by Staff Reporter | Sep 20, 2025 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
Community members are questioning delays in Deer Valley Unified School District (DVUSD) releases of public records.
Tiffany Hawkins, a former board candidate and parent in the district, reported DVUSD “buried” about 3,000 emails in a public records request. Hawkins accused DVUSD officials of doing so to hide staff usage of school resources and time for electioneering.
DVUSD officials have previously faced accusations by parents of electioneering on school grounds. DVUSD Superintendent Curtis Finch was accused of doing so by placing political flyers on cars at school football games.
DVUSD is currently up for a budget override on the ballot this November. The 15 percent maintenance and operations (M&O) will cover approximately nine percent of all salaries, maintain maximum class sizes, pay for support services staff like counselors and nurses, and continue certain student programs such as free full-day kindergarten. This election is mail-in only.
Reporting from the Arizona Auditor General found that DVUSD spends more money on administrative costs in comparison to peer districts, ranking it as “high,” and noted that transportation spending per mile and per rider was “very high.” The report also noted that enrollments have declined steadily.
The auditor general also noted that the average teacher salary was over $2,000 less than the state average — even with the average teachers having over 12 years of experience. The district did apply its additional state monies intended to increase teacher salaries by 20 percent from the 2017 base fiscal year, which raised salaries by 35 percent.
Finch has blamed the state’s school choice program for their financial woes, manifesting as teachers struggling to come up with the funds for basic school supplies.
“Arizona has the most unusual (education) system in the nation. We have zero accountability,” said Finch in an interview with 12 News last week.
Hawkins also alleged that DVUSD denied 41 percent of her public records requests, along with withholding about 37,000 pages.
Arizona Women of Action (AZWOA), an affiliate of Hawkins, reported additional issues with public records requests being fulfilled in an untimely and incomplete manner.
AZWOA reported missing over 142,000 pages, collectively across multiple requests, and delays in responses taking anywhere from 100 to over 300 days.
DVUSD governing board member Kimberly Fisher said she has experienced “many games played” concerning public records retrieval. Fisher alleged “most” others wouldn’t speak up for “fear” of Superintendent Curtis Finch and his wife.
“Some excess redaction, some missing that suddenly show up, some taking over a year to receive, some they made me come in and scan myself if I wanted to see them only to find they already had them electronically,” said Fisher.
Hawkins said she filed a complaint alleging “discrimination and retaliation.” The board dismissed the complaint.
Earlier this year, parents expressed concerns with DVUSD compliance with President Donald Trump’s orders to end Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) teachings and programs.
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by Staff Reporter | Feb 19, 2025 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
Parents within the Deer Valley Unified School District (DVUSD) raised concerns over compliance with the Trump administration’s directive to end Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
Last Friday — Valentine’s Day — the U.S. Department of Education (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sent a letter to the Arizona Department of Education (AZED), along with the departments of education in the remaining 49 states, ordering an end to DEI in all public schools, from K-12 to higher education. The deadline for compliance is Feb. 28, 2025.
Additionally, ED opened an OCR complaint line to report unlawful discrimination within public schools based on its letter. ED characterized DEI as unlawful discrimination.
“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices. Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them—particularly during the last four years—under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (‘DEI’), smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline,” stated ED. “But under any banner, discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is, has been, and will continue to be illegal.”
Arizona Women of Action (AWA) expressed concerns over DVUSD’s Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) and Portrait of a Graduate.
“As good as they may sound, MTSS and Portrait of a Graduate are problematic and often incorporate DEI,” stated AWA.
In an X post over the weekend, DVUSD candidate Tiffany Hawkins said she had yet to hear from district leadership about their plan to address the DEI eradication directive. Their next board meeting is next Tuesday.
MTSS and Portrait of a Graduate are two subcomponents within the DVUSD Strategic Plan for 2023-2028’s “Excellence in Student Learning” component.
The MTSS component relies in part on a “campus equity flowchart,” which is no longer available.
Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) governing board member Sandra Christensen indicated parental concern over DEI eradication compliance in other districts as well.
“We all do [need to comply],” said Christensen. “Districts need to address this.”
DEI ideology hasn’t been stripped immediately from DVUSD’s website — the ideology remains.
The district’s Gifted Services parent portal page includes a section on “Culturally Fair and Inclusive Practices in Serving Gifted Populations” which illustrates its claims of DEI using the oft-employed “Reality-Equality-Equity-Justice” cartoon depicting fans attempting to watch a sports game from different vantage points over a fence.
“The identification and dismantling of barriers must be included as part of the definition of equity since the road to identification for gifted services contains several barriers for [Culturally, Linguistically, and Economically Diverse,] CLED students,” stated the webpage. “Gifted characteristics manifest themselves differently in CLED students — some may even appear as negative characteristics[….] Various gaps (which include cultural perception, beliefs, opportunity, etc.) of CLED students and teacher perceptions or stereotypes of giftedness.”
The district claimed barriers included the exclusion of CLED parents due to their ignorance of the gifted services program, educators’ inability to recognize gifted characteristics in CLED students, CLED parents’ reticence to access gift services due to an inability to complete referral forms, and inherent bias against CLED students within assessments or use of national norms.
The Gifted Parent Portal also included Social and Emotional Learning resources.
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