At least one Tucson Unified School District Governing Board member was surprised when after months of trying to get copies of the materials from the District’s Culturally Relevant classes, the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal expressed an interest in them as well.
On Thursday, Huppenthal issued a statement demanding the materials, saying that he was meeting with “officials from TUSD to discuss these and other important matters. It is my hope that TUSD will fully and promptly submit all requested records of its ethnic studies programs and related courses, and work collaboratively with my staff to ensure all TUSD programs,” the statement read, “curriculum and educational materials comply with A.R.S. 15-112 now and in the future.”
Governing Board member Michael Hicks wished Huppenthal well; he’s been tying to get the documents for nearly a year without success. For nearly a year, members of the public and district insiders have expressed concern to Huppenthal’s office over the deepening secrecy surrounding the District under the leadership of Superintendent H.T. Sanchez, and Board President Adelita Grijlava.
Initially, the ADE, showed an interest in the District’s new curricula, but then it appeared that the ADE essentially gave the District its tacit approval.
Huppenthal continued to rely on the excuse of “local control” to neglect his responsibility to make sure that children were not subject to classes designed to indoctrinate youth toward a particular political philosophy.
Just this summer, Governing Board members Michael Hicks and Mark Stegeman effectively delayed a move by the District to send students off campus to take the classes at Prescott College, which were found to be in violation of state law. TUSD’s Governing Board only delayed a vote an agenda item that would have allowed students to dually enroll in classes taught by Critical Race pedagogy proponent, Curtis Acosta, who is now working at Prescott.
In his last act as Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne found the MAS classes violated state law. In response to concerns that Horne’s actions were a rush to judgment, by an official who had long ago made up his mind, Huppenthal contracted with a firm to assess the MAS program again. Unfortunately, Huppenthal acted hastily and hired a company that did an extraordinarily shoddy job of assessing the MAS program. They only spoke with individuals hand picked by MAS supporters, focus groups were stacked and dominated by MAS supporters, and TUSD failed to turn over thousands of documents that the researchers had no power to demand.
In the face of a massive amount of information disputing the flawed study’s pro-MAS report, Huppenthal did, in fact, find the MAS program in violation of state law. When TUSD appealed that finding, the case was heard by Judge Lewis Kowal. The judge reviewed thousands of documents that had been denied to the public, the press, and the research contractors hired by Huppenthal. After a four day hearing, which included many experts’ testimony, and thousands of pieces of evidence, Kowal upheld Huppenthal’s finding and rejected the appeal.
Both the state court and the federal court upheld that decision.
Once the classes were deemed to violate the classes, Huppenthal entered into settlement negotiations with the District’s then Superintendent John Pedicone. It was Governing Board members Miguel Cuevas, Alexander Sugiyama, Hicks and Stegeman who successfully stopped the classes.
In his decision, Judge Kowal found gross failures to exercise the oversight required by state law by past TUSD Governing Boards. These failures of oversight allowed the MAS program to morph into a series of classes that indoctrinated students instead of educating them. Under the current leadership of Adelita Grijalva and H.T. Sanchez, TUSD appears to be heading down that same track. Huppenthal was warned about this months ago, yet it is only now – in the midst of a political campaign, that he is in serious danger of losing – that he is joining those who have spent a very frustrating year trying to get information on what is actually going on in TUSD’s classrooms.
In his statement on Thursday, Huppenthal said, “Given TUSD’s past violation of A.R.S. § 15-112, I am deeply concerned about the inability of TUSD to supply my staff at the Arizona Department of Education with comprehensive records that clearly demonstrate TUSD’s ethnic studies and history courses are in compliance with A.R.S. § 15-112.”
He continued, “The staff I have assigned to this issue have decades long reputations of the utmost professionalism and stand ready to help TUSD in ensuring all of its students receive a high quality education.”
While Hicks agreed with Huppenthal who stated that “political indoctrination of Arizona’s children has no place in our schools,” he questioned the timing of Huppenthal’s intervention. However, he was grateful that the Superintendent was stepping up to the plate. “Obviously the Superintendent knows that elections have consequences, and that might be why we are receiving attention now, but some of us have been fighting the politicization of our schools for years, and it is the upcoming TUSD School Board election that will do more to stop the indoctrination of kids than anything else. If people want kids to be free to learn and not be indoctrinated, they will get involved now, and not wait until days before an election like we are seeing with the Superintendent.”
TUSD’s Superintendent Sanchez is supporting Grijalva and newcomer, Jen Darland, in the upcoming school board election in order to maintain the status quo and protect his burgeoning administration.
Huppenthal concluded, “My staff at the Department and I will do everything in our power to support TUSD in accomplishing this mission. TUSD must take significant steps to ensure its courses comply with the law.”
Hicks stated, “TUSD must take significant steps to ensure that kids have a chance to learn. We have to start getting politics out of education and we must start now.”
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