by Corinne Murdock | Jul 24, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) announced it will require masks on buses – a direct violation of state law prohibiting school-enforced mask mandates. SUSD claimed that CDC authority was greater than the state’s authority. They cited the CDC order requiring masks on public transportation. SUSD claimed that this order not only applied to public school transportation – but private schools as well.
“There was a specific question regarding whether [the CDC order] applied to school buses […] the CDC confirmed that the order applies to school buses, whether they are operated by the district or by a private provider,” wrote SUSD. “SUSD will be complying with this federal requirement. Students who choose to ride the bus, along with SUSD bus drivers, will be required to wear masks while on the bus. Students are not required to wear masks while waiting at a bus stop or after they disembark, and drivers are not required to wear masks if not students are on the bus.”
SUSD parent Amanda Wray tweeted a screenshot of SUSD’s district-wide email announcing the mask mandate on Friday.
“It’s official, masks required on buses! @ScottsdaleUSD sat on this announcement as long as they could. Operated summer school and camp buses without masks, so what changed?” asked Wray.
https://twitter.com/AmandaWray/status/1418735083767300101
Earlier this month, the Arizona legislature banned mask mandates within its K-12 budget. The legislation prohibited schools from requiring masks during school hours or on any school property. The move followed the governor’s decision in April to rescind the order mandating masks in schools.
On the same day of SUSD’s announcement, Ducey doubled down on the assertion that there wouldn’t be any mask mandates in schools. In his pleadings with Arizonans to get vaccinated, he stated that the vaccines made mandates unnecessary.
“We will not be listening to the lockdown lobby. Businesses will stay open. Students will be able to attend school. There will be no mask mandates,” said Ducey. “We have a proven solution with the vaccine. I strongly encourage every Arizonan who is eligible for the vaccine to get it so they can protect themselves and our whole state.”
https://twitter.com/dougducey/status/1418617995824222210
Ducey didn’t respond to news of SUSD’s mask mandate.
At least one other lawmaker took notice. State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R-Scottsdale) responded to parents concerned over SUSD’s decision to break state law with a mask mandate. Ugenti-Rita accused SUSD of siding with the Biden Administration and socialism by imposing an unauthorized mask mandate.
“Why is @ScottsdaleUSD insistent on pushing the socialist agenda of the @JoeBiden administration…” wrote Ugenti-Rita. “If there ever was a better argument for school choice the Democrats are making it now! #LeaveOurKidsAlone[.]”
https://twitter.com/MichelleUgenti/status/1418748330964779012
This latest announcement comes on the heels of another controversial act undertaken by SUSD. As AZ Free News reported on Thursday, SUSD offered to send students an emotional health and wellness screening that asked for personal information, medical history or information, mental health history or information, quality of home and interpersonal relationship information, student biometric information, gun or ammunition ownership, and any relatives’ illegal, antisocial, or self-incriminating behaviors.
Students as young as kindergarteners were eligible to participate in this screening. Concerned parents asked SUSD about the screening description. SUSD officials responded that the description was part of a standard waiver form that wasn’t tailored for SUSD use, and that the screener wouldn’t acquire any of the information listed on the description.
Corinne Murdock is a contributing reporter for AZ Free News. In her free time, she works on her books and podcasts. Follow her on Twitter, @CorinneMurdock or email tips to corinnejournalist@gmail.com.
by B. Hamilton | May 20, 2021 | Education, News
By B. Hamilton |
The Scottsdale Unified Governing Board canceled its meeting on Tuesday, May 18th, 2021, according to Board President, Jann-Michael Greenburg, because of “a belligerent mob.” Greenburg was referring to the parents who had come to the meeting hoping to be heard on the subjects of masks, and Critical Race Theory-based curriculum.
Even though the Board was, admittedly, well aware and prepared for the number of parents that came to attend the meeting, they still chose to recess the meeting after three minutes. The Board then opened the meeting again just long enough to scold parents before gaveling it to an end.
In an interview on the James T. Harris show on KFYI News Talk 550 AM, one attendee, Amy Carney, stated that while she had never attended a school board meeting before, the pandemic opened up many parents’ eyes to what is happening in schools and what is not happening in schools.
