Reporter Danyelle Khmara's Fave Five of 2019

Fed education official touts charter schools in visit to TUSD's University High

I saw the email that Scott Stump would be speaking at University High less than an hour before he was set to be there. I raced over thinking I’d write a pretty straight forward story, something like Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education calls University High exemplary public school. To my surprise, the story turned out quite different.

Stump spoke to a small group of reporters, students and TUSD staff about the benefits of charter schools while his audience glanced around at each other with questioning looks. UHS is a public school, part of Tucson Unified School District. There’s a test-in requirement, but it’s public nonetheless.

I called the assistant secretary about an hour later once I was back in the newsroom sitting down to write the story. I asked him why he talked about the benefits of charters while visiting a public school. There’s a misconception about charter schools, he told me. He continued, University High is a charter school, which are public.

Feeling odd having to correct the second-in-command at the U.S. Department of Education, I gently told him that actually it wasn’t a charter but part of a public school district. He continued to insist it was a charter school. So I thanked him for his time, got off the phone and wrote up the story.

 ─ Danyelle Khmara

A top official with the US Education Department touring successful schools in several states made a stop at Tucson’s high-achieving University High on Monday.

But Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Scott Stump mistakenly thought the TUSD school was a charter rather than a public school with an advanced academic curriculum.

“We’re here celebrating not just the Blue Ribbon School status from a few years ago but also the fact that Arizona charter schools have done something really unique in the past decade,” Stump said during a news conference at the school.

A Star reporter told Stump after the news conference that University High is a public school, but he insisted it isn’t.

“No, University High School is a charter school,” Stump said, before going on to explain how charter schools differ from traditional public schools.

“Charter schools are public,” Stump said. “It’s kind of a misconception, but they have to be attached either to a school district or some statewide authorizing body that holds them accountable like a public school district.”

While charter schools are public, they are not held by the same accountability standards as traditional public schools in Arizona.

An academic entrance exam is taken by students attending University High, but the school is not a charter school.

It shares a campus with Rincon High near North Swan Road and East Fifth Street.

It has been ranked as one of the top schools in the state and nation for a number of years.

And the school is a former U.S. Department of Education National Blue Ribbon School.

Stump stopped in Tucson while touring a mix of schools in four states, including community colleges, public, private and charter schools “to recognize outstanding schools and promising programs,” the news release about his “Education Freedom Tour” says.

A news release announcing Stump’s visit to University High said he would be visiting “classes at University High, a charter school recognized as among the best in Arizona and the nation.”

TUSD board member Sedgwick omits unlawful behavior on Bar application

I got a mixed response to breaking the story that TUSD board member Rachael Sedgwick had omitted unlawful behavior on her Bar application as well as her application to law school. Some people greatly appreciated the story, for sure some of them don’t see eye-to-eye with Sedgwick. Others thought I was picking on her. They wanted to know why I was targeting her.

The truth is, I would have written about any elected official in the education realm whose name showed up on an Arizona Supreme Court docket for a news-worthy reason. Of course, Sedgwick is human and like all of us makes mistakes. Whether those mistakes are unimportant and/or forgivable is not for me, as a reporter, to decide.

My job is to tell the public if its elected officials behave in a way that’s questionable. I did my job. And if Sedgwick runs for office again, constituents can decide at the ballot box if her indiscretions matter or not.

 ─ Danyelle Khmara

TUSD board member Rachael Sedgwick is working to put her law degree to use after an Arizona Supreme Court committee recommended she not be admitted to practice law, citing concerns about her “deficiencies in honesty, trustworthiness, diligence, reliability and respect for the law and legal institutions,” records show.

Sedgwick, who has publicly contemplated a run for a seat on the Pima County Board of Supervisors, says her bid to be a licensed lawyer in the state was affected by a flawed process and points out that she’s been granted a new review. “The Committee made a terrible mistake,” Sedgwick said in a text, “which is why my petition for a new and proper hearing has been granted, to be scheduled soon. In other words, my application has not been denied.”

The committee on character and fitness decided unanimously in February that Sedgwick “does not possess the requisite character and fitness to be admitted to practice law in Arizona” after she failed to disclose on her application that she was detained by police in 2006 for driving under the influence of alcohol, court documents say.

The Supreme Court later granted her a new hearing because of an error the committee made on the original hearing’s notification. The committee’s decision has been vacated in lieu of a new hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.

