TUSD board moving its meetings 5 miles east

That scenario, however, may soon be a thing of the past as the Tucson Unified School District begins work to permanently move the meeting space to the Duffy Family and Community Center, 5145 E. Fifth Street — a once-closed school that now serves as a hub for families in need of exceptional education services or those who could benefit from the district’s clothing bank.

The new location, in midtown near East Fifth Street and North Rosemont Boulevard, is nearly five miles away from TUSD headquarters, 1010 E. 10th Street, where Governing Board meetings have been held for decades.

The TUSD Governing Board voted Tuesday to spend $480,000 on Duffy renovations — work expected to take three to four months.

The board approved the expenditure on the condition that it be paid for with desegregation funds since the move was prompted by an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.

Because desegregation expenses can be rejected by the federal court overseeing the district’s efforts, if that happens, the board will revisit the decision.

The district also intends to use the Duffy space for professional development and as a community meeting space.

The board will be moving into what is now a multipurpose room. The funds will provide updates to audio and visual equipment to include projector and screens, seating for increased capacity, and upgrades to the exterior to comply with the Americans with Disability Act. It will also provide electrical capacity, lighting and furnishings, and address HVAC deficiencies, and security and technology requirements.

The Office of Civil Rights investigation looked at whether the district was limiting Latino participation by intentionally utilizing a meeting room that could not accommodate everyone interested in attending.

While TUSD did not admit any wrongdoing, it agreed to work to resolve that and other allegations.

An internal investigation found no evidence of intentional discrimination. But there was an acknowledgment that on numerous occasions the district moved meetings to a larger venue for issues like school closures and superintendent forums, but did not do the same for the highly charged Mexican American Studies conversations.

Instead, those meetings were held in the regular meeting room, which has a capacity of 141. The Duffy space is expected to accommodate about 200.

In other business, the Governing Board rejected a proposed lease amendment from the International School of Tucson to create a charter middle school on the former Jefferson Park campus.

For the last three years IST has run an independent tuition-based pre-K-5 school on the TUSD property and was prohibited by contract from operating a charter school there.

In rejecting the proposal, President Adelita Grijalva, Cam Juarez and Kristel Foster voiced concern about whether the IST middle school would essentially be a private school subsidized by charter school funds based on the fact that very few outside students would be proficient enough to gain entry.

Board members Mark Stegeman and Michael Hicks, however, argued that the proposal had the potential to help students across the community who would not attend TUSD schools anyway, and that TUSD could benefit by forming a partnership with the school and sharing resources.

IST Head of School William Arthur called the decision disappointing and said the school will decide whether it will remain on the Jefferson Park campus and for how long, or if it will take all of its students to wherever it decides to house its middle school.

“I’m not a politician and I don’t engage in politics, but when it involves the education of children, everyone should put away their own philosophy and ideology and work to secure the future of children’s education,” Arthur said.