Opinion: Why Wait, Resign Now – Buz Williams

Photo: (from left to right), School Superintendent Joe Howard, Clark Tenney

On Friday, October 28, 2022, I attended a Prescott Unified School Governing Board meeting at their headquarters on Gurley Street. I wanted to attend this meeting because I heard that the Governing Board was going to discuss a plan for replacing Superintendent Joe Howard who has stated that he was planning to resign in October of 2023. A couple of incidents occurred.

I arrived about 10 minutes early. After I signed in I noticed that there was a cook, cooking what looked like omelets. While I was standing there, an elfish looking bearded man approached me, and asked if I was Buz Williams. I told him I was and he introduced himself as Joe Howard, Superintendent of the Prescott Unified School District. Mr. Howard began to berate me, saying that I wasn’t a very good journalist. I advised him that I didn’t consider myself a journalist, that I wrote opinion columns. Superintendent Howard than said I needed to get my facts straight. I asked him what facts I got wrong and what was his side of the story. Joe Howard told me that he didn’t have time to do that now because he had a Board meeting to run. He then took a plate of food to his seat in the Boardroom and started eating.

I sat in one of the dozen or so seats facing the governing board. The meeting didn’t start for at least 15 minutes after that. Superintendent Howard had plenty of time to come down and at least start to tell me where I was mistaken in my columns, but he didn’t. President Deb Dillon came down and introduced herself to several of us who came to watch the meeting. President Dillon presided over the meeting. Superintendent Howard made a few comments, but not many, and he certainly didn’t run it.

The meeting was to discuss a non-binding plan to appoint Clark Tenney, (who currently serves as Director of Human Resources and Special Projects), as either the Superintendent designate or interim Superintendent. Mr. Tenney could then be trained by Joe Howard for the Superintendent job. As long as that plan is not binding on the new governing board that is seated in January, that seemed like a logical transition to a new superintendent, but it would be up to the new board.

Several things happened at the break that disturbed me. Again, Joe Howard approached me and told me he didn’t think I was much of a journalist because my column wasn’t factual. I asked Superintendent Howard if he had seen the photos taken by a student, Brooks Compton’s son, at Mile High Middle School that showed a lesson plan that looks like Critical Race Theory or a clone of CRT.  Howard said it wasn’t CRT and he said, “You can quote me, anyone who objects to a black women talking about discrimination she faced, is a bigot. You can quote me.” I told him I would quote him and Joe Howard stalked off back to the boardroom.  Meanwhile, School Governing Board candidate Andy Nelson walked up, glared at me and said, “It was one class, one time.” He then walked quickly away before I could respond. 

After that brief confrontation, I surely won’t vote for Andy Nelson and I would suggest that no one else does either. In the first place, the teacher who taught that class told Brooks Compton and the school principal that he had used the lesson the “last two years” and no one complained. Of course, no one complained because the students weren’t allowed to take any of the class materials home. So if Andy Nelson believes that this only happened in “one class, one time”, he is too naïve to sit on the governing board. How many classes did that teacher teach a day in those two years? With over 200 teachers in the PUSD, odds are there is more than just one teacher with these woke beliefs who shared this same asinine lesson.

I would suggest that every voter read this lesson. I confess that I do object to it being taught in any PUSD class. Here’s why: it is, at best, anecdotal. Dominique is not ther real name of the woman in the story so there is no way to verify if this story is true. Second, I don’t believe it happened. I find it extremely difficult to believe that if this happened in the academic group that supposedly witnessed it, that there wasn’t one white person, let alone several, who wouldn’t have lambasted this white cretin for his statements. Last, this lesson does nothing to promote harmony among the students. After reading it, black students will feel like victims, white students will feel like they belong to an oppressor class. All this does is separate the students by race.

Joe Howard’s quote, I think, exposes him as a sub-rosa, woke warrior. From his statement I would guess that he thinks our country is drowning in “systemic racism”. He probably still believes that Jussie Smollett was attacked and beaten by two White men in MAGA hats. I would suggest that the vast majority of Prescott parents and taxpayers would find these lessons objectionable. So why would Joe Howard want to be Superintendent of a school district inhabited by what he considers “bigots”? Do yourself, the students, parents and taxpayers a favor and quit now, Joe.

On a more positive note, during this same break, I was approached by Clark Tenney who is currently Director of Human Resources and Special Projects at PUSD. While it was apparent that he was not happy about a column I wrote earlier in October asking if there was fraud at PUSD, he expressed his disatifaction in a calm and mannerly fashion. He gave me his business card and told me to call him to get the answer to the questions I asked in that column.

That column stated that Mr. Tenney wrote and distributed a memo last year, basically telling PUSD employees that if they were vaccinated and caught Covid, they would not have to use their accumulated sick time. Their supervisor would list them as “school business” on the TimeClock +. If they were not vaccinated, the employee would have to use his or her accumulated sick time.

I called Director Tenney. He explained that prior to developing this policy, he and the Administrative team, the district’s health counselors and legal advisors determined the best way to proceed. Director Tenney stated that that this group chose a middle ground. They could have given a monetary bonus to employees who were vaccinated and required all employees to get vaccinated. Instead the team chose this middle path.

Mr. Tenney also told me that the Social Studies teacher who gave the class with the offending material is no longer employed by PUSD. He told me that since this was a personnel matter he could not discuss whether this employee had resigned or was terminated. That is understandable. I thank Mr. Tenney for his cooperation