Carney said questions about the Scottsdale district due to the fact that private schools and religious schools were able to open classrooms while Scottsdale schools were shuttered. She noted that the private schools have not seen any more cases of COVID than her kids’ schools, leaving her and other parents to wonder why.
Carney explained that more and more parents began asking the same questions and before anyone knew it, parents are “now awake.” That “wokeness” is fueling the increase parent participation on the school board level.
Carney was shocked by the Board’s decision to shut the meeting down as the parents were neither belligerent nor out-of-line. According to Carney, the parents went from determined to defeated after the Board exerted their power. They may have felt defeated, but it was only momentary. Carney vowed future engagement as have parents across the state once they experience the heavy hand of bureaucrats.
That parental population is growing. The Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board isn’t the first board that has decided not to hold a meeting because they disagreed with the parents that showed up. Just recently the Vail school board shut down a meeting rather than allow parents to speak.
Across the state, groups of parents are organizing to take back the education of their children, ensuring that the Scottsdale Board was not the first to face a “mob,” of mid-mannered parents, nor will it be the last.
by Mike Bengert | Jun 16, 2026 | Opinion
By Mike Bengert |
I have opposed Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Superintendent Dr. Menzel and his Governing Board allies since his arrival, and for good reason.
For decades, progressive education experts have promoted policies they said would raise achievement, often without any evidence. Whatever their intentions, the results have been disappointing and well documented.
After years of weak results, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 brought accountability-focused reform. By raising standards, measuring results, and targeting low-performing schools, it helped improve outcomes. Over its first decade, nearly half the states gained in 4th-grade reading and almost all improved in 4th-grade math.
Despite that progress, the “experts” replaced NCLB with Common Core and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). According to numbers from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), that experiment has failed.
For 50 years, the National Center for Education Statistics has tracked performance through the NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card. The 2024 results reinforce concerns about the last decade of education policy and echo warnings first raised in 1983.
Let’s take a look at some of the key findings:
- Student proficiency has stagnated or declined since the early 1990s.
- Public school performance improved under NCLB, then stagnated after Common Core and declined under ESSA.
- From 2013 to 2024, charter schools were more stable across achievement levels.
- States with educator bargaining laws saw steeper reading declines, suggesting less instructional flexibility.
- Even with record per-pupil spending in some states, achievement remains low, showing funding alone is not enough.
One article summarizes it this way:
“The declines reflect the failures of more than a decade of educational policy—specifically, a retreat from expectations that began under the Common Core Standards and continued under the Every Student Succeeds Act.”
The data show that the pedagogies favored by education experts, including Dr. Menzel and the majority of the SUSD Governing Board, and have failed for decades.
Whole language failed as a reading method in the 1980s and 1990s. In its place, the Science of Reading emphasizes systematic, explicit phonics.
Common Core deemphasized cursive, and instruction declined after 2010 as its authors argued keyboarding mattered more. Another failure.
Was prioritizing laptops and keyboarding over handwriting the right choice?
Studies cited in Psychology Today say no.
“These studies show that handwriting is an essential cognitive process and a valuable intellectual activity that supports learning from the first day of school through advanced levels of education.”
“…children should first learn handwriting. Only after they become fully proficient—especially in complex narrative writing—should typing be introduced.”
One of the most consequential failures in recent U.S. education policy was the COVID-era closure of public schools, supported by education experts and teachers’ unions, which resulted in widespread learning loss. The shutdowns were not only costly and unnecessary but also lacked scientific support.
These are only a few examples of the failures of expert-led public education. In my view, the most damaging and still spreading nationwide, including in SUSD, is the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS).
In FY2020–2021, Dr. Menzel’s first year at SUSD, the Governing Board launched a future-focused strategic plan that made MTSS a key initiative.
In 2023, after a Scottsdale parent’s complaint, the Arizona Attorney General found that Menzel and the Governing Board’s strategic planning design team violated Open Meeting Law (OML). The AG did not punish the district or require rescission of the Strategic Plan, issuing only a warning, so the district still uses it today. Despite the OML training required by that finding, SUSD was hit with another OML complaint. Will Menzel ever learn?
