Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) is entering a period of upheaval, one that is very concerning to parents, teachers, and taxpayers. Superintendent Dr. Scott Menzel recently announced that the district staff will bring forward proposals for consideration by the Governing Board to deal with the impact of declining enrollment in SUSD, which will reshape several campuses and alter the educational landscape of Scottsdale for years to come.
The first recommendation by district staff under consideration is for Echo Canyon K–8, Pima Elementary schools, and Desert Canyon Elementary and Middle Schools to be repurposed. Dr. Menzel has not made clear exactly what repurposing means. The official explanation for this is straightforward: declining enrollment and a need for “operational efficiency.” But as anyone who has followed SUSD’s trajectory over the past several years knows, declining enrollment is not isolated to a few schools. It is a district-wide problem — one that has deep roots in leadership decisions, cultural conflicts, and misplaced priorities.
A District in Decline
Beyond these four schools, six others have been placed on a “watch list.” These campuses, too, are being monitored for potential closures or repurposing as enrollment continues to fall. Since Dr. Menzel’s arrival in July 2020, the district has lost more than 2,500 students, dropping from over 22,300 to 19,700, an 11% decline in just five years. This decline represents not only a fiscal crisis for the district but also a crisis of confidence among Scottsdale parents.
So, how did we arrive here?
The Menzel Philosophy: Disrupt and Dismantle
If you want to understand how we got here, you need to understand Dr. Menzel’s philosophy of education. In a 2019 interview titled “Public Schools and Social Justice: An Interview with Dr. Scott Menzel,” he explained that understanding how systems operate gives leaders “the opportunity to dismantle, disrupt, and then recreate something that’s socially just and more equitable.”
This wasn’t a throwaway line. It was a mission statement.
Since arriving in Scottsdale, Menzel has followed this blueprint:
He has recommended firing respected teachers while hiring unlicensed social workers and “wellness” staff.
He has proposed cutting classroom budgets while expanding administrative overhead.
He has recommended reducing opportunities for public comment at board meetings.
He has directed teachers not to inform parents about students’ gender transitions unless asked directly.
He has consolidated power and minimized accountability, all while using district communications, podcasts, and social media to promote his leadership as a success story.
He has championed the elimination of valedictorian honors and class rank.
Unfortunately for the students and parents, the board has approved every recommendation made by Dr. Menzel.
At board meetings, Menzel regularly dominates the discussion, often interacting with the board president as though he were chairing the meeting himself. He highlights a few exceptional student achievements as evidence of district success, perhaps a few hundred students out of nearly 20,000, while ignoring the systemic academic underperformance that affects the majority.
The Illusion of Success
The numbers tell a sobering story. In 2024, SUSD reported a 92% graduation rate (down from 94% in 2022) and a 98% promotion rate. Yet proficiency in core academic subjects remains around 52%. In other words, nearly half of all students graduate or advance to the next grade level without mastering reading, writing, math, or science at grade level.
When questioned about these numbers, Menzel points out that SUSD still outperforms the statewide average of roughly 30% proficiency. But comparing yourself to the bottom of the barrel isn’t a standard of excellence — it’s an excuse for mediocrity.
Despite this record, the Governing Board continues to reward Menzel with pay raises, bonuses, and contract extensions. Two successive boards have failed to impose any meaningful accountability or measurable academic goals.
The “Woke” Agenda and Its Consequences
In Scottsdale, Dr. Menzel’s leadership has been defined by his emphasis on Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), gender identity programs, and related “woke” initiatives, all fully endorsed by the leftist majority on the current Governing Board. These programs were sold as a way to build empathy, inclusion, and belonging. Instead, they have deepened division, distracted from academics, and driven families out of the district.
At the same time, the district has invested heavily in administrative roles tied to “behavioral health,” “equity,” and “inclusion,” while cutting classroom teaching positions. This inversion of priorities is not only financially unsustainable, it’s academically disastrous.
Parents Are Walking Away
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne recently provided a candid explanation for the declining enrollment. In a public statement, he argued that “the promotion of woke ideology is a significant reason behind potential school closures in several school districts,” explicitly calling out SUSD’s efforts to promote gender ideology among elementary and middle school students.
