Apache School District Spins Out Of Locals’ Control

On Tuesday evening, southern Arizona residents were greeted by Cochise County Sheriff’s deputies as they made their way into the one room schoolhouse for a meeting of the Apache Elementary School District Governing Board. The sight of the deputies did not surprise the residents as much as it broke their hearts.

The deputies’ presence signaled only one thing; school leaders would not tolerate dissent of any kind.

Apache is one of the oldest districts in the state. With a current enrollment of less than 10 students, the district has survived only due to the passionate support of district residents. The support remains despite the fact than less than half of the students live within the district.

Interesting admonishment litter the classroom
Interesting admonishments litter the classroom

To be specific, of the 12 school aged children that live in the district, only 1 attends the school. Currently the school enrollment stands at 7 students.

Although generations of district residents have graduated, worked, and sent their children and grandchildren to the school, and the support for its survival is strong, few residents will send their own kids to it any more. They don’t want to lose the school, but they cannot put their progeny at risk.

On Tuesday evening, a few brave souls came forward to call on the board to end the abuse and restore the district to one that serves the community. At issue, is the teacher/principal/superintendent Ms. Palma Hudson and her alleged mistreatment of students, parents, and taxpayers.

For a number of years, horror stories have been told about Hudson and her disciplinary practices. While the stories seem fantastic in isolation, enough people have shared similar experiences over time that they have earned some measure of credibility. And the enrollment numbers appear to support the claims that stories of mistreatment have driven even the most strident public school supporters away.

That treatment was on full display on Tuesday. Despite the fact that the residents and an employee, who came forward to address the governing board, were very familiar to everyone on the staff and the board, Hudson insisted on rigid adherence to order by the public and the befuddled board.

The same torturous rigidity and demand for strict compliance described by parents who have pulled their kids out of the school was employed against the public who had hoped to address the board. When the board president announced the Call to the Audience portion of the meeting, the meeting came to a halt as Hudson demanded that each speaker submit a request to speak. While the formality is required, Hudson took it to a new level when she demanded that the forms be completed before they could speak, and then forced the speakers to request the forms, and then held up the meeting until each form was completed, and then go through the process of handing the forms over for approval. While this might seem like a small matter, the process seemed interminable and was clearly designed to demean participants and force them to recognize her sole authority.

Standing on “policy” the board president Bill Kimble, his nephew and fellow board member Frank Krentz, and board member Mike Woods did exactly as they were instructed to do by Hudson and allowed each speaker a mere three minutes to address the board about years of abuse.

They listened with little interest as rancher and former governing board member Ed Ashurst implored them to “be men” and do the right thing. They averted their eyes as beloved school bus driver, Ana Grossman, pleaded with them to protect her from Hudson’s retaliatory actions. But as one close very close associate of Krentz and Kimble said, the two men understand that many residents do not care what they do as long as they don’t raise taxes. So as long as Hudson does not request a tax increase, she can do as she pleases.

Yet, it is Hudson’s lack of compassion, and the methods employed to enforce her policies and secure her position, that have so many concerned.

Later, Krentz, whose own family has been devastated by flawed government policies, first defended the policy. Relying on his limited training by the Arizona School Board Association, the unsympathetic Krentz later claimed that the board does not have the authority to have flexibility in administering policy. His lack of compassion for the residents stunned even those closest to him.

While Krentz told the ADI that he had a problem listening to complaints of abuse because the complainants did not go to Hudson first, according to Kathryn Strickland Hillebert, she did go to Hudson and Krentz’s dad, Rob, who served on the board for years before being murdered by illegal aliens. Eventually she pulled 8 children out of the school. In a letter submitted by her on Tuesday, Strickland Hillebert advised the board again of her concerns. She wrote, “I find it amazing that nothing has been done with Mrs. Hudson. She has destroyed this school because of the clique that surrounds her. She has been allowed to stay over the welfare of the children.”

William Mullen, who recently pulled his two sons out of the school, told the board on Tuesday, “What we have, in general, experienced personally and through our children, is not only an unhealthy environment, but a potentially damaging environment for our own, and apparently other children.”