MTSS began in the 1960s as a model for delivering mental health services in large urban areas. Schools later adapted it to identify students with special needs, and in the 2000s expanded it to all students.
MTSS requires schools to create support teams and policies that reshape how they handle behavior and learning. It has three tiers: tier one exposes all students to mental health awareness programs; tier two provides individual or group counseling for students identified by staff or self-referral; and tier three refers students needing more extensive services to outside professionals or clinics. In short, MTSS is designed to reshape school culture and organization around delivering mental health services.
Response to Intervention (RTI) focuses on academics, while Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) fits within MTSS on the premise that students cannot learn if social or emotional barriers block learning. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and RTI were originally developed for special education students but are now used schoolwide.
MTSS spread gradually through U.S. public schools over two decades, with wider adoption in the 2010s.
Under Dr. Menzel’s leadership, SUSD has implemented MTSS and integrated PBIS, RTI, and SEL across the district, describing them as research-based and effective. The district also describes itself as a national leader in RTI.
Despite SUSD’s claims that MTSS is research-based and improves academic and social outcomes, the objective data from multiple studies do not support the claims.
Since 2010, SUSD enrollment has fallen by more than 6,000 students. Nearly 29% of that decline occurred during Dr. Menzel’s tenure from 2021 to 2025, including more than 1,200 students in the 2024–2025 school year alone.
Arizona Department of Education data show that since 2021, SUSD students have averaged 60% proficiency in English Language Arts, 56% in math, and 40% in science, with little improvement.
These numbers do not support the SUSD claims of better academics, improved discipline, or a more positive school culture at SUSD. If the claims were true, why have proficiencies remained stagnant during Menzel’s tenure?
While MTSS is simply a means of organizing and providing mental health services in schools, programs like PBIS address behavior through encouragement rather than disciplinary policies. Revising disciplinary policies was one of Menzel’s early priorities after coming into office.
Follow this link to SUSD’s policies, and you’ll notice that the policies JK Student Discipline, JKD Student Suspension, and JKE Expulsion of Students and their related regulations and exhibits were all updated December 12, 2023, within Menzel’s first couple of years at SUSD.
In May 2024, the SUSD Code of Conduct Committee made a presentation to the Board. Two points stand out: the committee appears to classify bringing a loaded gun to school as “a minor aggressive act” (slide 5 and item #2 on this list of 24 Shocking Moments of 2024)
Slides 6 and 7 emphasize MTSS, SUSD’s core discipline framework.
While the entire 24 Shocking Moments of 2024 list is worth reading, pay particular attention to #3, #5, #9, #10, #13, #16, #20, and #21. They illustrate what Menzel calls better academics, improved discipline, and a more positive school culture at SUSD.
Consistent with that list, exit interviews show parents most often leave SUSD over weak academics, excessive technology use, poor discipline and policy enforcement, bullying and safety concerns, and dissatisfaction with leadership.
MTSS also carries costs: it requires more master’s-level non-teaching staff and uses class time for mental health programming. Along with PBIS, RTI, and SEL, it has shifted resources from classroom instruction to non-academic support services.
According to the AZ Auditor General’s SUSD spending report, SUSD academic instructional spending fell from nearly 64% of the operating budget in 2004 to 54% in 2025. In the five years since Menzel was hired, non-academic support spending rose 1.9% while instructional spending fell 2.3%—a swing of more than 4 points. In 2025, SUSD spent $1,449 per pupil on support services, about 21% of its instructional spending ($6,959), up from $871 and 16% in 2020.
For years, education experts have promoted school-based mental health programs and SEL as ways to improve academics. But multiple studies—including a 2024 long-term study of nearly 500,000 Minnesota students—found no meaningful gains in test scores, attendance, or other academic outcomes. Research from Europe, Canada, Australia, and Latin America reaches the same conclusion: SEL may help behavior or social-emotional skills in some cases, but it does not reliably raise academic performance. (For more, see here.)
Schools often use universal mental health screenings to identify students for intervention. But without adequate safeguards and expertise, these screenings can produce false-positive rates as high as 90%, with potentially lasting consequences.
