Before I discuss my choices for the TUSD board, I want to make it clear that these are my personal picks. The Weekly will make its endorsements sometime in the future, and I have no input in those decisions.
I want to see Cam Juarez and Kristel Foster reelected to the board because I believe TUSD should continue in the direction it is heading, which is mostly positive—though it’s clear, of course, that there are areas in need of improvement which they and the district must focus on and address. I want Betts Putnam-Hidalgo to serve on the board because she will be a source of informed, intelligent dissent. Though I often disagree with Betts—not so much in what she wants for the district as the way she wants to go about it—her input will promote valuable discussion of difficult issues, pushing the board to make decisions which will help move the district forward. I agree with all three candidates in their overall beliefs in promoting progressive ideas regarding social and educational issues.
It would be foolish not to recognize that Tucson’s school district has areas of weakness, many of them longstanding. Superintendent Sanchez and the three board members who generally support him have made progress in addressing some of the issues facing the district, but there is obviously more that needs to be done. However, these problems are not unique to TUSD, nor can they be fixed easily.
I spend a great deal of time and effort keeping up with what’s going on in education across the country. Over and over, I read about districts with glaring problems and passionate, vocal critics. Most of them are in urban centers with large minority populations. That shouldn’t be a surprise. The problems facing our urban centers are of a magnitude and complexity you rarely find in other parts of the country, and the problems extend far beyond the realm of education. In that context, it shouldn’t be surprising that TUSD, which is in a reasonably large city and serves a majority-minority student population, has its share of challenges and a wide range of critics.
Unfortunately, it’s a fact that students in many schools in the nation’s urban areas aren’t learning as much as we want them to learn, nor are they as studious or well behaved as we wish them to be. It’s also a disturbing fact that, more than 60 years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision which declared state-sponsored school segregation illegal, school segregation in districts across the nation is as bad as or worse than it was in the decade following that landmark decision. These maddening, infuriating problems plague TUSD as they do other school districts. We know the district isn’t as strong academically as it should be, and it’s clear its schools are far too segregated.
We absolutely must work to improve things in TUSD. But to blame problems which can be found all over the country on a superintendent and the board members who support him, to think that if we “throw the bums out” as some people recommend, we’ll end up with a new, improved board that will hire a superintendent who will ride in on a white—make that a multicolored—charger and make everything better is to believe a fantasy, and to indulge in an exercise in futility.
Some people think Superintendent Sanchez is so flawed, he’s a detriment to the district. I disagree with those people, but it makes sense that they want to get rid of him and his supporters on the board. There are others who believe Sanchez is a competent superintendent, but they think replacing him and the board members who support him might somehow put TUSD on the fast track to progress, that new leadership would result in the district making great strides in solving intractable problems. To them I say, we’ve tried that before, multiple times in recent years — a TUSD senior who has been here since kindergarten has seen five superintendents since he or she began school—with little to show for it. I prefer to keep a superintendent like Sanchez who is competent, innovative and energetic and has spent time in the district, someone who can use his skills and experience to move the district in a generally positive direction, rather than digging around in the superintendent-for-hire coal mine one more time hoping to discover a rare—a very rare—diamond, and start all over with someone none of us knows and who doesn’t know Tucson, its schools or its students. And I prefer to keep board members who are supportive of his tenure and his policies.
That’s why I support the reelection of Cam Juarez and Kristel Foster. I believe the district has taken a number of steps in the right direction over the past four years, and I believe the district will benefit from continuity of leadership. Cam and Kristel are intelligent, caring individuals whose primary goal as board members is to do the best they can for the district’s students. They share progressive educational and social principles which embody the kind of education which is best for the children of Tucson and the country.
Having said that, I hope Cam and Kristel will use the experience they have gained over their four years on the board to act more independently. Critics are correct in saying that the board majority too often functions as a rubber stamp for Sanchez. It is understandable they would have adopted that position when they hired Sanchez. When he arrived in the district, he walked into a political buzzsaw. The district’s emotions had been rubbed raw and battle lines had been drawn during the fights over Mexican American Studies, school closures and desegregation. Cam and Kristel, I think, felt the need to protect the man they chose from hostile critics who were gunning for him from his first day on the job. In general, they were right to support Sanchez, but at times — like some of his ill-advised ideas for ways to use deseg funds and negotiations over his salary — they went along with him when they should have been better watchdogs for the district’s interests. I hope when they are reelected, Cam and Kristel will listen more closely to the reasonable concerns of critics and place those dissenting voices alongside Sanchez’s ideas to help them make the best possible decisions for the district.
Before I discuss my reasons for picking Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, I want to talk about current board member and candidate Mark Stegeman. I believe he is by far the most destructive force on the board and someone who absolutely should be replaced. I supported Mark when he first ran in 2008. I hoped he would use his strengths as an economics professor to help the district straighten out its financial problems. I also hoped he would have enough awareness of his limitations in the areas of K-12 curriculum and other student-related concerns to take a step back and play a quieter role in those areas. Unfortunately, Mark has shown an astounding lack of humility and a dangerous desire to increase his power and influence on the board and in the district. He often acts like he thinks he should be superintendent. His desire to push his agenda and get his way has been a distraction to the district and a major source of irritation for the three superintendents who have headed the district while Mark has served on the board.
Mark’s academic specialty in economics is game theory, which is, basically, the study of strategies people can use to help influence decision making. As a board member, Mark sometimes acts like he’s playing one of those world domination computer games enjoyed by some high school and college students as well as some adults, where players form alliances of convenience while they plot against and foment dissension among the other players, with the goal of gaining the advantage and dominating the field. Those games can be engrossing and stimulating for people who like that kind of thing, and sometimes skilled game players use those strategies in the business world to climb the corporate ladder, but that kind of behavior has no place on a school board. I would like to see Mark take his games back to his college classroom instead of playing them out at the district’s expense.
