In the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD), about half of students preparing to move up into high school understand math.
Only 54 percent of eighth grade SUSD students met proficiency in math per standardized testing, yet the district has further divided precious classroom time into teaching concepts like gender identity and how to successfully disrupt fact-finding dialogue.
Organized SUSD parents, teachers, and community members critical of the district’s academic focus have questioned why their schools continue to branch out into new educational pursuits when the basics remain unmastered. Those parents have gone so far as to criticize the modern content as unacademic.
“Less than half of Scottsdale Unified 8th graders are proficient in math, yet the district continues to approve resources that divert class time away from academics,” stated Scottsdale Unites for Education Integrity (SUEI).
Less than half of Scottsdale Unified 8th graders are proficient in math, yet the district continues to approve resources that divert class time away from academics.
— Scottsdale Unites for Educational Integrity (@ScottsdaleUnite) March 25, 2024
However, SUSD touted their math proficiency percentage as a win during their board meeting last November, since it was technically higher than the 2022 national average of 26 percent and 2023 state average of 27 percent for eighth graders.
Math proficiency steadily declined from grade 3 onward, both in the district and statewide.
The contested concepts of gender identity and disruption of fact-finding dialogue occur within the permitted supplemental district curriculum for social studies (grades 3-12) and digital citizenship (grades K-12). Within these supplemental curriculums, teachers may choose from media literacy lessons on a wide variety of topics. Parents have challenged the necessity of these curriculums for delving into topics like hate speech, climate change, social justice, antiracism, Black Lives Matter, and transgenderism.
SUSD also requires high school students to learn media literacy as part of the “Digital Future” and “American and Arizona Government” courses.
The media literacy curriculum serves as the latest issue to emerge for SUSD community members.
Since increased parental and community scrutiny brought on by the pandemic, SUSD families have been sounding the alarm on their district’s trajectory. Their concerns have yielded various discoveries over the years, many of which have indicated a tendency for the district to keep parents in the dark on major developmental concerns, such as gender identity struggles, and a practice of encouraging minors to explore their gender identity through secretive gender transition plans and sexuality through outlets like GSA clubs.
Last month, SUSD was featured on Parents Defending Education’s list of schools with a gender support plan. SUSD’s gender support plan enables students to embark on a gender transition journey without the knowledge of their parents.
SUSD’s plan appeared to be nearly identical to a version published by Gender Spectrum, an organization advocating for transgenderism in minors. The organization hosted a controversial chat room promoted on the Arizona Department of Education website by former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman.
Gender Spectrum’s top sponsor is Pearson, one of the biggest providers of educational materials internationally.
Other Arizona districts listed by Parents Defending Education as having their own versions of gender support plans were Casa Grande Elementary School District, Creighton Elementary District, Ganado Unified School District, Kayenta Unified School District, Mesa Unified School District, Naco Elementary School District, Osborn Elementary School District, and Tucson Unified School District.
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The city of Tucson’s experiment with free transit (subsidized using a combination of local and federal funding) appears to be coming to an end.
In a memo for Tuesday’s council study session meeting, the city manager recommended the reinstatement of transit fare for Sun Link and Sun Express services. After much debate, Mayor Regina Romero tabled any action on reinstating transit fare for their next study session on March 19. The council nearly approved a motion to undertake the first step for reinstating transit fare: conducting the federally required Title VI Fare Equity Analysis.
In order to reinstate fares, the city estimated a timeline of six months and cost of just over $419,000, about 70 percent of which would be for the hire and training of five staffers. That estimated restoration cost pales in comparison to the expenditures the city has already issued on the subject: Mayor Regina Romero remarked that the city has spent “millions” on consultants to problem-solve transit fares.
The council entertained the possibility of creating more taxes, such as bed taxes or a car rental tax, or leaning into the Pima Association of Governments (PAG) emission reductions program. Romero directed the city manager to use these next several weeks before their next study session to find any possible funding streams.