When applicants take the state bar exam to apply for their law license, they also go through a process that examines their character and fitness.

If there is anything that could be problematic, the applicant appears before a committee, like Sedgwick did, and the committee makes a recommendation on admittance to the bar. If the applicant files a petition to challenge the recommendation — as in Sedgwick’s case — the state Supreme Court decides how to handle it.

The court received 594 character and fitness applications during the fiscal year that ended June 30, said Aaron Nash, a Supreme Court spokesman.

In 2018, 28 applicants were referred for character and fitness hearings, according to an annual report by an advisory committee to the Supreme Court. Of those, four were denied admission to the Bar, five were admitted conditionally, five withdrew their applications and 14 were admitted.

Sedgwick failed to disclose being detained on suspicion of driving while intoxicated on her character and fitness report, records show. The committee originally recommended the Supreme Court deny her license for this and other reasons after a February character and fitness hearing.

Sedgwick requested in June that the court grant her a new hearing, submitting a 36-page document that responded to the committee’s many concerns. The committee wrote that it found all but one of her arguments to be “nonmeritorious.”

However, it conceded that its original notice of hearing did not clearly outline all the areas it would question Sedgwick on.

She was questioned about topics that included unlawful conduct, making false statements, misconduct in employment and mental emotional stability, according to Supreme Court documents on the committee’s recommendation for denial filed on May 2.

When Sedgwick was arrested in 2006 in Nogales, Arizona, on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol she was taken to the police station, where she refused to do a breath test as instructed, the police report says.

She also refused to give a blood sample and was “rude and insulting to the officers,” the documents continue. The police obtained a search warrant to take her blood, which showed a 0.171 alcohol content, court documents show.

The legal limit in Arizona has been 0.08, and between 0.15 and 0.19 is considered an extreme DUI.

The court documents say “Ms. Sedgwick was ultimately not convicted of any crime; the reason for that is unclear.” The police report says the case was referred to the city attorney. Nogales Municipal Court destroys records that are more than five years old.

Sedgwick told the committee in her request for a new hearing that not attaching the form disclosing being stopped for alleged drunk driving was an accident.

She wouldn’t answer specific questions from the Star about the incident.

However, she told the committee that although she thought she disclosed the incident, she didn’t include the police report because she wasn’t formally charged with a crime, court documents say.

Sedgwick also failed to disclose information about a 2012 felony-level assault charge from her application to law school at the University of Arizona in 2014.

The omission was cited as another reason the committee had recommended the Supreme Court deny her law license, court documents say.

In that incident, Sedgwick got into an argument with her then-boyfriend while they were drinking. “The argument escalated, and she hit the victim on the head with a glass, causing a cut to his forehead,” court documents say. She avoided conviction by completing a diversion program that included anger management classes.

Although Sedgwick disclosed the incident on her character report while applying to the bar, on her law school application she wrote that she had not been charged with a felony, court documents say. In her appeal for a new hearing, she said she didn’t disclose the incident because “at the time, she didn’t think of it as being charged with a felony,” court documents say.

Other incidents were noted in the committee’s initial recommendation to deny her legal license, including:

• In a December 2016 incident reported by the Tucson Weekly, staff at a downtown lounge asked her to leave following an altercation in which she told them she had just been elected to the TUSD governing board and had more than 5,000 Facebook friends.
• In a 2016 email, she told TUSD principals to disregard a directive by board member Adelita Grijalva.
• In 2017 she said “white supremacy rules” during a meeting with a constituent, the court documents say.

The committee wrote that it considered “the number of overall incidents of unlawful conduct and abusive behavior and the fact that they occurred over the course of many years.”

It also found that she provided excuses for her past behavior. In its original decision, the committee suggested that Sedgwick reapply for her license in two years, concluding she “has deficiencies in honesty, trustworthiness, diligence, reliability, and respect for the law and legal institutions.”

After sending a comment to the Star by text saying the committee had erred and she would get a new hearing soon, Sedgwick said she was too busy for a phone interview.

Sedgwick was elected to the TUSD board in November 2016 and is up for reelection in 2020. She has made public statements about running for the Pima County Board of Supervisors representing District 5, a seat currently held by longtime board member Richard Elías. After TUSD board member Mark Stegeman resigned last week, Sedgwick told the Star that her run for supervisors was up in the air and she would like to see how “things develop” before deciding which post to seek.

