Dehority, David

Meet the Candidate

Running For:

School Board

District:

Queen Creek Unified School District

Phone:

(480) 628-9442

Age:

Occupation:

Retired

Education:

Bachelor degree in Business Management

Family:

Married 3 adult children

Religion:

Catholic

Biographical Info:

I grew up in Illinois and am the youngest of six children, where after high school I entered the Marine Corps. During my enlistment I was deployed to Desert Shield / Storm, selected to drive for a Brigadier General, and earned the rank of sergeant. After a successful enlistment and an honorable discharge, I worked in law enforcement for 28 years before retiring. Coming from a family of teachers, I began to train to be a high school math teacher. I saw firsthand the difficulties teachers are facing, and decided I was a better fit to enable improvements to the teaching environment on the school board. I have two siblings who retired from teaching, and two in-laws who are teachers. My daughter is a special education teacher.
I have been married for 33 years, raised three children who attended public schools. My wife is retired from owning her own business. Our two daughters are in their careers, nursing and teaching, and our youngest, a son, is applying to be an officer in the Marine Corps.

Statement:

I am running for Queen Creek School Board because I know we can do better. The district is focused on obtaining more funds, like bonds, instead of focusing on the quality of education provided. The district is focused on a need for space, ideally hard structures for the students. I believe we could be better with portable classrooms to manage the immediate surge and the maintaining class size and growth through restricting the enrollment numbers since nearly 25 percent of students are from outside of district. Therefore, some reasonable limitations upon out of district enrollment so all students get the resources they deserve. We should never exceed 100% of capacity due to out of district enrollment, but any space available below that we should welcome them.
We spend far too much time, 29 days of the school year, preparing for and taking standardized tests. If the curriculum was up to par and teachers were allowed to teach not to spend excessive amount of time on AVID and other grant funded programs with little return, then students would not need to prep for the tests. Furthermore, teachers need better pay, they start at the state average for teacher salary. The classroom and classroom management are where the hard work and learning is completed. In the classroom is where education in its purest form occurs. The administration and board are supposed to support that exchange and not be the barrier. I want more parent involvement and no secrets kept from parents.

Endorsements:

AZ Women of Action

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
2. Allowing parents to opt their children out of activities or lessons that offend their personal, moral, or religious beliefs.	S
3. Increasing state and local taxes to provide more funding for schools and school facility projects.	O*	We have sufficient funding; it is how we use the funds. For example, currently at QCHS many of the classes are at 35-40 students. Instead of properly staffing enough teachers, the district is choosing to break the 6/5 contract by adding a stipend. Stipend funds do not necessarily come from M&O funding. 6/5 is work for 6 periods, teach for 5; the other period is your prep period. So, teachers are being forced to work all six periods with essentially no break. This solution is costing us more than hiring the proper amount of staff. I am certain there are many other areas where we have fat in our budget that could be trimmed or properly allocated.
4. Requiring signed permission from a parent before a student may participate in any sexuality related instruction, activities, or clubs.	S*	Sex education is schools has been around for an exceptionally long time and the absolute youngest level to discuss such matters in a school would be 7th or 8th grade. Although, high school is a more appropriate venue for such education. This should focus on sex as reproduction and dangers of unprotected sex. School counselors and social workers have their role in schools today and play a vital role with those struggling with emotional development.
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*	Parents should have their child's best interest in mind when making these choices. The public school education is improved with a proper curriculum, clearly defined learning objectives, and teacher instruction; the scores will go up. Make the public school attractive to parents and the students will return.
6. Making available books and instructional materials that include sexually explicit images and themes in school classrooms and libraries.	O*	There is age appropriate time for such materials. Why would sexually explicit images and themes be needed in a library with no adult supervision or input. There is a role parents in educating their children on a topic like this. Furthermore, in any place where sexual magazines are sold there is an age restriction. So why would they be put in schools.
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*	No secrets from parents.
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*	Not fully opposed to the idea, however, there are so many factors to consider for a merit pay raise. Additional credentialing should also be considered for merit increase to a point.
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*	They also use the bathroom for their assigned sex at birth. Simply put, there are policies that address discrimination. We should never allow discrimination to occur. We also need to support the rights of every student without promoting one to have more rights than another. If a student needs to use bathroom based on self-identification, every bathroom has floor to ceiling stalls, with no apparent way so see in the stall and marked on the outside as urinal or toilet.
10. Teaching what is known as diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI); social, emotional learning (SEL); or critical race theory (CRT) in public schools.	O*	These should be separate questions. CRT is a no. SEL yes and see below. CRT is illegal in AZ and SEL in its purest form promotes the development of healthy identities, healthy relationships, and respect for others. Many of these skills should be taught in the home and not in the learning environment. However, school counselors and social workers should assist if the need arises. Critical Race Theory, to me, is revisionist history and there is no place for it in Queen Creek Schools, period. If we focused upon a quality education, and weighted everything we do against one question, how does this improve the quality of the education of is this necessary for a quality education, then we would see how much of what is mandated by the administration to be addressed in the classroom (not standard based) is non-productive.
11. Requiring each district and charter school to post online a list of all curriculum and instructional materials being used in the classroom.	S*	No secrets from parents. This would be great for parents to see what is being taught and how.