With the contentious Sunnyside Unified School District governing board recall election behind us, the next school board election to pay attention to is Tucson Unified School District. If it’s anything like the TUSD 2012 election, voters will have another cast of characters to choose from (See “The District’s Dozen,” Sept. 20, 2012). Ten potential candidates filed campaign financial statements with the Pima County Recorder’s office in order to begin collecting signatures to qualify for the Nov. 14, 2014 general election ballot.
In 2012, three incumbents were in the race—Mark Stegeman, Miguel Cuevas and Alexandre Sugiyama. Stegeman was the only incumbent to win his seat back, with then-candidates Kristel Foster and Cam Juarez filling the other vacancies and creating a three-way majority voting block with Adelita Grijalva.
Grijalva, a TUSD board member for more than 10 years, is going for another term. Michael “Burritos are Magical” Hicks is the other incumbent reportedly readying another run. The expectation is that all candidates who’ve filed campaign financial statements are working on petition signatures. Filing period for those signatures opens July 7 and closes Aug. 6 at 5 p.m.
Those who’ve filed statements for the two incumbents’ seats are: David King, Debe Campos-Fleenor, Rene Bernal, Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, Don Cotton, Jen Darland, Francis Saitta and Miguel Cuevas (yes, Miguel Cuevas).
This is a nonpartisan election, but a majority in the progressive Baja Arizona-sphere are saying they hope Grijalva returns to her seat, with others wondering if voters will ask what’s she’s accomplished her 10 years in office. Filling Hicks seat is going to be a box-checking challenge for them because many like Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, who ran but lost in 2012; and they also like Jen Darland, a public education advocate affiliated with the Arizona Education Network. Both have children in TUSD schools and both are undeniably public education supporters. Also remarkable about both candidates is their knowledge of the district, with Darland especially knowledgeable about our crazyland state Legislature (See “Ethics 101,” May 28, 2009</a).
Other returning candidates who ran in 2012 include Don Cotton and Debe Campos-Fleenor, but The Range is expecting Francis Saitta will be an interesting interview if he makes it on the ballot. Saitta, a Pima Community College instructor who ran for PCC governing board in 2012 (See “The Issue of Admission,” Oct. 18, 2012), didn’t want to do a sit-down interview and only respond to email questions if given to all candidates:
We explained that the Weekly’s policy is not to do email interviews. His response: “An interview, under those circumstances, is inherently unfair, and, as a comparative of candidate positions, uninformative. All candidates should be asked the same question. Otherwise one introduces tendentiousness into the interview process.”
Hope you weren’t hoping for a boring election.
This article appears in May 22-28, 2014.
Francis Saitta is right that all candidates must be given the same questions to answer or the interview process is inherently flawed. If that is not the case then the personal bias of the editorial board is evident in the softballs that are given to the candidates they like and the tough questions given those out of favor with the Weekly’s staff. Ms. Herreras, you and your colleagues need to remember the point is not to help elect your buddies by giving a false picture of other candidates. The point is to give each voter quality information. If you believe in the democratic process then giving voters more information is the best way to ensure the best candidates get elected.
Frankly, not only should the same questions be asked but the first 100 words of each candidate’s response on each questions should be put into a table with all the responses to that particular question so readers can compare their positions on each important issue. If candidates opt out of answering one or more of these questions that information should be included. This is really the time-tested, unbiased way to approach candidate interviews.
I disagree. Each candidate brings different experiences and their unique story to the table that needs to be told, too. And often incumbents need to be asked about their previous terms. Perhaps that works once and is great for the local daily, but not for us.
Mari Herreras writes,
>>This is a nonpartisan election, but a majority in the progressive Baja Arizona-sphere are saying they hope Grijalva returns to her seat, with others wondering if voters will ask what’s she’s accomplished her 10 years in office.<< TUSD upcoming school board election is, in a way, a ‘partisan’ election as Adelita Grijalva has relentlessly pursued a partisan agenda, designed in part to grab the the national headlines and use TUSD as a political football. Nonetheless, I don’t think that it makes much sense for anybody east of Alvernon to vote for Adelita Grijalva, regardless of political party. Grijalva’s father’s district doesn’t include east Tucson, and Adelida Grijalva basically supported closing eastside TUSD schools over westside schools, and is probably planning on running for her father’s seat when he retires. Yes, all politics is local, but Grijalva hasn’t done much for TUSD. She immediately defended H.T. Sanchez who, certainly by all appearances, did some questionable things when it came to how he got the job as TUSD superintendent, as well as the questionable awarding of consulting contracts to his friends. Grijalva is probably very well informed when it comes to national politics, and has supported MAS classes in which students read not objective history texts, but stories written by Latino activists which are a mixture of hate speech and fictitious history, and are designed to indoctrinate students into a certain political ideology, and promote conflict between students. Raul Grijalva was associated with MEChA, which I think retrospectively has much in common with other racist/nationalistic groups in the past (Nazis), their motto was: “Por la raza todo, fuera de la raza nada’’ — “For the race, everything, outside the race, nothing.” There’s just an antipathic contempt that the Grijalvas have for people who don’t see the world like they do. I don’t think that most progressive voters would identify with the Grijalvas if they understood what they were truly about, and how uni-dimensional their thinking is. I support Miguel Cuevas, the guy is level-headed and helped keep a school on the eastside open, Sewell Elementary, along with the help of Hicks and Stegeman. (Adelita’s vote wasn’t needed, and she quickly changed it to ‘yes’ when it became clear that Sewell would stay open. Adelita later remarked that she was glad TUSD kept Sewell open because the schools’ rating went up from a ‘B’ to an ‘A’, and yeah, that would have looked bad in the press.) I like TUSD, we’ll stay until high school, with a big caveat being that it is now becoming well known that TUSD’s MAS classes may well create a hostile atmosphere for non-Latino students, and even for Latinos who are more rationale and analytic and are looking forward to college , and MAS probably increases segregation among students in the same school. Time for TUSD not to be Raul and Adelita’s personal political football, under their stewardship TUSD hasn’t kept pace with the 21st Century.
