Over 250 parents, students, and members of the public addressed the TUSD Governing Board regarding the announcement of the 10 schools slated to be closed. The impassioned pleas and testimonials by parents and students went largely ignored by the superintendent and outgoing board members, Miguel Cuevas and Alexandre Sugiyama who shuffled through papers and stared over the crowd for over 5 hours at Catalina High School last night.
The Board voted to close 8 of the TUSD schools; Sewell, Corbett, Lyons, Howenstine, Fort Lowell/Townsend, Schumaker, Carson and Hohokam. The board delayed a vote on the other seven schools also included on a list that TUSD released Monday. The Board will consider those schools; Hollinger, Cragin, Brichta, Menlo Park, Warren, Manzo, and Pueblo Gardens nest Tuesday.
The District claims that it will save over $6 million per year to close all 15 schools; however, the history shows that as soon as the district announces school closings the district loses many students, who take their tax dollars with them. In Arizona schools are funded per student. As a result, it is unlikely the District will save anywhere close to that amount.
For the past few months, in order to promote a 1 cent sales tax ballot initiative, the District has told the public that they are facing a $17 million shortfall.
About 45 parents, staff members, and students addressed the Board pleading for their schools.
Political opportunist, Ann Eve Pedersen, interrupted the steady stream of distraught TUSD parents and students, to tell the Board that she was not going to address them as she turned her back on them to address the crowd. Pedersen, who led the failed campaign for Prop 204, which she touted as an education funding measure, told the group that the Legislature was to blame for the failure of Prop 204 , and the lack of school funding. Prop 204 was rejected by over 64 percent of the voters.
Contrary to Pedersen’s claims, the Legislature restored education funding this year, and budgeted full funding for K-12 education in anticipation that Prop 204 would fail. Legislators did not believe that voters would support the permanent 1 cent sales tax once they learned that the monies raised would fund construction and other projects rather than be the windfall to education proponents claimed it would be.
Still, TUSD has predicted financial ruin blaming the state for the school closures while refusing to consider cutting administrative costs or other austerity measures. One Governing Board member characterized Superintendent as a “runaway train” and said the Board had little choice but to go along with the district’s “Master Plan.”
The district has been developing and redeveloping the “Master Plan” with the help of focus groups, one audience member described accurately as “stacked with Pedicone’s people.” The focus groups were supposed to represent different interests in the greater community, but one district insider claimed that the groups were given “limited information that would only lead them to the district’s desired conclusion.”
MaryAnn Lujan, a parent from Brichta Elementary School, told the Board that she was unaware that the school was even being considered for closing until today. The PTO mom asked the Board to “give us time to save our school.” She then offered suggestions of money raising opportunities the Brichta staff and parents might undertake to save their school.
A former student from Hollinger, and now current student at University High, pleaded with the Board to save Hollinger because “it played a major role in my success and I want my sister to follow in my footsteps.”
The biggest turnout of TUSD parents was from Pueblo Gardens. One young representative of the group told the Board that the “school truly represents a community.” The young girl explained that it wasn’t until she entered Pueblo Gardens was a learning disability discovered and that now she is an honor student.
Clark Wilson, a businessman who went through TUSD schools and graduated from Palo Verde High School, won the unanimous praise of the audience when he addressed the superintendent, “Dr. Pedicone, you may have had success at Flowing Wells, but it was a small district.” He said that the district’s problem was one of “leadership. You have not set your sails and you are headed for the rocks.” Wilson then questioned why every other district in the area has passed overrides except TUSD.
The superintendent is trying to push through the votes to close the schools before he loses his two rubber stamp members of the Board, Cuevas and Sugiyama who lost their seats in the 2012 elections. The board set public hearings on the potential closures for December 8 and December 10, before new Board members are seated.
TUSD Board member Mark Stegeman warns that the “vote was only a vote to initiate the hearing process, not the final vote to close the school” but says that the superintendent is determined to close the schools. Stegeman said that the “staff and Board are in different places on this issue and staff just won’t recognize it.” Stegeman noted that the “Board received the initial list of schools on Friday, only four days before last night’s meeting, and has not had time to evaluate all of the issues attached to each closure.”
Only one member of the audience, except Pedersen, stood up to defend the district’s plan. He was booed by the crowd after he told them to “do the research.”
According to the Arizona Auditor General’s research, TUSD spends less money in the classroom than any other district of comparable size in the state of Arizona.
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