Drive 20 minutes east of Phoenix, Arizona and you’ll find a desert landscape of cacti, rocks and hills. Nineteenth-century olive trees frame 1920s architecture in an area dotted with spas and golf courses.
The city is Scottsdale, Arizona; its neighbor is Paradise Valley. This is the most affluent area in Arizona, where a three-bedroom home can easily cost $1.5 million.
Both cities are part of the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD). The district’s schools rank first in the state.
At SUSD schools, janitors have golf carts to drive around campus; elementary school playgrounds include potted plants, murals, and shade structures. Staff at the front desks are always available to answer phone calls and libraries are well-stocked and equipped with well-oiled laminators.
Outwardly, there’s no sign that the school district is struggling.
The reality is the opposite, according to local parents and community advocates. Since the economic crisis of 2008, SUSD has been struggling with decreases to state funding for education and declining enrollment due to unaffordable local housing prices and a school voucher program that allows any family to use tax dollars for private school.
Today it’s also under siege from local Moms for Liberty type groups like Freedom Works and American Federation for Children, as well as the Goldwater Institute, which profit from converting public school sites into charter and private schools. Three candidates aligned with the far-right parental rights group notorious for book bans are running for SUSD school board; two are already on the five-person board. If just one of the three wins, the school system will be controlled by people who have been criticized as far-right extremists without the requisite experience to effectively govern who don’t have SUSD’s best interests at heart.
Parents and educators worry about the fate of SUSD if they win.
Trouble brews for SUSD
A decade ago, it was easy to get funds to fill the gaps in the school budget. Locals say that back then an elementary school fundraiser could easily net $100,000 on any given night. Today SUSD is struggling to meet schools’ needs, they say, largely due to disruptors on the school board who have made it difficult to pass bonds and overrides, even though the community is well-heeled and willing to invest in education.
“I promise you, we take the school seriously, the parents are in the schools all the time, and this parent group is as engaged as any parent group in any school district in the nation,” said Mike Norton, a parent who’s long been active in SUSD and previously volunteered for the school board’s budget oversight committee. Today he runs the Facebook page “Respect Our Scottsdale Students,” which uncovers how extremists disrupt the district and provides daily updates on local policy and school board movements.
Norton said that the trouble with the school board began two years ago with the election of candidates he described as the “two craziest people you’ve ever been around in your entire life, serious nonsense people, obviously ridiculous people.” He was astonished that they won seats on the board.
“The extremism at the board level became so harsh that the people who are serving right now just said, ‘My four years are up, I’m sorry but I got to get out of this, I can’t do this anymore,’” said Norton.
Now a trio of far-right candidates with purported Moms for Liberty ties have combined forces to run for the soon-to-be open seats.
The three races are contested but some locals are worried.
Norton said it was hard for him and other parents to find three qualified candidates who were willing to take on the extremists after the three incumbents declined to seek re-election.
The three they recruited are running as a slate, which parents say is a must. They learned this lesson the hard way two years ago, they said, when the two “MAGA moms”—Amy Carney and Carine Werner—defeated better candidates who didn’t combine their resources.
“We told them: You run as a team, because if one of you gets on, we’re f*****; if two of you get on, we’re still f*****. It has to be all three of you,” said Jennifer McDowell, a parent advocate whose children graduated from SUSD. “We can’t go up against all this dark money unless we can pool your resources and put all three of your names on everything that we do.”
The three have excellent qualifications, said McDowell. They named the team “Protect SUSD.”
Protect SUSD consists of Mike Sharkey, a data analysis expert at Arizona State University (ASU) who formerly founded a higher education predictive analytics company; Donna Lewis, long-time educator and administrator at neighboring districts, who won 2021 Arizona’s National Superintendent of the Year award; and Matt Pittinsky, who earned graduate degrees from ivy league colleges and is on a tenure track at ASU. Pittinsky is also the co-founder of Parchment, the largest electronic credential-issuing platform for higher education institutions.
