Scottsdale parents are expressing their concerns over the district’s new American history curriculum, which they say is too “woke.”
The controversial curriculum concerns the U.S. history textbooks recommended by the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Social Science Committee. Parents and community members expressed opposition to the curriculum in public feedback, saying the books only offer one-sided, left-leaning teachings on sensitive topics and movements like Black Lives Matter and modern race relations, President Donald Trump, climate change, LGBTQ+ ideology, affirmative action, illegal immigration, COVID-19, and diversity.
The criticized books included textbooks from BFW Publishers and Savvas Learning Company, which spanned across the Advanced Placement to the standard courses.
Here's another example of the Savvas curriculum that Scottsdale Unified staff has recommended for board approval at a cost of $145K.
👉Email the board before May 13th and tell them parents want quality curriculum, not propaganda! GOVbrd@SUSD.org https://t.co/KuHFUzw912 pic.twitter.com/LQXBZRhlaG
— Scottsdale Unites for Educational Integrity (@ScottsdaleUnite) May 3, 2025
While public feedback on the curriculum was overwhelmingly negative, feedback from SUSD teachers, employees, and administrators was positive.
“I found ‘Fabric of Our Nation’ to have several misrepresentations around hot topics such as the obvious exclusion of key facts and misrepresentation of George Floyd, by not mentioning Floyd was a convicted felon and that according to the coroner, Floyd had a lethal amount of fentanyl in his system, which probably led to his death,” said one community member, who recommended the book despite its bias on key historical events. “Predisposed judgement regarding periods of time in our history are less likely to happen when we understand the issue when provided with an accurate historical framework.”
“There needs to be historical fact, not ideological opinion covering coronavirus scare, BLM, Trayvon Martin, Trump, etc.,” said one community member. “The ‘true’ historic facts about these events are blatantly not in this publication.”
“This is problematic as it contains biased narratives on cultural topics such as the coronavirus scare, the Trump presidency, the killing of Trayvon Martin and BLM,” said other community member. “[The] Teacher’s Edition includes problematic shared categories on Culturally Relevant Learning, My Story and Current Event Videos – Listenwise (which was problematic with ELA adoption), Integrating Social, Emotional Learning, Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom. This is exactly what parents do not want for their children and is why they are moving out of the public school. If you care about maintaining or increasing enrollment, this will not help!”
“[This curriculum] falls short on meeting the requirements for 1) media, interest groups, and political parties; 2) media literacy; and 3) American political culture,” said another community member. “All three fail to present ‘both sides’ of the issue, leaving little to no opportunity for meaningful discussions and critical thinking on the part of the students. The Connections to Today could provide an opportunity for the teacher, should they take it, to give or encourage students to identity the ‘other side’ and engage students in meaningful discussion.”
“This is problematic as it contained biased narratives on cultural topics such as: focus on intersectional feminism, LGBTQ Rights Movement, examining African American feminism [and] patriarchy, social advocacy (gay and lesbian equality), promoting climate change activist Greta Thunberg, BLM movement, negative Trump rhetoric, social protest during the Trump years, systemic racism and the social justice movement, [and] fighting systemic racism,” said another community member.
“USH-4 should not be used in any classroom in SUSD. The emphasis on [Social Emotional Learning] and equity in the Teacher Edition is inappropriate,” said another community member. “It has been well documented in multiple valid studies that SEL does not improve academic outcomes and may cause harm to students. SUSD needs to eliminate SEL across all curriculums.”
“The visual presentation of this textbook is very busy and the U.S. history content lacks depth, is missing key information, and the focus often seems to be the photographs rather than fluidity and relevance of content,” said another community member. “There is a section on George Floyd that lacks information about the protests, controversy surrounding BLM, its political motivations, its questionable fundraising, as well as more recent information surrounding Floyd’s death. But there is a section on the [January 6] aftermath of the 2020 election. There is a photograph of Kamala Harris (2024 election loser) and her husband walking in a pride parade. This is a politically driven photograph that should not be in a US History textbook. There is also a section for promoting activism which should also not be in a US history textbook. […] I do not want my child or any other student learning from this material.”
The allegations of the inclusion of “woke” content within the textbooks may conflict with the U.S. Department of Education (ED) directive to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology from the classroom, which SUSD Superintendent Scott Menzel pledged to follow.
The SUSD governing board is scheduled to vote on the curriculum during its next meeting later this month.
Man the retarded right is afraid of their own shadows that they have to rewrite history. Lol.
As the illegals are deported or self-deport, Arizona public schools, where at least 30% of the seats are filled with illegals will collapse. They have become dependent on the drug cartels and the killing of our youth to fill the seats and confiscate property taxes to satisfy their greed and thirst for power over our children.
Elections matter. You got these asshats because you elected them. What did you think these fricking morons were going to do once they got a little power. Flood the meetings, take out petitions and recall them.
Shocker, SUSD going after kids with politics. This district is a disgrace. Half of the kids in the SUSD district go to private schools.
Really it’s sad, the leadership cannot set their politics aside and focus on education.
“Half of the kids in the SUSD district go to private schools.”
As my child did too, back in the early 2000’s. Even then before school term began I visited the school and introduced myself to all my child’s teachers and asked to look thru the books they will be using. Satisfied all was well, I thanked and left. The school got used to seeing me every August, sadly to say I was the only parent who did this.
There is no reason to believe no matter how hard the parents protest, the board will approve this curriculum. They are all left wing wack jobs and as such the great indoctrination of children will continue. Education, not so much.
One wonders why it is so hard to remove bureaucrats from the school system. Is it apathy on the part of the parents? Of the voters? Who needs to fire whom? I don’t think the curriculum was quite as illiberally-leaning when my kids were in SVUD68, but since they are all out I no longer track it.
“woke”.. call it what you want – is evil. No place in the school system ; Social Garbage – brought by social-evil trash. ‘we had a shooting on our street ; my woke neighbors view of this event ‘on my house and neighbors’ these bullets flying into houses – “a little excitement in the neighborhood”… really – your BLM sign reading ‘silence is violence’ – meaning what “no violence is ‘wrong'”.. your dangerous – so glad they’ve left.
I am now armed – not a condition I like, or take lightly as a veteran. Want some – watch what you ask for… too bad they have kids.