SUSD says it uses universal screening. Arizona Revised Statutes 15-104 and 36-2272 require written parental consent before school mental health screening. If your child was screened without your consent, you should contact the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and file a complaint.
Since March 2024, there has been no statutory exemption allowing school-based behavioral workers to practice behavioral health without a license. If you believe your child was subjected to behavioral health services at SUSD through MTSS or otherwise, you can file a complaint with the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners here.
Dr. Menzel is on a mission to disrupt and destroy SUSD, and he should be stopped.
If you think things can’t get much worse in SUSD, or in public education more broadly, just wait until the experts implement AI in the curriculum. We should build real intelligence in students before turning to artificial intelligence.
Unfortunately, the SUSD staff recently attended a 2-day event to “level up” and attend 66 engaging learning sessions focused on innovative instructional practices, student support, technology integration, and more. I can’t wait!
After researching and writing this piece, I am more convinced than ever that focusing on and supporting truly evidence-based academics and fiscal responsibility in our schools, puts me on the right side of the issues.
Wherever you live and whatever school your children attend, if you care about your child’s education, please visit Restore Parental Rights in Education and support its mission to “awaken and empower everyday citizens who advocate for excellence in K-12 education.”
Reversing the decline of public education in America will require people to unite and act together.
Mike Bengert is a husband, father, grandfather, and Scottsdale resident advocating for quality education in SUSD for over 30 years.
by Staff Reporter | May 17, 2026 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) is once again facing another Open Meeting Law complaint over a non-public advisory committee.
The complaint, filed last month with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, claims that SUSD Superintendent Scott Menzel has again violated Open Meeting Law during his phased approach to closing schools.
The Scottsdale resident who filed the complaint told AZ Free News that he felt compelled to look into SUSD’s process for school closures in response to the community shock over the governing board’s decision to close Pima Elementary School and Echo Canyon School last December.
The closures brought $2.5 million in savings to the district. SUSD began looking into the closing and consolidating of schools, among other solutions, to address an $8 million budget deficit driven by declining enrollment.
This latest complaint claims that SUSD’s non-public Phase II Design Advisory Team was formed at the direction of the board and therefore required to be open to the public. Superintendent Menzel encouraged the governing board to authorize the design advisory team during a regular governing board meeting last November.
The next month, during the same meeting to close the Pima and Echo Canyon schools, the governing board discussed the design advisory team’s formation. In that meeting, Menzel and SUSD governing board president Donna Lewis strategized on ways for the board to direct the design advisory team’s formation but style it as a superintendent’s committee. The board indicated that it wanted Menzel to move forward with the team, but didn’t take a vote to create the team.
The design advisory team operates under the classification of a Superintendent Advisory Committee, which is exempt from Open Meeting Law requirements. The newly filed complaint alleges that the governing board’s involvement in the creation of the Phase II Design Advisory Team makes that classification untrue.
The Phase II Design Advisory Team is charged with crafting recommendations on schools to the board, including further closures or consolidations.
The resident behind the complaint told AZ Free News that he filed against the district after SUSD personnel denied him entry to one of the design advisory team’s meetings in person.
SUSD told AZ Free News that it hasn’t received notification of this complaint.
SUSD got into trouble last year for similar non-public advisory committees.
Last summer, Attorney General Kris Mayes found SUSD had violated Open Meeting Law for using advisory committees in a manner similar to the alleged violation outlined in the complaint.
“The Open Meeting Law does not permit a governing board to evade the public meeting requirements by ‘informally’ forming or establishing, or by directing a superintendent to establish, a committee to perform work that would otherwise need to be conducted in public,” stated Mayes. “[W]e caution against an overly narrow reading of the law focused exclusively on the circumstances of a committee’s creation.”
The Phase II Design Advisory Team has held five meetings since it began in March. The team consists of two facilitators, Karen Benson and Quintin Boyce, and 45 members.
28 parents or guardians on the team represent current students at 11 schools: Anasazi Elementary School, Cheyenne Traditional School, Copper Ridge School, Desert Canyon Elementary School, Desert Canyon Middle School, Desert Canyon Mountain High School, Redfield Elementary School, Laguna Elementary School, Saguaro Middle School, Mountainside Middle School, and Mohave Middle School.
