The Desert Sands Unified School District is holding a school board meeting tonight, in the district office board room, at 7:00 PM. It does not appear that Desert Sands has listened to many of its stakeholders the last few years that warned the district of its bad policy decisions. Nope, it is pedal to the metal towards self-destruction for the Desert Sands School Board, judging by the agenda. Let’s take a look shall we?
Desert Sands School Board General Functions
Before we jump to the consent calendar, where we know school boards hide dubious decisions , there is an item in General Functions-Educational Services section. Item 18.15 is to “Ratify a Licensing Agreement with Focus Educational Virtual Tutor,” at a cost of (not to exceed) $177,884, paid from Title I and IV funds. What are the chances we’ll find some conservative bias over at Focus? Just kidding! There is never any conservative bias when it comes to school boards. Likewise, there is very little unbiased when it comes to school boards, especially Desert Sands, it is most always whack-a-doo leftism.
Bias in Education
Sadly, Focus Educational Virtual Tutor, that will tutor children (virtually), presumably in small groups or 1:1 settings, is no exception to the bias trend. According to the Focus website, the company was founded in 2007 by Princeton grad Chris Falcinelli. We don’t have to go far to find examples of leftist bias, simply scroll down on the home page to find the blog posts. Then, look to the right to locate the blog titled “Fixing School Segregation” from October 2019.
A couple of points on that title. First it isn’t really a blog post, it’s a link to an article in the extreme-leftist publication, The Atlantic. The Atlantic pushed such Fake News as Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. A whole lot of articles exhibiting election denial-ism by the way. And who could forget the Russia bounty on U.S. soldiers hoax? Secondly, the title of that article, did the author perhaps miss something? Like an entire era of United States History when democrats loved segregation?
Or perhaps the author didn’t know that college campuses actually self-segregate in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? The article is ridiculous and did not age well in light of the recent SCOTUS decision on college admissions. A decision that is encouraging for those that want to reform education from its current quagmire of indoctrination.
What about Chris Falcinelli? Does Falcinelli have an inherent bias that might trickle down through his employees to the students that they tutor? Twitter has an answer.
Well, that should be plenty to give us an indication of the type of tutors Desert Sands students will encounter when trying to get academic help–extreme left-wing bias.
Mental Health Practicum
Another item under General Functions is item 19.1 in the Personnel Services section. This item calls for a “Supervised Practicum Agreement with the University of Massachusetts Global (UMass). The Agreement is applicable to students enrolled in the Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy program.” There is no cost on item 19.1, but considering Desert Truth’s last article on Marriage and Family Counseling it might deserve further scrutiny. Other clues, such as the book “Leading While Female: Your Take-Action Guide to Gender Equity” co-authored by Umass MFT field director Dr. Nakisha Castillo.
Another clue would be a conference paper (presentation) titled “Exploring Issues of Privilege: Uncomfortable Conversation in Uncomfortable Situations” from 2019 also by Castillo. Access to the paper could not be acquired by publication, but one can well imagine when the Umass Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Counseling handbook includes this gem of a Diversity and Inclusion Policy (why did they drop the Equity?):
Desert Sands School Board Consent Calendar
Moving along, there are a couple of items on the consent calendar as well. Item 24.18 and 24.19 concern contracts with consulting company Solution Tree. We have covered Solution Tree before in 2021 with coverage of the $5 million Effective Educator Grant. You can read those here and here.
There are also a few public speaking contracts in the consent calendar who will address the leadership staff that might deserve further scrutiny. Speaker fees range from $5,000 to $7,500 and are paid through the Effective Educator Grant.
Unfortunately, none of the speakers include anyone from the California For Equal Rights Foundation or anyone near the caliber of Christopher Ruffo, who could actually give the district valuable guidance. But then again, Desert Sands School Board have been getting good advice from their stakeholders for the last three years, but they choose not to listen. Desert Sands will remain on their current path of DEI and Gender Ideology induced self-destruction until they do listen. The good news is, that when Trump wins the 2024 election and keeps good on his promise to end funding for school districts with DEI, CRT, and Gender Ideology, there are plenty of stakeholders in the desert that know where the DEI bodies are buried…and who buried them.