A couple of Arizona’s largest school districts have been rocked with scandals lately, mainly over administrations trying to implement woke agendas.
However, the Deer Valley Unified School District (DVUSD), located in northwest Phoenix and surrounding cities, has escaped much of the controversy. Paul Carver, who sits on the governing board, said he believes it is because his district stresses transparency and teamwork. He said the superintendent has regular interfaith meetings, which have been transferred to Zoom since COVID-19, and the superintendent and many board members try to include everyone regardless of demographics.
Carver (pictured above), whose background and degree is in business, has had children in the district and has also home-schooled occasionally. He is the chair of the Republican Legislative District (LD) 2. He speaks to his LD and adjacent LDs about DVUSD, which sprawls into parts of Glendale and Peoria. He’s offered to speak to Democratic LDs, too, but so far, they have not responded.
Carver has only served on the governing board for over a year but is already making positive changes. When he saw that masks were banned in Arizona, he made sure the district’s policy was updated to comply. He helped bring school resource officers, who are police officers, into the schools located in Peoria. He started a project with a fellow board member, providing shoes for families in need who live in the district and encouraging people to donate over 250 pairs. The Arizona Rattlers spotted the program and joined in.
Carver said he wants to bring the community back to the schools. “Schools used to be the focal point of the community,” he said.
The school board member learned from experience that students’ success is heavily tied to their family life.
“The level of interaction in their household is determinative of their success,” Carver said.
A recent controversy involved adopting a social studies curriculum from McGraw Hill. Carver voted no due to the inclusion of topics that sounded more like a political agenda, including slanted coverage of George Floyd and Donald Trump.
Carver pointed out that Critical Race Theory is banned in the state. However, Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is mandated by a law signed by Governor Doug Ducey in 2022.
He voted against adopting an English curriculum due to concerns about it pushing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). However, he voted to approve the English curriculum the second time it was brought up after public input because there were so few objections. No one showed up to object at the second vote.
One of the reasons DVUSD lacks the controversies facing other school districts is due to the level of engagement with the community from the board and the administration.
“I would like to see more engagement from the community,” he said. Carver said he would like to see more community members attend the meetings regularly. While around 200 people responded with opinions about a math curriculum under consideration, close to 90 responded regarding the English curriculum.
Carver told The Sun Times it’s not a good approach to have only 20 to 40 noisy people determining what the district does. He said parents should suggest a curriculum if they have concerns or ideas, including materials from conservative organizations like Prager U. The school board solicits responses from parents regarding the proposed curriculum; if no one responds, then the curriculum stands a good chance of being adopted. He said parents can serve on curriculum committees of up to 35 people. One of the schools in the district uses a curriculum based on the book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” for its SEL component.
The transgender bathroom controversy has not arisen much at DVUSD since each school is handling it individually. Carver told The Sun Times, “One person’s wants do not trump another person’s rights. Anything that points out a specific group is wrong. You shouldn’t cater to a minority; you can’t cater more to one child than to another.” He said it’s not right when a school district infringes upon parents’ rights.
While most Republicans usually default to voting against school bonds and override measures, Carver said not all schools are alike. In DVUSD, the bond and override measures have been in place since 1991, so voting yes doesn’t add anything new. Additionally, DVUSD doesn’t increase property taxes to keep up with rising property values; instead, the district changes the percentage to keep the amount taken from homeowners the same. The district is rapidly expanding, unlike other school districts.
Due to the fair approach taken by DVUSD, Carver said he voted to put the last bond measure on the ballot. However, it failed to pass. In contrast, six schools are closing in Paradise Valley Unified School District, but their bond measure passed.
While serving in a school district not racked with controversy has been refreshing, Carver said he still experiences some hostility. One website posted an image of him featuring swastikas over his eyes. Another problem is since parents are no longer paying close attention to what goes on in schools, “No one is being held accountable for breaking the law,” he said, adding that “this can be said across many levels of government.”
Carver said he believes with “transparency and open lines of communication with everyone,” school districts function best. Problems arise when “everyone feels undervalued and underappreciated — that’s why they lash out,” he said. He recommends that people familiarize themselves with the schools’ policies and what the Arizona Constitution says about public schools, including “as free as possible.”
He said he believes it’s not as difficult to side with others on the Left as perceived. He said, “We agree about where we’re going, we just disagree about logistics.”
He said parents should run the schools, comparing it to how precinct committeemen run the LDs. School districts are only required to meet statutory requirements. If parents want them to go above and beyond that, they need to propose what they’d like.
“What parents want should be implemented unless it violates the law,” he said.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
