaching the kids all the same academics they’re learning in public schools,” said Wood. “Our curriculum isn’t vastly different. It’s more of a philosophical approach for how we apply the methodology of teaching. We apply the principled approach which is based on teaching kids on how to become learners and critical thinkers.”
Wood said that TPA initially started as a desire to provide a better education for his own children. Then, he said that he recognized that education was a frontline in defending liberty, and his desire expanded to offering a better education to his community.
“The government was forcing these shutdowns and mandates, so we decided to stand up and create a solution that was faith-based and protective of our rights to assemble, to meet without fear of needing to shut down, or implement mask policies, or some other weird draconian measures to create barriers between us,” said Wood.
According to Wood, TPA uses a mastery learning model for teaching. Students must master content in each subject, which are “set up like mini dissertations” that require students to compile their research and writing to complete a notebook, or “mini thesis.” Additionally, TPA prioritizes hands-on, project-based learning. Wood cited an example of TPA students learning to apply for a job, use functional math, develop business plans, manage a business, run sales, and market products and services through the campus cafe.
“TPA is about creating critical thinkers,” stated Wood.
Another unique aspect about TPA: they expect parental involvement, almost to the point of a requirement. Wood emphasized that fathers were the key figures that TPA prioritizes for incorporation, but noted that anyone is open to serve through work like administrative support or classroom management. Parents are required to undergo a background check, just like all TPA staff.
“We’re not going to allow you to be a non-present parent. We expect volunteering,” said Wood. “We believe it’s our duty to partner with the parents. If you’re not going to be involved in volunteering, we’ll just tell you right now we don’t think you’re a fit for our school. If we were in it for the money, we’d be telling people everything they wanted to hear to get them in the door. We’re pretty clear on our methodology to keep like-minded people in our community.”
In just over a year of its existence, TPA has already experienced pushback from the establishment educational community.
Save Our Schools Arizona (SOSAZ) has been one of the first to target TPA. The anti-school choice organization’s director, Beth Lewis, characterized the private school as a money-grabbing scheme developed in response to the universalization of ESAs.
It’s no coincidence that schools like Tipping Point Academy are popping up all over AZ, ready to scoop up millions in taxpayer 💰 if universal voucher expansion isn’t stopped 😡 Their mission is to “develop tomorrow’s godly titans” pic.twitter.com/9BAiRleFlh
At $8,500 annually, TPA’s tuition falls below the average private school cost. Average tuition for private schooling in Arizona is nearly $10,300.
TPA’s enrollment ranges between 180 to 200 students, totaling between $1.5 and $1.7 million accrued from tuition. If every parent utilized the $7,000 maximum from the state’s ESA Program, that reduces tuition to $1,500 — which may be paid down for just over $100 on a monthly basis. Interested parents may also qualify for a TPA scholarship.
Wood responded that taxpayer dollars for education should be accessible to all taxpayers — regardless of their beliefs.
“Those are our taxpayer dollars as well. People are welcome to have their opinion. They don’t have to send their kids to our school,” said Wood. “We shouldn’t be discriminated against just because we want our kids to learn about our heritage, our values, our God, as well as the academics.”
Wood added that he hasn’t drawn “one penny” from his nonprofit for compensation. Rather, he said that he sacrificed his own business to launch TPA. The Wood family now lives well within their means, he says, to allow TPA to flourish.
“I think there’s the perception that we don’t want taxpayer dollars going to religion. Well, we’re taxpayers as well, so if this is what we believe we should have a right to allocate our dollars to the education of our choice,” said Wood. “I’m not doing this for a platform. I’m not doing this for fame or money. We’re just trying to create a solution for our families and families that think like us.”
From the very beginning, Wood said that the TPA team relied on God to provide. He shared that they prayed without ceasing for their ideal location where the school sits currently: the site of a former church. By the time Wood discovered the site, it was already under contract to become a multifamily residence. Yet he said they prayed, and three weeks later the property fell out of escrow. Wood then sent a letter to the property owners, explaining his reason for buying. The owners agreed, selling the property at a generous price that Wood described as “essentially the cost of the dirt.” They closed within 30 days on the deal, enabling the TPA team to prepare the location for this past school year.
“We came across a campus in the Northeast Valley, and we believed God was going to deliver this property for us. We didn’t know how,” said Wood. “It was a small, humble beginning.”
TPA’s enrollment is filling up this year but, according to Wood, the main reason that some parents say they can’t enroll their student is due to finances. He expressed hope that increasing awareness of the ESA Program expansion will remedy that issue.
