State will take over Murphy school district
Financial woes lead to rare intervention
When Robert Donofrio retired as the longtime superintendent of Murphy Elementary School District in 2004, the small district had a “well regarded” reputation, he said.
Murphy led its cohort of low-income, urban Phoenix schools in student achievement, and the district appeared to be a model of cohesiveness among parents, educators and community members.
Fourteen years later — as superintendents came and went, teachers cycled through in droves and a large swath of parents became disillusioned with district leadership — Murphy’s fate now rests with the state.
Monday, the Arizona State Board of Education unanimously voted to appoint a receiver to oversee the district’s operation amid a $2.2 million spending deficit that publicly unraveled years of tension within the community and mismanagement in the district.
State intervention in public schools is rare in Arizona, and it is unclear how many years the receivership process will last for Murphy.
Five Arizona schools have gone into receivership since 2005, according to the state education board. Of those
“It hurts me to be here today.” Robert Donofrio
Former Murphy district superintendent before Monday’s state board vote
schools, one district, Cedar Unified in Navajo County has remained in receivership since 2011.
Murphy representatives who attended the state board meeting welcomed the decision, which essentially amounts to a state takeover, saying the district needs more oversight and guidance to get through this low point.
“It hurts me to be here today,” Donofrio, who returned to Murphy in March as a volunteer consultant, said Monday before the board’s vote.
Murphy, which operates four elementary schools with about 1,450 students in west Phoenix, will have overspent its 2017-18 budget by between $400,000 to $500,000. A proposed budget for 2018-19 shows $1.2 million in projected over-expenditures.
Despite the deficit, teachers in the district are slotted to receive 10 percent pay raises as a result of additional state education funding.
Under Arizona law, the state board can authorize the receiver, Phoenix-based Simon Consulting, to override any decisions by the Murphy superintendent or school board that have anything to do with the operation of the district.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with the state or the county walking in and monitoring this district’s financials,” Eric Buckmaster, a former Murphy board member serving as a volunteer consultant, told the board.
“We’re asking for help. I don’t think of this as a black eye.”
Parents, teachers and community members first learned of the budget deficit that led to Murphy’s receivership three days before a raucous February school-board meeting.
At that meeting, school leaders had proposed instituting furlough days and retroactively cutting teachers’ pay for the school year by 5 percent to reduce a projected $2.2 million spending deficit. They needed to make those cuts, board members said at the time, or the district would not have enough money to operate beyond its spring break.
The Murphy board voted down the proposal following widespread backlash from teachers, parents and even some students who blamed then-Superintendent Jose Diaz, then-board President Richard Polanco and the rest of the school board for financial mismanagement and incompetency.
The meeting — two weeks before a statewide teacher-activism movement heightened public awareness of low teacher pay — was a flash point for a community that has long been frustrated over the district’s direction.
Dozens of Murphy teachers and instructional aides didn’t show up to work that day in protest. And hours before the meeting, more than 150 angry parents and teachers marched outside the district office wielding signs that read, “teachers are human; treat them humanely.”
At the meeting, when it was suggested by a board member that the district was at risk for state takeover, the crowd of hundreds of people loudly cheered in approval.
Diaz retired Feb. 28 after nearly four years as superintendent. Polanco resigned from the board the next day.
Donofrio, Buckmaster, and Bill Maas, a retired school finance official with decades of experience, were brought in as volunteer consultants to help the district stave off state intervention.
With guidance from the trio and county superintendent’s office, the district reduced its deficit in part by canceling purchase orders and breaking an agreement with a third-party contractor the district used to staff certified teaching positions.
The cost-cutting negatively impacted teachers and students. At least one school, Kuban Elementary School, dealt with very large classroom sizes — as high as 47 students in one class — for the remainder of the year.
Murphy for years lost top-level administrators and left their positions vacant. The district’s human-resources director resigned in summer 2016 and the position remains unfilled.
Murphy’s assistant superintendent for business services resigned the following summer and the position was outsourced to a consulting firm.
Meeting documents show Murphy has no transportation director. After Diaz resigned, the school board appointed Bryan Borden, assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment, as the district’s interim superintendent.
Borden has also now left the district — Murphy had gone without a leader for about three weeks, according to Donofrio — leaving two more administrative vacancies.
The executive secretary for the superintendent and school board appears to also be vacant for the moment. The secretary, Patricia Ramirez, was put on paid administrative leave in mid-May while the district launched an investigation related to her conduct, according to a district document.
Thursday, the board appointed Laurie Black, the director of the Murphy’s Head Start program, as interim superintendent.
Patricia Blanton, Murphy’s director of student support services, told the state board Monday that teachers and staff were “very dedicated” toward their students, but also that they “have been tired, and many good people have left the district.”
Blanton, the first Murphy administrator to publicly speak about the district’s tumult since the February meeting, said the deficit “has been due to poor leadership.”
She said she felt district staff “has been maligned” and unfairly blamed for the deficit.
“I’m (director of ) student support services, and yet I drive buses, I tutor, I substitute, I’ve helped serve lunch,” Blanton said.
Blanton also told the board: “We welcome your help and guidance. We welcome you coming in and telling us what you think we need to do.”
The Murphy board, following February’s meeting, had operated with only two out of five members. County Superintendent Steve Watson has appointed three new board members to fill vacancies.
A longstanding criticism from parents and community members has been that the board lacks the competence to follow basic procedural policies. At a Thursday meeting, board members mistakenly attempted to adjourn the meeting before discussing the last item on their agenda: a presentation on Murphy’s 2018-19 budget.
At Monday’s gathering, state board members seemed to believe that the Murphy district will not be able to overcome its challenges on its own.
“No offense to anybody in Murphy, but it’s very dysfunctional at this point,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas, who sits on the state board.
“It’s almost hard to imagine how they’re going to come through this, at this point. If we don’t give them help, I don’t know what’s going to happen with these children. I think they’ve suffered enough.”