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Vol. 78 No. 40
INSIDE
This Week THE VOICE OF BUSINESS
NEWS...............9 Signatures ‘fell short’ to block ESAs for all students
October 6, 2022
County attorney’s office hosts panel about fentanyl BY SAMANTHA REA
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Glendale Star Staff Writer
ncreasing amounts of the deadly synthetic drug fentanyl are being trafficked into Maricopa County, and drug dealers are focusing their efforts on Arizona’s youth. That message was the focus of a community presentation and Q&A at Independence High School in Glendale on Sept. 27. Moderated by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a panel of drug experts discussed how fentanyl is being pushed into communities using a variety of tools. “The seizure quantities that we see now are something that I would never have expected to ever see,” said Jeffrey Beaver, Maricopa County Attorney’s Office Drug
Enforcement Bureau chief. According to a recent press release by the DEA, over 10.2 million fentanyl pills and 980 pounds of fentanyl powder were seized this year in Arizona alone between May 23 and Sept. 8. Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin, 100 times stronger than morphine, and can be snorted or smoked. At the presentation, Shelley Mowery, demand reduction coordinator at Arizona High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), compared the potency inconsistency of the pills to a chocolate chip cookie. The HIDTA is a grant-funded initiative of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The program aids various law enforcement agencies which operate in critical drug traf-
ficking areas of the country. “That fentanyl can be anywhere in that pill…” Mowery said. “There can be enough fentanyl to kill four people in one pill, and there could be another pill that has no fentanyl at all in it.” Beaver said parents should look out for small blue tablet pills about the size of a straw opening, stamped with the letter “M” and a “30.” Police seizures in Arizona have also recently discovered rainbow fentanyl pills, made colorful to target young people. Parents should also be wary of cut-up straws or metal straws they might find, as well as tinfoil with any burn residue on it. Counterfeit medications are rapidly increasing in presence within the state and SEE FENTANYL PAGE 8
Education department, PUSD resolve racial complaints BY JORDAN ROGERS
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Glendale Star Managing Editor
FEATURES .... 22 Rob Schneider’s new film is a love letter to Arizona
OPINION.......................... 10 SPORTS ...........................18 CALENDAR .....................20 FEATURES.......................22 RELIGION ........................24 YOUTH.............................26 CLASSIFIEDS ..................28
he U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights recently resolved a complaint of racial harassment filed against the Peoria Unified School District. In the agreement, Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) commits to take steps to ensure nondiscrimination based on race, color and national origin in its education programs and activities. “Every student in every school deserves to learn free from discriminatory harassment,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant secretary for the Office for Civil Rights. “Peoria Unified School District
today commits to come into compliance with long-standing federal civil rights requirements, ensuring that district students learn without discrimination based on race or national origin.” The district’s commitments in the voluntary resolution agreement include: • Providing support and remedies, where appropriate, to students who were subjected to peer harassment based on race, color or national origin at the school. • Conducting a climate assessment that examines the prevalence of harassment at the school, the hostile environment created by the widespread harassment, the school’s and district’s handling of reports of harassment, and measures for
reducing harassment at the school and for improving the district’s response to reports of harassment. • Issuing an anti-harassment statement and a notice to parents about identifying and reporting harassment and about how the district is expected to respond. • Reviewing, revising and disseminating policies, forms and record-keeping procedures related to harassment based on race, color and national origin. • Training staff about legal requirements under Title VI, reporting and responding to harassment, prohibited retaliation, cultural competency and implicit bias. • Providing developmentally appropriate
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SEE PUSD PAGE 4