Advancing Excellence in Our Schools
Eventually, every generation hands its community to the next. The question is what condition do we leave it in?
I want Deer Valley to remain a place where families want to raise children, where teachers want to teach, where businesses want to invest, and where young people receive an education that prepares them to build lives of their own.
That requires parents. It requires educators. It requires taxpayers.
It requires grandparents, business owners and neighbors.
It requires all of us.
I am running for Deer Valley Unified School District Governing Board because I believe this community is worth taking care of. Not just for the children sitting in our classrooms today, but for the generations who will sit there long after we’re gone.
-David Alvarado
Accountability is not an attack on our schools
Supporting public education doesn’t mean refusing to ask difficult questions. Quite the opposite. When something matters we take responsibility for it.
We should support excellent teachers. We should recognize schools that are succeeding. We should listen when parents tell us something isn’t working.
We should take families seriously when they’re struggling to navigate special education or IEP.
When tax dollars are spent, residents deserve to know that those dollars are being managed responsibly. As a business owner I understand something very simple: every dollar has a purpose, and every dollar deserves accountability.
Power Back to the parents
Parents have a responsibility unlike anyone else in a child’s life. They know their children. They advocate for them. They celebrate their victories and sit awake worrying about their struggles.
Arizona law itself requires school governing boards, in consultation with parents, teachers and administrators, to adopt policies adopting parental involvement. So when a parent says, “Something’s not right,” my first response should not be to explain the system. It should be: “Tell me what happened.” This is specifically important for families navigating IEPs and special education.
These processes can involve complicated laws, evaluations, meeting, terminology and paperwork. Behind all of it there’s something much simpler: a parent trying to help their child. They deserve to be heard!
David Alvarado
I have spent more than 40 years as an educator. I am a business owner, a husband, a father of four adult children and now a grandfather.
I’ve lived long enough to understand something that is easily forgotten:
We inherit strong communities from people who invested in things they might never personally benefit from.
Someone paid for the school you attended.
Someone hired the teachers who taught you.
Someone maintained the roads you drove on.
Someone planted trees whose shade they knew they might never sit beneath.
That is what community means.
And now it is our turn.
Tell me what you are seeing
Before I can represent a community, I need to listen to it. So I want to hear from you.
Maybe your children graduated from Deer Valley twenty years ago. Maybe your grandchildren attend today.
Maybe you’re raising a child with an IEP and have spent months trying to get an answer.
Maybe you’re a teacher who sees something from inside the classroom that the rest of us do not.
Maybe you never had children in DVUSD – but you have lived here for many years and care deeply about what this community becomes. Your perspective matters!
Tell me what Deer Valley is doing right. Tell me where we fell short. Tell me about the teacher that changed your child’s life. Tell me about the phone call that was never returned. Tell me about the program worth protecting. Tell me about the problem nobody seems willing to address. I don’t want a survey response. I want your story!
