📢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/

🚨🚨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!!!

Not sure people truly understand- ALL general education is now SPECIAL education:

Education Department promotes expanded use of behavior assessments | K-12 Dive k12dive.com/news/education… “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…”

📢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

📢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

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? 🧵 Yes…

🔎Declining Proficiency Rates in Public Schools is By Design | The Obama Era *Experts* Revenge For No Child Left Behind is SEL

Goodbye 'Core Subjects,' Hello 'Well-Rounded Education' | NEA nea.org/nea-today/all-… Goodbye learning core academic subjects, hello you sexy social emotional therapeutic education!

📢AZ Board of Ed | Teacher Misconduct Enforcements: 08/24:
➡️Peoria 🚨ADE-CERTIFIED SOCIAL WORKER🚨 takes minors to doctor (w/o parent consent)
➡️ Man w/ Grindr app to find “under 18-yo”- cocaine in car
➡️Woman sends 770 texts to 5th grade boy
➡️Arrests, convictions for sexual luring of minors
+more!
🧵 Queen Creek HS man asks minor girl: “What’s your sexual pleasure,” “How many people have you gotten with,” and “let me see you stripped (without the bathing suit”

🚨Arizona School Boards Association hopes to lobby legislators to stop tracking counselors/social worker spending as a separate category. Currently this spending is recorded as "support services" - but after the Auditor General in 2023 report noted that the cost of counselors is reducing average instructional spending percentages to all-time lows, ASBA wants to conceal it.
@ShawnnaLMBolick Auditor General: 3 years in a row schools are spending less on instruction because mental health workers eating more into budget:

https://x.com/ALegalProcess/status/1764696714601177416

Schools | Social Credit Scores - Not just for communists children anymore
Does your school district use software for school counselors to monitor your child - not just academic progress, but her "social emotional" and "behavioral" scores?
Take a peak at how they do it:
1/n All students data - and scores - available to monitor and alert school counselors and staff to an "intervention" need. Could be academics, or could be "behavioral incidents"
2/n

🚨BREAKING - Catalina Foothills School District and University of Arizona caught covertly soliciting minors for mental health screenings and treatment for lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer program without obtaining parental consent required by Arizona law.
*PARENT KICKED OUT WHEN HE TRIES TO ATTEND*
➡️CFSD counseling program sent unsolicited email to minor students promoting UA's "FamilyPride - AFFIRM" program via Google Classroom
➡️CFSD email solicited minors to attend Zoom session apparently designed to promote or screen youth for psychotherapy services
➡️Dad discovers, because he fortunately had settings to notify of private emails from district
➡️Dad tries to join Zoom session without son - but kicked out by director and UA employee - because it was a "safe space" for minors only to meet with other adults
1/n UA affiliated "Family Pride Initiative - AFFIRM" program is a mental health invention to provide cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to minors related to lesbian, gay, trans, queer+ issues
familyprideinitiative.com

📢NEW AZ Auditor General Report: Schools are spending LESS on instruction, MORE on counselors - LOWEST IN 23 YEARS!!
Since the auditor started tracking Instructional Spending in 2001, last year schools allocated the least amount of spending to actual instruction...
🧵1/7 But schools did allocate MORE money on "student support services" i.e., counselors.
2X the amount, adjusted for inflation, since 2001.
➡️Average school spends over $1,100 on "support" services like counselors
2/7

🚨Urgent Care-meets-the-Classroom | Are you here to see the health pro...or a teacher?
AZ republican proposes comprehensive bill to restructure schools into hybrid, one-stop learning-health-clinic model, forever transforming concept of schools as academic centers. HB2448 bill invites privately-owned, health centers into schools that would be managed by new program at Dept of Ed.
🧵⬇️
1/n HB2448:
➡️Outside health care provider may set up on-site
➡️For services "beyond" scope of nursing
➡️Parental consent required if "consistent with federal laws"
➡️May bill private insurance, but will serve all regardless of ability to pay
2/n

🚨PETITION FILED WITH ARIZONA BOARD OF BEHAVIORAL HEALTH TO REPEAL UNLAWFUL "NO-TOUCH" POLICY EXEMPTING SCHOOL COUNSELORS FROM REGULATORY OVERSIGHT🚨
Today, as a concerned parent and proponent of transparency, I filed an ARS 41-1003 administrative petition with the Board of Behavioral Health Examiners to repeal their 21-year old "no-touch" policy that purports to exempt school counselors from BBHE's regulatory oversight. This Policy violates the Administrative Procedures Act, is redundant, and no longer reflects the reality of mental health services in schools.

