TUSD tries to censor Sentinel reporters at school closure meeting

TUSD staffers attempted to limit access and censor Tucson Sentinel reporters at a “community engagement meeting” on Saturday morning, trying to keep them from speaking with participants, telling them they couldn’t attribute any comments by name and accusing them of “misrepresenting” themselves.

At one point, a TUSD spokeswoman ordered reporters to sit at a table on a far wall of the gymnasium next to a foul-smelling restroom.

The event at Tucson High was billed as a “critical opportunity for families, educators, and community members to make their voices heard” as the school district works on a plan that is likely to involve shuttering numerous schools. The spokeswoman, Director of Communications & Media Relations Karla Escamilla had invited the press to cover the event.

Up to 10 schools could be closed, due to declining enrollment and funding limitations, district officials said.

At Saturday’s meeting, members of the community were sat at round tables, with about 8 people at each. About half of the 30 tables set up were empty.

Present at each table were at least two TUSD facilitators, recording comments. Attendees were asked to answer out loud a series of questions posed by facilitators about their children’s and families needs.

They were also provided a form with those questions, with the option of submitting them anonymously.

The Sentinel reporters RSVP’d as requested in Escamilla’s email, though she claimed they did not go through the proper channels to do so. At the meeting, she accused reporters of “misrepresenting” themselves because they had filled out the form linked in her RSVP request. Her email included no alternative requests of the press.

Escamilla also claimed there was no way in the public RSVP for reporters to identify themselves as such, though question 5 of the form requested respondents identify their role in the community. The response submitted by Sentinel reporters identified them as such.

About 100 total were at the meeting, which was scheduled 9–11:30 a.m.

Most of the participants who spoke to the reporters welcomed the chance to speak on the record.

‘We respectfully disagree’

When Sentinel reporters sat at a table to listen and speak with community members to hear their voices, Escamilla ordered them away. When the reporters sat at another table, only occupied by a reporter from the Arizona Luminaria, Escamilla ushered them to another table near the wall and a restroom that reeked like digested onions.

Gabriel Trujillo, the superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District, also attempted to limit how reporters interacted with members of the community at the event. He told reporters they would have to identify themselves as such to speak with anyone.

He said he disagreed with the assertion that reporters were limited in their capacity to cover the meeting.

“…we respectfully disagree that we’ve limited your access in any way, shape or form,” Trujillo said. “You had full access to circulate and to walk around and hear the conversations going on. My concern is anytime a member of the media attends a community session like this, sits at the table as if they’re representing the community as a community member and doesn’t give participants an opportunity to know that they are media and press…”

Trujillo misstated the situation. Both reporters had already, upon sitting at the tables, identified themselves as journalists with the Tucson Sentinel and asked for permission to quote others at the tables with them. Sentinel journalists have a practice of identifying themselves to members of the public before interviewing them.

Escamilla initially told reporters they were not allowed to walk around when she told them to sit at the wall table.

Later, after receiving an email from Sentinel leadership advising her to “cease and desist” from her attempt to control newsgathering, she told them they could move around the gym, in an attempt to reach a “middle ground,” but refused to allow them to sit at the tables where the public discussions were taking place.

All Tucson Sentinel staffers adhere to the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, which tells reporters to “avoid undercover methods” unless open methods won’t yield vital information.

No provision of Arizona law allows a government official to require anyone to identify themselves at a meeting that is open to the public.

Even so, prior to Trujillo’s admonition, Sentinel reporters at Saturday’s meeting were wearing nametags provided by district officials at the check-in table.

Though one reporter wore the nametag on her wrist because it repeatedly fell off of her shirt, both identified themselves to each person they spoke with, asking if it was OK if they were quoted by name. One reporter, who was asked by two people at a table not to be quoted, is respecting their wishes.

The Code of Ethics also advises that reporters “identify sources clearly” and that they “recognize a special obligation to serve as watchdogs over public affairs and government. Seek to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in the open.”

Both the U.S. and Arizona constitutions make it illegal for any government official to attempt to limit reporting on a public meeting or issue instructions about what a news story may include, as TUSD’s top staffers did.

Members of the public have their own constitutional rights to choose to speak to the press, no matter the wishes of a government official.

Saturday’s meeting, the last of three such sessions, was announced last month as set to be held at Catalina High School. Friday afternoon, Escamilla sent out a news release that listed it as being at Tucson High. She did not explain the reason for the last-minute change in that invitation.

The first meeting took place Monday at Saguaro High School and the second happened Wednesday at Cholla High School.

During both the first and third meetings, parents and staff expressed concerns about transportation provided by the district, student-teacher ratios, retaining special programming for gifted and special education students and plans for facilities that would be left empty.

At the Saguaro meeting, a Sentinel reporter was able to sit at a table throughout the meeting with no pushback from TUSD officials.

Dividing participants into small groups at tables with official facilitators is a standard public relations tactic — employed to demonstrate “listening” by government staffers regarding controversial topics — to limit widespread emotional reactions that might stir the audience at public meetings.

‘If you have to do this’

Overall enrollment in the district has dropped from around 48,000 students before the COVID pandemic to as low as 39,000 today across 88 schools, data provided by the district shows. Trujillo spoke about declining enrollment to the entire group at the start of the event in Tucson Magnet High’s East Gym.

Trujillo said several times Saturday that no list of schools to be closed has yet been drafted.

The superintendent said many of the factors that led to TUSD’s discussion of school closures stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic issues.

He said the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship program, which can cover private school tuition or materials for homeschooled students, has also led to students no longer attending TUSD.

He added that birth rates in Pima County are trending downward, having recently reached the lowest they’ve been in decades — which is contributing to a drop in kindergarten enrollment.

For the most part, Trujillo said, community members at all three meetings have understood the reasons why schools may close, even if some still feel apprehensive.

“I think it was more of, ‘If you have to do this, do it cautiously, do it strategically,'” he said.

Trujillo added that the three meetings gave him the chance to talk to students, and was now considering holding extra meetings designed specifically for students before a list of schools to be shuttered is drawn up.

The list would be compiled after discussions between Trujillo, district staff and the 31-member TUSD School Reconfiguration Committee, the superintendent said.

Then, TUSD’s Governing Board will discuss it in at least two study sessions before voting in December, he said.

If the board votes in favor of the closures, he said, it could take years before the shutdown process starts.

“Getting started in ’27, ’28 might be a little ambitious,” Trujillo said after the Saturday meeting.

‘That’s all he knows’

Parents said they found Saturday’s discussions to be productive, but were left with some lingering questions after the meeting.

One parent, Ashley Ali-Osman, has five children enrolled in TUSD schools.

“I loved connecting with our TUSD community, and I liked the overall presentation format but I did leave with some questions that I find are pretty important in the process,” she said.

Reflecting on the options presented by TUSD, Ali-Osman wanted some more information.

“If we do take the school closure route, what happens to staff? How are the staff chosen to stay, who is chosen to be cut, if that’s an option?” she asked.

Paola and Brandon Fuentes, who have a second grader at Collier Elementary School, said early in the round-table discussions Saturday they wanted to ensure their son still had access to arts programs and a full-time counselor, which his school had for the first time last year.

They also said they were concerned about class sizes. Because they live on the border between TUSD and Tanque Verde Unified School District zones, they said, that made the difference in where they sent their son to school.

“Our priority as parents is making sure our kid is OK; he’s established, he has supports,” Paola Fuentes said. “We found that at Collier.”

The Fuenteses also said, if their son had to move schools, they wanted that transition to go as smoothly as possible. The family moved to Tucson from south Texas around three years ago, and their son quickly settled into his new school.

“That sense of community, since we moved here, that’s all he knows,” Paola Fuentes said. “How quickly do we need to get used to a new school, a new routine?”

At the end of the discussion, when a reporter returned to their table, Brandon Fuentes said he wasn’t optimistic about the future of Collier.

“It just seems kind of inevitable,” he said. “My hope is that, since it’s on the border of the Tanque Verde school system, hopefully that will be its saving grace.”

Bill de la Cruz, a Colorado consultant hired by TUSD for the public engagement work whose website describes him as an “aspiring leader” and “conflict alchemist,” said the issue of school closures isn’t just the local school district’s issue. Districts across the United States are dealing with the same problems.

“I think people are aware that something has to be done in order to provide for our students,” he said. “This is a national conversation that’s been happening in America, though you don’t often hear about it.”

The consultant, who is being paid $75,000, praised TUSD officials, saying their eagerness to hear parent and staff concerns set them apart from other districts he’s worked with.

“The willingness not just to not just engage, but to listen, to the community, it’s unique to TUSD,” he said.