U.S. Court orders Tucson schools provide culturally relevant instruction

MALDEF, TUCSON STUDENTS TRIUMPH AFTER NEARLY 40 YEARS IN HISTORIC DESEGREGATION CASE

Court Orders Tucson School District To Reinstate Culturally Relevant Curriculum That Reflects The History, Culture and Experiences of Mexican Americans

TUCSON, AZ - Yesterday Judge David C. Bury ruled in favor of Latino plaintiffs in the longstanding desegregation lawsuit against the Tucson Unified School District (“TUSD”), filed by MALDEF in 1974 in federal district court in Tucson, Arizona. In his order, Judge Bury adopted the Unitary Status Plan (“USP”), designed to eliminate segregation and improve educational outcomes for Latino students in TUSD, that was jointly filed last year by TUSD, the Fisher Plaintiffs on behalf of African American students, the United States Department of Justice, MALDEF on behalf of the Mendoza plaintiffs who are Latino students, and the Court-appointed Special Master, Dr. Willis D. Hawley.

Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF President and General Counsel stated, "Once fully implemented, today's order promises to dramatically improve educational opportunities for Latino students in Tucson. The plan addresses critical issues, such as the education of English learners, discriminatory disparities in access to critical programs, and the restoration of culturally relevant courses to the curriculum. When these issues are addressed, the educational experience of all students will be richer and more equitable."

In his ruling, Judge Bury found that TUSD has not eliminated the vestiges of past discrimination identified in a 1978 court-approved settlement of the case and that it had not acted in good faith because over the years “the District had not addressed ongoing segregation and discrimination in TUSD, both physical segregation and unequal academic opportunities for Black and Hispanic minority students.” Significantly, Judge Bury upheld the section of the USP that calls for culturally relevant curriculum designed to reflect the history, experiences and culture of the Mexican American community as a strategy to improve student achievement and one that was agreed to by the parties as a “meritorious strategy, fully supported by the experts and the Special Master, to improve the academic performance of minority students.” 

Why are students so apathetic ?

 Balancing Anger, Hyperbole and Criticism  By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

Writing books and writing blogs are similar. They should be truth. If they were not the author loses credibility and his/her ability to convince suffers. This is how it should be.  But Arizona is testing this rule of thumb.   

The assault on the truth in Arizona makes it impossible for those seeking the truth to get traction, and like Sisyphus; they fall into a rut with the boulder rolling back on them, at every turn.

Because of the apparent futility and ability to communicate, people become dispirited. Those who continue to fight have to resort to hyperbole to get their message across. They become so desperate that they want to emotionally shake up people to get their attention.

A hyperbole is defined as an exaggeration of fact, but in my experience this not necessarily true. The speaker just wants to wake up people.

Hyperbole was used in the 1960s before the anti-war demonstrations when students were told that they were exaggerating the truth.  When people finally woke up thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were dead.

The truth be told, a motivated student mass stopped the use of nuclear weapons and the bombing of innocent civilians. At home changes were brought about by politicized students, which made possible the enrollment minorities into all white student campuses. 

Students were interested in a more just society, and they were attracted to groups that had a social purpose. Consequently, the number of fraternities and sororities fell drastically on college campuses.

American students, for a brief time, became more like European and Latin American students who have historically been politically and socially active.

One of the roles of students was to act as champions of the underdog and confront tyranny.  Because of this, Latin American students were targeted by dictators.

The United States does not have a tradition of student activism. And recent in times campus activism has become an endangered species.

Sisyphus Chicano Style

Abandonment or Struggle

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

When asked what I have learned from writing about Arizona and what is going to happen in the future, I feel like the legendary king of Corinth immortalized by Albert Camus’ essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” You remember the guy who was condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill.  Every time he felt that he was making progress, the giant rock rolled back to where he started. 

The moral of the story, according to Camus, is the absurdity of thinking we can learn the meaning of life.  This absurdity compels us to turn to religion for answers -- religious faith supposedly tells us the meaning of life without us having to find the answer for ourselves. It gives us faith that we can roll the rock up the hill even though it keeps rolling back.

