Residents of the Apache Elementary School District are expected to meet with Cochise County Superintendent of Public Instruction Jacqui Clay on Thursday to discuss the district’s future. In June, Clay announced that the school would be shuttered due to a lack of students.
| Counties | Santa Cruz | Pima | Cochise |
| Population April 2010 | 47,420 | 980,263 | 131,346 |
| Population July 2016 | 45,985 | 1,016,206 | 125,770 |
| Population percent change | -3.0% | 3.7% | -4.3% |
| Persons under 5 years 2010 | 7.8% | 6.4% | 6.5% |
| Persons under 5 years 2016 | 6.9% | 5.8% | 6.1% |
| Persons under 18 years 2010 | 30.7% | 23.0% | 23.0% |
| Persons under 18 years 2016 | 27.6% | 21.4% | 22.0% |
Clay’s announcement to close the district’s only school surprised no one. With only 2 students, and 3 school board members for most of the past school year, the school should have been closed by Clay’s predecessor; Trudy Berry, before she left office. However, Berry did not want the wrath of a few powerful ranching families to stain her unremarkable legacy.
After Apache Elementary School District governing board member Frank Krentz lost to William Grossman in the November 2016 election, and Krentz’s uncle, William Kimble, resigned from the board in the spring, they took another tack to regain control of the board. With a mere 10 signatures, the small group has what they need to put before the voters a proposal to increase the board from 3 to 5 members in an August 2017 election. Should the group succeed in convincing Clay to keep the school open and expand the board, the district will have more than twice the number of school board members as it had students.
While Berry showed no interest in the school, Clay has showed no understanding of the people involved in it. That didn’t stop her from diving into the dysfunctional district’s petty political pool. Clay’s willingness to get involved in personnel issues while appearing to ignore the concerns’ of the majority of duly-elected members on the board, increased the dysfunction and ramped up tensions.
In an effort to introduce a dispassionate education professional into the circus, in order to get a handle on the finances and assess whether the school was even viable, Grossman had proposed hiring a very temporary superintendent/consultant. His proposal was never even discussed due to the fact that Clay abruptly announced the school’s closure.
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Clay told a reporter at the Sierra Vista Herald that none of the parties were interested in compromise. She called the situation “nasty.” Yet residents say, and emails show, that Clay’s disregard for the duly-elected board members only made the bad situation worse.
Case in point; Clay promised to reach out to reach out to Grossman and his fellow board member Mike Woods, as part of the process to replace Kimble. Instead, she unilaterally selected Alicia Davidson. Davidson had been one of the driving forces behind the campaign to increase board members. The other candidates, according to sources, were only given cursory glance by Clay. One of the candidates reportedly said later that it was evident Clay had no intention of considering them. There is also absolutely no evidence that Clay made any attempt to keep her promise to allow Grossman and Woods to weigh-in on the choice.
Davidson and her crew had accused Grossman of working to ensure the school’s closure. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Grossman has been working tirelessly to save the school, but no matter how he tried, the acrimony created by the sole teacher and her support staff, kept parents and kids away. Voters made it clear to Grossman that they would not support the school if it did not have enough kids and it would not ever have enough kids if there weren’t changes in personnel.
Given the hostile history, without a dispassionate education professional, there is absolutely no reason to believe the community can support a school that serves all children. The Hatfield and McCoy-type situation has caused the school to fall into disrepair and nothing about it could attract parents, who care about the quality of their kids’ education.
According to sources, the 2 remaining students are expected to attend a school in the Douglas district when school starts in August unless the small group can convince Clay to keep the school open. To that end, Davidson’s group started a campaign to find students. It has not gone well. On June 28, Davidson made a final plea in an email:
From: Tom and Alicia
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2017 7:28 PM
Subject: Last plea for Apache School EnrolleesFriends and Neighbors,
Yes, this will be our last plea!
For those of you with elementary school aged children, Apache is an A+ school serving K-8 students.
The former teacher and teacher’s assistant have left Apache.
There is a new local person who is Arizona certified K-12 who is anxious to teach your children at Apache.
There is a local person who needs to update their CDL to drive the school bus.
As you know low student/teacher ratio is hard to find in today’s schools and that is what you would have at Apache.
Apache is a 110 year old school which the community wishes deeply to keep open and serving our local children as it did this past school year very successfully.
If we could surprise the county superintendent with eight (8) students ready to enroll, Apache may continue to serve.
Please consider this educational option for your children.
The Community Committee will be meeting this Friday, June 30 at 5:30pm at Apache School. If you would like to come to get information or to register your children, we will be willing, ready, and able! If you prefer to register over the phone, feel free to call Alicia Davidson at 520/xxx-xxxx. (No, I am not the prospective teacher).
Respectfully,
Alicia Davidson
Apache Community Committee Representative
Davidson’s claims are questionable. For example, the school received an “A” grade for the 2013-2014 school year. Davidson’s claim that a “low student/teacher ratio is hard to find in today’s schools” ignores the fact that a 2 to 1 ratio would not be the ideal. Because kids like to go to school to be around other kids, the 2 to 1 ration is actually a negative sales point. Her claim that the school “this past school year very successfully” served students, ignores the fact that it lost 7 kids. Keeping 2 out of the 9 students could hardly be called a success by any objective standard.
Davidson tips her hand when she cites the historical value of the school. Many of her supporters value the school mostly as a monument to the past. For a lot of them, the school is all about their families’ legacies, and kids are just an afterthought.
Davidson’s group has also reportedly enlisted the help of State Senator Gail Griffin. Despite a declining population in Cochise County, and a years-long earned reputation for dysfunction, Griffin will likely bring pressure to bear to keep the failing school open.
Considering that Griffin is timed-out of her Senate seat and hopes to move back to the House, she should consider the fact that her constituents are watching. Taxpayers are in no mood to shut down more schools, but they are even less enthusiastic about throwing money at failing ones.