Other team members include eight SUSD staff members, six homeowners in the community, one community organization member, and one university partner.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Arman Sidhu | May 16, 2026 | Opinion
By Arman Sidhu |
On May 12, the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Governing Board voted 5-0 to place a $375 million capital bond on the November 2026 ballot. Five months earlier, the same body voted 3-2 to close Pima Elementary and Echo Canyon K-8 over declining enrollment and its poor fiscal management.
SUSD has lost roughly 6,250 students since 2010-11, a 24% decline. Applied Economics, the district’s own demographer, projects another 2,400-student loss by 2035-36. Six additional campuses sit on the Phase II repurposing list and are likely the next to close. Yet, the district wants a bond 64% larger than the last one approved by voters to renovate buildings it is in the process of closing.
In 2019, Pima was rebuilt with funds from the last school bond approved in 2016 to boost the school’s enrollment. Seven years later, the Pima renovations are a startling example of hubris that comes at a colossal cost to taxpayers.
The Arizona Auditor General’s January 2026 financial risk analysis flags SUSD on five high-risk measures:
- State-funded enrollment is down 7.19% over four years, which directly reduces the per-pupil dollars the district receives.
- The day-to-day operating reserve lost nearly half its value in a single year, falling from $18.86 million to $10.60 million.
- SUSD spent more than it took in two years running, by 4.14% in FY25 and 8.52% in FY24.
- The General Fund savings account fell 25% in FY25 and 31% in FY24, a combined $28 million drawdown.
- SUSD pulled $4.2 million of its state capital aid, money meant for buildings, technology, and buses, and used it to cover payroll and operations instead.
In other words, SUSD is so operationally distressed that it is cannibalizing its capital fund to make payroll. A bond cannot fix that. By law, bond proceeds can only be spent on capital projects, not on salaries or classroom costs.
If this bond is approved, SUSD will still have to make cuts, most likely to staff while throwing away money to maintain spaces it cannot afford to operate.
This pattern is statewide. Chandler Unified has similarly delayed school closures and narrowly forced through a bond in 2025 after a 2024 bond request led to the district’s first school bond rejection in 30 years. Kyrene passed a $161 million bond in 2023 and is still closing six schools. Bonds do not solve enrollment declines, nor do they save jobs. Scottsdale Governing Board member Pittinsky put it plainly in the December 2025 closure vote: “SUSD is nearly 25% smaller than we were 15 years ago, yet we have closed only one program in that timeframe.”
The political machinery behind school bonds runs on the profit motives of vendors and not on the genuine needs of students, families, or the school district. The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting documented that three architects, three construction firms, and three subcontractors captured more than half of Arizona K-12 contracts from 2013 to 2016, doing so through hundreds of thousands in political contributions to pro-bond PACs statewide.
SUSD voters have seen the worst side of school bonds co-opted by the greed and financial interests of vendors. In 2018, former Superintendent Denise Birdwell steered architectural work to Hunt and Caraway without competitive bidding, accepted $30,000 in payments during contract negotiations, and appointed an unlicensed architect with a prior felony theft conviction on the contractor selection committee. She was later indicted on 18 felony counts. Yet, the same conditions that enabled this malfeasance still remain in place with no real guardrails to protect taxpayers from the too cozy relationship between district leaders and vendors.
Before SUSD asks taxpayers for $375 million, the Governing Board and Superintendent Scott Menzel owe the district three deliverables that address the Auditor General’s findings.
- Complete Phase II closures before any new funding request.
- Align capital planning to the 2035-36 enrollment projection of 17,340 students.
- Cut district-level overhead and stop diverting capital to operations. Non-instructional positions in SUSD grew while enrollment fell and instructional spending dropped to a 20-year low at 54.0%.
These actions would constitute rightsizing in earnest through fewer schools, a smaller operational footprint, and a proportionally smaller payroll.
A district carrying five high-risk flags from the Auditor General has not earned the right to ask voters for $375 million. Scottsdale voters would be well-advised to reject the request this fall.
Arman Sidhu is a lifelong Arizonan, a professional educator, and a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University, where his research focuses on school bonds and K-12 education funding. The opinions presented are solely his own.
