The Higley Unified School District Governing Board has chosen Brooke Garrett, Kimberly Jackson and Travis White as its three recommendations to fill the seat vacated by Scott Glover.
The board voted 3-1 Aug. 12 to forward the names to Maricopa County Schools Superintendent Shelli Boggs, who will make the appointment. Board Member Anna Van Hoek voted in dissent.
Boggs does not have to appoint someone from the board's list and frequently has not in making other district appointments.
The selections largely followed results from a community survey conducted by the district after Glover’s resignation, with the board opting to use results from respondents who identified themselves as living within district boundaries after an effort to screen out duplicate responses.
In that group of 378 responses, Garrett led with 210 selections, or 56%, followed by Jackson with 147, or 39%, and White with 119, or 31%. Kathleen Richards was fourth with 114, or 30%.
Board President Amanda Wade thanked all 12 applicants and residents who participated in the survey, acknowledging the unusual circumstances surrounding the vacancy and the difficulty of devising a process on short notice.
“This is always going to be imperfect, like outright,” Wade said. “If you wish to say something about specific candidates or whatever, that's fine. If you're opposed to that, I just go, this should be out of our hands.”
The district reported receiving 567 total survey submissions. Because it could not restrict people to one response, district officials analyzed IP addresses and removed those with five or more submissions for its “without duplicates” results. That reduced the overall number to 525.
The in-boundary total fell from 404 to 378 after that screening.
Van Hoek questioned that methodology, noting it could leave multiple responses from the same IP address if there were fewer than five.
“I have significant concerns,” Van Hoek said. “I know the document labels one set of results without duplicates, but the methodology that was used says IP addresses with five or more submissions were removed. That means someone could have potentially submitted surveys two, three or four times and those responses could still be included in what we're calling without duplicate results.”
Board Member Sara Jarman favored using the screened in-boundary results, saying she wanted the recommendations to reflect district voters as closely as possible. Board Member Tiffany Shultz also favored focusing on respondents who identified themselves as living within HUSD.
Van Hoek objected to following the survey’s top choices and raised concerns about White and Garrett. She also referred to comments made during the public-comment portion of the meeting, which occurred before the board took up the vacancy item.
Pam Ingermanson, who identified herself as an HUSD taxpayer, alleged Glover, White and Richards had coordinated before Glover’s resignation became public. She pointed to White and Richards attempting to file paperwork for Glover’s seat on the day of his resignation as the basis for her concerns.
“I find this troubling,” Ingermanson said. “If these individuals coordinated in secret with a sitting board member to position themselves for his seat before anyone else knew it was becoming vacant, neither deserves to be appointed.”
No evidence establishing such coordination was presented during the meeting.
When Van Hoek later began discussing her objections to the candidates, Wade cautioned her against discussing matters beyond the scope of the agenda item. Van Hoek maintained that the issues were relevant because they informed her decision on whom to recommend.
Van Hoek also questioned Garrett’s qualifications for the position and raised concerns about previous online interactions involving her own children.
Wade ultimately moved to recommend Garrett, Jackson and White based on the screened survey results from people identifying themselves as district residents.
“I think the wisest course of action here is going to be I motion to approve in line with what feels like a majority at this point to do the duplicates in boundaries,” Wade said.
Van Hoek said before casting her dissenting vote that she could have considered supporting the slate if White were removed.
“I would have supported it if Travis White was not one of the picks, but because he is, I will vote no,” Van Hoek said.
Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him on X at @sp_blodgett.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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