Attendees at yesterday’s meeting of Tucson Unified School District with representatives of the Fisher and Mendoza plaintiffs were greeted at the door with a demand, “No recording devices are allowed.” Just weeks before, at least one member of the plaintiff’s team had requested a recording of the meetings due to the district’s inability or unwillingness to properly and accurately record the meetings’ minutes.
This meeting like all the others was not recorded and the district continued to act in the same bad faith for which they were admonished by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals two months ago. Just this past June, the court put the district back under the 30 year old desegregation order, citing the district’s bad faith.
Prior to the court’s decision, the meetings were intended to address student assignments. Yesterday, it was apparent to all that the meeting was strictly a discovery session for the district, in which they were represented by counsel, and the plaintiff’s representatives were not. At one point, Sam Brown the district’s attorney, in the most glaring example of the district’s lopsided advantage told the representatives that a “Request For Information” they sought would now be treated as part of the discovery process.
For decades, the plaintiffs have had one request, close the achievement gap. They have advocated for those remedies that have worked across the country, the most essential being equal access to highly skilled teachers. Instead the district has sent personnel on extravagant “recruiting” trips that resulted in no new hires. The district has failed to recruit kids of color to highly performing schools.
One member of the Fisher team pointed out that the district enrolled numerous African American kids in AP classes while not ensuring that the kids had the requisite skills to succeed. They reminded Superintendent Pedicone that the district has hired more and more “consultants” to address the desegregation order and failed to implement any of the requirements of that order, including hiring highly skilled teachers instead of more administrators such as Maria Merconi.
At one point, the district’s Superintendent suggested that the district would use the Mendoza’s representative, Dr. Len Stevens as an advisor on the new and improved Post Unitary Status Plan (PUSP). Dr. Steven’s and Augie Romero were the masterminds of the botched Post Unitary Status Plan which the Fisher plaintiffs had never agreed to, but which the lower court accepted. This initial plan’s many failures and the district’s lack of good faith has resulted in many lost years for a number of TUSD students and the waste of millions of dollars.
At the last meeting of the group, in a rare appearance at the district by Dr. Stevens, he usually participates by phone, he insisted that there was no need to discuss anything if the PUSP was null and void. Witnesses describe Stevens as angry and arrogant and only interested in his “Swan Song” the PUSP. He was a paid consultant for the Mendoza plaintiffs during the desegregation debacle.
Expensive grant driven gimmicks are at the core of the district’s offering to the plaintiffs. None of which address the basic inequities found throughout the district. Segregated Sabino, Sahuaro, and Santa Rita high schools will receive their allotment of desegregation dollars this year, while schools across town go without highly skilled teachers and with over crowded classrooms. Last year alone, Sahuaro received well over $400,000 in desegregation funds.
Once again the district promised the requisite data, upon which the plaintiffs could begin an assessment of the district’s efforts and the success or most certain failure of those efforts to desegregate the district and bring equal access to quality education for all of its students. However, once again the data was unavailable. David Cherry, once again told the representatives that he did not have the data, but would gather it for the past two years. The plaintiff’s representatives advised him that that was inadequate and that they would now require data going back to 2007. That data is essential in determining what effect “open enrollment,” the district’s effort to resegregate through boundary changes, and school closings have had on school assignment and enrollment.
One plaintiff representative reminded Dr. Pedicone that he still had staff who were unfairly sending children home without the proper paperwork when violations of the Code of Conduct allegedly occurred. Students who are sent home without the proper paperwork are penalized twice; once by being suspended, and twice by counting that suspension as unauthorized absences thus often negating the time and effort the student put forth in the class. This can result in a student, who while having earned a passing letter grade in the class through the completion of assignments, is given a failing grade for lack of attendance.
Judge Bury came out with a decision this week on the Ninth Court’s finding. He punted again. His order calls for a Special Master, an expert in the field, to be hired to work with the parties. There is no evidence that the district is willing or able to act in good faith this time around.
Michael Hicks was the only School Board member in attendance. As usual the Mexican American Advisory Board members who claim to care about the success of the district’s underserved students were not at the meeting.