Wood shared that some parents also prefer the frugality of charter schools. He touched on an issue reported by AZ Free News: since charter schools exist within the realm of public schools, they’re under stricter government regulation and susceptible to incidents that occur in public education.
“There’s a perception that they could jump to the charter school path, that there’s a little more autonomy there. People don’t understand a charter school is still a public school,” said Wood. “They’re still under the regulatory thumb of the state government in terms of health requirements. If the government starts pushing for mask or vaccine mandates, or hindering any medical freedoms, the charter schools are still going to have to comply with that.”
TPA will teach all grades, K-12, but enrollment is only open up to the 9th grade at present. The school plans to integrate its current students into high school before opening up its high school classrooms for enrollment.
TPA also launched a feeder school, or “K-prep,” enrolling under 20 children. Wood said their goal is to launch 100 schools over the next decade.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
If state lawmakers provided nearly 28 percent more funding to increase the salaries of Arizona’s public school teachers between 2018 and 2021, why did those teachers’ pay only go up 16.5 percent? And how did Arizona’s public schools spend billions of federal COVID funds?
Those are among the questions related to public school expenditures addressed in a policy report released this week by the Goldwater Institute which uses Arizona as a case study to delve into how school districts allocated COVID funds and why teachers have not seen meaningful pay increases dispute funding being made available to their district boards.
The report, “The COVID Funding Flood: How Spending Surged in Arizona’s Public School System Amid the Pandemic Era” by Matt Beienburg contains information which lawmakers, school district stakeholders, and the public can learn from when addressing future school funding issues.
Beienburg, Goldwater’s Director of Education Policy, provides data showing that the flood of taxpayer spending in response to COVID was “ostensibly meant to address the harms of the pandemic” but actually led to a massive overspending of federal funds, triggered a costly cycle of fiscal irresponsibility within K-12 public schools, and prioritized the interests of teachers’ unions “over student wellbeing.”
And during that time, the long-running pattern of public school districts increasing overall spending without meaningfully raising teacher salaries continued, according to Beienburg’s report. It should not be surprising then that district boards and administrations engaged in the same type of redirection when it came to COVID funds, the report notes.
Some key findings of the policy report are:
· Between fiscal years 2018 and 2021, Arizona lawmakers increased funding for teacher pay by 27.9 percent. But district schools provided only a 16.5 percent average teacher pay raise during that time, showing many district boards chose to use the funds for other expenditures and not what the legislators, teachers, and parents understood those funds were being used for.
· Arizona public school districts triggered a massive statewide enrollment decline of nearly 50,000 students as a result of their COVID mitigation protocols (i.e. closures, mask mandates) even as charter school enrollment rose and state and federal taxpayer funding for all public schools surged during the pandemic;
· Arizona school districts spent a significantly smaller proportion of their federal COVID funds (23.6 percent) compared to charter schools (31.3 percent) during the peak of the pandemic through June 2021. This was primarily due to a disproportionately high level of funding that districts have received from legislation but accumulated instead of spending at that time.
· The vast majority of public school districts’ expenditures of federal COVID funds for technology and school facilities upgrades occurred more than a full year after most public schools reopened for in-person learning. This suggests the funds are being primarily used for a non-COVID-related purpose. According to Beienburg’s report, the “COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an era of unprecedented spending on public K-12 schools, yet available evidence suggests that the bonanza of federal spending was almost entirely avoidable and that much of it will likely serve a very different purpose than the one originally sold to policymakers and the public.”
The report recommends that to avoid this sort of institutional failure in the future, policymakers in other states should seek to replicate the steps taken by the Arizona legislature to mandate reporting requirements on the use of all federal COVID stimulus funds.
The University of Arizona (UArizona) denied a reporter’s public records request concerning complaints received by its bias complaint system for students.
The reporter, Christian Schneider with The College Fix, submitted the records request last August. UArizona had no issue fulfilling a similar 2019 request for its bias complaint system. Overseeing the reporting system is the Bias Education & Support Team (BEST), which falls under the Dean of Students’ jurisdiction.
The Goldwater Institute, Phoenix-based public policy research and litigation organization, took up Schneider’s case. Last week, the organization requested that UArizona fulfill the records request.
UArizona Public Records Coordinator Kim Fassl claimed to Schneider that they denied his latest request based on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) as well as Arizona court precedents upholding record denials to ensure individual privacy and the state’s best interests.
“The production of these records could cause a chilling effect among future complainants and the University,” wrote Fassl.
The previous public records coordinator that fulfilled Schneider’s 2019 request, Teri Bentson, raised none of the objections issued by Fassl. The change in perspective may have to do with the connection between Fassl and one of the six women in charge of BEST: the “Core Team.”