For over forty-three years I have been pushing a rock called Chicana/o Studies, obsessed with the notion that we as a community can push the rock to the top of the hill. Chicana/o Studies would give a greater number of us access to knowledge that would free and enable us to solve the contradictions of American society. 

Instead of reaching the top, the rock has become heavier and it has slipped back to where we started in 1969. Still we believe that we can reach the top of the hill despite the size of the rock. Truth be told, it would be easier to leave the rock behind and “make it in my own.” 

Support a progressive Democrat

I’ve sent you a short Bio of Wenona in previous e-mails. If you want me to re-send it, let me know, and I will.

Wenona is trying to get the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to support her campaign. That support translates into MILLIONS of dollars in contributions (cash as well as in-kind resources, such as staff, mailings, television ads, etc.).

The choice for the DCCC is, in my estimation, very simple. The DCC has to choose between Wenona and Wenona’s Democratic Primary opponent, Anne Kirkpatrick, who served one term in Congress before being ousted due to her having turned her back on her base: Latinos, Native Americans, Labor, environmentalists, and progressives.

A couple of relevant examples that illustrate the stark difference between Wenona and Kirkpatrick:

*   Kirkpatrick supports SB 1070. She opposed the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against SB 1070. Kirkpatrick called the DOJ lawsuit a “sideshow” and insisted that SB 1070 be allowed to stand.

*   Kirkpatrick did not vote for the Dream Act the two times it came before the House during her tenure.

*   Kirkpatrick voted for the Bush tax cuts that benefited the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and working families.

In contrast, since the signing of SB 1070, Wenona has been at the forefront of the opposition to SB 1070. For example, she traveled to Mesa, AZ, to gather petition signatures to recall Russell Pearce and on election day canvassed key precincts in Mesa and worked the phones in the historic recall of Russell Pearce.

And Wenona has stood, and continues to stand, with the DREAMers in their principled struggle to get the Dream Act passed.

And Wenona has been very active in the struggle to save the Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD).

The role if the middle class Hispanic

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

                                 

For the last couple of weeks, I have been revisiting pieces that I’d written in the past. They express concerns that formed my own consciousness and they are the bulk of the over 200 articles that will compose my new book: “My Journey Out of Purgatory.”

I had intended to rewrite the following selection, “The Making of the Political Pocho,” but never got around to it.

The term pocho is well known among Chicanos or Mexican Americans. It has been used for generations by Mexicans to describe Mexicans living in the United States.

Pocho can be a pejorative term that varies according to who is using it. It differs from a Mexican who has forgotten his culture, to one that speaks Spanish less fluently than a native Mexican.

Pocho literally means a fruit that has become rotten or discolored or has never ripened. I use the term in the latter sense.

Nationality has very little meaning for me. It is a construct and loyalty greatly depends on the ability of the state to bring about justice, which is iffy both here and in Mexico. Many of those using the term represent classes that brought about an uneven political and social landscape that forced the uprooting of millions of Mexicans.

Our grasp of a language depends on our vocabulary, which is learned; it is acquired through exposure to written culture. Vocabulary is enriched through reading and intellectual discourse.

The gist of the piece is that Chicanas/os and Latinos remain political pochos because once they are out of college most do not remain politically active. Their principle concern is how to make a living and support a family.

They are influenced by the vocabulary around them. They use words such as Hispanic that are gauche among current activists. Graduates of 70s are more moderate on social issues.    

The piece itself was not only directed at the new Chicana/o middle-class but at the politicos who they spawned. It is a vicious circle: the masses of poor, the middle-class and the Latino politicos.

The piece criticizes Chicano politicians for not taking stands on the horrific police brutality taking place at the Ramparts Division. The atrocities involved were mostly against Salvadorans. I essentially accused the politicos of paying more attention to Mexican American voters, forgetting that it was the large numbers of Latinos, which included immigrants and non-voters that constructed their districts.

Tucson - Mexican American Studies

From “Deliverance” to “The Godfather”

“Be Careful What You Wish for 'cause It Might Come True"

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

My dream was to live in Tucson. In the early 1970s I even applied for a job at the University of Arizona, but the interview invitation was withdrawn after I participated in a protest there the weekend before my interview. I woke up.

