The superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District, H. T. Sanchez, first hit the national scene when he called Arizonans “disposable wealth” a bunch of bigots who must be convinced “to educate kids who don’t look like their kids.” Now, the Superintendent has scored an invite to the White House.
In an email dated June 5, 2015, Roberto J. Rodríguez, Deputy Assistant to the President for Education, extended an invite to the highly controversial superintendent, for “a national convening and conversation on improving school discipline policies and practices, to be hosted at The White House on Wednesday, July 22, 2015. At this meeting, you will join a select group of educational leaders, advocates, researchers, state and community officials, and others to share your experience working to reduce school disciplinary incidents and to foster safe and supportive school climates.”
The irony of the invite struck many as rich as the District has been in turmoil since instituting “restorative circles” as a method of discipline. But much like the invite to Tucson’s Chief of Police Roberto Villasenor, who was invited to serve on the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing after one of his officers clocked a coed and roughed up several University of Arizona students after the school’s basketball team lost in last year’s March Madness, the administration’s fondness for Tucson “leaders” is inexplicable.
“This is just an example of birds of a feather flocking together,” said James T. Harris, a former school teacher and popular Tucson radio show host. “Mexican is the new Black for the Obama White House. The president has gone full racial retard, to paraphrase a line from Tropic Thunder. You should never go full racial retard.”
The District operates under a Post-Unitary Status plan which includes “Restorative and Positive Practices.” The plan reads in part: “the District shall hire or designate an employee to serve as the District’s restorative and positive practices coordinator (“RPPC”). The RPPC shall be responsible for working with school sites to assist in the ongoing implementation of Restorative Practices and the implementation of PBIS, including: (a) developing model behavioral assessments and interventions; and (b) assisting school sites in developing systems and structures to use data for self-monitoring practices.”
In 2013, TUSD Board member Mark Stegeman wrote constituents to inform them that, “TUSD’s rhetoric about controlling bullying and maintaining a good learning climate in classrooms seemed to be set aside on Tuesday night, when the board approved major changes to the district’s discipline handbook by a 4-1 vote.”
Stegeman was referring to the new code’s discipline policy, GSRR, which appeared to violate state laws and, according to Stegeman, “greatly reduce principals’ options for removing abusive students from classrooms and limiting their access to other students during the school day.”
In other words, bullies have free rein.
The Department of Justice has been actively involved in the development of the guidelines. Although Sanchez claimed that the desegregation plaintiff representatives wanted the plan, they claim that the plan was conceived by the DOJ and the plaintiffs’ concerns were ignored. At the time, a plaintiff representative said the new system “will create chaos.” The prediction was correct and as a result, the classrooms have become void of any discipline, and students have fled the District in response to the less-than-safe atmosphere.
Just this week, the ADI reported on a video which appears to be from the group Anonymous, which called for Sanchez to resign citing his incivility. Because Anonymous is not an official group there is no way to determine if the Sanchez video is legitimately created by members of the group.