>>Ms. Herreras, you and your colleagues need to remember the point is not to help elect your buddies by giving a false picture of other candidates. The point is to give each voter quality information.<< Unlike most TUSD school board elections . . . a whole lot has happened just in the past 12 months at TUSD. Voters have, and will, show up at the polls to vent their anger. I know I will. Not the least of which is the fact that they closed a large number of elementary schools, a fact which Adelita’s majority didn’t change when they came into power in 2014, and Adelita voted to close a lot of the schools herself. Probably Adelita’s, and Raul’s before her, focus on classes like MAS which are basically propaganda for a certain extreme political ideology, meant that a lot of the basics weren’t being addressed at TUSD, such as preparing for college and doing a good job teaching students the factual information they need to know. I am for solar power, and saving the environment, and like the fact that solar is being used at TUSD, but where did the district get the money from? The solar panels will save, in the end, just $170,000 off of a 13 million dollar electric bill, that’s just 1.3% savings. And why aren’t the panels on the roofs of the schools and parking lots? It is good that kids get some shade, but the poles used to support them are in the way of using the field for stuff like soccer. I kinda think that 1010 felt the need to do something that could be seen visually from the street near schools, and I’m glad if it decreases skin cancer risk, but I think that trees are a better solution, and that the district might have overpaid given that the cost of solar decreases every year . . . and they look very expensive, and are somewhat of an eyesore given that some of them were poorly placed on the school campuses. Is it just an expensive gimmick? Probably in 15 years they’ll have a flexible solar panel roof membrane that can be simply laid over roofs, and the solar panels at some schools might be removed due to safety issues, such as kids running into them. Anyway . . . Adelita might well not be re-elected as a lot of people are getting tired of the refrain “Arizona legislature doesn’t support public education enough.” Seems to me that parents have realized that TUSD’s curriculum is watered down; increasingly, and disturbingly racist, as Latino nationalism and hatred of other races is being promoted in very controversial classes.
The real question is: What have both incumbents accomplished or not accomplished during their tenure? The approximate 500 page April 2014 Curriculum Audit is a condemnation on both incumbents, but particularly for A. Grijalva who has been on the Board for three terms- at 4 years a term- that is a dozen years. Curriculum is to TUSD- a public school system- as coffee is to Star Bucks- it is the key commodity provided to students. In a nutshell, the Audit found that TUSD has no curriculum and also found that it has not addressed its court mandated obligation under a desegregation court order. In twelve years, either Grijalva didn’t have a clue about these problems or just ignored them. Perhaps the east side believes that they have been short-changed by Grijalva but the constituents who have most supported Grijalva are the ones who she has flatly failed: west and south side.
The Audit is on line and it is worth any parents’/voters’ time to review it and hopefully vote based on the candidates who will address curriculum and the 40 year desegregation case as top priorities. These two critical areas will support all students across the District. Michael Hicks has simply been an ongoing embarrassment for all of us in Tucson. The Daily show exposed both his ignorance and his racism. Even for those who remain to be supportive of racism, ignorance on a school board in counter-intuitive. He often reads his motions and or resolutions aloud and stumbles over his words, stammering all the way through his statements.
As for the non-incumbents running for the two seats, it would be wise to steer away from people who seem to run for the sake of running, like Rene Bernal who ran for City Council and lost (so now the school board looks good to him) or Debe Campos Fleener whose perspective will bring that of those backing her- big Republican business. The Corporate world has done enough damage to public education- keep them out. We need student advocates, involved parents, intelligent people who will put student- focused policy in place and hold the superintendent accountable. Sanchez has three rubber stamps giving him anything he has wanted for 10 months. Thus far all he has done is blame the prior administration, administer the District in dictator fashion, contest the desegregation order, personally attack administrators and members of the public who do not agree with him and hire and contract out services with his Texan connections. His honey-moon of one year is almost over (July 1) at which point he will have to stop blaming his predecessors.
