The Daily Agenda: News from around the schools

Local school boards talk free lunches, Yaqui language courses, and much more... Dem challenges Christy in District 4.

Today, we’re diving into the local education scene. Our intern Liv Leonard has been following several Tucson school districts and has some updates about governing board decisions and more.

• Every student in the Sunnyside Unified School District now can get free breakfast and lunch on school days. The district announced last week that all students enrolled at any of their 21 school campuses are eligible, effective last Friday. The district won’t have to take on any additional cost to do it, thanks to the expansion of the Community Eligibility Provision of the National School Breakfast and Lunch Program. The move also means less paperwork. Before the expansion, Sunnyside families and households had to apply for the free and reduced lunch program. Now, they don’t have to fill out applications or show they meet any monetary thresholds.

• Tucson Unified School District students won’t be able to earn credits while learning about the history of rock n’ roll, at least not yet. The proposed elective course was pulled from the agenda of the governing board’s Tuesday special meeting. The board did approve five new dual-credit high school courses, including art, geology, biology, physics, and world history. Earlier in the month, TUSD approved two new dual-credit courses at Tucson Magnet High School, Yaqui 101 and Yaqui 102. The courses will introduce students to the Yaqui language and culture, teaching students how to read, write, and converse on a basic level. Students enrolled in the courses will earn credits through Pima Community College, while also earning high school credit. Yaqui 101 and 102 were piloted as in-person classes at Cholla High School, and will now expand to both in-person instruction and online. 

  “This is really important to the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and to the education department because we estimate we have fewer than 100 fluent Yaqui language speakers in our 22,000 enrolled membership,” said Serena Preciado, Director of Education for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe

• TUSD’s governing board also took steps to allocate money for positions that had been funded by COVID-19 relief funds. They approved a 5% budget reduction from central administration that will cover 21 instructional coach, counselor and social worker positions. The district also will move $2.8 million in school nurse salaries and benefits to the Medicaid reimbursement budget to fund multi-tiered system of facilitators who work alongside staff to encourage higher academic achievements for students who need additional support.

  “Our students came back to us traumatized, scared, worried, and anxious for the future,” said District Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo. “They saw a future that was no longer anything like they had imagined. That sort of trauma, fear, and anxiety required the light touch, passion, and commitment of our school teachers and counselors we were able to fund through (COVID relief funds.)”

  The district is still tasked with finding $3.5 million in funding for the 62.5 learning recovery specialist positions created during the pandemic

• TUSD also approved an agreement with Pima County Juvenile Court Center to allow for the sharing of information on district students who have committed a crime on a TUSD campus or been suspended or expelled. The data will be compiled into statistics that will help create strategies to improve educational and social outcomes for all court-involved students. On the other side, the district will share detailed information with the court, including the years the student attended school, their attendance record, grades, test scores, and number of credits earned. The agreement also will allow for wrap-around support systems, programs, and intervention services to those court-involved students, with the hope of deterring juveniles at risk of dropping out of school or who are engaging in any other delinquent behavior.  

• Catalina Foothills School District revised and reworded the language in student disciplinary, suspension, and expulsion policies and refined the requirements to suspend or expel a student in kindergarten through fourth grade earlier this month. Uses of the words “isolated” were changed to “distanced”, “confined” to “restricted”, and the word “ordered” was completely removed. The new language exempts the district from having to meet all normal expulsion and suspension criteria if a student within these grades brings a firearm to school or is suspended for a short time (no more than two days) and doesn’t exceed over 10 days of suspension within a year. 

“This revision provides flexibility for administrators in discipline matters, however, it is not our practice to suspend kindergarteners and first through fourth-grade students,” said Associate Superintendent Denise Bartlett. “That’s not what we do, we use alternate discipline strategies with them. However, it is statutory language so it is included in our policy at this time.

Challenger for Christy: A Democrat is now challenging Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy in the District 4 race, the Tucson Sentinel's Jim Nintzel reports. Vanessa Bechtol, vice president of strategic initiatives at Visit Tucson, entered the race to unseat Christy, the lone Republican on the board. She looks forward to working collaboratively to “get things done,” she said. 

"I welcome her to the race and look forward to beating her on the way to a third term," Christy said.

Fares may come back: Fare-free transit in Tucson may come to an end soon, KJZZ's Ignacio Ventura reports. The Tucson City Council is set to discuss whether to reinstate fares at their meeting Tuesday. City Manager Mike Ortega says the city would have collected $20 million, if the system was at full ridership, since fares were eliminated in the early days of the pandemic four years ago. 

Looming deadline: The scramble continues as local governments and nonprofits try to find a way to support asylum seekers after federal funding runs out at the end of the month, the Arizona Daily Star's Emily Bregel reports. Diego Piña Lopez, director of Casa Alitas, a program of Catholic Community Services that has been the hub of local efforts, is reaching out to the 800 volunteers who have helped over the years, as well as asking hotels for blankets and volunteers with sewing skills who can convert those blankets into bedding. 

“I’m trying to pull every rabbit out of the hat that I have, and then find new rabbits,” Piña Lopez said. “Now, it’s all dependent on the funding and donations we’re receiving from the community.”

Coming up with the money: To avoid seeing hundreds of migrants released on the streets of Tucson, as well as in Cochise and Santa Cruz counties, every day, Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema are trying to get federal funding restarted, the Sentinel's Paul Ingram reports. Sinema negotiated a deal that would have put $1.4 billion in the pot, but it was shot down by former president Donald Trump and Republicans in the Senate and House, including Rep. Juan Ciscomani, who then went on to host a visit for his colleagues at the border. That didn't sit well with Kelly. 

"A group of House Republicans came to my state for what they called a 'fact finding tour.' What more facts do you need? That it’s bad? Of course it is," said Kelly in a floor speech.

Failing up: After setting the University of Arizona up for a financial crisis, the people in charge appear to be coming out ahead, Star columnist Tim Steller writes. The way it's playing out, the academic units that brought in the big money watched it get sucked away by administrators and their strategic initiatives led by UA President Robert C. Robbins and the Arizona Board of Regents.

"Somehow, all this is leading to efforts to put more power in Robbins’ hands, take it from those who have questioned him and strengthen the powers of the regents,” Steller writes. “In other words, some of the people who messed up are being rewarded for it, while some who warned of the problems are being punished.”

Campaign comes to Tucson: First Lady Jill Biden was in Tucson on Saturday to kick off Women's History Month, along with Maya Harris, sister of Vice President Kamala Harris, and campaign for her husband, Arizona Public Media's Katya Mendoza reports. Biden advocated for reproductive rights and stressed the importance of Arizona in the upcoming presidential election. She was interrupted by pro-Palestine activists during her remarks at the Fox Tucson Theatre. 

We have a special bonus for our paid subscribers today. Check your email at 7 a.m. for a follow-up to our story last week about Tucson lawmakers and their lack of bills still in play. After our story ran, Curt had a conversation with state Sen. Priya Sundareshan and you’re going to want to hear about what she had to say.

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