Parents are pulling their children out of traditional public schools and choosing alternatives like the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) available in Arizona. Average ACT scores dropped to the lowest point in decades and in post-pandemic Arizona, they dropped even further in 2022, to 18.2.
In the case of the Litchfield Elementary School District (LESD), less than one third of graduates entering high school are proficient in math.
A five-month investigation by the Arizona Attorney General, may have found a reason. With sixteen elementary and middle schools, Litchfield Elementary School District, instead of focusing on academics, secretly adopted Ibram X. Kendi’s Critical Race Theories. Kendi states, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” The AZ AG’s closing letter states, “The process of creating and adopting the policies reflected in the District’s equity statement should have been conducted in the open… The Board violated the Open Meeting Law by taking a closed door approach.”
Solving A Problem That Doesn’t Exist
Although Litchfield has never had a formal complaint of racism, its superintendent Jodi Gunning created a shadowy Diversity Empowerment Committee with Board member Kimberly Moran, to engage 40 LESD administrators, teachers, and employees, at the estimated cost of $8,900, just for five hours of planning, to secretly implement Kendi’s “Equity.” The committee accomplished seven of the ten steps in the illegally concealed 10-page Transformational Equity Work procedure manual, which states on Page 1:
“We learned through our CD roll out that communicating this work too early, prior to empowering our teachers and staff with the tools necessary to answer questions from parents, etc., will not render positive results.”
Board Policies (KA and KD) state:
“The Superintendent has the responsibility of keeping the public informed as to the purpose, goals, methods, and progress of the educational program., and KDB states, “The Board recognizes the right of the public to information concerning its actions, its policies, and the details of its educational and business operations.” The AZ AG violation letter agreed, stating, “By failing to hold the Diversity Empowerment teams meetings in public, the Board violated the Open Meeting Law.”
Hidden in the Shadows
The head “Facilitator” of the Diversity Empowerment Committee had been a child transgender advocate who made national news when a summer camp was unable to make special accommodations for her transgendered nine-year-old. Moran became the de facto leader of the committee because she was the only Board member. Moran admitted she wrote the Equity Statement including:
“We subscribe to author Ibram X. Kendi’s definition: “One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.”
It was concealed from the public. Other board members are quoted as admitting that they did not share the Equity Statement with the public and received no public input, with the Board president concluding:
“… the vision and direction of the district reside with the five people in this room.”
Although the Equity Statement was passed during an Open Meeting on December 8, 2020, Board member Moran concealed the fact that it stated that from then on, Litchfield Elementary School District embraced Kendi’s theory that, if you are not a racist, then you are a racist.
On March 3, 2021, Litchfield in what many describe as a “reckless” manner to conceal the Equity Statement and Transformational Equity Work. When new Board member, Jeremy Hoenack, was trying to explain the reasoning he used in suggested changes to teacher’s contracts, which included banning CRT from being taught were needed, some members of the Board including the Litchfield attorney continually interrupted, heckled, and made false claims. They alleged the topics upon which he was speaking was “not on the agenda.” Afterwards three members of the public filed Open Meeting Law complaint with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (AGO).
The topic was in fact, on the agenda, as later found by the AGO.
During the heckling, Moran blurted out, “If you had not given out false information, there would not have been a problem.”
Hoenack was cut short when the Board rushed votes against both of his changes to the teacher’s contracts, one of which was focused on academic performance improvement.
The “false information” silencing tactic was used again when Moran earned another Open Meeting Law violation from the AGO. At the April 13, 2021, meeting, Moran illegally interrupted a person given the floor to speak during the “Call to the Public” portion of the meeting, by rudely holding up a “Not True” sign, when the person mentioned the Equity Statement.
LESD leadership continued to conceal the Transformational Equity Work procedure manual from the public, telling parents that it was “just some notes.”
On March 27, 2021, the Board produced another plan to keep the Equity Statement and the Transformational Equity work from being discussed. Whenever Hoenack attempted to talk about it, the facilitators interrupted him or heckled him. Again, he was also forbidden to talk about the Transformational Equity Work document they were concealing from the public.
On June 8, 2021, at the conclusion of Hoenack’s presentation of a paradigm to further engage parental goal setting, which research shows is the most powerful lever in education, Moran and other board members deflected with personal attacks on Hoenack, claiming Litchfield was already doing everything as well or better than a truly high-achieving school, especially in “equity.” A few days later, AZ Merit scores were released, showing that Litchfield graduates’ math proficiency had plummeted to 29%, with 71% of them failing to meet minimum standards.
Litchfield spent $5,000 for a survey, which showed parents highest priority is academics, and their seventh and lowest priority is “equity.” The Board immediately voted for a new equity statement and refused to add “improve academics” to the superintendent’s goals.
Parents feel helpless in their efforts to get their children’s’ schools to focus on academics. School boards laugh at, and insult parents, who have the audacity to want schools to teach instead of indoctrinating children with harmful ideologies.
A Rare Opportunity
Parents believe that the Litchfield community has the rare opportunity to immediately return sanity to their school district by flipping the board to a pro-academics majority, from the current majority of individuals are deceptive at worst and misguided best.
There are two highly qualified candidates for two open seats. One is incumbent Dennis Dowling, a 30-year certified teacher with extensive administrative experience. The other is Ryan Owens, an Air Force veteran with a Juris Doctor degree. This is a rare opportunity to reverse the course of a failing school district and to ensure the best opportunity for children’s success at Litchfield School District.
Note: Another candidate on the ballot (Sue Lange) was disqualified for not living in the Litchfield district.