As an interesting and pretty alarming note, he is the first superintend in history to “use” his wife as a “first lady.” He “has her” talk to those who are not on his cheerleading squad in an effort to bring them over to “his side.” She is spending lots of time at 1010 and involved in many issues which are NONE, repeat- NONE, of her business. “His” Board majority really need to rein him in.
Is anyone asking why there were 29 principal openings?
If you ask HT Sanchez, or his hinge man, Adrian, they will give you the TUSD marketing response; ‘TUSD is changing and some people are uncomfortable with the change’ or they may even get bolder and say that ‘it is all about accountability’. Sanchez, Vega and, at least in one case, Adelita – do- anything- for- Sanchez- Grijalva, are chasing administrators out of the District very fast and very furiously. Grijalva allegedly asked the McCorkle Principal to leave (Hum, isn’t this called micro-management?); a principal who has more experience than any of her bosses. Others are leaving based on the abundant arrogance shown by Sanchez and Vega, the lack of leadership and professionalism. The two Texans at the helm are smooth talkers but they are driving the District backwards; their management style is hyperactive and helter-skelter. I am a site administrator watching all of this unfold.
These two Texans, with little administrative experience, especially applicable to a large school district are manipulating their way through every decision that is made in TUSD. Sanchez barely was an interim superintend of a small school district and Vega was a high school principal before he was appointed Deputy Superintendent by Sanchez and had no central administration experience. They have a hoax of a strategic planning process unrolling. Participants walk in and are handed half a pound of bologna and are asked to look at it and react in writing. Guess what the participant has at the end of his/her thoughtful process? Half a pound of bologna! But those who have never felt involved in the TUSD decision-making process- now feel “involved”, even though it is all a deception. Sanchez has told people that if the Board does not vote for HIS strategic plan, he will resign and move back to Texas where his daddy owns oil wells and can will take care of him. He got his job through this type of manipulative coercion and continues to use this tactic to get his way. It is disgusting to watch.
What I see is two hyperactive top level administrators raising a lot of dust but delivering very little. In one year’s time what we have is a bunch of expensive audits and processes which are all a basically a con; everyone knew that there was no curriculum in place; everyone knew that the desegregation order has never been taken seriously; and everyone knew that TUSD is not efficient. Dare any of us disagree with Sanchez- and Vega deals with us in his tyrannical manner; screaming and flaying his arms around like a crazy man. What I see are these two Texan transplants hurting many good people in TUSD while their young, immature and naïve board majority bless all of their damnations. What I see is these two young inexperienced administrators working towards ridding the District of its experienced administrators, since these are the individuals with the most history, wisdom and knowledge, and, of course can see right through these two. What I see are these two minority men do more damage to desegregation that what I have seen take place the entire time I have dealt with TUSD and, again I see a Board majority applauding a right wing push back. Both administrators and teachers are fearful because they keep seeing heads roll in an environment where the only word allowed is “yes” without any questions asked.
I can only hope there are actually three Board members who will vote no on the strategic plan and send Sanchez packing back to his precious Texas. He tells a story about driving back to Texas in his 2 ton truck and getting out of his truck to kiss the Texas earth the minute he crossed the Texan border. Go kiss Texan dirt Sanchez!
Hmmm. I don’t know what to say in response to “TUSD Principal’s” comments, seems like he/she has some insider info.
For better or worse, H.T. Sanchez is Adelita’s person, she put him in, and she defends him in the fact of controversies. Maybe H.T. has persuaded Adelita to do things the Texas/his way.
I honestly don’t believe that ‘desegregation’ is an issue for TUSD, or that the busing of kids actually improved education for anyone. As I currently see it, TUSD allows students to go wherever they want to go, so how could the district force ‘desegregation’ on anyone? Desegregation apparently didn’t work, and in TUSD’s case, the district is majority Latino, yes? I don’t think you can legally, or morally, argue that the majority race/ethnicity in a school district needs to be pushed around various schools without cause.
MAS/Latino activist classes . . . has nothing to do with desegregation, and could be seen as creating a hostile environment for non-Latinos, and for Latinos who don’t spout the party line as per the Grijalvas. Really, this is a curriculum issue, and perhaps the Grijalvas should not spend TUSD money on courses which are just designed to keep them in political office.
H.T. isn’t doing ‘wrong’ by minorities, on the contrary, if he decreases class sizes and introduces technology and more up to date, 21st Century curriculum, that is strong in math and science, then he has improved the outlook for the thousands of Latino students, and others in the district.
Tucson is basically a 1960’s style tourist attraction where people are still fighting battles of the 1960’s over and over, not a 21st Century city. Adelita and Raul Grijalva make good $$$ talking up racial inequalities and such, but on substance they don’t deliver much.