UTAH STATE SCHOOL BOARD
District 13
A VOTE FOR QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION
My name is Randy Boothe and I am now officially launching my campaign for re-election to Utah State School Board District 13. For 3+ years on the Utah State School Board and 16 years on Nebo’s School Board, I have been privileged to work with the most amazing students, parents, teachers, administrators, and community leaders who care deeply about Utah’s children. Those Public Education “Heroes” continually remind me why we must first focus on students as we consider every decision.
During the past three years, I have served as Chair of the USBE Standards and Assessment Committee where we have reviewed and approved hundreds of Utah academic standards and accompanying assessments for each set of standards.
I also served for two years as Vice Chair of the Law and Licensing Committee in developing and sending policies and Board rule to the full Board for final approval and implementation.
We have spent significant time re-writing our USBE Strategic Plan, Mission, Vision and Goals for the future. There is much work yet to be accomplished and I would appreciate your vote of confidence, allowing me to continue serving with my colleagues on the Board.
We’re currently gathering 2,000 signatures of registered Republicans to get my name on the Primary Ballot. If you can help with the gathering, please call me directly at (801)318-4316. We are most appreciative of your support. Feel free to DONATE below. With three candidates having filed for this position, we have some major work ahead of us to communicate clearly with our constituents in District 13. Thank you!
FAQS AND MYTH BUSTERS
How do you feel about Critical Race Theory being taught in schools?
Utahns understand that CRT is a graduate-level theoretical lens that would not be appropriate for K12 schools, but many feel that some elements have been or could be introduced to students. We created a board rule (R277-328) that prohibits:
1. Promotion that one race is inherently inferior or superior to another.
2. Promotion that a person’s race determines his or her character, values, morals, etc.
3. Promotion that a current student/person bears responsibility for the actions of others throughout history.
4. That a person can be discriminated against for his or her race.
Our students need to know that a person’s race doesn’t dictate moral conscience. They also need to know that the country was not founded and designed to promote slavery. It was founded and designed to allow, for the first time in our history, the governed to have a say in the government. This was monumental. That is not to say that the abhorrence of slavery didn’t happen, nor should it be omitted. Students should be taught accurate history, but slavery shouldn’t be taught as the predominant factor for the design of the United States of America.
Some wrongly stated that our Board created a “loophole at the end allowing teachers to slide CRT into the class.” There was no such thing. There was an opportunity for the local board to have a public and transparent meeting if, for example, a parent didn’t want the civil war or WWII taught because the first prohibited concept is inherent to both of those. It was a safety net that children wouldn’t grow up with big learning gaps if the Rule was misinterpreted or used inappropriately.
We have recently completely aligned 328 with HB427 and HB261 which delineate even more protections from CRT and helps teachers understand their responsibilities with anti-discrimination laws.
What do you think of Common Core?
Common Core was adopted in Utah (and most states) 12 years ago in math and English. We revise our standards in these areas every 5-7 years, so it can look different from what it was 12 years ago or even five years ago, but there will always be elements that are the same. For example, the Pythagorean theorem was in the CC. The Pythagorean theorem is also in the Utah core today.
Every time we have revised the standards, we have opened them up to massive amounts of public input electronically and held input gathering sessions in person for community members, so I feel comfortable in saying that we currently have Utah standards even if there is some crossover. Parents want students to know certain basic concepts that all students should know whether they were in common core or not.
I would invite all to visit our math and English standards and share with us which skills they feel are valuable for students and which they feel need to be added, removed, or revised.
On a historical note, I do not like that states were incentivized by the Race to the Top Grant to adopt Common Core. Even though Utah did not ever get one cent of that money, making our standards free from federal financial ties, I do not condone the carrot that was dangled.
Are there federal funding ties to Utah Education?
Recently the DOE hinted at tying instructional requirements to CARES funding dollars in a draft application, and many states, including Utah, fought back (wisely.) The DOE pulled it out of the potential application, so there would remain no tie from federal funding to Utah standards. Federal funds continue to support special education and Title programs. Some say, “But we did have to make a plan for elementary and secondary recovery dollars.” This is true. However, the states have autonomy over their own respective plan designs, leaving us in the driver seat.
On a historical note- I was a member of Nebo’s Board of Education when No Child Left Behind hit over 20 years ago, and I don’t think it did students or teachers any favors in the arena of assessment. We could talk about this for a long time, but ultimately, two particularly egregious pieces were the calculation and reporting elements and the special education requirements (though new laws and adaptive testing have helped to mitigate some of that.) Little known fact—some think the federal DOE requires too much testing, but our state legislature requires more.
What do you think of the legislative override of the veto for sports participation for transgender students?
Elite female athletes like Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Nancy Hogshead-Makar believe that transgender women competing with biological women threatens women's sports. Caitlin Jenner, famous transgender athlete agrees, and I agree, but I also understand the complexities of the issue, and so do both our governor and our legislators. While the legislature overrode Governor Cox’s veto, President Adams made it clear that there are quandaries with the override when he said that they anticipate a lawsuit and assigned 500,000.00 from the Attorney General’s budget to create indemnification for schools and the Utah High School Athletic Association.
When the lawsuit transpires, a commission will be enacted that will then study the issue to find solutions that will provide opportunities for transgender students and biological female students to participate in legal and reasonable ways for all parties to be protected. I don’t know what these will be but may include such things as differentiated competitive categories. Or- perhaps it will include a requirement for double races spaced reasonably apart. Or- it could possibly include a requirement for USHE (Utah System of Higher Education) to determine scholarship recipients based on percentages of transgender and biologically female students, to create fair opportunities for all.
No matter how the commission moves forward, the legislature designed it to include input from multiple groups to find long-term solutions considering opportunity, competitive fairness, and safety for all.
Some candidates wrongly state that teachers are forced to ask students what their preferred pronoun is or that students are forced to share it.
This is not true. Some teachers were asking for preferred pronouns on their initial info sheets. Our USBE State Superintendent, Syd Dickson, sent an email to every local superintendent and charter director counseling against the practice and explaining to them that the practice violates the state parental rights code.
There was a Gender Identity Guidance Document that the Standards and Assessment Committee was researching and drafting that included all state and federal laws, but it did not pass out of committee and was never heard nor voted on by the full board. It received 20,000 pieces of public input dispersed almost equally in favor and against it. In addition, the attorneys of six large districts asked USBE to allow them to work through issues at the local level, and one Rural district passed a public resolution requesting the same. The GID is no longer on the committee agenda and policy will be addressed at the local level.
Do you support Comprehensive Sex Education?
No. It is against the law in Utah. Additionally, the areas of human reproduction that are taught in health classes include abstinence and must be opted IN by the parent.
Do you support Social and Emotional Learning?
I do not support transformational SEL principles, but I do support SEL principles that help all children access learning better. For example, things like Wellness Rooms in school where the lights are a little less bright and students can go to regroup if they are struggling emotionally because a parent went into the hospital, they had an altercation with a friend, or any number of disturbances that beset children emotionally.
If there is SEL curriculum to be used across the board, I like the process that Washington District followed where they went to the publisher and explained their community standards and asked for anything contrary to be removed. The company did so, and the district brought the remainder of the materials back and made them all available to parents. Parents came and vetted the materials and wanted them for their kids. This is an excellent process if an actual SEL curriculum is going to be used.
What about books in Libraries?
On social media some wrongly state that USBE board members support pornography in schools. Of all the false accusations being lobbed at me and the USBE, this is the most offensive. It is ridiculous that I even have to state that I do not support pornography in schools. To address concerns, USBE passed a Board Rule requiring each district and charter to create a policy that outlines how a book can be challenged to be removed from the library, but also one outlining the criteria and process to put a book IN the library in the first place. Materials online and in text form should be age-appropriate and legal. We also created a model policy where I have advocated to include a provision for communication to patrons and also one to have communication between similar grade schools in a multi-school district/charter system, so if a book is challenged at one jr. high, the other committees are made aware of the challenge and committee’s determination. The legislature, in 2023, added something like this to code where schools would need to remove a title if it is removed in two other LEAs.
Life is demanding, and each of us has only 24 hours in the day. Throughout my career, I have chosen to focus the bulk of my energy on four priorities:
Family
Leadership
Students
Performing Arts
Check out how I spend most of my time. I am so grateful for the enthusiastic, thoughtful, and committed friends who have joined me for the long haul in this amazing journey.
With limited resources and so many children to nurture and educate, our challenges are many. But when Utah parents and educators roll up their shirtsleeves and go to work, they are famous for making the magic happen with a whole lot of good will. Everything we do is for our students. Their needs are the first things to consider when developing solutions for their education. Among the numerous initiatives that should be considered, this list is a good one. If we can resist the distractions of 21st century life, and focus on Utah’s children, their eagerness to learn will motivate and inspire us to find the solutions we need to find.
“Of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for 5,000 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental…the freedom to learn…has been bought by bitter sacrifice. And whatever we may think of the curtailment of other civil rights, we should fight to the last ditch to keep open the right to learn.”
— W.E.B. Du Bois