For too long the BBHE has turned a blind eye to the practice of behavioral health by unlicensed school counselors and social workers.

Much has changed in school counseling since 2003 when the Policy was adopted. They aren't just "guidance counselors" for career and college advising anymore. They provide behavioral health services and the Department of Education, however well-intentioned, is ill-equipped to manage and supervise them.

In the interest of public health, welfare and safety, the BBHE needs to reassert their statutory authority over the practice of behavioral health.

Parents need to know that if their rights are violated, or if their child is injured, by an unlicensed school counselor or social worker practicing behavioral health, they have recourse to the regulators at the BBHE who have statutory powers to investigate complaints and tackle the unauthorized practice of behavioral health - a Class VI felony in this state.

Parents whose rights are violated, or whose children are injured by unlicensed behavioral health workers in schools should not have to rely on a school district's complaint policies and procedures set in place by district administrators, governing boards, or the Department of Education.

Parents, lawmakers, and regulators need to understand:

➡️There is no statutory basis to exclude school counselors and social workers practicing behavioral health from licensure

➡️The BBHE adopted this Policy in 2003 without any statutory basis to create an exemption from licensure

➡️The Policy is used as a blanket exclusionary rule - but never went through formal rulemaking proceedings - no public notice, no public comment, no public scrutiny

➡️Whatever assumptions the BBHE had about school counselors not practicing behavioral health in 2003, those assumptions are no longer warranted

➡️Being "certified" by the Department of Education does not make school counselors or school social workers any different from any other "certified" employee in schools:
*They follow district policies, not professional practice standards
*They report to administrators, not licensed supervisors with experience in behavioral health, and
* They are not bound by the same professional ethics of a licensed practitioner.

A copy of the full 102-page Petition is available here:
drive.proton.me/urls/4WH7S41Z5…
Part II of the Petition on the evolving role of school counselors and behavioral health in schools:
➡️Did you know ADE changed the title of "guidance counselors" to "school counselors" only in 2018?
➡️Or that an ASU counseling master's degree requires you study the same courses - whether you're "certified" or "licensed"? It really doesn't matter - the courses qualify you for both

📢AZ BoE | Enforcement Actions - September 2023
Astonishing trend continues.
Teacher certificates voluntarily surrendered include:
➡️7 out of 16 cases involving sexual interest in minors
➡️That's 44% of all cases for the month, up from 41% last month

Highlights in the 🧵⬇️
1/n

https://twitter.com/ALegalProcess/status/1694367720580764105

/2/ Agua Fria Union HS:
➡️District discovers allegations of molestation of a 13 yo step-daughter over a two year period

📢Public Schools | Unregulated Mental Health Service Providers (dba "certified counselors/social workers"):
@azedschools publishes new guidance, with state medicaid agency, to expand presence of licensed mental health providers in AZ schools, transforming our understanding of schools as primarily academic-focused institutions into a hybrid school/mental health clinic model euphemistically called "community schools." Here's what you need to know.⬇️

Source here:

Some good, some bad, so here's MY reader's guide to the guidance:

1/ "Community" Framework. Transforming schools from primarily academic centers into "community schools" with one-stop academic, physical and mental health services, the guidance purports to provide a framework to enter partnerships with licensed mental health professionals (referred to as "community providers") to take school service referrals. The framework includes:

➡️Delineation of roles between ADE-certified social workers/counselors/psychologists, and board-licensed professional mental health providers.

>By this metric, the guidance fails to adequately distinguish the scope of practice between the two. As I've repeatedly written, "certified" mental health providers in schools are not subject to the same professional standards of care regulated by the board of licensing, nor are they subject to discipline by a professional board.

