Other than dangerous classrooms, there is nothing as terrifying for TUSD parents as not having quality neighborhood schools for their kids. It appears that David Safier understands this and that is why he keeps the false school closing narrative alive.
Over the past few months, and especially over the past few weeks, Safier has repeated the school-closings-are-coming mantra knowing full well that it is baseless. The only way the District will be forced to close more schools is if it continues to lose students.
Safier needs to stop scaring parents.
There are two basic types of public school advocates; those who want to sweep schools’ problems under the rug and hope no one stumbles over them. There are others, who like us, have absolute confidence that parents will continue to choose public schools and believe that by publically airing issues they can resolve them.
Safier simply does not have enough confidence in the schools that have produced more Nobel Prize winners than any other organization in the world.
Safier doesn’t have enough confidence in the teachers, who we know keep our kids in the TUSD schools despite the lack of support they receive from central administration and the Board majority: Adelita Grijalva, Cam Juarez, and Kristel Foster.
Safier does not have confidence in parents to make the best choice for their kids. Maybe he doesn’t think TUSD schools are the best for kids? If so, he would be absolutely mistaken. Many TUSD schools are great choices – really great choices.
Safier needs to stop scaring parents. Betts Putnam Hidalgo has said that the school closing “issue” is a red herring used to take focus away from the real issues. She is right.
Safer is operating in a data free environment. Anyone who knows the research knows the only things schools provide to students that make a real difference in student learning are safe and secure schools and quality teachers. Neither of those factors has improved under the leadership of Sanchez and his amen choir on the TUSD Board: Grijlava, Foster and Juarez. In fact, there are more teacher vacancies in TUSD now than at any time in recent memory. It is also clear that too many TUSD schools and classrooms are simply not safe. No matter how many principals Sanchez removes for telling the truth, no matter how much the Sanchez cabal want to blame teacher vacancies on state funding rather than unsafe working conditions and the low pay offered by TUSD, the evidence is clear that the current TUSD leadership…both elected and appointed…has failed TUSD’s students and deserves to be removed ASAP.