Tucson suspended transit fares in March 2020 in response to the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city began covering the costs of free transit with the receipt of $43 million from the Federal Transportation Authority in pandemic relief. As the federal funds dwindled, the city attempted to tap their academic partners — Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), University of Arizona (UArizona), and Pima Community College (PCC) — to cover the estimated $10 to $15 million annual cost for transit, but all have declined.
UArizona, whose students and faculty make up about 70 percent of streetcar ridership according to Councilman Steve Kozachik, isn’t in a position to subsidize free transit with its ongoing financial crisis. On Tuesday, UArizona President Robert Robbins voluntarily took a $350,000 pay cut.
Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz said that the city should find a way to cover the cost of fare, reiterating that it makes up 8-10 percent of the overall cost to operate the transit system. She asked whether there were other funding streams that could be tapped in the short term, referencing American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) emissions reduction funding. Santa Cruz disclosed that the council found it “frustrating” that none of their educational partners had stepped up to cover transit costs.
“I will continue to make the case that our public transportation system should be a core service, that our taxpayers are paying for this public good, the way that we pay taxes for our parks, our police and fire,” said Santa Cruz.
Romero opined that the effort to source funding partners was too great a cost for the benefit of securing fare-free transit. The mayor also lamented the unwillingness of their academic partners to help.
“I don’t personally think that bringing in $1.4, $2.1 million is worth the exhaustive worth we need to do to reinstate these fares,” said Romero.
In an effort to source funding last May, the city formed a stakeholder group consisting of TUSD, UArizona, PCC, Pima County, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), and members of the business community. That group was unable to reach a consensus on addressing the budget shortfall during its five meetings last year.
During Tuesday’s study session, Santa Cruz expressed her regret that the council had created the stakeholder group.
“[T]hey were more interested in talking long-term vision for what our transit system should look like and not really this short term,” said Santa Cruz.
The city has partnered with Raytheon, Amazon, Rio Nuevo, and the downtown Tucson partnership to cover some of the routes.
According to Sun Tran data, annual ridership has been in a slight decline since 2012. Ridership did recover consistently during the pandemic to slightly above the 2019 fiscal year level in this past fiscal year, though it didn’t recover completely from its initial drop-off around the 2016 to 2018 fiscal years. The recovery in ridership may be attributed to the elimination of transit fare.
The high cost alone isn’t the only major reason the city hasn’t been able to fund the transit itself. The border crisis has cost the city millions to house, feed, and transport the illegal immigrants.
Watch the council’s study session discussion on restoring transit fare here:
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Just as with the rest of the activist community, school board members are taking sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Chandler Unified School District (CUSD) Governing Board member Patti Serrano helped organize the appearance of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-12), the only Palestinian-American in Congress, scheduled for last Friday at Arizona State University (ASU). The event has since been canceled. In an email obtained by AZ Free News, Serrano notified Arizona Palestine Network subscribers of the Tlaib event.
Serrano sent the email in her capacity as the East Valley coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and as a co-sponsor of Tlaib’s “Palestine is an American Issue.”
The bottom of Serrano’s email identified other affiliated groups behind the canceled event: Arizona Palestine Network; Palestine Community Center of Arizona; Council on American Islamic Relations of Arizona; Jewish Voice for Peace – Tucson; Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP) at ASU; Arizona Palestinian Solidarity Alliance; Arizona Democratic Party Progressive Council; National Lawyers Guild at ASU; Central Arizona National Lawyers Guild Attorney Chapter; and Middle Eastern Law Students Association at ASU.
Since ASU rejected Tlaib’s appearance on campus, student and community activists convened to protest, claiming freedom of speech was denied. In a statement, ASU said that the event was organized by groups not affiliated with the university and outside university policies and procedures, and therefore not permissible.
“Organizers of events using ASU facilities must be properly registered with ASU and must meet all university requirements for crowd management, parking, security, and insurance. In addition, the events must be produced in a way which minimizes disruption to academic and other activities on campus,” said ASU. “The event featuring Congresswoman Tlaib was planned and produced by groups not affiliated with ASU and was organized outside of ASU policies and procedures. Accordingly, that event will not take place today on the ASU Tempe campus.”