Tucson man helps save woman with CPR he learned from TV's "The Office"

I heard about Cross Scott on a Thursday morning. By Friday, his story had gone viral. It had all the right ingredients: a humble young man, a woman in need and the beloved TV show “The Office.”

When I interviewed Scott, in the waiting room of the Jack Furrier where he worked, he recounted seeing a woman passed out in her car by the side of the road and giving her CPR while picturing Michael Scott singing the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” — the only reference the young mechanic had for doing CPR.

During the interview, Scott also told me about his past and his dreams. He wanted to finish high school. He valued being a good person in memory of his mother who died of cancer. He hoped that the woman he saved was OK.

I was moved by his story. When I got back to the newsroom, I wrote it up while barely needing to refer back to my notes.

Over the next week, dozens of news outlets from coast to coast and even in one England wrote about Scott’s story. He eventually went on the Steve Harvey show where he was reunited, in a tear-jerking reunion, with the woman whose life he saved.

 ─ Danyelle Khmara

Nothing in Cross Scott’s life prepared him for finding a woman slumped over her steering wheel, her lips blue. He says he just reacted. He broke a back window, opened her door and crawled on top of her. With no training, he gave her CPR that may have saved her life.

“I’ve never prepared myself for CPR in my life,” Scott said. “I had no idea what I was doing.”

Scott, the lead shop technician at Jack Furrier Tire & Auto Care on South Sixth Avenue and East Valencia Road, was test-driving a customer’s car on Jan. 11 when he saw the white sedan with its hazard lights blinking in a dirt pull-off by Sixth Avenue and Drexel Road. Scott never brings his phone when driving customers’ vehicles, to avoid the distraction of taking a call while driving.

The 21-year-old has worked at Jack Furrier for three years. But he’s been working since he was 14, often times more than one job. Tall and lanky, Scott’s the kind of person who runs to open doors for women and uses the words “ma’am” and “miss.” He stops when he sees people having car trouble, once or twice a month, he says, especially if it’s a woman.

When he pulled in front of the white sedan, he saw a woman sitting in the driver’s seat. As he approached her car, he noticed it was rolling. He quickly stuck a big rock under the front wheel.

When he saw the woman was unconscious, he began banging on her window and yelling for her to wake up. As car after car drove by, two women pulled over and called 911.

Scott broke the window with a rock. He reached in and unlocked the driver-side door. He checked the woman’s pulse and didn’t think she had one. One of the women who had stopped reclined the unconscious woman’s seat, and Scott crawled on top of her.

What popped into Scott’s head was an episode of the television show “The Office” in which character Michael Scott (actor Steve Carell) sings the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” while doing chest compressions on a dummy. The episode, where the gang takes an in-office CPR course, could actually be a tutorial in what not to do. The one thing it got right was using that song as a meter — the correct tempo for chest compressions.

As Scott straddled the woman and began chest compressions, he sang the song out loud. All he was thinking about was Michael Scott’s face, singing “Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.”

After a minute, the woman took a breath and threw up. The women helped him roll her onto her side.

Scott says when paramedics arrived, about 10 minutes had passed since he first pulled over. And the woman, who he would later learn is named Carla, was breathing. Scott says one of the paramedics with Tucson Fire told him if he hadn’t helped her, the situation could have turned out very differently.

Carla had called her daughter before she passed out. One of the women who stopped picked up the phone during the incident and found the daughter was still on the line. She had heard the whole thing. The younger woman arrived in time to see her mom off to the hospital.

When Scott got back to the shop and conveyed the story, his co-workers were calling him a hero. He brushes that off, saying the real heroes are the paramedics who save people every day.

Scott finished his shift and headed to the hospital to see how Carla was doing. She had already been released.

“All I could think about was picturing her face,” Scott said. “I had to make sure she was OK. That’s the only reason why I went to the hospital.”

The Tucson Fire Department wasn’t able to release any details of the incident in time for this article other than to confirm the victim’s name. As well, the paramedics who went out on the call couldn’t immediately be reached.

Scott knows his chivalry is more of an aberration for people his age. He grew up in a working-class family, being taught nothing would be handed to him. His mom died of cancer when he was 16, and he quit school to work and help his dad with the bills and look after his little sister, who’s now 14.