That leads into the reason I want Betts Putnam-Hidalgo to join the board. Betts has strong disagreements with the board majority and Superintendent Sanchez, which she voices in no uncertain terms. But unlike Mark, who often picks and chooses his stands on issues to suit his quest for influence and power, Betts has a core set of educational beliefs which are grounded in K-12 educational theory and reflect her passionate advocacy for what she believes is best for the children and adolescents who attend district schools.
I’ve known Betts for a few years. We’re both members of an education book group, and I’ve had a number of one-on-one discussions with her. That has given me an opportunity to know more about her than I would have learned from reading her campaign literature and listening to her in public forums. (As a side note, I’ve known Mark for a longer time and have spent hours talking about education and TUSD with him as well.) I know Betts to be an honest, straightforward person who says what she means and means what she says. I’ve never detected any secondary agendas driving her concerns. Though she and I lock horns frequently in educational discussions, I believe we have a similar vision of what an ideal school district should look like. Our primary difference is, she believes that ideal can be realized, and I don’t. I worry that, as the saying goes, the perfect can be the enemy of the good. Just as there can be a soft bigotry of low expectations, there also can be a tyranny of too-high expectations.
But “realists” like me sometimes shrug our shoulders and aim too low. I admit to being guilty of that on a number of occasions. Someone like Betts whose head is higher in the clouds can push people who say they are grounded in reality to expand their visions and arrive at bold policies which are more successful than more timid approaches. That’s the role I believe Betts will play on the board.
I’ve heard Betts give genuine credit to people she often criticizes when she agrees with things they say and do. I’ve also seen her take real-world stances which aren’t in absolute agreement with her idealized vision of the way the world should be. That says to me that when she is on the board, Betts will be more interested in making the right call on an issue than in involving herself in personal squabbles and board politics. It also tells me she will keep the genuine, immediate needs of the district in mind and try to make the right decision even if it means wavering a bit from her strongly held beliefs.
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2016.
Discussion of Putnam-Hidalgo and Stegeman: spot on, well done.
Discussion of Sanchez, Foster, and Juarez: you excuse and justify far too much bad behavior. You do need to set your sights higher than chronic incompetence, dishonesty and malfeasance. It does not help our kids or our community to excuse it, David. Better is possible, but not while Adelita Grijalva controls the majority. She has proved that very thoroughly during the last three, almost four years, and the community is aware of it.
Save it David. We see what you are up to. TUSD must survive without becoming a political arm of the misguided progressive movement. When will you realize that Hillary is working against you?
“I read about districts with glaring problems and passionate, vocal critics. Most of them are in urban centers with large minority populations. That shouldn’t be a surprise. The problems facing our urban centers are of a magnitude and complexity you rarely find in other parts of the country, and the problems extend far beyond the realm of education.”
David, take off your education union vest and think about this. Every problem in the inner city is something the government and educrats have promised to fix. I for one am tired of waiting. It’s almost like the encourage and support victimhood while promising utopia.
“At this point, what do you have to lose?” Both parties are to blame.
Trump/Pence 2016…we have to try something different before they call us insane.
I would imagine, Betts’ idea of hell is to be on a Board controlled by the current block voting majority.
I can’t imagine what would become of TUSD with the continuation of the current incompetence. The Board majority and Superintendent Sanchez respond to problems within the district, first with denials and then with attacks on the messengers.
I’m my experience, competent people don’t deny and don’t lie. When there’s a problem, instead of denials. they talk about what is being done to correct the problem. Competent people are all about solutions and working to make things better.
Juarez and Foster just rubber stamp all of Grijalva’s agenda. The superintendent has a higher salary than the President of the United States while 301 money, the .6% sales tax increase that voters approved and was supposed to go to teachers, is being used to balance TUSD’s budget so that teachers are leaving in droves, the district’s support for classroom discipline is non-existent and Grijalva hired her mother-in-law as a principal. Before I retired from TUSD I had an issue with the administration at 1010 that I and some parents took to Mark Stegeman. He helped us to get it resolved and I have since seen him in action enough to know that he sincerely cares about the quality of education at TUSD and is trying to improve it but is constantly blocked by the ruling triad. The board’s decisions are made by three people and electing Betts Putnam-Hidalgo without replacing two of them will just mean subjecting her to an impossible task.
David Safier’s recommendation is to screw the kids and intimidate the teachers. Make our schools political workshops and jumping pads for our political allies.
Rather than TUSD Kids First, David says TUSD Kids…Who Cares.
David, your indictment of me would be more convincing if you ever spoke to me or went to a board meeting. You have provided absolutely no specific evidence for any of your broad allegations and basically cut and pasted what you wrote four years ago. And, by the way, game theory is the foundation for most modern theoretical economics but not my primary specialization.
However, I do agree with you on one point: Betts would make a fine board member.
Wise counsel on backing Betts as she is clearly the most savvy and prepared of all the candidates. She is also very engaged with the community and knows many of the campus sites well due to her outreach and voluntarism. I like that she described herself in one of the candidate forums as someone who asks questions, Her inquisitiveness and knowledge of TUSD will be an asset to a Board that too often seems to not do its homework.
I have also been impressed with Rustand and Sedgwick. Given that they are first time candidates, they already offer ample evidence that they know the appropriate roles of Board members and that they will do what it takes to learn as much as possible about this very large and amazingly diverse school district. They would be healthy skeptics like Betts, but not micromanaging bomb-throwers like Stegeman has been on so many occasions, especially during the Fagen and Pedicone years. It also appears that they wouldn’t be rubber stamps who unquestioningly endorse everything Sanchez says or does, like the members currently in the majority have done.