Mullen told the board that they did try to discuss their concerns with Hudson, but nothing changed. Mullen then described an oppressive environment in which students “have been made to run laps, and witness other children being made to run laps, as a punishment for such things as failing to put a period at the end of a sentence.”

“They have been made to run laps, and/or seen other children being made to run laps, and when asked what the reason was, for this as “punishment,” no clarification was made. In other words, they were punished for no reason and/or with no explanation,” continued Mullen. “They have been forbidden to rub their heads when they had a headache in class. They have been forbidden to wiggle a loose tooth.”

“They have regularly been given work without instruction, and then made to do “fix it” work once the original work is completed with errors, at least partially due to lack of instruction,” Mullen. “It would be common for the teacher to simply tear worksheets out of a book, hand them over to the children, and tell them to do it by a certain period of time. Again, without instruction. When the boys asked for instruction, it was regularly not given, at times they were rebuffed with a palm shown to their face.”

While he was prevented from continuing, he and his wife Laura, a former teacher told the ADI that one of their sons described an encounter that left him deeply disturbed. He had entered the classroom during recess only to find Hudson screaming at a young boy as she held his hand and aggressively forced him to write. According to the parents, their sons recognized that his young boy was a favorite target for Hudson, and she humiliated him on a regular basis. Their sons claimed that he rarely was allowed to join the other children for recess and had started to deliberately disobey Hudson so that she would force him to leave the classroom and run laps.”

The remainder of Mullen’s statement was entered into the record. It reads in part:

Following our meeting with the Head Teacher, we pulled our children from the school. We felt certain, given her inability to address her own mistakes as actual, and her interest in denying her role in anything inappropriate, that they would be subjected to further inappropriate behavior now the Head Teacher had become aware of our unhappiness with her actions.

We further discovered, upon opening up these ideas for conversation amongst some other community members that this is not the first time such concerns have come up, however nothing has been done to promote the betterment of the school. I personally spoke to 5 other parents who pulled their children from the Apache school in previous years due to concerns revolving around the present Head Teacher’s approach. For them, it was simply better to step away, as, with many of us; conversation around challenging circumstances is upsetting.

We feel that it is our duty to make plain what we have experienced, and the duty of this community to protect and educate its children, not subject them to negative reinforcement, intimidation, shaming, and misdirection as a form of “education”. We believe school should be a place of positive learning and encouragement. Discipline may be needed at times, but should be clarified and contain a measure of balance to suit the problem. Punishment for trying to do work successfully, or for unexplained reasons, is manipulative and potentially harmful. Misdirection intended to mislead parents and convince them that it is the children who are misunderstanding or at fault, in order to deflect attention from one’s own inappropriate actions, is unconscionable.

We believe the system needs a change. We encourage a more thorough investigation into the operations of this little, rural school. ..for the safety and betterment of the children and the community. We place our trust in the rightful action of the board and community members.

Although he was denied the opportunity to discuss fully his concerns, rancher Ed Ashurst, a former board member and operator of the largest ranch in the district submitted the following account of the abuses and tactics into the record:

Five years ago when I was on the Apache School Board, I was troubled by the fact that the head teacher got a four to five percent raise every year. There was never any discussion by the school board members about the salary raises. I went to the Douglas School District Administrative Office and asked for and received (very politely) a printout of the salaries in the Douglas School District. I researched on the internet and found what the teachers’ salaries all over the state were. At the next school board meeting—which was in March, a month or so before the next year’s contracts were to be signed—I asked the school board president, Don Kimble, to put a discussion of Apache School District’s pay scale on the next month’s agenda. I knew by law that we could not discuss the issue immediately because it had not been posted on the agenda. The head teacher interrupted and said, “You are a trouble causer! You don’t know what you are talking about! The Apache School already has a pay scale!” Don Kimble and the other school board member said nothing. I responded by stating that by law we were not supposed to discuss the issue at that meeting because it wasn’t on the agenda, but I repeated my request to have it put on the next month’s agenda. President Don Kimble said nothing. The head teacher started screaming that I was, “stupid” and a “trouble causer” and “I didn’t know what I was talking about.” I repeated my request to have the issue put on the agenda for discussion at the next month’s meeting. Don Kimble said nothing, and the head teacher continued calling me names. After ten minutes of name-calling, I lost my temper and told school board president Don Kimble and school board member Everett Ashurst that they were “cowards with no testicles,” and I left the meeting. Everett Ashurst and Susan Pope will both testify that this is an accurate story. My request for a discussion about Apache School District wages was never honored. It was never put on an agenda at any time and the head teacher continued receiving pay raises without any discussion by school board members.

