DV Support Our Schools

    

     I chaired six different Deer Valley Unified School District revenue elections, including 2008, 2005, and 2004. In all, we raised about $450,000,000 for Deer Valley.

     The three elections in 2004 I was asked to run at the last possible minute, less than thirty days before election day and early voting had already begun. We created and gained brand recognition for Deer Valley Support Our Schools (DV SOS). We were to become the recognized authority on school district elections and voters learned they could trust DV SOS.

     The following year, Deer Valley Support Our Schools was able to solicit support for a bond election and an override election. Both the bond and override passed easily, the first time DVUSD had ever approved a capital override.

     In 2008, we took on the biggest challenge to have faced district voters: approve $148 million bond election. We won by an almost 2:1 margin. And, the Mountain Ridge Band and the Deer Valley Educational Foundation won, too, as DV SOS donated its excess funds to the two charities.

     In March 2010, politics began to seep into what had been a "non-political" political action committee. As a result, DV SOS did not run the campaign for the override election for the first time in six years. The result: for the first time since we started the Budget Override program twenty years ago, voters did not approve its continuation and expansion.

     Today, I can't run the November election effort because of my illness. Running these campaigns is very time consuming, much more so than running for office. They require terrific energy levels. I don't have it. Not anymore. The doctors are changing my medical regimen and I'm not sure when my energy levels will return.

     It is time for another parent to step-up and create a political action committee to help motivate voters to approving the needs of our schools. Your school district needs you. Our students need you. Our teachers need you. Even our voters need you. Together, we can accomplish anything.