Prior to handling public records requests, Fassl was the associate director of residential education for student behavioral education. One of BEST’s Core Team, Nina Pereira, serves as the director of residential education, which oversees behavioral education. It appears that Fassl was Pereira’s subordinate. Neither Pereira and Fassl responded to a request for comment.
Fassl has also served as a member of the UArizona Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT). Similarly to BEST, BIT has a referral form to report concerning student behaviors.
In their letter petitioning for the fulfillment of Schneider’s request, the Goldwater Institute contended that both Arizona and federal court precedent determined redaction of identifying information was sufficient for FERPA adherence. The organization added that Schneider allowed for redactions in his initial request, too.
UArizona launched BEST in October 2020 amid the racialized protests and riots initiated by George Floyd’s death less than five months before.
BEST’s Core Team has remained the same since its launch. In addition to Pereira, there’s Veda Kowalski, assistant dean of students; Beverly Perez-Mercado, organizational development specialist within the Office of Learning & Organizational Development; Judy Marquez Kiyama, associate vice provost; Whitney Mohr, civil rights investigator within the Office of Institutional Equity; and Jane Pizzolato, director of the Office of Diversity & Inclusion.
Kiyama also serves as an equity consultant for the Ada Center and Strong Start to Finish. She’s also involved with the Culturally Responsive Curriculum Development Institute (CRCDI), which represents eight colleges. Culturally Responsive Education (CRE), also known as Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT), is synonymous with Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Meet the faculty & advisory team involved w/the Culturally Responsive Curriculum Development Institute. Faculty from 8 different colleges are represented. They are redesigning 18 different courses, which ultimately will reach over 3000 enrolled students! @uarizonahsi@uazfacultypic.twitter.com/mzeBLE4yWc
Last Tuesday, a federal judge dismissed Governor Doug Ducey’s lawsuit against the Biden administration’s attempt to recoup COVID-19 relief funds given to mask mandate-free K-12 schools. Arizona District Court Judge Steve Logan dismissed for failure to state a claim.
Last August, Ducey applied the American Rescue Plan Act’s (ARPA) Arizona cut of the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF) to two programs: a $10 million one that would cover $7,000 of tuition or other educational costs at schools without mask mandates, and a $163 million one that made only mask mandate-free schools eligible for funds.
In the Ducey v. Yellen, et al. ruling handed down last week, Logan, an Obama appointee, rejected Ducey’s claim that his application of SLFRF funds were a valid use of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative economic impacts. Logan insisted that Ducey’s reading of the statute was “too narrow” and thereby neglected its greater context. The judge opined that Ducey’s encouragement of noncompliance with public health guidance worsened, not mitigated, COVID-19’s negative economic impacts.
“In line with the explicit purpose of the SLFRF […] the statute at least carries the possibility that SLFRF funding may not be used for programs with conditions that undermine public health guidance, as such programs would exacerbate rather than mitigate the pandemic’s fiscal effects,” wrote Logan. “This proposition is axiomatic: a program that addresses fiscal effects of the pandemic but contains a condition that would promulgate the spread of the virus prolongs the pandemic and its resulting fiscal effects — thereby failing to provide mitigation of either.”
Logan did agree with Ducey’s argument that the state has authority to decide how to use its SLFRF funds. However, Logan determined that Ducey’s application ran afoul of ARPA’s restrictions. Logan rejected Ducey’s argument that the USDF was too ambiguous when describing permissible uses of SLFRF funds. Rather, the federal judge agreed that the U.S. Department of Treasury’s (USDT) enumeration of permissible usage was sufficient.
In addition to USDT Secretary Janet Yellen, the named defendants in the case were USDT Acting Inspector General Richard Delmar and the USDT itself.
Ducey first filed the lawsuit in January.
In response to an October letter from the USDT informing the governor that Arizona’s usage of SLFRF funds weren’t permissible, Ducey accused the Biden administration of government overreach.
“Here in Arizona, we trust families to make decisions that are best for our children. It’s clear that President Bident doesn’t feel the same,” wrote Ducey. “He’s focused on taking power away from American families by issuing restrictive and dictatorial mandates for his own political gain.”
Here in Arizona, we trust families to make decisions that are best for their children. It’s clear that President Biden doesn’t feel the same. He’s focused on taking power away from American families by issuing restrictive and dictatorial mandates for his own political gain. 1/ https://t.co/oeoNIzgOtq
USDT began investigating Ducey’s two programs following a mid-August request from Congressman Greg Stanton (D-AZ-09), issued hours after Ducey first announced the two programs at the heart of this case.
The governor filed an appeal to Logan’s ruling last Friday.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