You have Stegeman pegged well and I would toss in the fact that he has been on the Board longer than anyone except Grijalva. To me, the two of them bear most of the blame for the dysfunction and infighting that has gone on for far too long. The voters made a poor choice two years ago returning Grijalva (and Hicks!) to the dais, but they can partly redeem themselves by sending Stegeman packing, along with the other two incumbents. You note that you backed him eight years ago and so did many of the other Democratic officials who are now asking us to support Foster and Juarez. Let’s hope the Democrats and other voters in TUSD don’t listen to you or them this time!
Sanchez can prove himself worthy of your accolades if he can show he is able and willing to work under the direction of a Board that is not a collection of either bobbleheads or Svengalis. If he can deal honestly and openly with independent and discerning members who will put him on notice that school safety, student achievement and working to comply with the deseg order need to be the priorities in TUSD, he might be able to demonstrate that he is truly up to this job. His arrogance, paranoia and pettiness are traits he will have to overcome, but it is doubtful that a new Board will want to start over with a new superintendent right away, so he has a true chance to show that he is worthy of the trust of both the Board and the community.
Sanchez is chronically dishonest, ignorant, arrogant, and self-serving and those are not characteristics that will serve TUSD (or any other school district) well. He’s the Svengali here, not the supposedly “progressive” board majority which has been led astray by his reactionary agenda and his manipulations and lies.
A commenter going by “another TUSD principal” nailed it in Tucson Weekly comment streams in March of 2015: “”The tail is wagging the dog, which benefits ONLY the tail, has the dog in disarray and provides no accountability to the public.”
Perfect.
Keeping a Superintendent in place is NOT more important that ensuring the district has COMPETENT management. Most savvy board watchers and district watchers in my acquaintance understand that the district could benefit from a complete reboot, dumping all three incumbent Board members and the sadly under-qualified, under-performing Superintendent the current majority selected through an improper process three years ago.
Another thing that would benefit Southern Arizona: no more bad advice from Ann-Eve Pedersen about what our education system needs and how best to defend our public schools. She doesn’t know what the HELL she’s talking about: not on what is best for TUSD, not on what kinds of funding propositions should be put forward in the legislature, not on how Ducey can best be countered, and not on any other topic where she tries to steer opinion in the local Democratic party. When it comes to implementing a constructive progressive agenda in education, she has done much, MUCH more harm than good.
Thanks again Wrong, Again for polluting the comment section with your lack of sense.
I am for keeping K Foster and adding R Sedgwick and Putnam Hidalgo. All three have teaching backgrounds which I think is most important in sorting things out from where they are now, especially with educational climate. Adding new people should help and I hope the current board gets behind them. I think replacing one voting block with another is a mistake since their views are potentially less bipartisan. As Safire said, we have a good superintendent who knows what he is up against and has some experience – now we need to add to board expertise.
Kristel Foster is not able to stand up to the current superintendent, who may “know what he’s up against,” but is not “good” in any meaningful sense of the term. Sanchez “has some experience,” but it is not the right kind. His experience is with lying to the public and manipulating and mis-managing a troubled public institution, exploiting it for his own benefit and the benefit of his fat-cat cronies in central administration.
Look at two of the main “achievements” Ms. Foster advertises to the public: Strategic Plan fulfillment and the award the district won from the College Board. The Strategic Plan has NOT been fulfilled: the Board knew the reports of 100% fulfillment in 2015 were false and they went ahead and accepted the report of 100% fulfillment and granted the Superintendent a 100% bonus on that basis. In 2016 they again accepted reports of 100% fulfillment in one of the areas, finance, where they had had every opportunity to know 100% fulfillment could not have been possible. Foster voted for both instances of granting a bonus based on false reports in one of the many typical 3-2 block votes this Board has cast during the past 3 and 1/2 years. As for the College Board award, it was achieved by mercilessly exploiting the gifted kids enrolled at UHS and overloading a curriculum that already had too many corporate-produced courses and tests in it with yet more rigid AP requirements and fewer opportunities for flexibility, writing, research, and fine arts.
So-called “supporters of public education” who deal in lies and misrepresentations of what is actually going on in our schools all need to go, from the Board to the CEO to the political operatives who justify and excuse their ongoing malfeasance.
As for Stegeman, he has his own agenda and when he was part of the board majority rather than the minority he proved no more able to act in support of fiscal responsibility or of the common good of all enrolled students and teachers than any of the current majority. The district dropped off of the edge of an easily predictable $17 million fiscal cliff in 2013 for which no proper advance planning or effective damage control was done while Stegeman was preoccupied with advancing the good of factions within the district with particular agendas, like the anti-MAS group and the UHS-separate site crowd. It is stunning the degree to which some people — even so-called progressives — seem to have forgotten this and seem to be ready to contemplate casting votes that will have the effect of putting the district back in his hands.
A vote for any of the incumbents is a vote that will produce more dysfunction and more mismanagement.
While this is a letter from the Whistleblowers, it is written from the eyes of a few of our members who are all TUSD principals, however, it is written in the first person point of view.
I received a call from Kristel Foster’s campaign asking that I vote for her. I explained that no one in our home would vote for her, nor would relatives, friends or neighbors. I thanked the campaign worked and hung up. The call alerted me to the fact that Foster is running a pretty good ground game and that more people need to become aware of just how inept she really is as a governing board member. More than inept, I believe Foster is dangerous. For four years Foster has woven herself into the Democratic Party befriending and convincing elected officials that she is near the savior of TUSD students. She is patronizing in her stand but few recognize it. What she has done is save Sanchez—over and over again.
