When former Tucson Unified School District candidate Betts Putnam-Hidalgo stood before the TUSD board at the last special meeting for the closure and consolidation vote on Thursday, Dec. 20, she brought up a recent radio interview with newly elected board member Cam Juarez.
On KVOI’s Buckmaster Show with Bill Buckmaster, Juarez said, “You have a different perspective once you are privy to a lot more information.” Juarez explained further that he had access to a little more information from TUSD than he had as a candidate, he changed his mind and understood that school closures had to happen for the district close in on its projected $17 million deficit.
“If they don’t happen now they will have to happen in the near future. One way or another it is going to be a difficult thing to do,” Juarez said.
But what was special about the information Juarez was provided as opposed to the information provided the public through the series of meetings, public hearings and school master plan?
That’s what Putnam-Hidalgo asked the board at the Dec. 27 special meeting, especially since the criteria for school closures didn’t fit near-high performing schools on the closure list like Brichta and Sewell This past fall, at a TUSD candidates forum in front of a 700 people at El Casino Ballroom (see above video), Juarez and other newly elected board member Kristel Foster both talked about “not closing schools,” but then changed their minds — at least according to the interview on the Buckmaster Show.
“What ever that information is, we need it,” Putnam-Hidalgo told the board, referring to Juarez’s mention of being privy to information they didn’t have before when they were running for school board.
You can listen to the Buckmaster interviews with Juarez and Foster here.
The interviews, coupled with the final vote on the closures, have given the incoming board members a public-relations hill to climb in the eyes of the Internet and social media:
Word is the criticism isn’t being taken well, and the new board members wish folks would cool it until the district’s next regular school board meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 8. That’s the meeting that could change the course of this district, and possibly the more recent votes, albeit confusing, that the board took on the desegregation plan with several objections, including the inclusion of culturally relevant curriculum core classes, i.e. Mexican-American studies on Tuesday, Dec. 11.
In our interview with board member Adeltia Grijalva, she said she intends to bring that vote back up before the board during the Jan. 8 meeting when there is a majority board in support of MAS — Grijalva, Foster and Juarez.
Maybe, it’s what Juarez referred to in his Buckmaster interview as the time “to start the healing process.”
It’s time to figure out “how to heal from school closures, how we’re going to deal with deseg plan … we can’t afford to lose anymore students. If we lose more students we definitely have to close more schools in the future.”
Foster, in support of MAS, said in her Buckmaster interview, “I am going in as a supporter. When you put all the politics aside, the data still stands.”
“We have to rebuild our image, our trust, bring the community back to our schools. We have to bring our board and community together.”
For some in the community, it means this new board has a lot of work to do, and a lot to prove.
This article appears in Dec 27, 2012 – Jan 2, 2013.
There’s no question the new TUSD governing board has their work cut out for them. Things would proceed, I believe, much better if there was less animosity. A short, nearby retreat with a good facilitator, with no board business, but addressing their interpersonal relations might help in conducting future business more effectively and efficiently. The squabbles and dirt slinging have not served the interest of the children attending schools in the district.
The TUSD board has gone through similar retreats for the last 20 years. Everyone starts with good intentions, but the proof is in the pudding. There are fiscal responsibilities for which each board member is legally responsible. Personal wishes and beliefs are very difficult to follow in the face of fiscal realities. Too many times in past years have board members said one thing and then mysteriously, money is found at the last minute, which means the dreaded events aren’t necessary. Will that happen this time? Nobody in the general public believes what they don’t want to believe. There is always a difference between the candidate and the elected official. Remember the water recall of the City Council in the 70s? They all ran to cut water rates, won the seats and immediately voted to keep or raise the rates. Why? Because the candidates seldom do sufficient homework in advance of elections. None of the information is secret. No one wants to believe what they don’t choose to believe. Now, will those who shouted loudest against the incumbents turn on their replacements? Or will they too do their homework?
My question was posed to the Superintendent, and was not based on animosity towards Foster and Juarez, both of whom I desperately hope will improve the board immeasurably. It was meant to be a call for transparency–if there is information that none of us had before the election that would have convinced us that school closings were necessary, wouldn’t it be to the Superintendents’ benefit to have made it more public than it was?
Perhaps all the information IS public–that is always the question, though, when transparency is lacking and elected officials are mistrusted. The issue is more one of a paradigm shift–to prioritize saving money through measures that don’t involve closing schools–than a lack of information about how dire the situation is. Personally I truly believe that if we could get district staff to think outside of the box (from the beginning) as if their jobs depended on it, they would find energy savings, possible interagency agreements, etc. that could resolve this problem in other ways.
