Tucson Unified School District leaders and community members mobilized on Tuesday in response to a threat by the principal of Utterback Magnet Middle School that she would have the girls’ basketball team forfeit their first game if the members of the team did not pay their $30 activity fee by noon. Governing Board member Mark Stegeman, who learned of the threat from David Morales’ Three Sonorans website, immediately reached out to the school and pledged the necessary money to save Tuesday’s game.
The news of the principal’s action spread quickly. According to sources, when Herman House, TUSD’s Director of Interscholastics, learned of the unfortunate situation he directed a member of his staff to contact the school’s administration and advise them that they cannot prevent the students from participating because of missing fees. He stressed that the school should have found an alternate funding source so that the students can play.
Michael Konrad, Director of Middle Schools in TUSD’s Office of Secondary Leadership claimed the school had found “an alternate funding source and will be paying for all the students.” He failed to mention that the funding source was Stegeman. Konrad also claimed that school staff had repeatedly told students to pay up.
In an interview on the James T. Harris show, Utterback parent, Bennetta Morgan described how she first learned of the situation and sounded the alarm. Ms. Morgan, whose daughter plays on the team, says she stands in her front yard and listens to the morning announcements come across the school’s PA system every day. Ms. Morgan, like nearly every other mother, knows that she cannot always count on her children to tell her what is going on at school, and the morning announcements are a good source of information.
Harris asked Ms. Morgan if the parents had received any notice prior to the Tuesday announcement. “To me this was the first notice because when we signed the permission slip all it said was that there was a $30 fee. There was no other paperwork sent home saying that there they had a deadline to pay the fee. There was no other paperwork sent home allowing the child to present to that parent that there was a scholarship. ‘There is a scholarship, let’s apply for it.’ I am going to do anything that is going to help my child, and if there is a scholarship there for them? Yes, let me sign it because that $30 could be used to feed my children, or something else for them, but they didn’t even send that paperwork home.”
“When I spoke to the principal,” continued Ms. Morgan, “she admitted – ‘no, I failed to send something home. So, she is hurting children by degrading them. It is not just the school kids; it is the whole neighborhood who hears them.”
“My heart just dropped when I heard this woman say this to the whole school and the neighborhood,” said Ms. Morgan. [Listen to the interview here]
No advance warning was given, said Ms. Morgan. Had the school given the parents a heads-up, they might have been able to raise money through car washes and bake sales. Instead this ultimatum was given to a group of students that have already been under attack through failed discipline policies and neglect.
Ms. Morgan told Stegeman to stand-by when the District learned of the embarrassing situation. They sent word that the money would materialize. Ms. Morgan thanked Stegeman “from the bottom of her heart.” She then asked the question on everyone’s mind: why did he have to save the day? Why is the District in such disarray? Ms. Morgan said it is a matter of leadership. She clearly is no fan of Superintendent H.T. Sanchez and the Board majority which is comprised of Adelita Grijalva, Cam Juarez, and Kristel Foster. “I just want the community to know that we have to stick together and hopefully the Board will change.”
Lori Riegel, who is also a TUSD candidate and sits on the Educational Enrichment Foundation Board stated, “As the parent of a student who participated extra-curricular activities for four years, I am astonished that the principal, knowing the percentage of students at her school who qualified for free and reduced lunch, did not include a scholarship request form in the packet of permission slips for the activity. Parents or guardians must fill out a number of forms for students to participate in a sport or other activity. The scholarship or fee waiver form could have been included in this packet. There are a number of different options to cover the $30 fee, including interscholastic fee scholarships from Educational Enrichment Foundation.”
Betts Putnam Hidalgo, a TUSD parent and Governing Board candidate who along with Stegeman is endorsed by TUSD Kids First, echoed Ms. Morgan’s sentiments. In a Facebook post she wrote: “It’s great that an individual stepped up to save the situation, but there are not enough saviors. The answer needs to be institutional. The SYSTEM that puts underprivileged or under-resourced kids at risk for sports needs to be changed. Now.”