The kids who attend TUSD are not even in Foster’s equation of serving on the Board. Although I remain a staunch Democrat, I have distanced myself from the Party’s leadership for its lack of vetting candidates, such as Foster and Cam Juarez, and its constant concessions to the Grijalvas. Many of the Party’s endorsements are dictated by Raul Grijalva. Insiders have shared this fact with many and are questioning the wisdom in giving him such power. His consistent drunken state of functioning, it seems, has reached a very high level of attention in “D.C.” politics and even those in his own Hispanic Caucus have begun to chant, “enough is enough!” Pima County politics will change greatly over the next two years but for now Foster is enjoying the endorsements of many who do not really give a damn about TUSD, its students, its instructional leaders, its teachers or its community.
What we ask of you is that you begin the change NOW by eradicating the TUSD Board of Foster, not for one or two valid reasons but for many, many reasons.
Foster brags about her first bid for the Board and says that it was inspired out of the MAS issues that faced the District four years ago. She does this only while in front of a Latino audiences while she attempts to convince the group that she is one of them. This is just more of her privileged patronage. It is obnoxiously offensive. Most of the political ploys she has learned have been from imitating HT Sanchez’ behavior. As she has supported his every move, she has learned his style of politics which is to demean and punish any who stand in his way while at the same time deflecting any responsibility for his own actions. The Sanchez administration, along with his bloc of 3 (Juarez, Foster and Grijalva), have become best known for blaming, deflecting, and retaliating. Aside from the obvious problem that this type of leadership accomplishes little, this style of non-leadership also has cost tax payers millions of dollars in wasteful legal battles against the desegregation parties; in changing desegregation legal counsel three times in the course of three years; and in the extremely high turn-over rates at the top level of Sanchez’ cabinet and at the principal and teacher level. Millions of dollars in training has virtually walked out of the door due to the incompetent manner in which TUSD is managed. People leave due to the work environment. There is no central support for school principals and teachers. The environment is permeated with fear and everyone, including parents, are scared to expose problems or offer remedies due to the obvious overt or/and covert Sanchez retaliation. Foster and her cohorts gave Sanchez a 25% salary increase which has put him at about half a million dollars per year. This is a ridiculous amount of our tax money to pay for someone who walked into this District with about 3 months of interim superintendent experience.
Anyone who has watched the Board since HT Sanchez was hired has likely seen Foster develop into a rude, mean, sarcastic, underhanded Board member. Many of her comments are “jabs” at Mike Hicks or Mark Stegeman, although her jabs have been directed to many. Stegeman has particularly been the subject of one nasty jab after another at the various candidate forums. She even took jabs at him during the NAACP dinner last weekend. Foster and Grijalava whisper incessantly during Board meetings forgetting that they can be heard by those tuned in via video stream. This is just more of Foster’s privileged mind-set being acted out. It is though she is saying, “I can say and do anything I please…and then convince you that it is good for you.”
Communication from the District is all “spin” and there is a Sanchez regime-code that no one is to say a word that would make TUSD look bad in the media. This results in gagging most of us or punishing us when the truth is exposed. Foster fosters this behavior. Look at what happened to Chuck Bermudez. Look at what happened to Ms. Aho.
Principals suffer from discipline-policy whip lash. Principals have been given one contradictory Sanchez directive after another and then are blamed for the end-result, which is a District that has failed in keeping our schools safe based on its top leader telling principals to essentially cheat for the sake of getting out of the court order. In response to the crisis that Sanchez has created, he is now going to the other extreme and we are being told to suspend for the first fight and long-term suspend for the second fight. The inconsistent policy has confused everyone!
Foster condones all Sanchez does, even if it means the total destruction of magnet schools, especially magnet schools on the south and west side. Many of these schools had their budgets cut by the administration last year (reinstated only due to the court order), have been riddled with substitutes and long-term substitutes, and this year Ochoa and Utterback Magnet Schools have both been impacted by the absence of a site administrator. Each school has had interim principals since the beginning of the school year. Foster has a hell of a lot of nerve in trying to sell stability as the key reason for wanting to re-seat herself on the Board. There is no stability in TUSD right now and this must change. Getting rid of those who have created havoc is essential.
And the budget. Well, it is all a mystery. Principals do not build their own budgets. Our budgets are drawn up by Karla Soto who is a Sanchez loyalist and a non-educator. Each allocated teacher is budgeted at a pretty high level inclusive of benefits ($55-65,000). But when schools have numerous substitutes the unspent portion of the padded budget winds up in back in the 1010 budget. I would like to know what this adds up to at the end of the fiscal year. The money that should have been spent on the schools is not what it appears in the budget. Schools are getting cheated (again).
It is a mistake to mix either Foster and/or Juarez in with anyone else who is running for the Board through your vote. If either of these incumbents are elected, they will assume the role of continuing to protect Sanchez and every action they have taken over their first depressing term. There will be constant tension on the Board. Foster has professed to be the only educator on the Board but as a so-called educator, she has ignored the support that is needed directly at our schools, the support that teachers must have (not TEA) and critical curriculum issues.
One example of her neglect or ignorance is the horrific audit results on dual language programs within the District. Let me remind you that at Sunnyside Foster is a language acquisition specialist which implies that she should know that dual language teachers should be assessing their students in both English and Spanish as well as using research based strategies in their instruction. Wrong! What has actually happened is that the dual language audit which was issued last spring was immediately buried. (I got a bootlegged copy from someone within the Language Acquisition Department and had to swear never to disclose who gave it to me because s/he would lose their job. It is a public document for God’s sake!) The audit was never provided to the Board to discuss during a public meeting and the recommendations provided in the audit have been ignored. At a recent forum, Foster said that the recommendations in the audit could not be implemented based on state law. She is wrong. Again. Any school that has a dual language program could implement most of the recommendations. The article that appeared in the Arizona Daily Star on June 6th elaborates more on the audit.
http://tucson.com/news/local/education/audit-tusd-s-dual-language-program-too-weak-to-promote/article_1cf17151-549d-5414-b4a3-7e0ff2d2b1dc.html
How could a so-called specialist in the area of dual language not have known that TUSD dual language programs are so very weak? And after she officially found out about the program’s weaknesses, why has she done NOTHING to remedy the situation? Why hasn’t the audit been discussed during a public meeting? These are all, of course, rhetorical questions. We know that the audit has been hidden (at least until after the election) because TUSD suppresses anything that is “bad news.” We also know that Foster put herself before the needs of students by helping to suppress the audit. And finally, it is obvious that Foster is not an expert in the area of dual language instruction. If she were, she would have red-flagged the problems long before the audit was issued.