He went further:
“This happens because of the expenditure of a large amount of campaign funds to elect woke school board members who do not represent their communities. Parents have a choice, so they move their children. The school boards in these districts have no one to blame but themselves for allowing the classroom to be corrupted from a place of learning to a venue for indoctrination in woke principles.”
Love him or hate him, Horne’s diagnosis resonates with many SUSD parents who feel that the district has prioritized social engineering over education.
The Voter’s Responsibility
While Dr. Menzel and the Governing Boards are directly responsible for what has happened to SUSD, the truth is that Scottsdale voters bear responsibility as well.
In the last election cycle, three board seats were up for grabs, an opportunity to shift power away from the progressive bloc that rubber-stamps every one of Menzel’s initiatives. Instead, voters elected candidates who reinforced the status quo: one a former superintendent from a failing Phoenix district, another who told parents to effectively butt out and leave education decisions to “experts,” and another whose own child attends private school, since it was a “better fit.”
Can SUSD Be Saved?
It’s a painful question to ask, but one that must be faced honestly: Can SUSD be saved under current leadership?
Dr. Menzel has shown no willingness to shift his priorities. The Governing Board has shown no appetite for holding him accountable. Parents are leaving, teachers are demoralized, and the district is closing schools while insisting that everything is fine.
The future of Scottsdale’s public schools doesn’t depend on clever slogans, glossy podcasts, or PR campaigns. It depends on leadership that values education over ideology and on citizens willing to demand it.
Scottsdale’s parents, taxpayers, and voters have few options. With the three progressive members’ terms extending to 2028 and the remaining two members up for re-election next year, the balance of power will remain firmly in Menzel’s camp for the foreseeable future. The progressive board members will allow Dr. Menzel to continue “dismantling and disrupting” SUSD until there’s little left to rebuild.
If we want to restore SUSD to its rightful mission, educating children in reading, writing, math, science, and the arts, parents need to speak up, and demand change now. Waiting for an election in 2028 will be too late.
You can start by attending the public meeting scheduled for November 13, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. in the Governing Board Room located at Coronado High School. The purpose of this meeting is to obtain public comment regarding the potential closure and repurposing of Echo Canyon K-8 School and Pima Elementary School. Each speaker will be given two minutes to voice their opinion on the closure/repurposing of the schools. Don’t feel constrained; you can also voice your opinion on Dr. Menzel and the board members’ actions that have led us to this point.
All SUSD parents should attend the meeting, even if their child does not attend Echo Canyon or Pima. Remember, as enrollment continues to decline, these schools are just the beginning; your child’s school may well be next.
Mike Bengert is a husband, father, grandfather, and Scottsdale resident advocating for quality education in SUSD for over 30 years.
This November, Tucson voters will decide whether they would like to continue doubling down on Tucson’s failed policies that have invited rampant crime, made it impossible to navigate the city without extreme frustration, and drain its wealth and livability to pursue virtue-signaling but poverty-inducing policies. Or if they would rather get off the merry-go-round of insanity.
Prop 417 is the city’s updated 10-year general plan, and a ‘Yes’ vote continues the madness. A ‘No’ vote on Prop 417 is the only reasonable choice for anyone who wants to save Tucson from itself.
Take for example the city’s climate action plan published in 2023 which set the delusional goal of having 40% of Tucson residents to be walking, biking, taking public transit or “rolling” around the city by 2050. The plan includes a commitment to “net zero” by 2030 for government operations and by 2045 city-wide—including private residents and businesses.
To achieve this fantasy, the city plans to build out a massive transit agency that if they meet their targets of hiring 900 new people every year will eventually eclipse Raytheon as the largest employer in Tucson by more than double (despite collapsing ridership and a 100% taxpayer subsidy since fares were permanently eliminated in 2020.)
The plan requires residents to hold to a “Zero Waste” commitment to empty out the landfills, imposes new road diets, and even pays city employees to not use their cars. This list of insane ideas is also very very expensive, with a price tag of roughly $365 million…
While most rational people oppose fascism or any authoritarian government, most don’t become violent.