The saying, “Be Careful What You Wish for 'cause It Might Come True," could have not have been more prophetic.

I did much of the research for my dissertation in Tucson. The pueblo’s charm was seductive and eclipsed its flaws: Whites and Mexicans rode separate bus lines and housing patterns created two Tucsons. Yet, change was possible and white and brown progressives coalesced on many issues.

In the late 1960s there were not many Mexicans at the U of A. Most professors there seemed to believe that Arizona history began in 1853 when US minister James Gadsden told Mexico, sell us southern Arizona for $10 million or we'll take it.

Western history was Wyatt Earp and the OK Corral. A well-known U of A history professor taught his classes with six shooters holstered at his side, wore cowboy boots and had a swagger to his walk and talk.

Intellectual Incest

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

It has always been difficult to convince Anglo-Americans that they should know more about Latinos.  It did not seem to matter to Anglos that their ignorance spawned stereotypes that damaged Mexican American children.    

This brings me back to Tucson, which as you all know has been on my mind. Right now the issues are being played out in the courts where the state courts punctuated by intellectual light weights are beholding to politicians beholding to the same special interests as those influencing the Supreme Court.

Red flags went up when United States District Judge, David C. Bury, held “This Court finds that discontinuance of the MASD courses during the remainder of the USP’s life expectancy will not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution by intentionally segregating or discriminating against student’s based on race or ethnic group.” The issue with many of us was the enforcement of the law, which Arizona has avoided with impunity since Brown v. The Board of Education.

Bury acted on the recommendation of Special Master Willis Hawley who on paper has a good record in supporting progressive education. But most of his experience is with African Americans in Maryland and he has had little exposure to Latinos and even less with Arizona politics.  The decision alarmed many of us since we have seen the decimation of Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program and the retaliation against teachers through retaliatory, disparate, and discriminatory practices.

The Wall

  Rodolfo F. Acuña

I received an interesting email in response to an electronic conversation titled “The Trip.” (posted below) One of the highest ranking Latino veterans responded to me. It was a courteous rejoinder although it was meant to be a subtle put down. The vet contended that he had never had trouble in this country because among other things his parents tutored him and made sure his grades were high. He never called himself a Mexican American but an American of Mexican descent. 

The writer had spent much of his life as a high ranking officer in the army air force and was proud of his service.

As is my custom, I thought about what he was saying and tried to understand why our views were so different. I have always been interested in epistemology that studies knowledge (although a stint at Loyola University nearly suffocated this fascination).

I decided that the difference between me and the writer rested on how we acquired our knowledge. From googling him, I realized that he relied heavily on absolutes. My approach to knowledge because of my academic training has always been more active and more adaptive.

Just from the thumbnail narrative I could see similarities and differences in how we looked at life. Although I was not poor, my father was a master tailor; I never had the luxury of either parent helping me with my homework. My mother did not complete the first grade and my father had a fourth grade education – killed the English language.

Moreover, location had formed our views of this country. My maternal family with whom I was raised were border people whereas his family came from way under, from a state with secessionist pretensions.

Trip to Tucson and Ethnic Studies

Rodolfo F. Acuña

As I mentioned in previous correspondence, CSUN MEChA and students from the Asian American Studies Department visited Tucson-Nogales on February 24-26, 2012. It was draining because of the distance, size of the group, and the intensity. As always, the Tucsonenses were gracious and made you feel like family.

For me, the highlight was the first night when Sal Baldenegro, Guadalupe Castillo, Raquel Goldsmith and Isabel Garcia gave their testimonies, recounting over forty years of activism, from the campaigns to get Mexican American students into the University of Arizona, the border struggles, to today’s fight against censorship and the attacks on the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies. It capped a learning experience that spans three trips to ground zero.

The students interacted with high school students. 

As Professor Emeritus Christine Sleeter wrote about the Tucson program on February 15, 2012 in Education Week:

“Over a 13-year period, the program served 6,438 students (5,726 of whom were Latino, and 712 of whom were not Latino). On Arizona’s achievement tests in reading, writing, and math, its students also outscore students of all racial and ethnic groups in the same schools but not in that program—a remarkable record. As schools nationwide struggle to close racial achievement gaps, Tucson’s Mexican-American studies program should be one from which we are learning.”

