Last week, the Mingus Union High School District Governing Board President, Carol Anne Teague, responded to a student who had emailed her teachers, the principal, the entire board and Yavapai County Community Health Services regarding her concerns over her district’s COVID-19 quarantine policy.
The student was concerned that for the second time in a month, she had been quarantined — not due to having COVID-19, but due to possible exposure to COVID. Mingus’ policy is nebulous and almost impossible to locate on the Mingus Union High School website.
Read that story here.
Vaccination status and the existence of COVID-19 are immaterial. The problem is Teague’s utter incompetence when a legal minor — a child — contacted leaders in authority with valid concerns about her education, and this elected school board member chose to not treat a student as a child, but like an adult who is solely the cause of her own troubles and with utter contempt. In fact, all decisions about quarantine, vaccinations and instruction are 100% out of the student’s control.
Teague did not explain school policy, did not share information about the danger of the virus, but instead slammed the child, blamed the minor’s quarantine on herself and claimed “if you had been vaccinated” the school would not have had to quarantine her.
Teague did not address her own teachers’ utter failure to teach her while in quarantine — her friends had to use the Facetime app so she could still receive classroom instruction.
Teague added, “It’s amazing to me how many students and families are unaware of this policy.”
Teague, if students are unaware of this laughably unexplained policy, it’s because you failed to communicate it to students, you didn’t inform parents and you can’t even get the teachers you pay to understand it enough to explain it to students. The fault, dear Teague, is not in the stars, but you. You failed to teach, which is your board’s raison d’etre.
The student had to remind this elected adult — who is supposed to represent taxpayers and supposed to keep safe hundreds of students — that children under the age of 18 are minors, under the age of consent in the state of Arizona and thus, cannot legally get a vaccination if their parents say “no.”
Read the student’s op-ed here (at the bottom of the story).
Administrators must speak to parents, not children, about adult decisions, even if that child reaches out first. The ability to send an email does magically not make a child an adult nor waive an adult’s culpability from charges of verbal abuse.
This student happened to reach out to us, so we can only imagine what Teague says or writes to parents or students she holds in contempt but who remain quiet after her attacks.
Teague has a history of treating taxpayers and parents with contempt and disrespect, responding to their questions kindly, then bad mouthing them in emails to other officials, calling them morons, fools or stupid. When the pandemic began, Teague tried to use her seat to ask for special treatment for her teacher son who wanted to use different remote teaching software than what the district had approved. She clearly does not care about children and only wants to hold on to office for the petty power it provides.
Teague is emblematic of the worst kind of administrator: One who drafts vague rules, fails to provide guidance, shirks responsibility, then blames anyone and everyone else for her asininity and negligence.
Over the last year and a half, Teague’s inept leadership, communication with other administrators, actions and bad mouthing of parents who give their children to her for their care is the reason that voters do not trust leaders about policy or anything else.
Simply, Teague is a disgrace to MUHSD and not worthy to hold office. A vacant seat engenders more trust and would probably make better decisions. If this is how she treats children, voters in the next election should replace her with a 10-year-old candidate who learned how to treat fellow students with respect from the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District.
This act is disgusting for an elected official. The fact that the other school board members are not demanding Teague’s immediate resignation for the way she treated a child is reprehensible. Silence is endorsement. Silence is complicity.
Now Teague and the board she leads are asking voters for a budget override. She wants taxpayers to grant her more dollars. She does not deserve more money to attack children, ruin their educations, treat them like scum when they ask for help, and call their parents and taxpayers morons and fools.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