Every movement begins with an idea that sounds noble. Oppose tyranny. Fight fascism. Protect the oppressed. But history teaches us that ideals can mutate once rage replaces reason. That’s the uncomfortable truth behind today’s Antifa, an American network whose actions often betray the very freedom it claims to defend.
Antifa is short for Antifaschistische Aktion, a 1930s German Communist front that fought Hitler’s Brownshirts. Antifa in America traces its roots to 1930s anti-fascist movements and later reemerged in the 1980s punk and anarchist scenes as groups like Anti-Racist Action confronted neo-Nazis in the streets. After 2016, Antifa gained national visibility during protests and riots in cities like Berkeley, Portland, and Seattle, where confrontations often turned violent. While far less extreme than organized insurgent groups abroad, the warning signs are unmistakable. Its trajectory shows how movements that begin with moral conviction can drift toward aggression and chaos when confrontation becomes the goal instead of justice.
Equating a handful of masked militants in Portland with the soldiers who stormed Normandy is not only absurd, it’s historically dishonest. Since 2016, the black-bloc style of protest has repeatedly evolved into assault and arson. Here are some examples of the hundreds of instances of violence:
Sacramento 2016: counter-protesters, including Antifa-affiliated activists, confronted a group hosting a rally. Among the outcomes: at least eight people were injured (five of them stabbed) in the clashes.
Berkeley 2017: fires, smashed windows, and $100,000 in campus damage during protests of a college speaker.
Portland 2019: journalist Andy Ngo beaten unconscious while filming a rally.
Summer 2020: nightly riots outside federal buildings left dozens of officers injured, vehicles burned, and downtowns barricaded.
Atlanta 2023: Molotov cocktails hurled at officers guarding the “Cop City” training site.
Seattle 2024: a journalist chased and bloodied during a university protest.
These are not isolated incidents or random clashes. These are patterns, documented on video, acknowledged even by local Democrat mayors, and costing taxpayers millions in overtime and reconstruction.
Yet some commentators still affirm: “Antifa isn’t an organization, it’s just an idea.” Others claim the violence is defensive. But ideas don’t torch courthouses, burn vehicles, or assault civilians, and self-defense doesn’t include sucker-punching reporters. Calling every riot “mostly peaceful” is like calling a thunderstorm mostly sunny. It insults the victims, the business owners, and the credibility of legitimate peaceful activists. Let’s not excuse it on culture.
Those who do not know history risk repeating it. As a Colombian American, I recognize this trajectory. In the 1960s, Colombia’s FARC guerrillas started as idealists fighting inequality. By the 1990s, they were kidnapping civilians, involved in extortion, illegally mining, and trafficking cocaine. When ideology becomes license for violence, moral authority dies, and public sympathy with it. Antifa risks that same fate: the more it excuses brutality, the more ordinary citizens turn away. This movement lost its way because its ideology won over its ethics. While the scale of violence committed by Colombia’s guerrilla movements like the FARC was far more extreme, their trajectory offers a compelling cautionary example. Antifa is nowhere near that level of brutality, yet it similarly shows how movements born from ideological zeal can drift into aggression, intimidation, and moral decay when rage replaces reason. It becomes anarchy.
Defenders often romanticize Antifa’s “heritage” while denying its modern crimes. That selective memory is not education; it’s propaganda, and quite frankly, intellectually dishonest. You can’t celebrate the legacy of World War II anti-fascists while pretending not to see the fires and shattered storefronts of recent years. You cannot chant about freedom while silencing speakers with fists. To do so is to replace truth with mythology.
Authentic anti-fascism doesn’t wear masks; it stands in daylight. It builds schools, mentors voters, and debates ideas. It fights bad laws with better arguments, not with bats and firebombs. If America truly wants to inoculate itself against authoritarianism, we must model civility, not mirror the thuggery we condemn.