Their opponents are also running as a combined ticket. The team is called “Just Be Honest” and consists of litigation paralegal Jeanne Beasley, lobbyist Gretchen Jacobs, and bar owner Drew Hassler.
An opposition website created by an Arizona political action committee (PAC) focused on education issues refers to the three as “the hate slate.”
Who is on ‘the hate slate’?
McDowell said Jacobs is the brains of the group. The opposition website criticizes Jacobs for being a lobbyist for a group founded by Betsy DeVos, the billionaire whose tenure as U.S. Education Secretary during the Trump administration was mired in controversy, much of it concerning her goal of using public funds to subsidize private and charter schools.
McDowell said the three are largely eschewing the campaign trail in the hopes blind loyalty to conservatism will carry them into office.
“They’re not talking to anybody, they’re not talking to news, they’re not going to the campaign debates, they don’t go to the town halls,” she said. “They’re just counting on the Republicans to dutifully march to the ballot and vote for them.”
None of the three replied to the Daily Dot’s interview requests. Their campaign website outlines their priorities, such as taking care of teachers, bringing transparency to the district, and maintaining student’s academic performance. The website doesn’t specify how they plan to accomplish these goals.
Jacobs, a prominent Arizona lobbyist, reportedly denies the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. According to Politico, in December 2020, she texted former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham that Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R) was preparing to launch a review of the election results and would find evidence of fraud. Jacobs then reportedly asked Grisham to help raise $104,000 to hire a consultant to look for proof. They found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Earlier in her career, Jacobs lobbied to limit teacher pay raises and for “a bill to let any maniac living anywhere sue any district or teacher for whatever bizarre conspiracy theory,” said Norton.
He added that one of her clients, Valley Schools Management Group, provides insurance to public school districts, including SUSD. The district has been considering switching insurance providers to the state trust. If elected, Jacobs has said she’ll make sure it continues buying insurance from her client.
Jacobs’ fellow candidates, Hassler and Beasley, have said they will oppose bonds and overrides, and cut the district funding by 15%.
They are endorsed by extreme conservative groups. A campaign text message parents shared with the Daily Dot shows that the 1776 Project PAC is calling for voters to support the “common-sense conservative” candidates to “elevate education standards.” The 1776 Project’s website lists a handful of goals, including denying transgender students use of bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, opposing schools gathering data from students, and abolishing liberal ideologies from the classroom.
“Ideologies like critical race theory and DEI reject that fundamental belief of the American experiment,” the website states.
The SUSD school board recently attracted the attention of leftist comedian Walter Masterson. During public comment during one of its meetings, he ironically praised efforts to subsidize private schools with public funds and thanked a board member for purportedly adding a book to the school library that touts an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory and claims that enslaved Black people were grateful to have “jobs.”
@waltermasterson #susd #scottsdalearizona ♬ original sound – Walter Masterson
Given the three candidates’ alleged disdain for public schools, some wonder why they are interested in serving on a public school board.
McDowell said 35% of their campaign funds came from Pam Kirby, a former school board member who became a “persona non grata” by supporting a former superintendent who had backroom deals with construction companies.
She recalled when she first met Kirby at district board meetings and events over a decade ago, Kirby was pro-public education and always said she was not seeking a career in politics. However, when the community got mad at her over the backroom deals scandal in 2018, Kirby decided to “go the other way and hate everyone,” said McDowell.
Kirby did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Kirby served as the first vice chair of the Arizona Republican Party under Chairwoman Kelli Ward, who was indicted by a grand jury for allegedly impersonating an elector and falsely certifying that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 elections. Ward has pleaded not guilty. Also that year, Kirby recruited three candidates with an eye towards conquering the SUSD board, said McDowell.
They were the first people talking about banning books, she added.
They didn’t win.
What happens now?
Some parents fear that the current political climate may allow this new crop of far-right candidates to succeed where the 2020 group failed.
