Oct. 7—The question of whom to vote for in the Chandler Unified School District Governing Board election is coming down to this: To Z, or not to Z.
The three candidates with at least one Z in their names are running as a slate as traditional school board hopefuls. The three with no Z in either of their names, are running as conservative parental rights candidates.
With three open seats on a five-person board, voters will set the direction of CUSD for at least the next two years.
Do they want more candidates similar to current Board Member Kurt Rohrs, who has clashed with district officials on a number of issues and cast many dissenting votes? Or do they want more candidates similar to current Board President Barb Mozdzen, who has been serving on the board since 2008?
Mozdzen is one of the six candidates running in this election. Joining her on the Z slate are Claudia Mendoza and Zeyna Pruzhanovsky.
The three parental rights candidates are Leanna DeKing, Ryan Heap, and Eloyce Gillespie. Rohrs is backing those three.
“Eloyce Gillespie, Ryan Heap, and Leanna DeKing are common sense candidates that will challenge the education establishment to address evolving issues such as declining enrollment, teen violence, classroom discipline, career pathway development, and improving academic achievement,” Rohrs said.
Rohrs was one of nearly three dozen parental rights candidates who won seats in the 2022 election. Since taking his seat, he has challenged the district’s reserve fund policies, pushed for the district to raise standards that officials say are unrealistic, and cast a lone vote against nearly a dozen proposals.
He has also advocated for CUSD to give teachers the option of using education materials from the conservative group PragerU to balance out what he calls a liberal bias in the current materials.
If two of the three parental rights candidates get elected, that would give them the majority and place Rohrs in a strong position to be the board’s president starting in January.
That prospect led former CUSD Superintendent Camille Casteel to do something she’s never done before: Publicly endorse candidates for the CUSD Governing Board. She endorsed the Z slate.
“This year, more than ever, it is imperative to support school board members who will uphold the proud legacy of Chandler Unified School District and ensure that we remain the premier district in Arizona,” Casteel wrote.
Nationally, the parental rights movement has been advocating for removing some books that deal with sensitive content from libraries, and opposing any push to make schools more accommodating for transgender students. They have also voiced opposition to anything related to Critical Race Theory, which is a law school course not taught in K-12 education.
However, they have opposed speakers who back that course and expressed concerns about any diversity efforts that may make white students feel guilty for actions that took place decades before they were born.
One of the dissenting votes Rohrs made was on approving a call for the bond election this year.
“We’ll have doubled the current debt that we have,” Rohrs said during the vote. “The district has declining enrollment, we’re not going to be building any more schools. And the schools we have, we’re below capacity.
“When the public learns about these two things, that we’re not growing and we’re going to be doubling the amount of debt and paying more for it, I don’t think they can be very supportive.”
Heap expressed concerns that parental rights candidates are being tied to some of the national stories.
“Yes I am for parental rights. I continue to be dumbfounded why all school board members, administrators and teachers aren’t for parental rights,” Heap said.
“I did receive endorsements from AZ Moms for Liberty and from Chandler City Councilman Mark Stewart. These endorsements align with our current political environment where candidates are quickly labeled and those labels bring pre-biased dispositions.
“My hope is come Nov. 5, voters will have done some research on the candidates, that they will have gone further than the labels.”
To see how candidates staked out positions, see their questionnaires at chandlernews.com
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