You have three votes to seat those seeking to serve us on the TUSD Board. Foster has been irresponsible. She has been a rubber stamp. She has been an elitist. A vote for Foster is a vote for more confusion; more submerging of the facts; less support to school principals and teachers; less support for the implementation of the court order; more retaliation; more fear; and a sure way for TUSD to crumble before our eyes. Your three votes are critical in beginning to change the culture of TUSD. Do you really want more of the same? The Whistleblowers have endorsed three candidates which you can read about at:
http://threesonorans.com/2016/10/04/whistleblowers-announce-their-endorsements-for-tusd-board/
However, it is important for every voter to realize the importance of NOT voting for Kristel Foster. She has been a toxic, self-serving Board member.
David Safier, a blogger with the Tucson Weekly recently endorsed her and Cam Juarez arguing that they each have done a great job. His rationale for his support has to do with stability of the District, his support for his friend HT Sanchez, along with stating that TUSD is no better or worse than most large inner city school districts. All of his rationale is despicable, insulting and racist.
Do not let Safier, TEA, or elected officials that do not live the TUSD life and who have freely given their endorsement to Foster away, fool you. It is time to drain this TUSD Board swamp; dry it up and bring in those who will actually serve our students!
Once Again
Thanks to Three Sonorans for publishing every single one of our letters! We appreciate greatly that the Arizona Daily Independent publishes many of our letters and/or references them within their own posts, from time to time. Additionally, continue to acknowledge an organization that is also working very hard to expose the facts about TUSD: TUSDKidsFirst, which also has made reference to our letters, which we appreciate. Check the organization out at: http://tusdkidsfirst.org/
https://www.facebook.com/TUSDKidsFirst
Mr. Safier writing this is pro time since you clearly can not see the facts. We parents are not “vocal critics.” TUSD is not a “typical” low-performing urban district. TUSD has the potential to be amazing partnering with the UofA and PCC and Raytheon and bringing in parents and community instead of treating us like we are the problem because we expect better for our children. Many of us are highly educated and do more than observe casually like you do. We spend time with principals and teachers asking how to help and they tell us the same stories at every school. We need more resources, supplies, support, monitors, custodians, we have asked for help but the 12 at the top making $3million discourage complaints……….You sir, are a disgrace the any progressive agenda you claim. You sir are asking the community to vote greedy politicians to take, take, take away from our children.
You are like the social worker who tells the battered wife that “it’s not so bad” “you shouldn’t have made him hit you” “you shouldn’t expect so much” “you don’t deserve better” “try to understand he didn’t mean it” “he’s trying his best.” You, Mr. Safier ignore the facts just like Mr. Trump. It is sad.
“is probably a waste of time”
Sorry, copy & paste error.
Clearly you have not been paying attention to the audits and reports.
Do NOT re-elect Foster or Juarez unless you are okay taking money away from students, classrooms and teachers. The TUSD School Board election is about the economic future of our city.
SOME FACTS:
According to the AZAuditor General 2015………
Only 48.7% of the budget goes into the classroom.
This is the lowest it has ever been!
2014 versus 2010
49 Central Administrators it was only 36
2,536 Teachers was 3,068
523 Teacher Aides was 621
41 Nurses was 47
71 Counselors was 109
14 Librarians was 45
82 Principals was 89
43 Asst Principal was 51
155 Facilities Maintenance was 195
236 Custodians was 325
Foster and Juarez claim that this is the same as other districts.
THE TRUTH!
A comparison:
TUSD receives $9,469 to educate each student.
Mesa receives only $8,807.
Mesa’s enrollment is much larger 60,374 but more efficient ….75 schools with higher academic achievement. 68% of Mesa’s schools are A/B rated.
TUSD has 45,979 students with 86 buildings leadership chooses to maintain as schools rather than consolidate. 44% of TUSD schools are A/B rated.
Mesa is an exact match to our district “peer group” in fact we have many more resources than Mesa and should be doing better than Mesa.
Time for change…
Central administrators increased by 36%
Librarians decreased by 69%
Counselors decreased by 35%
Custodians decreased by 27%
Facilities maintenance decreased by 21%
Teachers decreased by 17%
Foster claims that the central administrators are due to the Desegregation plan. NOT TRUE. The plan is written by TUSD and approved by the School Board. They can choose to reduce district spending if they cared about students.
TUSD gets an extra $1,301 per student to implement the Desegregation plan. Mesa and most districts get $0. This amounts to over $60 million a year in additional funding!!!!
Believe the facts not the spin.
Someone above wrote: “As for Stegeman, he has his own agenda and when he was part of the board majority rather than the minority he proved no more able to act in support of fiscal responsibility or of the common good of all enrolled students and teachers than any of the current majority.”
I was never part of the “board majority” because before the current administration there was no “board majority.” There were five separate members who aligned different ways on different issues. I have cast votes against many of things that have got TUSD into trouble, but I am often on the losing end of the vote. Holding me accountable for actions I disagreed with is like holding the Democrats in the legislature accountable for whatever the Republicans do.