This data puts to rest the myth that the program was limited to Mexican Americans. It is more startling because 60/70 percent of the district’s students are Latino.

Education and opportunity for Mexican Americans

Arizona-The End of the Stairway

The Abandonment of the Barrio

By  Rodolfo F. Acuña

Throughout the history of Mexican Americans, education has been considered the stairway to the middle-class. Education meant security and basics such as health insurance. This heaven meant better jobs and a small house or two for old age.

As with the European immigrant, the stairway was built in stages. Those with limited education could often get union jobs. After a generation or two in factories, Mexican Americans accumulated sufficient capital to keep their children in school, and a few sent them to college.

To build the stairway, workers and their families fought for compulsory education,  they petitioned school boards, and led walkouts protesting de jure and de facto school segregation.

Mutalistas,  el Congreso Mexicanista, Alianza Hispano-Americano, La Liga Protectora Latina, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), led campaigns for better schools. George I. Sánchez was a giant in advocating for this stairway.

However, it was not the 1960s that Chicano youth forced major breakthroughs. The Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) walkouts, the East LA School Walkouts, and small walkouts throughout the southwest and elsewhere had similar themes -- better education, more college prep classes, more Mexican American teachers, and the teaching of Mexican American Studies.

Idiotas, and Jan Brewer

Enduring Fools.

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

Growing up, we used a plethora of words to dismiss fools. Fom two different worlds, my father was from Jalisco so his sayings were always blander my mother’s Sonorense expressions, which always seemed franker and more to the point.  If you were ugly, they called you el feo.  It was the cow culture that reveled in a no bull sh.. mentality. When I messed up badly, I was the pinche güero or the pinche buey, which depending on how it was said was generally a put down.

Words such as cabrón or chingado were rarely used unless in anger and mostly directed at someone outside the family.  Even to this day they are words that are not taken lightly in Mexico, especially if used in the context of chinga tu madre.

(It was unlike today when an 85 year old lady will flip you off on the freeway.)  

When you thought someone was stupid and just did not want anything to with them, it was estúpido,imbécil, baboso or pendejo. They had a shock value.  My family was more passive and would just give you the señal de la cruz  -- why call them names if they don’t exist for you.

In the past several years I have found myself giving most Tucson racists the sign of the cross – they are brain-dead.  

Under normal circumstances, I would have given people like Arizona Attorney Tom Horne, Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal and the great majority of the board members of the Tucson Unified Schools the señal de la cruz.  However, this was impossible because they do so much damage to an entire community. Reaching back into my consciousness I came up with the perfect descriptive word, idiota, a word that always had a poetic sound. Pinche güero was nice next to idiota!

Censorship in Tucson. Rodolfo F. Acuña.

Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

                                               

For the past six years or so I have heard constant threats from Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne (Canada) and Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal (Indiana) that they were going to ban, destroy and wipe out Mexican American Studies, as well as Occupied America. Now after disregarding a $177,000 report that refutes their charges that the program and the book are racist and un-American, the nativists carry out their threats.  They destroy MAS and snatch the books from on looking students. Their stupidity exposed them, so they now say it wasn’t so.

The problem is that witnesses saw Tucson Unified School District Superintendent John Pedicone’s (Illinois) swaggering thugs “remove” the books from MAS classes as students looked on.

Their cowardly behavior reached new lows when blogger Jeff Biggers wrote that the books had been “banned.” They protested that they were not “banned” but only “removed.”

Let me see if I understand: If the books would have been put on a prohibited list of readings they would have been banned, or better still censored. But, because they were already there and ripped from the sight of students, they were removed.

Don't Get Angry - Get Even

When Do You Start Counting?  Rodolfo F. Acuña 

When the great Muhammad Ali was asked how many sit ups he did, he responded,  “I don’t count my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts hurting, that is when I start counting, because then it really counts, that’s what makes you a champion.”