On the other hand, Neo-Nazis and white-supremacist groups have tried to attach themselves to political movements, only to be condemned and even removed from rallies when they appear. Those individuals represent hatred, not ideology. The difference is that such groups are publicly rejected across the political spectrum, while Antifa’s violence too often meets silence or worse, justification from those who should know better. Condemning violence should never depend on which side commits it. Yet that’s the double standard we keep seeing, where outrage is selective, accountability is uneven, and moral courage stops at party lines.
We need accountability. Law enforcement has every right to treat assaults and arson as crimes, regardless of ideology. Journalists should stop romanticizing riots as passionate resistance. Universities should defend free expression, not tolerate intimidation squads. And citizens, left or right, must refuse to excuse political violence simply because it comes from their side.
The White House’s decision to designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, as detailed in the official fact sheet, was neither symbolic nor premature; it was a recognition of a growing threat within our own borders. While Antifa lacks the global hierarchy and reach of foreign terror groups, its pattern of organized violence, intimidation, and digital harassment fits the textbook definition of domestic terrorism: using fear to advance political aims. Beyond street riots, Antifa’s tactics include doxing, publicly exposing private citizens and officers, along with targeted threats, online stalking, and mob-style intimidation. These actions are designed not to debate ideas but to destroy reputations and silence dissent through fear. The movement’s decentralized nature makes it harder to track, not less dangerous. Its networked aggression, on the streets and across the internet, creates fear, suppresses free expression, and destabilizes communities. In that sense, Antifa may operate at a smaller scale. Still, its intent to impose ideology through chaos places it firmly on the spectrum of political extremism that the federal government has every right, and duty, to confront.
Let me be clear: there is no fascism in America today. Fascism is when the state controls every aspect of life, when citizens vanish for speaking their minds, when elections are illusions, and fear, not freedom, decides what people say or do. It’s when people whisper instead of debating, when obedience replaces thought, and when loyalty to power becomes a matter of survival. None of that exists here. We protest freely, vote, and challenge authority every single day. We are imperfect, but we are still free. Calling our nation fascist doesn’t expose tyranny; it insults the millions who truly lived under an absolute dictatorship.
Fascism feeds on fear; liberty thrives on honesty. When we excuse violence because it comes from our side, we forfeit the moral high ground. The path back to credibility begins with truth: Antifa’s past may have noble roots, but its present bears broken bones and burned streets. Let’s oppose fascism without becoming what we hate.
Ever since Arizona passed universal school choice, the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program has been the target of the Red for Ed teachers’ union, Democrat lawmakers and their corporate media allies. They demand transparency and accountability for alleged abuse of ESA dollars—all while scandal after scandal continues to pop up in our state’s K-12 public schools.
We saw it at the beginning of the year when the Isaac Elementary School District (IESD) was placed under a state receivership after it was determined that it had a budget shortfall of over $12 million! And this wasn’t a surprise. The Auditor General had been sounding the alarm on IESD’s mismanagement of funds for five years!
But where was the corporate media? Where was the digging? Where was the series of articles and threads on X exposing the corruption?
We got none of it. Instead, we have certain Red For Ed reporters, like Craig Harris, attacking Arizona’s popular ESA program with liberal talking points about unspent funds and alleged waste and abuse.
But if the failures of IESD weren’t enough, now we have the sordid financial tale of Tolleson Union High School District, a story so scandalous that it should make every taxpayer’s blood boil…
A rising array of threats to the public and environment stemming from the boom in “green” energy technologies and the batteries they use means the time for virtue signaling by regulators and policymakers must come to an end.
In every boom time involving any type of energy source, governments at all levels inevitably find themselves behind the curve when it comes to developing an effective set of regulations designed to minimize impacts on the public and environment.
In the early years of the 21st century, Americans witnessed this phenomenon play out when it came to the oil and gas Shale Revolution, which saw its first success in the Barnett Shale region, which happened to lie in the midst of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in north Texas. For the first time in decades, oil and gas companies found themselves struggling to drill wells and install pipelines in and adjacent to highly populated areas, leading to an array of conflicts and tensions with the public that the pre-existing regulatory structure had not been designed to resolve.