There were pros and cons to closing Brichta, but it is not a “near high-performing” school. Last year Brichta was graded “C” by the state with 103 points, barely above the C/D cutoff at 100.
To gcb1. In such a retreat, its success depends on the facilitator. The purpose of a retreat is to move aside temporarily from ALL the business issues to work on prejudices, perceptions, interpretations etc., to allow you to conduct regular business and deal with facts or situations without the distortion of personal feelings. As a former volunteer mediator, I remember only one or two cases out of many that were not resolved. Again its success largely depends on the skill of the facilitator.
The Swedish Parliament uses a similar tactic about bi-monthly and to the best of my knowledge has worked well.
I’m very unclear as to what making MAS a part of the core curriculum means. But it seems like it might be a moot point if the state ruled these classes illegal.
I think that all students should learn US history, which is a broad topic covering many ethnic and racial groups, versus having students study just what feels comfortable, and is familiar. During my TUSD U.S. history courses I learned a lot about different racial groups, blacks, whites, mexicans, it is all in there, but of course the history of the U.S. government began with the colonies, and though I’m not a lawyer or politician, you really need to know about the circumstances under which the US Constitution was written, and the Civil War and world wars.
I think TUSD should drop the MAS label, (which is now a political loaded term, toxic to some), and look at developing a new course within the state guidelines. I can’t seriously believe that educators, or the TUSD board, would still push for studies which promote resentment, overthrow of the US government (!) and racial solidarity.
The point of education shouldn’t be to politicize young students, but to provide students with education which prepares them to get further education and good jobs. This means factual courses and critical thinking skills . . . doesn’t seem MAS provides either of these.
Hypothetically speaking, if I had a cohort of poor white students who were flunking out of school, and if I indoctrinated them with a course that pushes “white superiority” or talks about how poor minorities have more privileges than poor whites . . . and I take them out to an ethnic white restaurant (Cocoa’s?), and if it raised their graduation rate would this then make these courses OK?
Isn’t the big picture that the MAS educators got “caught” teaching things which other races find offensive? Some Latino parents obviously didn’t like the MAS propaganda, with good reason their kids would have a pessimistic view prior to starting college, a place where you need to think critically and learn about more than your culture.
I think “La Raza” should rebrand itself as the name itself is sort offensive, it means “The Race” . . . as if there is only one race that matters?! Latinos mostly have a multiracial background, and historically La Raza has been used, (though not exclusively), to refer to white european spainards.
Betts, I’m still so impressed by you. I wish you had won. Thank you for remaining involved.
Neat trick, writing about a special December 27th meeting on December 25th.
I’d like to respond to Mr. Stegeman’s comment above about Brichta Elementary School. Mr. Stegeman made sure to point out the fact that Brichta is not a “highly performing” school that just came in above the line, scoring a “C” grade this past year. Might I remind the members of the governing board that there were 22 “D” rated schools last year, only 6 of which ended up on the potential closure list. Let us not kid ourselves into believing that the choice of schools for closure was motivated by performance and was meant to create higher performing schools in the district. One only has to look at the performance of Manzo Elementary School, a school that the board not only opted to keep open, but also said they would consider making into a charter school.
To Jennifer Guth Schroeder, it seems that Dr. Stegeman has hard numbers, if Brichta scored a 103, barely above the C/D 100 cut-off, then Brichta could easily have slide to D status.
There it is in black and white, Brichta was a stone’s throw away from D status. This article made a typo by referring to Brichta as a high-performing school.
The board kept Sewell open because it had a grade B (I think the only such school targeted for closure), a wait list, and Manzo was spared because of the school’s ecology program. You really should take a look at Manzo more closely, they have a video on YouTube talking about their ecology program. And because Sewell is a high-performing school (I woud say B/A schools in this district), performance obviously does matter to the board.
My school was closed, but I was grateful for the opportunity to address the board, and I realize that tough decisions need to be made. I think Brichta hurt their case (though they probably would have closed no matter what) because they attacked the board. Given Brichta is (was) a step away from D status, it is nonsensical to attack Manzo, though given Brichta’s attitude (and their bullying BCAN), can’t say I’m not surprised.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, you aren’t addressing the TUSD board in the comments of an article in Tucson Weekly.
Yes, there were many D schools not closed, and academic performance was not the only criterion that the Board adopted for closures. It was only one of ten criteria, though for me it was one of the most important of the ten. That was one reason that I opposed closing Sewell. In the end, every school closed was rated either D or was in the bottom half our C schools, except for Menlo Park which had a higher C (116 points) but was trending down.