“When my mom got sick and my little sister started growing up, I looked at females a lot differently,” he said. “Now when I look at a girl, I imagine, what if that was my sister on the side of the road or my mom on the side of the road? Unfortunately my mom isn’t here to see that, but it’s mainly for her. To be honest, it’s all for her.”

Not finishing high school is his biggest regret. He did go back and complete all but one credit online. He’d like to finish and go to college, maybe study engineering.

He’d also like to get trained in CPR.

Courtney Slanaker, executive director of the Red Cross Southern Arizona chapter, says CPR training is important for everyone to have. She calls it an $80 investment that could save a life. But even without formal training, action is better than inaction.

“If you don’t do CPR, that victim will die,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to act. Whatever you do will help that victim and hopefully prevent a death.”

And yes, she says, “Stayin’ Alive” is still the correct rhythm for chest compressions — one thing that hasn’t changed since that 2009 episode of “The Office.”

TUSD club seeks to put more girls on paths to STEM-related careers

I love writing features about people who overcame the odds and use their experience to help others to see their potential and a path to reaching their goals.

I wrote the article about Booth-Fickett’s new club STEM Girls Rock! after sitting in the school’s library with a bunch of middle school girls while their principal principal Demetra Baxter-Oliver introduced four women of color who told the girls that the young women were needed in science, technology, engineering and math careers.

I have to admit I got choked up as these inspiring women told their stories of breaking into a predominantly male field after putting themselves through college. And I really had to hold it together when talking with the 13-year-old girls, who told me they were tired of the constant emphasis on their looks rather and already felt a boost in confidence by joining the club — the first of its kind in Tucson’s largest school district.

 ─ Danyelle Khmara

When she was in middle school, Alyssa Charlow turned to her teacher for help in math class.

“Your brother was really good at math,” she recalled the teacher telling her. “And you know, boys are really good at math, so this is probably what you’ll have to deal with for the rest of your middle school career.”

For Charlow’s mother, that wasn’t good enough.

Charlow, a configuration analyst for a government contractor, told her story to a room full of girls at Booth-Fickett Math/Science Magnet School. She imitated her mother’s reaction, complete with an Alabama drawl: “Baby, we’re gonna get a tutor ’cause you are good enough.”

Charlow spoke at the inaugural meeting of the all-girl science, technology, engineering and math club, STEM Girls Rock! Booth-Fickett principal Demetra Baxter-Oliver launched the club after talking with a student about her AzMERIT scores. The student told her girls just aren’t good at math. “Not on my watch,” Baxter-Oliver said. “You can do this.”

Baxter-Oliver invited 30 girls in sixth, seventh and eighth grades based on their STEM focus, AzMERIT scores and teacher recommendations to participate in this club, the first of its kind at the Tucson Unified School District. The club is helping girls with an interest in STEM obtain the plans, confidence, role models and support to achieve their goals.

“You have to love yourself,” Charlow said, speaking to the students. “And we’re going to help you establish those skills. We’re going to help you have some building blocks. We’re going to help you have ideas and start thinking about: ‘Wow, what am I really, really good at?’”

Charlow spoke on a panel of four African-American women who all have careers in a STEM field: a configuration analyst, an aerospace engineer, a manager in information technology and a mechanical engineer.

The women shared their experiences with the room of girls, mostly students of color, about how they overcame messaging from their childhood discouraging them from STEM fields.

There is a persistent gender gap in STEM careers. Although women make up about half the U.S. workforce and are also about half of the college-educated workforce, they hold less than 25% of STEM jobs, a statistic that has persisted since the turn of the century, according to a 2011 U.S. Department of Commerce report.

A lack of female role models and gender stereotyping contributed to the lack of women in STEM fields, the report found.

Eighth-grader Ashley Jacobo said she hopes to gain the confidence to go into a male-dominated field. She said boys are encouraged in STEM while girls are more encouraged in English language arts. She feels like once the boys understand a topic in her STEM classes, the teacher is already moving on without seeing if the girls are keeping up.

She and two of her friends in the club, also eighth-graders, said they feel discouraged to pursue a career in STEM, partially because of the overwhelming emphasis on girls’ looks rather than their minds.

Everyone tells the girls they should be confident, but that’s hard to do when they’re always being put down for not looking a certain way, Cydney Vega said.

“This club might change something for me,” she said. “Being picked makes me feel confident.”

Arianna Casillas said she hopes the club “will show girls to love themselves — that they don’t need somebody right by their side all the way. They can help themselves.”