David:
This is what “Disappointed Parent” wrote above:
“You sir are asking the community to vote greedy politicians to take, take, take away from our children.
You are like the social worker who tells the battered wife that ‘it’s not so bad’ ‘you shouldn’t have made him hit you’ ‘you shouldn’t expect so much’ ‘you don’t deserve better’ ‘try to understand he didn’t mean it’ ‘he’s trying his best.'”
Note well, David: this is what your commentary looks like to people who are raising children in this region using these schools. With the desegregation funds TUSD gets it has the highest per pupil funding rate among all the districts in the region, and what it delivers to students is sub-standard services, sub-standard sites and facilities, sub-standard qualifications of those manning too many classrooms, a bevy of ignorant, rock-bottom-functioning central administrators getting unbelievably inflated salaries for delivering nothing of worth to the district….you get the idea.
Why is this? In part, because where other districts know how to work with the community to leverage investment and build solid support relationships, TUSD kicks those who step forward to try to help it in the teeth. If parents raise money and work on developing sound goals for the district’s Strategic Plan, the money is mis-applied, the goals are not implemented, and the district lies to the public about implementation status and, adding insult to injury, publicly gives its central admin mis-manager-in-chief a fat bonus for 100% implementation. If parents notice problems on the Board and build a network to promote the election of three candidates who they believe can make a constructive difference, they get smeared with baseless accusations that they want the Board changed so they can benefit financially from school closings and bloggers like you paint civic-minded volunteers and donors to the district with the same black brush that the central administrators and certain Board members actually deserve but never get from their wouldn’t-recognize-or-report-a-valid-FACT-if-I-saw-one-Grijalva-affiliated sycophants in the media.
Do this: spend a day at Utterback in TUSD and then spend a day at Orange Grove in Catalina Foothills or Emily Gray in Tanque Verde. What makes the difference, David? It’s not the per-pupil funding rates, which are higher in TUSD than in either of these districts. It’s not parents’ and business leaders’ WILLINGNESS to give, because parents and business leaders have been WILLING to give in TUSD as well. The difference between these schools lies largely in what the Boards and central administrations in these districts do with the money they have available and how they treat those in the community who step forward and try to help.
Disappointed Parent wrote: “TUSD has the potential to be amazing partnering with the UofA and PCC and Raytheon and bringing in parents and community instead of treating us like we are the problem because we expect better for our children.”
That is exactly, EXACTLY right. TUSD parents have seen Raytheon execs take an interest in recruiting supplementary funding and then walk away in disgust at the district’s inability to manage basic processes associated with receiving donations and recruiting external funds. They have seen business sponsors give tens of thousands of dollars and the district failing to honor the sponsorship agreements so that relationships with sponsors who could have been continuing beneficiaries died on the vine as a result. They have seen University faculty taking an interest in connecting students with research opportunities whose offers to help don’t get the follow-through that can translate them into reality.
Bottom line: Your dishonest commentary excusing corrupt politicians and administrators is filthy with political motives and is not needed in school districts serving other people’s children. It benefits no-one outside of your tight little Grijalva-affiliated, Grijalva-excusing network.
Find another hobby in your retirement and stop, as Disappointed Parent said in a very apt analogy, telling the battered wife to accept the beatings.
Stegeman: you can make as many assertions as you like excusing your behavior, but there are plenty of votes you have made which do not align with anything resembling progressive or integrationist priorities. Your roles in the MAS controversies and your advocacy for UHS-separate-site are well known.
You constantly insert your opinions into comment streams, spread them in your prolix “Constituent Updates,” publish them in editorials in the Star, promote them in “community forums” you organize, and get them aired in media outlets like KGUN-9 with whom you build relationships, yet there are many issues that could have used advocacy and increased public awareness on which you have no documented history of communicating with the public. You are apologizing now for not having spoken up on the need to get 301 funds to teachers. That’s more than a day late and millions of dollars short.
If you can provide evidence that you played some role in encouraging the district to do advance planning prior to the disastrous $17 million deficit falling on the schools, I’ll be happy to examine it. Why don’t you do a “Constituent Update – Special Edition” and give us all the facts? In spring of 2013 I sat in a Parents’ Association meeting in a TUSD school and heard the principal tell the community that our school had received a phone call from central saying hundreds of thousands of dollars had to be cut from our school’s budget within 24-48 hours. That is no way to manage an entirely predictable funding shortfall, and the “Cut positions – quick!” way it was handled had disastrous consequences in our school during the 2013-2014 school year.
Some within our group of TUSD Whistleblowers have received Kristel Foster’s latest bottom of the barrel attempt to gain support for Cam Juarez and herself through her claim that David Morales and Mike Hicks were making fun of Cam’s physical disability. She provided a link to the radio program during which she claims the behavior became Trump-like. She says it is upsetting. Those of us who are professionals in the area of special education or who are disabled listened to the radio show that she referenced in her condemning email. Mike Hicks poked fun at himself for his partial loss fingers from an accident. There was nothing that was said that was discriminatory or offensive about Cam’s physical disability. What we all found offensive is Foster’s blatant need to rescue her peer, Cam Juarez, because he is disabled. Once again she has exposed her condescending treatment of those who she believes she must rescue. Foster is no Mother Theresa and she needs to get mental health support for her constant need to claim she is a savior of sorts. Certainly Cam does not need to be rescued. We may not agree with him on many issues but we view Cam as someone who does not play “poor me/probesito” as Kristel has wickedly attempted to do in her email.
Kristel Foster is not genuinely an advocate for anyone or any cause. She is an opportunist. Foster is a walking scam and an embarrassment to herself; to women; and to TUSD. Don’t be fooled!
