🚨 REIN IN VOUCHERS — IN THIS YEAR’S BUDGET! 🚨

Tell your lawmakers and Gov. Hobbs that unaccountable vouchers for the rich must be reined in in this year’s budget! Our students deserve quality resources, safe buildings, and rich academic experiences that will prepare them for a strong future. Our educators deserve pay raises and quality working conditions that benefit all teachers, staff and students. 

NOW is the time to demand true voucher reform and fund our public schools. Our easy-to-use, one-click email tool is preloaded with a message, but we encourage you to customize your email for maximum impact. Click HERE or the image below to send an email now!

Hardly Working: This week, the state House reconvened for one day to debate and vote on a handful of bills; they then adjourned. The state Senate remains shuttered. Both chambers will reconvene on June 16. 

Budget Update: Negotiations continue behind closed doors, with just a handful of Arizona’s 90 state lawmakers involved. As word has it, Republican legislative leaders’ current plan is to introduce budget bills on June 16 (the day they’re scheduled to return to the floor) and pass those bills through both chambers to the governor’s desk by June 19. However, lawmakers are still very far apart on budget agreement. It is likely that the budget process will extend into the week of June 23, perhaps going all the way to the June 30 deadline, and even beyond. 

Complicating matters further, some Republicans have plans to leave the country — and budget negotiations — before the fiscal year-end deadline. As the Arizona Agenda reported this week, “Matt Gress (R-4) has to leave by June 22 for his wedding in Italy, and he’s taking some House members with him.” We hear at least one Republican Senate lawmaker is going as well, which means the Republican caucus will be lacking a full complement of votes in both chambers. 

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers want to keep the threat of a Prop 123-voucher mashup alive to lend them leverage in budget negotiations — but we’re continuing to hear that, thanks to your fierce advocacy, that scheme simply doesn’t have the votes to pass. 

👑 Keeping up with the “Veto Queen”: Before going on their extended break, the House passed HB2867. We expect Gov. Katie Hobbs to protect public schools and teachers by vetoing this harmful, anti-democratic bill. 

HB2867 would ban Arizona’s public K-12 teachers and university professors from teaching, promoting or training on “antisemitism.” The bill’s overbroad and controversial definition of antisemitism will likely lead to baseless accusations, the silencing of classroom conversations, and the banning of books and other content. 

Worse, the bill would allow any student or their parent to bring a civil lawsuit against teachers, and would require educators to be held personally liable for damages. Multiple Democratic legislators argued that this would put teachers at risk of losing their assets, including their homes, to defend themselves against allegations and could make them targets of people wishing to use the law maliciously. In today’s fraught times, speaking out against genocide is often wrongfully conflated with antisemitism, as Sen. Analise Ortiz (D-24) pointed out:

✅ Stay in the know: The SOSAZ Bill Tracker contains full information about the bills SOSAZ supports or opposes and gives you up-to-the-minute information on where these bills stand. 

🏫🎒🧑‍🏫 All the school news you need to know from this week in one quick read: 

Boggs Politicizes School Boards With New Appointment: Shelli Boggs, the new MAGA Maricopa County School Superintendent, has already appointed 5 hand-picked school board members to various vacant positions across the county. Boggs, former assistant to Jake Hoffman and statewide outreach coordinator for a Kari Lake-backed group that purported to “expose the radical indoctrination in K-12 education,” is ignoring the vetted recommendations sent to her by school districts and is appointing board members based solely on their ideology. 

In the Phoenix Union High School District, Boggs ignored the candidates vetted by the district to appoint Jeremiah Cota, a former staffer for far-right extremist Congressman Paul Gosar. In Liberty Elementary School District, Boggs disregarded a candidate forum hosted by the district to appoint former board president Michael Todd, who quit last September after presiding over severe financial mismanagement. Queen Creek Unified formed a committee to interview eleven candidates, recommending three qualified candidates (all of whom have or had children in the district) to Boggs. She ignored their recommendation and picked Kelli Anderson, who homeschools, because she “stands firmly against DEI-driven policies.”

Charter Board Revokes Subprime Primavera’s Charter: This week, the Arizona State Board of Charter Schools voted to move forward with revoking Primavera’s charter status, following years of abysmally poor academic results and serious financial concerns. Founder Damian Creamer, a major donor to the Republican Party, is fighting back, enlisting help from his Republican allies and … students at his school? The school is offering graduating students with at least a 2.0 GPA a $500 scholarship in exchange for essays “about how Primavera helped them succeed.”
Some parents are questioning if the essays will be used in the charter’s fight with the state board. For more on this story, check out the latest Op-Ed from Laurie Roberts:

“12 News’ Craig Harris has reported that Creamer has pocketed $24 million in public money from his for-profit charter school operation since 2016. In return, we’ve gotten a school that delivers lousy results.

Primavera, which also operates as American Virtual Academy, is the only charter school in Arizona that the state Board of Education slapped with a “D” rating in each of the last three years.

The state charter board, meanwhile, has given Primavera its second worst rating — Does Not Meet Standard — over the last two years. And its worst rating — Falls Far Below Standard — four times since 2017.

Yet, the school continues to get a heaping helping of our money. Nearly $80 million last year.

Help Voters on Wednesdays through July! Want to help voters who are at risk of being kicked off the voter rolls? Join us for a virtual phone bank on Wednesday, June 11 from 4-5:30 pm or any Wednesday through July and help voters get re-registered! Training is provided — all experience levels are welcome!

Learn how to Deep Canvass in June! Join us to learn about our deep canvassing efforts and how to have meaningful conversations with swing voters. Deep canvassing focuses on listening and connecting with voters to understand their concerns, questions and perspectives on public education. Sign up for one of our interactive virtual trainings so you can be ready to start having these pivotal conversations as soon as we launch canvassing efforts.

Upcoming Town Hall in Yuma County! Join Save Our Schools Arizona Network and our partners at the Arizona Student Association for an upcoming Education Town Hall to hear from students and learn how to get involved! Spanish language services available! You can attend in San Luis on June 11.

Education Roundtable in Chandler! Support public education and hear from a variety of speakers at the Chandler Chamber of Commerce’s “How We Stand” Education Roundtable on Tuesday, June 10 from 9:30-10:30 am at the ASU Chandler Innovation Center.

Our newsletters don’t write themselves! Support our work by becoming a paid subscriber to Save Our Schools Arizona’s Substack. A monthly or annual donation of any amount helps to keep the lights on at the Weekly Education Report so we can provide you with the latest news in education week after week.