All of the panelists said they were supported by their mothers and grandmothers, who insisted they could fulfill their dreams.

Speaker Candace Ellerbe grew up a “pint-size girl ... with one pair of dress shoes, a feisty attitude and a grandmother who slept with one eye open,” the principal said, introducing her to the room.

A first-generation college graduate, Ellerbe said she always knew she would go to college. Her grandmother, who raised her on a $672-a-month pension, would accept nothing less.

Now, Ellerbe manages engineers and software developers who provide technical support to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

Ellerbe noticed when she finished college that there weren’t many women in IT and almost none developing or testing software. She told the girls the field is dominated by white men, with women of color holding the fewest jobs in the field.

“We need you to be in information technology because you matter as well,” she said. “You are smart. You are intelligent. You can get this done. It’s not hard. It’s very easy if you enjoy it. I enjoy it — and the check is nice, too.”

Women in STEM fields make 33% more money than peers in non-STEM fields, and the gender wage gap is smaller, the U.S. Department of Commerce report on women in STEM said.

Women underrepresented in STEM “leaves an untapped opportunity to expand STEM employment in the United States, even as there is wide agreement that the nation must do more to improve its competitiveness,” the report also said.

Before becoming an aerospace engineer at NASA and going on to become the first female senior executive overseeing safety to propulsion systems and the first African-American woman appointed as director of safety assurance overseeing shuttle launches, speaker Amanda Goodson remembers being surrounded by boys in eighth-grade algebra who thought she couldn’t make it.

“I know you all are having a fun time in your classes, and I know sometimes you’re having a tough time in your classes,” Goodson told the girls. “You see people that are saying to you, ‘Why are you here? What makes you think that you can do it? You’re not smart enough. You’re not good enough.’ And what I want to say to you is — yes, you are.”

STEM Girls Rock! will include hands-on activities, field trips, speakers and trust and confidence building.

The club’s next meeting, on Nov. 17, will include a vision and dream board session. A vision board is a collage with images and words that represent life goals.

Goodson said the vision board will help the girls get in touch with their passions, build self-esteem and create a plan to achieve their goals.

After the second meeting, the club will meet monthly. Baxter-Oliver said she hopes the club can grow and that interested girls are welcome to join.

The girls in the club are very aware that STEM fields are dominated by men. Baxter-Oliver asks them what they’re going to do about it. They responded that they’re going to change it.

The principal told them that in order to create change they need to have a plan. She pointed to the blank notebooks in front of each girl.

“Today starts your step of making your plan to be one of the most powerful STEM women that this place has ever seen,” Baxter-Oliver said.

Photos: New All-Girl STEM Club in Tucson

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

STEM Girls Rock Club

Updated Oct 21, 2019

Analysis: Anti-LGBT group’s video animates foes of TUSD’s sex-ed proposals

As I watched the growing opposition to TUSD’s proposed sex education update, I saw a stark change occur. At first, the opposition was primarily white retirees who did not have children in the district. That shifted in a matter of weeks to a younger Hispanic community who at first also, largely, didn’t have children in the district. What these groups had in common was opposing the new curriculum on grounds backed by religious rhetoric.

When I realized that there was an international group, known for having anti-LGBTQ stances, behind alarming the local Hispanic community, I thought it was important the public know. Despite how you feel about the curriculum or sex ed in general, it was important to be aware of the players behind one of the most contentious issues TUSD has seen in years.

 ─ Danyelle Khmara

A lot of the opposition to TUSD’s proposed sex-ed curriculum is being fueled by an anti-LGBTQ organization that claims comprehensive sex education is a conspiracy to sexualize children for profit.

A video seems to have fueled much opposition from people at Tucson Unified School District meetings and hearings. It was produced by Family Watch International, a Gilbert-based organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group that works to further anti-LGBT efforts around the world.

The challenge to Tucson Unified School District’s sex ed curriculum is “the biggest battle” the group has undertaken since a group called the Protect Arizona Children Coalition was formed in June, Sharron Slater, president of Family Watch International, told a gathering last week at Gilbert’s American Leadership Academy.

Among the people in the crowd was Arizona House Speaker Russell Bowers, state Sen. Sylvia Allen and Corporation Commissioner Justin Olson. Bowers made headlines this week when he said he believed sex-education courses in the state “are grooming children to be sexualized.”