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to call it Biden like behavior?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRV5Y1JCGRI
I just wanted to say what a lovely well thought out piece this is David and I agree with so many of your sentiments.
As a TUSD parent I am horrified daily by what I read and hear being said by these 24-7 TUSD rock throwers about our kids’ school district and especially about those working hard every single day to make our schools better, AND amidst the most egregious circumstances imaginable given how our state legislature and GOVERNOR sets the table for them! (Throw your rocks at them, rather than HT Sanchez or the school board!)
It’s as if the district is being stalked by some pretty crazy dysfunctional people, (well evidenced by the comments above I might add). However, what is truely scary to me is that we have a current sitting board member who engages in this same destructive rock throwing behavior. I too find his incessant attacks to be all for not. I can’t imagine what on earth motivates him, but ultimately he just exacerbates the situation and further harms our school district. Every day. Every single day.
If anyone thinks they can actually improve anything – an organization, an educational environment, a society, TUSD …whatever, by engaging in these kinds of lizard-brain accusations and constant high drama criticisms….or the best one yet – by starting a political IEC (to supposedly solve bullying in your kid’s school?!!)… Well I don’t even know where to begin other than to say you are SO sadly mistaken and just making the situation worse by your behanvior. I wish you all would just stop and go focus your time, money and energy on something positive and productive. It’s so troubling to watch. These are our kids schools you are destroying.
No, TUSD Parent #101, it’s people who excuse the conspicuously malfeasant Board majority and CEO who are destroying our kids’s schools, and the community is very well aware of it, thanks to the “political IEC” you mention and other persistent members of the community who are working hard to get this district cleaned up.
It’s typical of your crowd to disparage and insult anyone who speaks the truth about what is going on in this district. “TUSD Parent #101” is a good screen name: it seems you have mastered TUSD-politics 101: justify and excuse the ongoing malfeasance in the district by blaming and deriding the messenger, as both “Disappointed Parent” and “Another Disappointed Parent” pointed out.
Are you perhaps one of the people who has been given a TUSD job you didn’t qualify for by the Grijalva network? Or someone whose company has been awarded a bid because of a relationship you have or in exchange for donations or kick-backs of some sort? (Cf. The hiring of Grijalva’s mother-in-law as a principal over candidates ranked more highly by the selection committee; the awarding of the strategic plan consulting contract to friends of Sanchez’s; or the large donations from ESI, the company with a $21 million contract for managing outsourced subs, to the campaigns of the two incumbent candidates who had voted for the contract, Kristel Foster and Cam Juarez.) Or are you a parent with a kid enrolled in University High School, Fruchthendler or Sam Hughes, one of the TUSD schools which benefits from the current Superintendent’s patronage while schools on the south and west sides go begging? Or a friend of Ann-Eve Pedersen’s? There are plenty of explanations for people taking the kind of positions you take — none of them worthy of respect.
There are problems with the Arizona legislature and governor, but those of us who are HONEST admit that there are problems with TUSD Board and Administration as well. Underfunding does not excuse malfeasance, nor does it mean that constituents do not have a right to expect honesty and proper management from those running our public institutions. All of our public school districts in Arizona are underfunded and there are many that do much, much better than TUSD does. It’s well past time for TUSD to accept responsibility and clean up its act, and it starts with the Board and CEO.
(Reply to) Reply to Stegeman: I always believed, and said at the time, that the $17 million deficit was exaggerated, to create a public case for closing schools. (But my memory was that the $17 million was TUSD’s messaging in spring 2012, not 2013, so we may be talking about different situations.) There was a revenue/spending imbalance, but not that large. The board relies substantially on staff for budget analysis, perhaps more than it should, and in 2011 the staff itself provided no warning of that imbalance. This is somewhat similar to what happened with 301. As you say, I am willing to accept my part of the responsibility for the 301 buildup (though I usually voted against the 301 plans), which is more than we have heard from the other board members. I have never claimed to get everything right. Obviously I need to study the district’s audits and financial reporting more closely.
I have also never claimed to stay true to a “progressive” agenda. That is one reason I left the Democratic Party. My policy positions do not line up closely with either party (at least as those parties are presently constituted), and I am uncomfortable being accountable to either party’s platform.
A well-functioning audit committee can greatly help the board to keep abreast of budget and financial issues and potential problems, but the current majority has eroded or eliminated the audit committee’s independence, which I think is a major loss.
Yes, the lurching around in the budget, from which the magnet schools for example have greatly suffered, is absurd. I would like to reform the entire budget process, and that is one reason that I have voted against the budget for years. Reforming that process will take at least one more vote on the board. I think Betts would be a good choice.
Yes, there are many issues where I would like to be reporting more to the public, your point is well taken, but the prolix letters are a lot of work. I should probably write more letters and shorter ones — many persons have given this advice.
Stegeman:
I first heard the pending $17 million deficit mentioned in the summer of 2012. The explanation given at the time was that an entirely predictable expiration of federal stimulus funds was bringing the deficit about. The phone call from central admin to our school specifying the amount that needed to be cut immediately from our school’s 2013-3014 budget came in April of 2013, 8-9 months after those at our site first heard of the pending deficit. It was the school’s principal who communicated the information, both in the summer of 2012 and in the spring of 2013.
As a result of the cut and the demand from central that decisions be made in a 24-48 hour time frame, faculty and support staff eliminations were made that seriously impaired the functioning of our school during the 2013-3014 school year. At the same time, I was aware of other local districts that had used the same kinds of windows for planning their responses to changes in funding levels — from summer of one year to spring of the next year — to work successfully with their communities to secure funds that had, in these other districts, prevented the kinds of damage that occurred in our TUSD school.
