By james art 
Scottsdale’s own Dr. Scott Menzel was named Arizona School Administrators’ National Superintendent of the Year for his outstanding leadership, commitment to educational excellence, student achievement and community partnership. This prestigious award comes on the heels of last year’s recognition from Save Our Schools, who also named Dr. Menzel as Principal of the Year.
While Scottsdale schools are fortunate to have a universally praised and admired district superintendent, what our schools need even more is stability. For two decades, the Scottsdale Unified School District has sorely lacked stability. SUSD has had an amazing turnover, more than 10 superintendents in just 15 years.
We all know SUSD needs continuity and we know we cannot afford more turnover. And we know that our current chief is also widely recognized as outstanding in his field. Why then would the SUSD board candidates make it clear that they intend to fire Dr. Menzel? The only possible explanation is that they want discord and chaos.
How will Beasley, Jacobs and Hassler explain to the taxpayers that they wasted their money to buy out the contract of an award-winning superintendent, only so they can spend even more of your tax dollars looking for and hiring another one in debt, revolving, perpetual- a changing line of leaders as we go through another superintendent and two more wasted years?
We support Mike Sharkey, Donna Lewis and Matt Pitinsky because we believe that stability breeds success. They will make decisions about future superintendent contracts based on data, performance and facts, not personal agendas. We congratulate Dr. Menzel on yet another accomplishment that only adds to SUSD’s stellar reputation, and we will vote to ProtectSUSD list Sharkey, Lewis, and Pittinsky to protect our award-winning principal and schools.
This opinion was submitted on behalf of Melinda Gulick, Cindy Threadgill, Christine Graziano, Colleen Abrams and Billy Henning. Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcome at [email protected].