TUSD drops controversial plan to disband diversity department

Tucson Unified School District administrators’ plan to eliminate positions and disband the Equity, Diversity & Inclusiveness department is off the table, the district’s financial chief said Wednesday.

“In its current form, yes,” TUSD Chief Financial Officer Ricky Hernandez told the Arizona Daily Star in an interview. “We will give this back to the board and at the foot of the community.”

The plan drew much ire from Equity, Diversity & Inclusiveness or EDI supporters, as evidenced by a standing-room-only crowd at Tuesday night’s meeting of the TUSD Governing Board.

Most of those presenting public comment were in favor of preserving the department.

One speaker, who identified himself as a graduate of Rincon High School, said, "The DEI [sic] department supports LGBTQI+, the unhoused, foster and students of color; and your faculty and your staff. It links their education to the reality of where we live."

Enough speakers took to the podium in favor of keeping the EDI department that the board unanimously approved an extension on the amount of time allowed for public comment.

In the proposal presented to the board, the district’s budget advisory committee recommended a transfer of roughly $4.5 million in desegregation funds to save more than 60 jobs for learning-recovery specialists funded by federal COVID relief dollars. The COVID funding ends Sept. 30.

Post-pandemic learning recovery efforts funded by COVID money made a difference in a 72-school sample of minimally-proficient students, according to statistics presented at a previous board meeting.

The COVID relief-funded positions the administration wants to keep beyond funding expiration are math intervention teachers, reading intervention teachers and response to intervention teachers.

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Based on that plan, eight EDI positions, funded by desegregation money, would have been eliminated. The Equity, Diversity & Inclusiveness Department as an entity would have disbanded.

Still, desegregation-related services would have been maintained “on the ground level,” Hernandez said.

“I think the biggest misconception was that we were trying to eliminate all EDI programming across the district, which was not our intent at all,” Hernandez said. “Our goal was to move resources away from a central administrative department, down to the Student Services Department.”

The Governing Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to look at other options during its Feb. 13 board meeting.

Now, it’s back to square one, Hernandez said. “We’re going to take a look at other options that don’t involve desegregation (funds),” he said.

Using contingency funds for the learning-loss positions is possible, but it would not be viable as a long-term funding source, Hernandez said.

“We do appreciate the fact that the community did come out,” he said. “This is the democratic process. It’s not always pretty, it’s not always easy. It helps guide us in terms of what we recommend to our board members.

“Ultimately, we’re here to recommend things to them, and they have to make the tough choices.”