>The failure to clearly delineate roles can be attributed to the guidance's reliance primarily on the advocacy positions of the American School Counselors Association. ASCA is not a professional licensing board, they are a volunteer association with no enforcement or disciplinary power over members.

>The "certified" vs "licensed" distinction is not even mentioned in the guidance. The authors apparently do not want to highlight the difference - and I think that's purposeful to obscure the increasing "professional creep" of unlicensed workers into areas of mental health practice that 📢IN ANY OTHER CONTEXT OTHER THAN SCHOOLS - would require licensing from the board.

>The authors stay in the "gray zone" where ADE-certified workers gradually assume greater roles in the provision of mental heath that ordinarily requires licensing and oversight by the state board.⬇️
You can see this "professional creep" in this graphic, taken from ASCA research, with my redlined addition. Where on this continuum should a child be referred to a licensed mental health provider? At what point does a school employee call the parent and refer out? The guidance does not say:
Likewise, note closely how many times and in what priority "family" is mentioned on the right, "community" (i.e., board licensed)-side of the "Whole School" pyramid model. Now look on the ADE-certified side where "family" is at the bottom. What does this even mean? Does the relative priority reflect the fact that, by law, board licensed mental health providers must obtain prior, informed consent from parents of a minor before treatment - but an ADE-certified school counselor can just stop a kid in the hall and say, "let's talk during your lunch period?"
(To be continued...)






Part II⬇️

https://twitter.com/ALegalProcess/status/1698719703865381332?s=20

📢AZ BoE | Enforcement Actions:
Board resumes disciplines amid wave of teacher misconduct.
Whopping🚨 41% 🚨of voluntary surrender cases involve sexual interest in minors:
➡️23 voluntary surrenders
➡️4 revocations
➡️5 negotiated settlements
➡️12 revocations in pipeline
🧵⬇️

https://twitter.com/ALegalProcess/status/1673347336859435009

1/ Teacher in Sunnyside USD found to be on 12-year probation for RAPE of a minor girl

Part II. Public Schools | Counselors, Social Workers |
"Certified" vs "Licensed" (cont):
In 2019 the Board of Behavioral Health (BBH) took 91 enforcement actions to discipline LICENSED social workers/counselors.
Against "certified" ones working at schools?
>>ZERO<<
1/n

https://twitter.com/ALegalProcess/status/1659697823775088641

Licensed social workers/counselors must abide by professional standards of conduct promulgated and enforced by the BBH.
Compliance must be documented:
➡️Written Informed Consent
➡️Written Treatment Plan
>>BOTH signed by a parent if patient is a minor<<
2/n

1/ Yesterday I made a small thread on the AZ Center for Civic Leadership's coming seminar promoting the work of a Teen Mental Health "Committee" that uses false data on child suicides to justify anti-parental right social policies in schools. It's suspicious, so looked into it.

https://twitter.com/ALegalProcess/status/1669550336355471361

2/ Those policies include, among others:
- a secret app for schools and children to hide mental health issues from parents
- more funding for unlicensed mental health workers

https://twitter.com/ALegalProcess/status/1669480236692680705?s=20

📢@AZCivicLeads issues report on teen mental health - using a false premise - to call for:
➡️increased spending for school counselors
➡️secret app for kids to hide mental health needs from parents
Let's take a look🧵
1/n @AZCivicLeads' "Teen Mental Health Ad Hoc Committee" advances, without evidence, the falsehood that suicide is "leading cause of death" for children in AZ.

Reality:

**Suicide is only 5% of child deaths in AZ**

🚨America First Legal sues Fontes for unlawful denial of public records requests. Seeks emails of Hobbes and 3 associates over 8 days when Maricopa County "still counting" votes
1/5

https://twitter.com/America1stLegal/status/1656298619488677889

Fontes denied the records after 10-week delay as too "burdensome" to produce 8 days of emails between Hobbes and 3 associates; involves "thousands of emails"
((3 people, over an 8-day period, emails only))
2/5