These words resonate in Tucson where Latina/o students are fighting for an education by sitting-in in the office of Tucson Unified School District Superintendent of Schools John Pedicone, walking out of classes, demonstrating, and taking to the streets. 

Students are dispelling the myth that Mexican Americans do not care about education; they have started counting because it hurts. They know the difference between being warehoused, sitting through classes where teachers go through the motions. They know when the subject matter is relevant; and the teachers believe in what they are teaching.

At my own campus at California State University Northridge students are mobilizing.  Up until now, a small minority protested the rising cost of tuition, which now tops $5,550 a year, promising to climb another 30 percent next year.

Tucson eliminates Mexican American History

Arizona School District Wipes Latino American History Off the Map

- Common Dreams staff

A catastrophe in slow motion has played out in Arizona schools over the last several years as anti-immigrant sentiment crept into state legislation guiding how and what kind of Mexican American and indigenous history could be taught in classrooms across the southwestern border state.  What may have seemed absurd until recently is now a reality as boxes of banned books will now be gathered up and locked away.

UPDATED on 1/18/12: Jeff Biggers updates his previous reporting after the Tuscon Unified School District responded to various reports of books being banned in Arizona schools:

In a clarification of last Friday’s announcement of a list of Mexican American Studies books to “be cleared from all classrooms” in order to comply with a state ban on ethnic studies, the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) declared Tuesday that it ”has not banned any books as has been widely and incorrectly reported.”

But, Biggers continues, opponents were not satisfied with TUSD's explanation:

The TUSD statement “lacks accuracy and represents a thinly veiled attempt to cover up with distortions what is happening,” said Richard Martinez, the lead attorney on behalf of teachers and students challenging the ban in federal court.  “Pandora’s box has been opened and the ugly face of the bigoted right wing has been exposed for what it is: an attempt to keep Latinos, poor, dumb and abused.”

Whether the removal of the books from all classrooms should be considered an outright ban or a possibly temporary prohibition brought little comfort to supporters of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program, who sponsored an emotional community forum last Saturday with students and teachers who had witnessed the forced removal of the books from their classrooms.

The Purge of Mexican Americans in Tucson schools

by Salomón Baldenegro 
Estimadas/os: First, let’s get the media-driven nonsense out of the way: “Ethnic Studies” was not dismantled in the Tucson UnifiedSchool District. Mexican American Studies was dismantled. It is the Mexican American community whose legitimacy in this country is being challenged. It is the history and contributions of the Mexican American community that are being de-valued by the concerted attack on our community by the Mexican haters and their enablers. All the other “ethnic studies” curricula in TUSD are intact and functioning—and “legal.”

The other bit of nonsense we need to get out of the way is the fiction—purveyed most recently in the Arizona Daily Star’s editorial of Sunday, January 15—that TUSD did what it had to do, that it really had no choice but to dismantle Mexican American Studies.

The indisputable fact of the matter is that TUSD had a choice: to go along with the Mexican haters Horne and Huppenthal or appeal Huppenthal’s decision, which would have put a hold on the threatened financial penalties on TUSD until the issue was resolved in court. TUSD made the conscious and deliberate choice to support Huppenthal.

Now to the matter of TUSD’s Mexican Purge:

The Purging of the Mexicans has begun in earnest in TUSD, one day after the pusillanimous TUSD school board, led by its chief Mexican hater Mark Stegeman, voted 4-1 to join hands withTom Horne and John Huppenthal and dismantle the Mexican American Studies curriculum.

Students forced to witness the Purge

The very next day after its nefarious vote, while classes were in session, TUSD conducted a purge of any and all books and teaching materials having to do with Mexican Americans and/or that deal with topics that are banned (e.g., civil rights) from MAS classrooms. Award-winning journalist Jeff Biggers reports that,

“According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books ‘will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.’ ”

(The link below takes you to Biggers’ article in Salon.)

TUSD teachers and students who witnessed the purging of the books corroborate what Biggers reports. (Below is a link to a Three Sonorans article that contains relevant video about this.)

