Maricopa County Schools Superintendent Steve Watson has appointed Michele Wallace, a seasoned educator, as Litchfield Elementary District’s new governing board member.
Wallace was previously passed over for consideration in 2021 after Dr. Tara Armstead resigned from her position as a Litchfield Elementary School District board member after spending just five months as the body’s lone minority member.
Armstead said she felt continually sidelined and ignored as a Black woman by the district administration.
“Litchfield has this culture of ‘We're gonna do it Litchfield’s way,’ because we’ve been doing this for 104 years and it’s worked,” Armstead said in 2021. “But as society changes and the demographics of this community changes…your ways should change.”
Maricopa County Schools Superintendent selected Dr. Dennis Dowling as Armstead's replacement over Wallace.
According to her statement of interest in 2021, the new appointee, Michele Wallace, is a Goodyear resident and a heavy machinery sales executive.
Wallace previously taught for nine years. She spent two of those years in Michigan before she was recruited to teach in Arizona, where she eventually worked at an elementary school in Tolleson.
She was the director of the school’s before-and-after program and worked in curriculum at Pearson, the educational publishing company, for the “Reading Street” program.
According to a 2016 EdReports.org report, Pearson’s Reading Street Common Core for grades 3-6—was deemed fully unaligned with Common Core standards.
Wallace has a bachelor's degree in early childhood education and a master’s in educational leadership. She chose to stay home with her children before becoming a sales executive. “I’m interested in being able to be a part of the school in a different way than teaching and hopefully offer the experience that I have through teaching and administration in this arena," she said.
According to Arizona Department of Education data, the Litchfield Elementary School District is undergoing a significant demographic shift, a change that is reshaping the community.
Non-white students outnumbered white students in the 2019-20 school year for the first time in the district’s history, with Hispanic students making up 42.4% and white students making up 41.5% of the population. Black students made up just 6.7% of the student population in the 2019-20 school year, a decrease from previous years.
Wallace’s appointment marks a replacing of a conservative board member that’d frequently argue with other board members, with someone seeking to be agreeable and absent of opinion.
“We must honor and respect the decisions made based on the collaboration of each member’s view point,” she wrote in 2021. “Individual opinions and objectives have no place on a School Board; everyone should be striving to reach consensus on what is best for students and driving achievement forward.”
The district is governed by four white women and one white man. Board member Danielle Clymer was excited about Wallace joining the ranks at the April 9 board meeting.
“Welcome to Michele Wallace,” she said. “We are excited to have you here. We are ready to be the ‘Fab Five’ or whatever the admin calls this. We're maybe the fierce, fearsome foursome or something right now but we are excited to have you. Dr. Davidson, I like what you said about, you know, mentorship and the relationship and the friendship that is built up here because even though we don't get to spend a lot of time together as a group outside of this room it's nice to have colleagues and friends up here because there's a lot of trying times and different difficult decisions that we have to make and I respect everyone up here so congratulations and welcome aboard.”
Former Litchfield Independent reporter Madeline Ackley contributed to this article.
Update 4/12 by the request of the LESD:
A previous version claimed Ryan Owens was appointed to the seat vacated by Armstead.
Maricopa County School Superintendent Watson appointed Dr. Dennis Dowling to fill Armstead's seat. Ryan Owens was elected to the Governing Board in the November 2023 election.
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