By Richard Smith
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Following three meetings of debate, the Deer Valley Unified School District governing board remained divided on the proposed English Language Arts curriculum for grades six through eight.

At the Dec. 12 meeting, though, the split fell in the favor of McGraw-Hill’s StudySync program with board members Paul Carver, Ann Ordway and Stephanie Simacek voting in favor of adopting the curriculum for 2024-25 while Kim Fisher and Jennie Paperman voted against it.

“It’s going to be yes, as it was the last time, because I not only trust the process. I trust the people that are completing the process and the people that are part of the process.” Ordway said.

District staff presented the program along with the other two possibilities from HMH and Amplify on Nov. 14. Carver joined Fisher and Paperman in voting against adopting StudySync Nov. 28.

Reasons for voting against the curriculum included optional lessons that board members believed contained examples of critical race theory or Marxist material.

On Dec. 12, Carver said his biggest reason for voting against StudySync was concerns about a lack of involvement from the public and teachers in the adoption process.

“When you have a curriculum that’s main focus is based on BLM — which we all saw from the riots — the focus of McGraw-Hill was BLM. It was inclusion. It was really divisive. So that was my problem when I looked at McGraw-Hill. I also found references from teachers in other districts who have adopted it across the country, who talked about the difficulty of setting it up, how it was not user friendly,” Fisher said.

To Simacek, the most inexplicable aspect of the Nov. 28 vote was none of the three board members aired their concerns after the Nov. 14 presentation.

Carver got his wish in the public comment session as eight teachers or parents spoke in favor of the StudySync curriculum.

Jennifer Deibel, a veteran teacher at Highland Lakes School in Glendale and parent of a middle schooler, previously attained the highest ELA growth on the state reading and writing test in the district, She said she reviewed this curriculum and believes it is the best option moving forward to teach the standards in an effective manner, and an acceptable and useful tool for my son to learn and to hone his skills in English Language Arts.

“The ELA adoption committee comprised of educators with advanced degrees, district staff with a deep pedagogy of learning and community members committed to ensuring the next generation of students,” said Kristi Kroeger, ELA teacher at O’Connor High School. “StudySync through McGraw-Hill ... presents students to opportunity to learn from the great classics and engaging modern literature. The curriculum also addresses to unlock learning for hundreds of our EL learners for learning language acquisition skills.”

Deputy superintendent Gayle Galligan led the presentation, stating the 6-8 ELA Committee reconvened Dec. 11 to discuss board feedback.

StudySync is well aligned with ELA state standards, and meets newer standards on comprehension and collaboration.

Committee members broke out into groups to see if there were examples of critical race theory or Marxist material.

“Although no specific examples of the concerns were provided by members of the board, the team re-reviewed the source material to try to locate anything that could be construed as critical race theory or similar items — or the lack of diverse population representation — and were unable to uncover any examples in the 6-8 StudySync,” Galligan said.

It also is an ideal program for teaching English Language Learners, she said. Now more than ever that is crucial, as the number of ELL students balooned from about 600 ELL learners in 2022-23 to more than 1,500 this school year.

Also StudySync costs $783,394 for five years, while HMH is $1,078,107 and Amplify is $1,113,246.

The committee stood by its work, Galligan said, and asked board to reconsider. Committee members said they will recommend another one.

“The recommendation was made after considerable research on each of the vendor products,” said Kathy White, DVUSD director of academics and assessment.

Current English materials for grades 6-8 were adopted in 2013 and the vendor will not continue supporting it.

These resources were recommended for atypical student as well as the average student. The process began in February with a random selection process for committee members.

The public review period was May 24-Aug. 21. In that period 85 people submitted feedback, and just under 92 percent chose McGraw-Hill.

“We were elected by the citizens of the Deer Valley Unified School District in the obligation to vote for the best interests of our own students, teachers and our staff. I really feel like it’s a slap in the face to the process, to Dr. Galligan and her team when our committee comes back with a well-vetted process of approving curriculum with over a 90% approval rating. To even consider not supporting that ELA curriculum is shameful,” Simacek said.

To Fisher this mindset is an example of most of the feedback she received after the initial vote and a form of bullying — though she said one teacher was polite in asking about Fisher’s rationale for voting.

Fisher said she took days going through the curriculum by McGraw-Hill. What she said she did not notice in the emails or during the meeting was anybody defending the actual curriculum.

“Their final message was to vote what I say or else, basically,” Fisher said. “We come here tonight and get similar commets. The governing board is not elected to simply approve a process. We are elected to look at information and then make the decision that is in our opinion, or based on what we have, in the best interest in all of Deer Valley.”

Board members do their own due diligence, Carver said, and votes should not be taken as a slight. He said he received some similar emails to Fisher after the Nov. 28 vote.

Responses and support for StudySync was from a cross section of teachers and the public, Ordway said. Some responses are from the Deer Valley Education Association, some are not, some were from parents, and there was feedback from special ed, gifted and ELL teachers and staff.

“I appreciate the added input from the community and from the educators,” Carver said. “I would like to see this kind of engagement and this kind of excitement about all of our curriculum. We need to have constructive dialogue back and forth so we understand that not everybody is going to read the same passage the same way and get the same thing out of it. But we do need to make the best decisions for the children.”

Paperman did not vote for StudySync at the previous board meeting though parents provided feedback and evidence when they reviewed the curriculum in August.

Teachers did ask Paperman if the curriculum going to be adopted every few years, which seems expensive.

“My concern came in the present that when they looked at it, they were confused because when they reviewed in August there were parts that were different,” Paperman said.

In Fisher’s opinion, optional parts of the ELA curriculum are pushing an agenda.

Content can be reviewed by the district and turned off, Galligan said. StudySync is customizable.

“What you went in and saw would not be what we would be having in front of our teachers and students. That is something that as a curricular area, we would review very closely — similar to social studies, similar to science, similar to mathematics,” Galligan said.

More than 85 responses would be ideal, Paperman said.

By percentage, this is a higer response rate than other recent texbook adoptions. For example, 145 people weighed in on six grades of math curriculum last year

“We have never had this kind of responses from our stakeholders,” Galligan said.

Richard Smith
Associate Editor | Surprise & West Valley Preps

rsmith@iniusa.org

Richard Smith has been with Independent Newsmedia since 2016, and worked at a Sun City-based news outfit covering the Northwest Valley for 22 consecutive years.

An NAU alum and lifelong Arizona resident, Richard began as a copy editor and page designer at Surprise Today and the Daily News-Sun, then rekindled his love of sports writing by taking the reins on West Valley Preps in 2008.

For most of the mid-2010s he was the Surprise editor and West Valley Preps reporter. Now he’s the West Valley Preps Editor and Surprise Associate Editor.

As COVID restrictions slowly lift, Richard is cautiously optimistic he will visit book stores, football fields and gyms again this fall.