More recent years have given rise to the same societal dynamics related to boom times for the wind and solar industries. In state after state, governments have found their legacy regulations lacking when dealing with public concerns over major projects condemning large swaths of arable lands and wildlife habitats, the dumping of aged-out solar panels and wind blades in public landfills, traffic, and other impacts. Even today, 25 years into this heavily subsidized renewable energy expansion, few if any states have implemented proper regulations governing the dismantling and disposal of these often-gigantic industrial projects.
Similar concerns are now rising related to the dangers posed by lithium-ion batteries, whose use is rapidly expanding across the U.S. to power electric vehicles and provide backup for intermittent power generation provided by wind and solar. The major threat from these rechargeable batteries is their tendency to overheat and spontaneously combust under certain conditions. The problem has resulted in a proliferation of photos and videos of burning passenger and school buses, major conflagrations in large battery storage facilities, and of burned-up commercial freight ships foundering and sinking into oceans around the world.
The AP reported on Oct. 4 on rising opposition from local communities to a proposed installation of large stationary backup battery projects in or adjacent to their cities and towns. The report focused on Long Island, which could become home to an array of such installations to provide back up to multiple offshore wind projects in the coming years.
Industry proponents say the installations are perfectly safe, just as the makers of electric buses have assured city councils and school boards in recent years, only to see some of those buses erupt in flames while on their routes or in crowded bus barns with predictable results. But Michael McGinty, mayor of Island Park, is reluctant to assume the risk. “We’re not guinea pigs for anybody … we are not going to experiment, we’re not going to take risk,” he said.
An Oct. 11 report by The Epoch Times details rising concerns over the risks to airlines and travelers posed by lithium-ion batteries brought on board. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported 89 incidents during 2024 in which “lithium batteries emitted smoke, fire, or extreme heat on board planes, and up until the end of August 2025, there have been a further 61.” This troubling fact led the FAA to update its guidance on proper care and storage of such batteries on airlines in September.
In January, an Air Busan passenger jet carrying 170 passengers and six crew members was completely destroyed by a battery-caused fire on a runway in Busan, South Korea. Luckily, everyone on board was evacuated and survived, though three suffered serious injuries.
These and other significant, rising concerns surrounding wind, solar, and the batteries they use show that what proponents like to call “green” energy is neither as friendly to the environment nor as safe and benign as advertised. They also point to the very real need for public officials prone to signaling their green virtues to gullible voters to take these issues seriously and develop regulations needed to protect the public and the environment. Doing anything else is simple malpractice.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
What’s most likely to get your local officials fired up to fight for you? Lower utility rates? Wrong. Removing sexually explicit material from our libraries? Nope. How about just filling potholes in our roads? You’d think so. But what really gets the local officials in Chandler going is making sure they can sit on city council or as mayor longer.
Proposition 410, a local ballot measure, seeks to amend the city charter’s term limit section to extend the term for how long councilmembers and the mayor can serve. The measure is particularly problematic because it directly benefits a sitting councilmember, Matt Orlando, allowing him to run for mayor in 2026 without interruption after finishing his second consecutive council term. This proposition is not about reigning in political power; it’s about conveniently clearing the path for one councilmember to extend his political career. If it doesn’t pass in November, Orlando will face issues being elected mayor after his stint on the council, and clearly, he can’t have that.
The current city charter provision essentially says that one person can serve no more than two consecutive terms as councilmember, mayor, or a combination of both, and must wait four years before running again for either office. Therefore, someone can only serve two consecutive terms total.
However, some argue this language is ambiguous, allowing for another interpretation, one that allows a person to serve up to sixteen consecutive years: eight as a councilmember and eight as mayor. This interpretation has been the practice in Chandler for the past three mayors. Kevin Hartke, Boyd Dunn, and Jay Tibshraeny each served eight years as councilmembers and eight years as mayor – sixteen consecutive years.
The proposed language change on the ballot effectively attempts to legitimize the last three mayors by expanding the term limits in the city’s charter. It now states that a person can serve up to two consecutive terms as councilmember and two consecutive terms as mayor, sixteen years total. After reaching either limit, or a combined sixteen consecutive years in both offices, they must wait four years before running again for either position.
