🚨🚨BREAKING NOW - EMERGENCY MEETING OF AZ STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION - BANKRUPT SCHOOL DISTRICT WITH $12,344,641 BUDGET SHORTFALL TO GO INTO RECEIVERSHIP
▶️ Auditor General presents SBE on timeline of overspending and refusals to comply with internal controls and financial reporting
Auditor General - tried for 5 years to stop mismanagement of funds!!!
Auditor General - operating budget drops 86.1% in 1 year
capital budget drops 87.2%!
Superintendent of district going into receivership over $12M+ budget shortfall:
"I'm not going to deny"
"its shocking"
Bankrupt district failed to timely submit ESSER reimbursement funds - loss of $8M++
🔥ADE CFO warns district: "MAY RESULT IN IN TEACHERS NOT BEING PAID"
AZ statutes allow SBE to put district into receivership for insolvency and gross mismanagement after public meeting.
🚨Superintendent Horne calling Maricopa Board of Supervisors for emergency funding after county treasurer DECLINED!
BOS has NOT returned call
Says in "2 weeks we won't make payroll"
Maricopa Tresurer John Allen on mismanaged school district facing receivership:
"I did not believe a single word that Superintendent Ventura said!"
"This is going to takes months and that's $2-3M in payroll that I'll never get back."
This "doesn't jive" with filings we have over time..."I don't see a way out."
"I'm a bank. I take deposits and I do withdrawals."
"This bank will NOT become a slush fund for a district that is so out of wack, I don't see a way out."
"I don't have that money."
ADE Sean Ross on grossly mismanaged district and way forward:
Says going back 20 years, Arizona has a school go into receivership about 1X every 5 years!
📢Grossly mismanaged school district going into receivership spends $19,372 PER PUPIL, almost $5000 more than state average...let's look at some numbers:🧵
School district out $12M+ in budget shortfall - spending almost 2X per pupil on ADMINISTRATORS
almost 2X per pupil on transport per mile
School district careening into receivership still paid teachers MORE than much larger districts.
~$2,000 MORE than Paradise Valley:
Kicker: proficiencies scores potentially disqualify district to legally use title of "school":
Math: 15% pass
ELA: 18%
Science: 10%
Only 10% proficiency in science, despite spending over $19,000 per pupil in mismanaged public school district that runs out of money in 2 weeks:
School district spending over $19,000 per pupil and now at risk of missing payroll:
Below peer proficiency, below state average proficiency
ALMOST AS IF SPENDING NOT THE ANSWER?
🧐District webpage on budget expenditures, public notices now...being scrubbed?
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📢AZ Auditor General Issues 2024 Report on School Spending: More Therapy, Less instruction
▶️For 3rd year in a row, school spending on instruction 📉 both statewide and at most districts
▶️Schools continue 📈spending for student support (counseling programs, nursing, audiologists)
▶️New historic low on instructional spend:
52.6% vs 58.6% in 2004
1/n
Over 58% of all schools decreased instructional spending last year, average cut of 0.8%. 2/
Instructional spending for core academic functions continues to be sacrificed to pay salaries for more non-academic, non-instructional social services 3/n
“Functional behavioral assessments have typically been a special education strategy to help schools determine — through data and observations — if a behavior resulted from a student’s disability and to help guide interventions…”
“New guidance from the U.S. Department of Education promotes the use of individualized behavioral assessments and support plans for students with and without disabilities to help schools address problem behaviors and reduce suspensions and expulsions.”
📢SBE Committee on K-3 Literacy:
Shocking decline in 3rd grade reading scores over 9 years, but only fail 0.3% of students!
➡️"Minimally proficient" goes 📈 43% to 50%, means 50% not qualified for 4th grade
Asks ADE director, can we raise expectations?
A: We haven't looked at that yet, wanted you guys to talk first...but we have a "wonderful" guru
1/n
3rd grade reading scores show a 9-yr failing system:
➡️Min Proficient: 43 to 50%
➡️"Partially" Proficient : 16 to 11%
➡️ Just proficient: 30 to 26%
➡️"Highly" Proficient: 11 to 13% 2/n
Minimally proficient reading scores qualifies for "retention" - meaning, should be held back unless there are "qualifying circumstances"
➡️Data shows 99.7% of all those who fail are sent to 4th grade anyway
3/n
📢School Board Race | Paradise Valley USD: Reformers Challenge Fossilized 20-Yr Leadership “Guarding” Ailing District as Plummeting Proficiency Scores and ESA Exits Continue
➡️ Enthusiasm for 20-yr board president up for reelection (and 2 cohorts) is so low, PV teachers union gets grant from state union to pay members $20/hr to hold signs at football games, knock doors
🧵1/n
State union’s recent grant meant to get door knockers and sign holders at $20/hour - more than even union advocates for teachers aides 2/n
Union seeks to pump up enthusiasm, offering above market prices, just to get some semblance of teacher support at football games. 3/n
The American School Counselor Association urges members to promote “all aspects of sexual wellness” for its connection to psychological connection to human development.
Is there a downside to seeing children as sexual beings/patients? 🧵