Tucson bans books by Chicano and Native American authors

Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native American authors
Posted by Brenda Norrell - January 14, 2012 at 11:53 pm

Banned books fuels calls for revolution in Tucson

Native authors in banned book include Leslie Marmon Silko, Buffy Sainte Marie and Winona LaDuke

By Brenda Norrell

Breaking news: Updated Sunday with response from banned author Roberto Rodriguez

TUCSON -- Outrage was the response to the news that Tucson schools has banned books, including "Rethinking Columbus," with an essay by award-winning Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko, who lives in Tucson, and works by Buffy Sainte Marie, Winona LaDuke, Leonard Peltier and Rigoberta Menchu.

The decision to ban books follows the 4 to 1 vote on Tuesday by the Tucson Unified School District board to succumb to the State of Arizona, and forbid Mexican American Studies, rather than fight the state decision.

Students said the banned books were seized from their classrooms and out of their hands, after Tucson schools banned Mexican American Studies, including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened.

Tucson- No Tienen Madre : Rudy Acuña

Tucson’s Sin of Scandal

Failing Students

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

What is missing in the media’s coverage of the elimination of the Tucson Unified School District Mexican American Studies program is that students were learning and they wanted to go to school.  I take this travesty personal.  One of the reasons I have stayed in education for over fifty-five years is that I wanted to do something about the dropout problem.  I always heeded John Dewey dicta that a student failure was that of the teacher. If students drop out then there is something wrong with the educational system.

Arizona education has many problems:  taxpayers do not want to pay for schools and it is dead last in student per capita spending.  White parents don’t want their children going to school with Latinos and blacks as well as other working class people, so charter schools have multiplied to “balance” student ethnicity by making it whiter.

Arizona has blatantly avoided federal court orders to desegregate: more than fifty years after Brown v. the Board of Education (1954), the TUSD is still under a federal court mandate to “balance” the schools. The federal government, meanwhile, has poured millions of dollars into Arizona to help pay for integration purposes.

The truth be told, there has been no improvement. The dropout problem remains over fifty percent. As part of an effort to correct imbalances, the federal court in its desegregation plan, included the MAS program, which federal government paid for.  

Tucson students disrupt class to protest attacks on their Ethnic Studies

SUPPORTING ETHNIC STUDIES, UA STUDENTS DISRUPT TUSD BOARD PRESIDENT STEGEMAN'S UA LECTURE COURSE

TUCSON AZ (May 3) - Early this morning, a group of University of Arizona (UA) students and supporters disrupted UA Professor and TUSD Board President Mark Stegeman's UA lecture course in a drastic move to draw attention to the TUSD Board's fateful vote tonight on Ethnic Studies, led by Stegeman. Dr. Stegeman's divisive resolution aims to turn Mexican American Studies (MAS) into an elective, complying with the state's Ethnic Studies ban and effectively ending the program as a core class for students. Coinciding with their action in Stegeman's class, the group received a solidarity statement by a member of a University of California (UC) student group, which led a similar action last year on the issue of Palestinian rights and which is currently being prosecuted by the Orange County District Attorney on public disruption and conspiracy charges.

In a dramatic demonstration of solidarity with high school students whose education will be directly affected by the vote, the group of UA students and supporters -- acting individually with no organization affiliation -- furtively entered Stegeman's 400-undergraduate lecture course on "Basic Economics Issues" in Harvill Building Rm. 150, and one-by-one stood up during his lecture to ask him critical questions and to inform and engage his students about Ethnic Studies and Stegeman's role in facilitating its removal from Tucson schools. Dr. Stegeman evaded any questioning.

Before the class hundreds of Stegeman's students were given information flyers which ran the headline, “Why Is Your Professor Trying to Dismantle Ethnic Studies?” Answerimg the question, the flyer provided background information and context of the Ethnic Studies ban, outlined Stegeman's role, and urged his students to “[t]ell Dr. Stegeman that UofA students stand in solidarity with Tucson high school students. Tell him you oppose his disingenuous attempt to destroy ethnic studies.”At the same time, the flyers displayed a profile photo of Stegeman with the gingerly caption,“Don't Trust Me.” The flyer also urged students to join the youth-led effort directed at tonight’s 5:30pm Board Meeting at the TUSD administrative offices just south of campus.