Arizona school board member Kim Fisher gives a Nazi salute shouting heil to board president Paul Carver

An Arizona school board official is under fire for giving a Nazi salute and shouting “Heil” at a meeting as he accuses the board president of being a dictator.

Kim Fisher, who is part of the Deer Valley Unified School District Board, made a Hitler-inspired gesture when she challenged board President Paul Carver Jr. during a contentious meeting on Tuesday.

“Heil, heil,” shouted a longtime board member raising his right arm in the air toward Carver, according to the May 26 meeting.

The board president was in the middle of adjourning the meeting when Fisher, who has served since 2021 and has been a parent at the school for 24 years, turned on the microphone and shouted.

Fisher questioned why a public “job lesson” was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon at 4:30, saying that no parents benefiting from the discussion with the board would be able to attend.

“The purpose of having a learning session with our community is that we can get their input and hear our discussions,” Fisher told the board. “If you put it at a time when our community won’t even be here, then I’m worried that it’s for show, not for purpose.”

Both Carver and DVUSD Superintendent Curtis Finch opposed the change, saying it had already been discussed among board members.

“I’m going to feel bad for you for a minute Ms. Fisher because everyone has been making this request over and over again and everyone knows the policy,” Carver said.

Fisher’s actions were immediately criticized by school officials who tried to distance themselves from the board member.

“The district does not encourage, support or endorse visitors or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation or violence of any kind. Such actions do not reflect the mission or vision of DVUSD,” the district wrote in a statement shared by Carver.

“As an elected official, Mrs. Fisher speaks and acts independently. Her opinions and actions do not reflect and should not be directed at other Board members, staff and other members of the school or district community,” the statement added.

The school district serves more than 33,000 students in 41 schools in northern Maricopa County, according to the district’s website.

Carver, a Marine veteran who has served as board president since 2023, is running in the Republican primary in the Arizona House of Representatives District 2 race.

The board’s president called Fisher’s behavior “rampant and repetitive,”

“As a public servant, father, grandfather and member of this community, I want to make my position unequivocally clear: this behavior is abhorrent, completely unacceptable, and has absolutely no place in the Deer Valley Unified School District,” Carver wrote on Facebook.

“The symbols and language of Nazi Germany represent a dark history of hatred, genocide, and oppression. Displaying them in any context is offensive, but displaying them during an official meeting of an educational institution is a total betrayal of public trust,” Carver wrote on Facebook.

Kelley Fisher, president of the school district’s teachers union, organized a rally calling for a controversial board member to resign on the same day as the scheduled board meeting.

“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute at a School Board meeting is unfit to hold public office. There is no excuse for this behavior. Kimberly Fisher should resign before she does more harm to our students and the community at large,” said the leader of the Deer Valley Educators Association.

Kim Fisher lashed out by calling Carver a “tyrant” as she shared her grievances with the board that led to the conflict.

“We are working under, under dictatorship for a long time and deception. Here is the problem, we are in the United States of America and dictatorship is not working well,” he said in a live broadcast on Facebook hours after the meeting.

“They want to say ‘There are no kings’ or not, the same is true in school districts, there should be no kings because these are the children of our parents and parents in the community, they pay taxes, they pay for schools and they have the right to be represented within the district,” he said.

Fisher revealed that he had been “reprimanded” by the board in the past, saying it was because he called Carver his “bullshit.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t know if he was behaving like a dictator because he wanted power or for his own purpose,” he said.

Fisher encouraged his viewers to watch the end of the meeting as it was “lovely,” but did not comment on his greeting.

“Paul is also losing his breath because he has realized that what he did as a dictator in charge of the board has gone wrong and people are getting tired.