10 Questions Every School Board Candidate Must Answer by November.
Is our only choice for school board candidates either a Woke Marxist or a Christian Nationalist? It certainly seems so according to what the news and social media feeds are telling us.
Anyone can dismiss an idea by slapping a dirty label on it. Our kids and community need a more nuanced approach to fixing the problem that’s driving families from CFSD in record numbers. So, let’s cut through the name-calling and focus on the issues.
First, we should address whether or not there is even reason for concern. To do that, let’s look at data from the U.S. Census and CFSD district office that report these statistics:
| School Year | 5-17 in CFSD boundary | CFSD Enrollment | Residents enrolled at CFSD | Non-residents enrolled at CFSD | % residents enrolled | % of residents opting out |
| 2013 | 4,666 | 4,982 | 3,249 | 1,733 | 65.2% | 30.4% |
| 2014 | 4,653 | 4,943 | 3,086 | 1,857 | 62.4% | 33.7% |
| 2015 | 4,625 | 4,901 | 2,979 | 1,922 | 60.8% | 35.6% |
| 2016 | 4,600 | 5,060 | 3,188 | 1,872 | 63.0% | 30.7% |
| 2017 | 4,587 | 5,216 | 3,049 | 2,167 | 58.5% | 33.5% |
| 2018 | 4,596 | 5,193 | 2,948 | 2,245 | 56.8% | 35.9% |
| 2019 | 4,597 | 5,262 | 2,985 | 2,277 | 56.7% | 35.1% |
| 2020 | 4,616 | 5,062 | 2,746 | 2,316 | 54.2% | 40.5% |
| 2021 | 4,109 | 5,113 | 2,787 | 2,326 | 54.5% | 32.2% |
| 2022 | 4,005 | 5,066 | 2,586 | 2,480 | 51.0% | 35.4% |
| 2013-2022 Change | -14.2% | 1.7% | -20.4% | 43.1% | -21.7% | 16.7% |
At this current rate of attrition, next year will be the first time in CFSD’s history that a majority of the available classroom seats will have been vacated by district residents. In other words, there are more seats vacated by district residents than occupied by them.
As you can see, we are hemorrhaging district residents from CFSD classrooms. Nearly all Arizona school districts do better than this. We’re now at a point where 92% of all districts statewide enroll more of their residents than CFSD does. Districts with similar demographics such as Scottsdale or Paradise Valley retain about twice as many as we do. This downward trend is relatively new. So, what’s changed?
Next, we should look at things that have changed over this time period While we can’t change the past, we can look at what has changed in the district over the last few years and start making changes now. Over the last few years, the CFSD administration has changed its approach in the following ways.
- Injecting partisan politics into classrooms
- Removing protections from girls in private changing areas
- Soliciting student personal information and hiding it from parents
- Refusing to discuss controversial issues in public
- Purchasing books with obscene content
- Blocking parent communications with district employees
- Refusing to disclose class materials upon parent requests
- Disparate application of dress code based on gender identity or sexual expression
- Refusing to discipline students and staff for clear policy violations
- Banning books and materials critical of communism or LGBTQ activism
- Entering financial contracts with authoritarian communist-backed organizations
- Approving instruction that teaches America is systemically oppressive
SaveCFSD has identified 10 key value positions parents and community members care about. We are looking to endorse a candidate who answers “No” to these questions and will oppose a candidate who answers “Yes” to these questions.
We believe the Foothills community deserves to know where each candidate stands on the issues they care about. School board races make that harder than most partisan elections because there is no clear ideological marker in non-partisan races. There is no real way to tell where someone stands on the issue unless they tell us.
So, we should ask them. Maybe a candidate is a woke-Marxist or a Christian-Nationalist or something in between. That’s not really the point. Trying to pin down a label or what that label even means is not our interest. Rather, we simply ask that each candidate to us what they believe and let us decide if their answer aligns with ours. We may not agree on many things, but at least we know where they stand.
We invite you to try the survey yourself to see where you fall on each of these issues. Perhaps you can test it out with a friend over a holiday dinner to see where differences exist. If you do nothing else, please let us know what you think about this voter guide by contacting us as info@savecfsd.org or at our contact us page. To find out what happens with this and get access to new updates along the way, subscribe to our news alerts.
If this proves to be a successful tool for voters in the Foothills, we hope to widen our scope to all of Pima County so that voters in other districts see where their candidates align with their values. If you wish to support us in clarifying the issues in the future school board election, would you consider donating at least $10 today? We need your support to continue this important work.