Your excellent article and editorial (7/20 and 7/22) about TUSD’s equipment losses omit an important point for understanding TUSD: uneven performance. The Star’s published data show that one school, in one year, “lost” over $500,000 of equipment that had been purchased over the previous ten years, including 194 computers, 30 laser printers, etc. That is stunning — but many other schools showed negligible losses. Bookkeeping problems could mean that the losses actually occurred over many years, that some items are actually still in use, or that differences between schools are exaggerated, but the data still suggest that the problem is concentrated at certain schools. Such unevenness is typical: many TUSD schools and programs are well run and provide excellent education, but others have clear shortcomings. TUSD’s leadership should acknowledge and make a consistent public commitment to fixing the district’s weaknesses, while bolstering its real strengths and spreading them to all our schools.

Trevor Kollman, an instructor and PhD candidate at the University of Arizona has joined the campaign as treasurer. “Trevor is a brilliant young man, and I am proud to have a former student on board,” Stegeman said.

Proceeding with the proposed school closures will probably hurt, not help, TUSD’s finances. Credible estimates of the annual savings from closing all four schools [Corbett, Ochoa, Rogers, Wrightstown] range from $1.4-1.8 million. The schools’ current enrollment is 1,260, and TUSD gets over $5,400 annually for each student (Arizona Department of Education). Therefore, if 25% of the affected students leave TUSD, then the estimated savings vanish. Departures may exceed that figure, because mismanagement of the process has angered parents. (When Keen Elementary closed, TUSD data show that 40% of its students left TUSD the next year.) Closing even one school now will also warn parents throughout TUSD that their own school could close with little warning, encouraging additional losses as families refuse to start their children through TUSD. In this situation, the financially responsible action is to stop the current process and to restart the closure discussion in a way that will ultimately persuade parents to keep their children in TUSD. Other cities have shown that this is possible.