Tlaib didn’t issue any public statements following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. Only after Israel issued a response to Hamas in Gaza did Tlaib call upon the Biden administration to advocate for a cease-fire. Tlaib also introduced a resolution facilitating a cease-fire.
The Biden Administration is failing in its duty to protect all civilian and American lives in Gaza.
Tlaib was censured for her repeated endorsement of the controversial slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” largely understood to be a call for the eradication of Israel from the land.
From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.
In addition to PDA, Serrano also served as an academic research project director for ASU.
Upon becoming a CUSD governing board member earlier this year, Serrano took her oath of office not on the Bible but on “Life is a Banquet,” a book containing the sexual awakening and explicit fantasies of a fictional 17-year-old and his peers, written by ASU Professor and Drag Story Hour Arizona co-founder David Boyles.
Serrano has led a number of widely-reported protests against elected leaders to advocate for various progressive issues over the years.
In 2021, Serrano was one of the activists that rallied, marched, and sat in on the office of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) to demand an end to the filibuster.
In 2020, Serrano helped organize a protest outside the Arizona Republican Party headquarters demanding greater government action to counter COVID-19, such as mask mandates.
In 2018, Serrano went to former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake’s Washington, D.C. office to demand he oppose the confirmation of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, based on the sexual assault allegations.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
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.
Up to 62 percent of Arizona’s public-school districts and charters have no written plan for maintaining current operations once relief monies run out next September.
Most districts’ lack of preparedness was revealed in an auditor general special report issued last week. 55 percent of those districts and charters revealed the absence of a plan in an auditor general report, with another seven percent failing to respond to the auditor general’s request for a written plan.
The COVID-19 relief funds presented an overall boon to public school districts and charters: from 2020 onward, district fund balances increased by 34 percent ($1.13 billion) and charter fund balances increased by 115 percent ($310 million).
However, the true amount of funding spent or remaining remains a mystery for over one-third of the schools. 213 districts and charters (36 percent) reported relief monies contradicting their reported fund balance.
The auditor general specifically named Gilbert Unified School District (GUSD) and Portable Practice Education Preparation (PPEP) for reporting to have spent all $41.5 million and $4.8 million of their relief funds, respectively. However, the auditor general found that GUSD had used $30.4 million for continuing costs, $24.7 million for salaries and benefits, and a fund balance increase. The auditor general also found that PPEP had only reported $2 million spent for employment retention salaries and benefits with student count declines, and a fund balance increase.
Due to the lack of transparency, the auditor general promised to add additional fund balance/reserve reporting to district and charter fiscal year 2023 annual financial reports and fiscal year 2025 budget forms.
Additionally, 9 districts and 16 charters haven’t corrected their cited noncompliance with statutory reporting requirements. In January, that number was 21 districts and 64 charters. 27 districts and 26 charters didn’t submit required follow-up reporting.
Districts and charters reported spending $2.2 billion of the $4.6 billion in relief funding through last June. The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) only spent 21 percent of its discretionary relief funding as of last June, leaving a remainder of $322 million (79 percent).
The district that received the most relief funding was Mesa Unified School District at $291.6 million, followed by Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) at $289.15 million, Phoenix Union High School District at $182.21 million, Cartwright Elementary School District at $124.76 million, Washington Elementary School District at $119.51 million, and Alhambra Elementary School District at $103.74 million.
Details on school expenditures using COVID relief funds remain murky at best. While the auditor general successfully categorized a number of expenditure types for schools — maintaining operations, mental and medical health, personal protective equipment, technology, school facilities, and food service — there remained the “miscellaneous” or “other” category of expenditures, totaling nearly $121.4 million already spent and over $196.45 million planned for future use.
“Miscellaneous” spending on classroom salaries and benefits totaled $21.66 million, and $23.63 million for other classroom spending. Non-classroom salaries and benefits classified as “miscellaneous” totaled $4.77 million, and $70.8 million for other “miscellaneous” non-classroom expenditures.
As AZ Free News reported last year, districts like Mesa Public Schools (MPS) refused to divulge how millions were issued in expenditures behind labels like “indirect costs,” “other,” and “etc.” MPS claimed it couldn’t produce records that didn’t exist.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