“We got into motion and we helped create, with the Protect Arizona Children Coalition, a documentary called ‘Deception: Behind TUSD’s Proposed Sex Education Curriculum,’” Slater said at the meeting in Gilbert. “We sent it far and wide, and it’s made a huge difference in that fight.”

Bernadette Gruber, the only member of the board-appointed group that wrote the updated TUSD curriculum who’s opposing it, appears in the video. In it she says a portion of the curriculum that explains gender identity is confusing.

Gruber and many opponents who don’t want the curriculum to discuss gender identity seem to conflate gender identity with genetic and anatomic sex. They also say that if students learn about gender identity, they will be confused about their own gender.

Gender identity is defined in the curriculum as the gender to which someone identifies. It also defines gender expression as a person’s outward appearance as it relates to gender. This differs from genetic and anatomic sex, which depends on a person’s chromosomes and genitals. The lesson on gender — given to high school students — gives examples on how different people have various gender identities and sexual orientations.

The video Gruber appears in says, with no evidence, that schools are manufacturing and profiting off transgender kids, indoctrinating children into “radical gender ideologies” and promoting high-risk sexual behavior. It also quotes a controversial psychologist, Dr. Paul McHugh, saying that sex-reassignment surgery is promoting “a mental disorder.”

“An assault on their culture”

“This is real,” Gruber said on stage at the meeting in Gilbert after the room watched the video. “It’s happening in our schools. And it’s on our watch.”

She said the video has been very helpful to get the word out and mobilize parents in Tucson.

“When the Hispanic community, especially the pastors and ministry leaders of that community, got wind of what TUSD was trying to do and what was in the curriculum, they mobilized and they were angry,” Gruber said. “They were upset because this was an assault on their family. This was an assault on their culture that’s deeply pro-family and pro-faith. This is not a religious issue. This is a health issue, and we want our children to have the best health outcomes and a healthy future.”

Vocal opposition from white retirees, Hispanics

Gruber is a member of Protect Arizona Children Coalition, and is an administrator on the group’s Facebook page. She has also served as education domain director with 4Tucson for the last eight years. The faith-based organization believes in finding biblical solutions for city problems. The organization’s 2018 winter magazine says, “The Education Domain envisions every Tucson-area school being served by Christian churches and ministries to the benefit of all students and families.”

On the nonprofit’s 2017 tax filing, the latest publicly available, the group claimed nearly $711,000 in revenue and spent nearly $649,500, with the largest portion going to program services. It spent more than $70,000 on its education domain, “mobilizing the Christian community to engage in these church-school partnerships,” the group’s tax filing says.

In earlier hearings on TUSD’s curriculum, many opponents were white retirees, often with ties to 4Tucson. After the Protect Arizona Children Coalition video was released, the opposition shifted to primarily local Hispanic families.

Many opponents who regularly spoke at TUSD board meetings and hearings said they were representing the “Hispanic-Latino” community, and some went on to share they belonged to specific churches.

The points made by Slater, Gruber and others at the meeting in Gilbert closely echo the talking points of the local opposition. The main points: The curriculum sexualizes children, it’s too controversial, and the curriculum should not discuss gender identity.

A flier with a link to the video circulated in parts of the religious Hispanic community in Tucson before the Sept. 10 meeting where the TUSD board was set to vote on approving the curriculum.

The flyer asked people to come to the meeting and to bring banners saying “no on CSE,” the acronym for comprehensive sex education.

Further, an email was sent out by the nonprofit Corazon Ministries calling on “brothers and sisters Hispanic/Latinos in Christ” to unite against the curriculum. The message called the proposed curriculum an “indoctrination of our children under the guise of Comprehensive Sex Education.”

The email called for 1,000 people to show up at the meeting and directed families to keep their children home from school the next day, regardless of what district they are in, as a message that what is happening in TUSD affects the whole city, the email says.

Hundreds in the Hispanic community showed up to protest the curriculum. It’s not clear how many of them have children in TUSD schools.

The board delayed the vote after Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo made a number of recommendations, including adding more lessons on abstinence throughout the curriculum.

The flyer included a link to a petition against the curriculum, which has the Family Watch International logo at the bottom. And the flyer is full of inaccuracies on what is in the curriculum and would be taught to children from 8 years old on. It incorrectly states that sex, sex changes and pregnancy will be discussed at every age level.