Now, 3-4 years after all this occurred, the details of it are so vague in your mind that you aren’t even sure the incident I refer to is the same as the deficit you remember staff bringing forward to the Board in 2012? You remember that staff brought a deficit forward but you don’t know what fall-out that deficit had in the schools, or how that related to planning and discussions that did or did not take place at the Board level between the summer of 2012 and April of 2013? That is not confidence-inspiring, especially coming from someone who is asking for the community to re-install him in a leadership position based on his ability to improve the fiscal management of the district.
Setting aside the area of fiscal management of a complicated public institution, when it comes to education policy, my experience of your “leadership” during the time that I have been a parent in the district has been that you have been either unaware of, silent about, or actively working against the things that could have made a constructive difference to the quality of education offered to students in TUSD schools. Understanding what matters in K-12 education can come from a number of different kinds of experience, including being a K-12 parent, being a K-12 teacher, or being a credentialed expert in child development, pedagogy, elementary education, secondary education, the management of public educational institutions or the history of educational methods.
To understand, as a university faculty member with credentials in none of these areas, that most freshman who show up at the U of A are unprepared to do college-level work is not to understand how to alter a complex and troubled public school district in ways that can have some hope of improving educational outcomes for its students. Your frame of reference and qualifications, which are valuable in a University economics department, are not applicable in K-12. Your lack of a relevant knowledge or experience base has, over the course of the last 4 years, resulted at several different points in an inability to identify and advocate against K-12 policy adoptions in TUSD that have been damaging to students.
As for your political positions — if they are an idiosyncratic combination of positions that don’t align with any recognizable school of thought in politics or in education, how do you expect voters to understand what you stand for, or what you may decide to stand for on new policy issues that come before the Board for the first time in the future? Your Constituent Updates during the period when you have occupied a minority position on the Board have largely reflected your desire to criticize and eventually get rid of a Board majority which, I readily grant, has made some conspicuously poor decisions during the last 3 and 1/2 years. Once that majority is no longer there, I question whether the piecemeal 100-day plan you offer is able to offer a coherent vision for how the district should be operating.
You say you are for complying with the USP, though you like to remind the public that you didn’t vote in support of it, so we should probably conclude that your idiosyncratic views are out of alignment with the views of experts in desegregation policy and community members who worked together with them to create the desegregation plan for the district. You are not in support of the district’s Strategic Plan, another document created with significant district stakeholder participation.
What exactly is the constructive, unified educational philosophy behind your refusals to support plans desegregation experts and district stakeholders have created? Reducing class sizes and putting more spending in classrooms rather than administration is a noble goal, but in order for that transfer of funds to have good effects for educational outcomes, you have to know WHAT to put that money into. What KINDS of curricula, materials, school structures, and instructional plans will equip teachers to improve student achievement? Is there an appropriate role for standardized testing in K-12 education, and, if so, what is it? What problems have developed in schools through the mis-use of corporate-produced standardized testing? Board members on a school board which votes on multi-million dollar testing, curricular, textbook, and materials adoptions and budgets allocating funds to different areas should have more than a passing understanding of these issues. You do not seem to. Saying that principals and sites should have more discretion in applying funds is also not a solution. Principals in TUSD vary widely in competence and experience and giving them discretion in how funds are spent is no guarantee that their discretionary powers will not be mis-used. Sites differ in their degree of organization, levels of constructive parent participation, and preparedness for site-based governance. In this context, increasing site-based management will do little more than to increase inequity and make constituents at many sites vulnerable to abuse.
The TUSD audit committee might be a good place for you to contribute constructively to the management of the district’s affairs, but many TUSD constituents feel that based on your poorly informed written opinions on how K-12 education in TUSD should be managed and your track record in office for eight difficult years of the district’s history, it would be best for the district if you did not continue to serve on its Board.
Another Reply:…. You seem to be agreeing with me (not the previous writer) that the big deficit was announced in 2012 rather than 2013. Yes, it was predictable and related to the end of the stimulus funds. I will not repeat what I wrote before, but it seems consistent with your recollections… I do well remember the terrible fallout it had on the schools, the great push for school closures that came that year, etc.
More people are registered as Independents in this state than as either Republicans or Democrats. Many of us do not fit well into either current party.
The 100-day plan is just that… it is not intended as a long-run vision statement. It was developed over months and I believe that it is realistic and would be a significant start to a long process of positive change.
The community input into the strategic plan was great, and some things in it make sense to me, but the plan as a whole is a mess. There is no way that an organization this large and troubled can create a coherent 5-year strategic plan that quickly. It is good to have a plan, but TUSD has the habit of sticking labels on messes and calling them successes.
I have much respect for the USP, which is far better than the PUSP put forward under the Fagen administration. I have a good relationship with Dr. Hawley and great respect for him. But some things in the USP were too ambitious, as I think the subsequent history has proved.
It is surely true that not all principals in the district can handle higher levels of responsibility, but I am not proposing to end oversight. A one-page 100-day plan is obviously not a complete plan, and I am definitely NOT the educational expert who knows all the answers. TUSD needs to make more and better use of the experience of other districts, in Arizona and nationwide, and a broader range of experts than it currently employs. The solution to bad curricular (or similar bad educational decisions) is not a board that has expertise in curriculum but a board that, directly or indirectly, puts into place a top curricular team.
Yes, my letters have been critical, and some things in TUSD are going well, but I am very concerned about the overall trajectory. I agree it would be good to write more about the positive things, and I will try to do so, but it is also important to draw attention to what is going sideways. Those are the things that tend to be left out of official TUSD communication.
I like your comment, and it seems that in substance we agree on much. If the board changes in a positive way, then I hope we can convince you that TUSD can indeed be a much stronger district than it is at present. I think that many of us outside of the current board majority have similar (not identical) goals, and I am optimistic that positive change can occur regardless of which of us is elected.