The Scottsdale Education Association (SEA) teachers union has done it again, endorsing another set of unqualified, activist candidates for the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) governing board.
One of their endorsed candidates, Michael Sharkey, is annoyed that parents have rights when it comes to educating their children. He rejects the idea that parents know better than trained professionals. He also doesn’t want parents involved in healthcare decisions concerning their children. He says to leave that to the professionals as well.
Another candidate, Donna Lewis, has an abysmal record of academic achievement in a district of less than 25% the size of SUSD when she was superintendent and has a reputation as a bully. Please don’t take my word for it, listen for yourself.
Great choice SEA.
The final candidate, Matt Pittinsky is the CEO of a company (Parchment) that provides transcript services to SUSD and now wants to sit on the Governing Board that approves these kinds of contracts. See for yourself here:
https://www.instructure.com/about/leadership
https://www.susd.org/departments/simar-records/transcriptsstudent-records
As part of a larger organization (https://www.instructure.com/ ) offering a wide array of educational software for students and professional development, how long will it be before the Parchment CEO wants to expand their services in SUSD?
Why hasn’t he mentioned this before? Why is it left up to the voters to find these things out? When was he planning on telling the public? When he recuses himself from voting at a Board meeting?
As a candidate who professes to respect parents and the community, it would be nice if he would disclose this potential conflict upfront, so the voters know before they vote.
Parents and community members, we can do better. Let’s stop “protecting” SUSD and Dr. Menzel and start building a “strong” SUSD this November by electing Gretchen Jacobs, Jeanne Beasley, and Drew Hassler to the SUSD Governing Board.