It was never my intention to cut or reduce anyone’s wages. I only wanted to open up an intelligent dialogue about the school’s policy toward pay rates. I wanted to suggest we take an average of the McNeal, San Simon and Douglas School Districts’ pay scale and base Apache’s pay scale on that average and to make a rule recorded in the minutes that Apache would not exceed that average. If the average had already been exceeded, we would freeze wages until the time that the average came up to Apache’s pay rate. I had no intention of cutting someone’s wages. That discussion never took place because the head teacher did not want it to and the school board president would not go against the head teacher’s wishes.

I would go to school board meetings and would go home month after month amazed at how the school board allowed the head teacher to point out other people’s stupidity (her opinion). The disrespect she showed Apache School’s bus driver and teacher’s aide Susan Pope, and Tamara Winkler astonished me.

It became apparent to me that being a school board member at Apache School was fruitless because the head teacher ran the show. If something was brought up at a meeting that she didn’t like, she would shout it down. At one meeting she became offended at something I said, and she stormed out of the meeting but paused in the doorway and told me that, “You are going to regret this!” As a result of the gross animosity between the head teacher and myself, I resigned my position as a school board member. Nothing good was coming from my involvement. I was tired of the hatred and vitriol at school board meetings. I was disgusted at how the head teacher got her way through intimidation.

A year or so after I resigned my position as a school board member, the head teacher’s husband threatened to, “Whip my ass!” because of some offense she claimed I had done to her. I had not been a school board member for months. At the same time, he threatened school board member Everett Ashurst with “legal action.” He also threatened school board president Don Kimble with legal action for some imagined offense. As a result of the ugliness of the situation, Don Kimble resigned from the school board after serving on it for thirty years or more. Cochise County School Superintendent Trudy Berry talked Don into staying on the board, and he withdrew his resignation. Don Kimble told me in private that in thirty plus years as a school board member he had never witnessed such an ugly situation, and he was sick of it.

The cattle ranch that I manage has more taxable deeded land on it than all the other deeded land put together in the Apache School District. I feel like I have a right to have an opinion about government policy concerning taxable land. No more right than anyone else, but a right nonetheless; but the Apache School Board and the head teacher think it’s funny that she has made an enemy out of me. I do not now or ever have advocated closing the school down, and I have tried to stay away from school issues, but the situation is so volatile that a person cannot live here without being impacted by it.

There are constant rumors of Apache schoolchildren being subjected to intimidation from the head teacher. There are a dozen school-aged children in the Apache District, but the school only has one of them enrolled. The last year Nancy Turner was the Apache School teacher, there were eighteen children enrolled at Apache and eight of them were district kids. Since Nancy Turner left, district involvement has declined and current statistics bear that out (numbers don’t lie, see attachment).

There are constant rumors of parents who are intimidated by the school, and the school board does nothing to help these problems get resolved. The recent fiasco concerning the head teacher’s so-called legal letter to Ana Grossman is a classic example of Apache School intimidation and gross information. The contents of the head teacher’s letter are so ludicrous it is comical. This disgusting situation was fueled by school board president Bill Kimble’s promotion of the wrong facts and gossip that he heard from his confidant Tracy Bradfield. That bad information was promptly relayed to the head teacher. That whole situation is an example of how a school board president should never conduct himself.

The head teacher’s salary is currently $62,623 per year, up from $51,309.45 in fiscal year 2010-2011. It is, according to statistics, in the top tier of the average for Arizona teachers. I don’t have a problem with that. I do have a problem that I was stonewalled when I asked for the information. It does seem to me that a teacher making that much money should not need a full-time assistant when there are less than a dozen children enrolled at the school. There is an idea promoted by Apache employees that there is a law requiring at least two teachers to be present at a country school. I phoned the Cochise County School Superintendent’s office on Friday, May 6, 2016, and asked them about this law. I was told that no such law exists. On Wednesday, April 20, the head teacher told Ana Grossman that I did a lot of things that were against the law when I was a school board member. If that is the case, where are the indictments, or the arrest warrants, or the court records? That statement is a lie. No, that is not a lie, it is a damn lie.