The flyer also includes things that are in the curriculum for older students, such as defining same-sex relationships and discussions about HIV.

One of the people leading the opposition during the Sept. 10 meeting was Gabriel Corella, who works at a radio station on Tucson’s south side. When a Star reporter asked him about the flyer, he said he didn’t know who made it, but that it was widely circulated in the Hispanic community.

He said the main point motivating the Hispanic opposition is the belief that the curriculum is not age-appropriate. When a reporter asked him which part was inappropriate or if he had read the curriculum, he said he didn’t have time to talk about it.

Francisco Santa Cruz, who runs the radio station and is a pastor at a south-side church, said the problem with the curriculum is that it’s not clear what TUSD will be teaching children.

“There are many things hidden behind those terms,” he said.

LGBTQ lessons unlikely to be cut

One of Superintendent Trujillo’s recommendations that delayed the vote was to create a district-wide “teach-in” for parents and students, to include workshops, breakout sessions and reviewing the Family Life lessons.

It’s unclear if that will assuage the opposition, many of whom say they don’t want any mention of LGBTQ people included in the curriculum.

The Hispanic community in opposition doesn’t believe the curriculum is sex ed at all, but an education in gender ideology, “to put a homosexual agenda in the schools,” Santa Cruz said.

“Because of our values, our principles, our culture, we can’t say that it’s OK,” he said about being LGBTQ. “We accept it, but we’re not in agreement with this kind of life because it’s unnatural.”

Board Member Adelita Grijalva spoke with one pastor who was opposed to the curriculum on the basis that he fear it would introduce the idea that some students have same-sex parents, she said.

Grijalva points out that students have same-sex parents that are around and involved regardless of what curriculum the school uses. She said that argument reminds her of a time when interracial marriage was frowned upon.

She said one option regarding lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation might be to limit it to just a few lessons so that families who are opposed can easily opt-out of those lessons. But completely excluding LGBTQ experiences from the curriculum is not an option, she said.

Besides the need for inclusivity, Grijalva says the district does need to do a better job at informing the community what is actually in the curriculum to disperse some of the inaccuracies.

“My goal is to make sure people are informed,” she said. “You have the parent teach-ins. You make sure the curriculum is available. The teachers have the professional development that they need. But I’m not excluding students.”

TUSD’s curriculum was first created in 1996 and hasn’t been updated in over 10 years.

Sex-ed gets statewide attention

At the meeting in Gilbert, the speakers never referred to any material actually in TUSD’s proposed curriculum, other than a passage Gruber refers to in the video that describes a transgender person. They instead talked about other curriculum materials they fear will be incorporated later if an inclusive, comprehensive curriculum is passed.

House Speaker Bowers addressed the audience at the meeting and said that Superintendent of Public School Kathy Hoffman is promoting sex education that is “radicalizing children’s sexuality.” Then on Thursday, he said that materials he believes are being used in sex education courses in Arizona schools “are grooming children to be sexualized,” based on what he saw at the meeting in Gilbert.

Hoffman said in a statement that Bower’s comments on Thursday and over the weekend have no basis in reality.

“My department is focused on finding solutions to the real crises facing education in this state like our persistent shortage of highly qualified teachers, one of the lowest rates of per-pupil spending in the nation and the physical safety and mental health of our students,” she said. “I urge Speaker Bowers to join me in working to find solutions to these critical challenges instead of spending his time amplifying conspiracy theories being pushed by known hate groups.”

At the meeting in Gilbert, Slater touted the work of her other national group Protect Child Health Coalition, saying the group is working with people nationwide “that are having the same kind of battles that you saw in the Tucson District.”

“And we’re winning in a lot of these states,” she said.

She warned the crowd that the “next battle” is at the state legislature, using California as a cautionary tale. The neighboring state requires schools to offer comprehensive sex education, but parents can excuse their children from the classes.

“You can not opt out your children in California, out of LGBTQ education,” Slater said. “And my main concern with that is the transgender, gender-identity stuff.”

In finishing her presentation at the Gilbert meeting, Slater summed up why stopping comprehensive sex education is so important in her view.

“As the children go, so goes the families, so goes the nation, so goes the world,” she said. “We need to protect our children.”

RELATED: Photo gallery: TUSD delays vote on Family Life Curriculum 

Photos: TUSD delays vote on Family Life Curriculum

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019

TUSD Family Life Curriculum

Updated Sep 11, 2019