The Tuesday night meeting of the Scottsdale Unified School Board began with the bad news that the district’s enrollment is plummeting. Superintendent Menzel notified the Board that over 120 students have not returned to school this year.
He assured Board members that the District would engage in a public relations campaign to recruit new students.
That effort however, will likely be unsuccessful as the District finds itself embroiled in controversy and the discord is affecting the learning environment, according to parents.
Tensions are high in the District as parents try to grapple with the Board’s decision to renege on a promise made last year that this school year would be mask-free. Those tensions boiled over on Tuesday, prompting Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg to lose his cool.
“Jesus f——- Christ, people,” Greenburg said into a hot mic after one mother challenged the Board’s claim that over 70 percent of district parents support mandatory masks. What appeared to trigger Greenburg was the accusation by the mother that the Board has planted stories in the media in an effort to smear them.
One of those stories involved an alleged incident in which “Neo-Nazi” type material was found at the Chaparral campus.
The mother, relying on an email obtained through a Public Records Request, challenged the mischaracterization of the incident as one involving a member of the concerned parents’ group.
Greenburg refuted the mother’s claim and said the email was referring to another incident. That was when he had his hot mic moment.
Earlier in the meeting, a student came before the Board and asked for a moment of silence to honor all of the students who had committed suicide since the beginning of the pandemic associated lockdowns. During that moment, Greenburg’s frustration began to show and attendees could hear him huff into the microphone in what appeared to be disgust with the request.
Greenburg and his fellow Board members, Patty Beckman, Julie Cieniawski, and Libby Hart-Wells, are all the subject of the recall effort due to their support and rather aggressive stance on the mask mandate.
The recall petitions allege that the Board members violated parents’ rights and “put the physical and mental health of students at risk.”
The recall campaign must collect 20,935 valid signatures by 5 p.m. on December 18.
Watch the whole meeting below: