Holehan-Kopas, Melody

Meet the Candidate

Running For:
School Board
District:
Deer Valley Unified District
Phone:
(623) 910-5788
Age:
62
Occupation:
HomeSmart Realtor
Education:
BA Deaf Education & Spanish, MA Deaf Education
Family:
Husband, Jay Kopas (37 years), 4 sons
Religion:
Christian
Biographical Info:

My name is Melody Holehan-Kopas, and I am running for the Deer Valley Unified School District (DVUSD) Governing Board.

I retired from DVUSD in 2020 after 35 years in education. I taught at Schools for the Deaf for 14 years and in district schools as a teacher librarian for 21 years, the last 18 years in DVUSD. I taught special education, Spanish, History, and Literature & Information Literacy. I was awarded the 2019 Arizona School Librarian of the year. For six years, I supervised the district Library Clerks, working with 34 of the schools in the district. I was the district lead librarian for 5 years. I am trilingual in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. I have been a part-time and now full-time Realtor since 2010.

My husband and I raised four sons, all of whom graduated from DVUSD schools. We also hosted five DVUSD foreign students, and a Mandarin teacher from China who taught in the district. DVUSD is our home.

Statement:

I am running for Deer Valley USD because I believe the district deserves board members who truly care about public education. They should be people who know about school districts and how they run. They should be people who want to keep the best interests of the students in the forefront of every decision, not being concerned with getting attention for themselves. They should be people who do not rubber stamp every item the administration recommends, but carefully weighs the benefits to the students and the responsibility to the parents and community. I believe every student should have the opportunity to get the best education they can, and I want to help the district provide those opportunities in DVUSD.

Survey

Response Legend

  • SSupports
  • OOpposes
  • *Comment
  • −Declined to respond
  • †Declined to respond, Position based on citation

Question Response Comments/Notes
1. Requiring district and charter school officials, including teachers, to inform parents about their child’s social, mental, emotional, or physical health. S* Parents and schools must work together to help every child succeed. With the exception of abuse, the home and the school should be partners who troubleshoot barriers to a child's ability to learn and develop skills.
2. Allowing parents to opt their children out of activities or lessons that offend their personal, moral, or religious beliefs. S* Public Schools were created to share common knowledge and skills with students so that they can become contributing members of society. Shared common knowledge does not include teaching one side of a social or religious issues which may contradict with a family's traditions.
3. Increasing state and local taxes to provide more funding for schools and school facility projects. O* Now, is not that time. Families have been hit hard by inflation which has affected necessities such as food, housing, insurance and transportation costs. Now, is not the time to raise taxes.
4. Requiring signed permission from a parent before a student may participate in any sexuality related instruction, activities, or clubs. S* In order to put parents at ease, they need to see exactly what the curriculum/club focus includes and approve their child's participation in the lessons, activities and Clubs.
5. Allowing all parents to use tax credits and publicly funded empowerment scholarship accounts to enable their children to attend any private, homeschool, or online academy of their choice. S* I was raised in, taught, and sent my children to public schools. I am 100% a public-school advocate. As an educator, I would never limit the possibilities for every parent to find the right fit for their child to succeed in school
6. Making available books and instructional materials that include sexually explicit images and themes in school classrooms and libraries. O* Although most people do not know, books also have ratings which align similarly with movie ratings. They are based on brain development, the ability of the child to process the content in the story. Sexually explicitly images are reserved for R rated movies, and the same would be true for books.
7. Acquiring parental consent for school faculty and staff to refer to students by pronouns that do not align with the student’s birth sex. S* Parents create and raise their children. Schools assist the parents with teaching shared knowledge, nothing else, no conflict.
8. Allocating teacher pay raises based upon merit rather than providing uniform salary schedule increases based upon years of teaching or additional credentialing (e.g. master’s degrees) O* Merit is subjective. Administrators have bias. Test scores are the only non-biased measure, but honors teachers would inherently have better test scores than special needs teachers. It would be extremely difficult to effectively show merit.
9. Implementing policies to allow students and faculty to use the restroom, locker room, and shower room based on self-identification rather than biological sex. O* This population is extremely small. We cannot sacrifice the comfort of the majority. Students with differing identities should be accommodated in single stall bathrooms. No disruption to education.
10. Teaching what is known as diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI); social, emotional learning (SEL); or critical race theory (CRT) in public schools. O* DEI: NEVER judge people on an attribute they cannot change. CRT: There are good and bad in every race, we need to focus on the person, not their race. SEL: There are some good SEL programs. Unfortunately, enough have been altered to include social issues, that it is hard for parents to judge.
11. Requiring each district and charter school to post online a list of all curriculum and instructional materials being used in the classroom. S* Curriculum and instructional materials are digital, it should not be hard for parents to access what their children are learning. Instructional materials cannot be posted to everyone because of copyright laws, but parents all have a portal to access grades; materials could easily be included.