The rumors and intimidation go on and on. The school board president hides behind the law to protect the head teacher and her agenda. Where was the law when the head teacher’s husband threatened to whip me for some offense I committed while a school board member? Where was the law when I requested a discussion to be put on the school board meeting agenda, and my request was denied because the head teacher didn’t want the issue discussed? Where was the law when the head teacher was screaming that I was stupid for making a legal request at a school board meeting? Where was the law when Ana Grossman reported gasoline being stolen from the school gas storage? Where was the law when the school board president was swift in telling lies and gossip about Ana Grossman? The fact is the law is only observed by Bill Kimble and the head teacher when it suits their purpose. The so-called legal letter from the head teacher to Ana Grossman is a classic example of Apache School’s observance of the law. The truth is the head teacher, Palma Hudson, is not at fault. The fault lies with the school board and, especially, with the school board president who not only hide behind the law but hide behind the teacher’s skirts and refuse to do their due duty.

The Apache School is a classic example of one person running the show through intimidation while a whole group of adults sit by and are guilty of cronyism, cowardice, and dereliction of duty. In other words, it is bad government. The school board president should resign and let someone else do the job he is afraid to do.

There is a false train of thought that has been skillfully promoted by one individual. That thought or concept is that head teacher, Palma Hudson, and Apache School are one entity. That concept is false: the Apache School survived quite well for decades without Palma Hudson and could get by just fine without her if she was no longer there.

The concept of local control is popular in Arizona. As a result, State officials regularly refuse to get involved in local school issues. Residents begged Trudy Berry, Cochise County School Superintendent to attend Tuesday’s meeting. She laughed and said she had no desire to go to that school again. Berry is retiring and has shown reluctance to make her final days anything but pleasant.

Because the Arizona School Association trains board members to be nothing more than rubber stamps for administrators, the situation in Apache is not so unique. Unfortunately Ashurst’s description of the source of the problem; adults sitting by “guilty of cronyism, cowardice, and dereliction of duty,” applies to too many of Arizona’s schools. Until we recognize that local control means that schools are controlled by a handful of powerful locals, parents will continue to flee from them.

Did you know?

• Gilbert Unified pay rate: MA 48- $64,403 maximum; MA 12- $54,265 maximum
• Phoenix Elementary S.D. pay rate: MA + 24- $37,177 minimum; $74,259 maximum
• Cartwright S.D. pay rate: MA 45- $47,705 maximum
• Agua Fria Union S.D. pay rate: MA + 30- $39,529 minimum; $63,466 maximum
• Prescott S.D. average teacher wage: $44,058
• Head teacher at Apache S.D. wage: $62,623
• Students per administrative position: Apache, 4; statewide average, 67
• Instruction cost per pupil in 2015: Apache, $17,272; statewide average, $4105
• Administration cost per pupil in 2015: Apache, $6,682; statewide average, $780
• Total per pupil spending in 2015: Apache, $36,548; statewide average, $9,057 (Apache School District is four times Arizona statewide average.)

Naco McNeal Bisbee Pearce Apache
Spending by Area 2015 2015 2015 2015 2015
Percent in Classroom 55.3% 43.4% 49.6% 55.0% 50.4%
Instruction 4,454 6,762 4,796 7,120 17,272
Administration 1,198 3,431 1,524 2,323 6,682
Plant operations 1,064 2,190 1,546 2,041 4,271
Food service 646 1,090 373 526 0
Transportation 285 1,014 476 426 3,489
Student support 170 663 589 332 2,455
Instruction support 230 432 356 187 122
Total operational 8,047 15,582 9,660 12,955 34,291
Land and buildings 0 223 9 60 255
Equipment 28 1,038 362 270 1,994
Interest 0 55 0 3 8
Other 0 0 9 0 0
Total nonoperational 28 1,316 380 333 2,257
Total per pupil spending 8,075 16,898 10,040 13,288 36,548
Number of Students 298 39 754 98 6