As students return to school this week, let’s consider what we can do to help support and strengthen our local public schools. I am running for a seat on the Scottsdale Unified School Board on November 5, alongside Gretchen Jacobs and Drew Hassler, to serve our community positively.
We are parents, professionals, and community leaders who have had students in our Scottsdale schools and believe that strong communities should have strong public schools. Families shouldn’t have to look elsewhere for the excellent academic opportunities and well-rounded extracurricular experiences they desire for their children.
Our campaign, “Just Be Honest,” will bring a new era of transparency, accountability, and integrity to SUSD. Our mission is to ensure that every decision made is in the best interest of our students, families, and teachers.
We need to just be honest and confront the decline in academic achievement scores, remove activism and politics from our schools, and make SUSD the gold standard for excellence.
It’s time to get honest with parents, teachers & taxpayers. We must respect parents’ primary role in their child’s life and education. We must allocate taxpayer dollars effectively, prioritize classroom funding and teacher pay, and give taxpayers an accurate and honest accounting of SUSD finances.
When it comes to school safety, prevention is always better than reaction. We must be honest about our need for more School Resource Officers (SROs), implement nonintrusive safety measures to protect students and staff, and enhance our vetting and background checks.
Although school board candidates will be at the bottom of your ballot, their positions will directly affect our students and community. Your vote for Jacobs, Beasley, and Hassler (remember JBH) is a vote for honesty, transparency, and a commitment to a better future for our schools. Learn more at www.susdstrong.com.
Transparency is great, accountability is even better, but being responsible is where the focus needs to be. I receive a tax bill from the County every year. Every year I am appalled by the amount of tax revenue that is allocated to public schools. This includes community colleges. This tax year I was assessed my highest tax bill ever. The portion that went to “public” education was 58% of the total tax bill. Schools are consuming more County tax revenue, than the County and City assessments combined. What is harder to fathom is that of that 58%, 47% of that goes to pay off bonds and budget overrides. The local and County schools are essentially borrowing and borrowing, not unlike the federal government, to get themselves by. Most people have no concept of what mounting debt can do to a community. With the County growing at such a rapid pace I can understand how resources can get stretched thin. Throwing money blindly at education is not the answer, especially when its the tax payers footing the bill. We the taxpayers have budgets too and cant always afford the looming increases imposed by the county. Maybe its time to ask public education to budget themselves better or put off projects until the tax base, caused by growth, catches up. MAricopa county tax rates on property are some of the best in the country. Lets keep it that way.