“So 2022 is coming around. COVID has happened, and suddenly she got the whole Moms for Liberty national movement behind her,” McDowell said of Kirby. “She got the wind of their sails.”
That year Carney and Werner, the two candidates sources say were hand-picked by Kirby, took the seats by storm with the $110,000 campaign donation, mostly from Republican lawmakers and the founders of the charter school Great Hearts. Long-time parents and community members said they have never seen anyone spend tens of thousands of dollars to run for unpaid school board positions.
Once in power, they “wasted no time causing disruption and chaos,” said Shea Najafi, parent of a 9-year-old and a 13-year-old, who volunteered as co-chair for the district’s overrides committee.
Najafi said that the two tried to fire the district’s award-winning superintendent, obstruct hiring administrators who didn’t align with their values, ban books, defund DEI programs and services, and oppose override funding.
Neither Carney nor Werner responded to emails seeking comment.
Arizona ranks 48th in per-pupil funding. Most schools receive $7,000 per student annually. It was also the first state to implement a universal “Empowerment Scholarship Account” program, which means any family can spend the money their public school would have received to send their kids to private or charter schools or homeschool them.
Since the school voucher went universal in September 2022, the number of students enrolled in the program has grown from 12,000 to 75,000 statewide. In SUSD, only half of the children, around 21,000 students, attend public schools.
Declining enrollment takes a financial toll. That traditionally has not been a problem in the area, however.
“Arizona is dead last in education and the thing that sets us apart and keeps our schools highly rated are the override funds,” Najafi said.
Overall, SUSD families are wealthy enough to afford overrides to make up for educational needs. These funds can’t be used for state-standardized items such as hiring teachers, but can pay for music and arts programs, school maintenance and facilities, daily supplies, new books and STEM equipment.
Similar to bonds, overrides need to be approved by the school board before they go to the voters.
“To me, it’s really important to elect candidates who are going to pass the overrides,” said Najafi. “Having candidates that don’t have the best interest of the schools in mind, and perhaps are working for the opposition being private schools seeks to take our students, seeking to acquire our properties that does not seem to serve our public school students.”
The district just passed an override of $39 million. While arguably significant, much of it will go to a looming $27 million debt owed to homeowners because the county was taxing property owners incorrectly for years.
The two far-right SUSD school board members delayed the process and were “playing dumb” while discussing payment plans earlier this year, said parents.
A June meeting recording shows that Carney and Werner opposed the proposed plan to pay back the $27 million. Rather than offer other options, they insisted “I don’t like this” and “there must be a better solution.”
The proposal failed two to two because one member was absent.
“All the professionals that understand these things made the case that we should do it immediately, because interest is accruing,” said Najafi.
The next board meeting was three months later. The same proposal came back to the board and it passed.
Sources said Carney and Werner’s record also includes delaying the discussion by pretending not to have received board meeting materials, trying to defund public schools, rolling out an infeasible bathroom policy, and pushing far-right propaganda materials in classrooms.
“I volunteered at the schools and I know we had trans kids, nobody talked about it,” said McDowell. “Scottsdale is one of the reddest places on earth, in 2016 and 2020 the zip code just to the north of me was the highest per capita donors to the Trump campaign. We are red, but nobody talked about it. Now they’re acting like it’s a big problem.”
Though her children have already graduated from SUSD, McDowell still volunteers at the district and promotes public education. She believes education is an equalizer that helps individuals and families escape poverty.
“As schools are systematically destroyed and undercut, especially by board members that are trying to do their darndest to make them bad, you’re going to see a massive brain drain. Kids who are successful, the parents with the money to buy the laminating machine for the library, are all going to other options,” she explained.
“When you destroy the entity, the public school is going to be left with kids with special needs, and poor kids who don’t have any other option,” she said. “It’s going to get cannibalized and we’re just going to be left with a privatized system.”
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