Save Our Schools Arizona

The Year to FLIP the Legislature

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 19:20:53 GMT

📋👟 The Path to Victory is Clearer than Ever: After 10 years of tireless work trying to elect a pro-public education legislature that will prioritize and fund schools worthy of our incredible students and educators, the data shows that the path to victory is finally here – if we all roll up our sleeves and put in the work in the 8 “battleground” districts that will make this win possible.

Arizona is one of the top battleground states in the entire country, and following electoral wins in purple and red states across the US, it’s clear the electorate is moving quickly away from MAGA/Trump candidates. Republican Andy Biggs is trailing Governor Katie Hobbs in polling, and his support for Trump is dragging him down.

We at SOSAZ are non-partisan, but that doesn’t mean we don’t take positions. And this year, all of our endorsements for the Legislature are Democrats because the battleground Republican candidates are as MAGA and anti-public education as they come. We are a grassroots team of volunteers of ALL political stripes and ALL walks of life who believe in public education and believe that strong public schools make a strong state. It’s that simple.

Voters often vote for high-profile races like governor and attorney general, but fail to vote down-ballot unless candidates and volunteers contact them. They need to hear from their neighbors who support these candidates – or they simply don’t vote.

The path to a pro-public education legislature runs through these Legislative Districts (LDs). So… let’s look at the map and the math!

LD2 (NW Phx, Deer Valley)

Amelia Gallitano is a doctor, scientist, professor, and mother running to flip a seat in the State Senate.

Rep. Stephanie Simacek is a mom, teacher, volunteer, and Deer Valley Unified School District governing board member running for re-election to the State House.

🔥 Join us to knock doors in LD 2 for our SOSAZ Weekend of Action - Sat, Sept. 5th, 9am in North Phoenix!

LD4 (NE Phx, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley)

Aaron Lieberman is an Arizona native, entrepreneur, and former state representative.

He is running to flip a seat in the State Senate.

Karen Gresham is a third-generation Arizonan, a Madison Elementary School District governing board member, and an accountant running to flip a seat in the House.

Tammy Caputi is a former Scottsdale City Councilmember, business owner, mom, and proven community leader running to flip a seat in the House.

🔥 Join us to knock doors in LD 4 for our SOSAZ Weekend of Action - Sat, Sept. 5th at 8:30am!

LD9 (Mesa, parts of Tempe)

Senator Kiana Maria Sears has served Mesa for over twenty years, advocating for children in the foster care system, fighting for quality public education for every child on the Mesa Public Schools board, and shaping critical water policy for the state on the Arizona Corporation Commission. She’s running for re-election to the State Senate.

Rep. Lorena Austin is a fifth-generation Arizonan with deep roots in Mesa who is a trusted community leader and champion. Rep. Austin has worked for the Maricopa County Community College and is running for re-election to the State House.

Jacob Martinez is a lifelong Mesa resident, a member of the U.S. Navy Reserve, a dedicated community advocate, and a first-generation student who recently graduated from law school. He’s running for the State House.

🔥 Join us to knock doors in LD 9 for our SOSAZ Weekend of Action - Sat, Sept. 5th at 9am!

LD13 (Chandler, Sun Lakes, Gilbert)

Kristie O’Brien is a lawyer, mediator, community advocate, and mom who is running to flip a seat in the State Senate.

Raquel “Rockee” Armstrong is a former teacher, school administrator, cancer survivor, and a current professor of education at ASU. She is running to flip a seat in the State House.

Jacob Weinberg is a 20-year U.S. Army combat veteran and business leader running to flip a seat in the Arizona House.

🔥 Join us to knock doors in LD 13 for our SOSAZ Weekend of Action - Sat Sept 5th & Sun Sept 6th at 9am! SOSAZ Director Beth Lewis will join us on Saturday!

LD16 (mostly Pinal)

Elaine Aldrete is a longtime community leader and educator who has dedicated her career to supporting families and creating opportunities for young people across Arizona. She is running to flip a State Senate seat.

Julia Romero Gusse is a U.S. Air Force veteran, former federal policy advisor, and former Maricopa City Councilmember running to flip a seat in the State House.

🔥 Join us to knock doors in LD 16 for our SOSAZ Weekend of Action - Sat. Sept 5th in Casa Grande!

LD17 (Marana, NW Tucson)

Edgar Soto is a Marine veteran, educator, and community leader running to flip a seat in the State Senate.
Holly Lyon is a retired Air Force Colonel, educator, and leader running to flip a seat in the State House.
Rep. Kevin Volk is a small business owner and a former teacher who was born and raised in Southern Arizona. He is running for re-election to the State House.

🔥 Join us to knock doors in LD 17 for our SOSAZ Weekend of Action - Sunday Sept. 6th at 9am! (Special Guest: Dr. Teresa Ruiz for AZ State Superintendent! 🎉)

LD23 (Yuma, plus parts of Maricopa, Pinal, Pima)

Sen. Brian Fernandez is a sixth-generation Arizonan from Yuma focused on real solutions that uplift working families, invest in education, and strengthen rural communities. He’s running for re-election to the State Senate.
Rep. Mariana Sandoval is a community advocate and paralegal with more than two decades in public service. She’s running for re-election to the State House.
Emilia Cortez is a Yuma County native, bilingual public affairs professional, and community leader running to flip a seat in the State House.

🔥 Join us to knock doors in LD 23 for our SOSAZ Weekend of Action - Sat, Sept. 5th, 5-7pm in Goodyear!

LD27 (NW Phx, Glendale, Peoria)

Kyle Clayton is a realtor, school board member, community advocate, and father running to flip a seat in the State Senate.

Deborah Howard is an accomplished public affairs professional, breast cancer survivor, and community activist running to flip a seat in the State House.

🔥 Join us to knock doors in LD 27 for our SOSAZ Weekend of Action - Sunday Sept 6 at 5pm!

The math is there for a strong path to victory:

We are targeting 6 flippable State Senate seats; we must elect 2 out of 6 to tie or 3 out of 6 to flip the chamber.
We are targeting 9 flippable State House seats; we must elect 3 out of 9 to tie or 4 out of 9 to flip the chamber.
And of course – we must fight to protect those running for re-election.

10 weeks!!! We have 10 weeks left to educate voters in these 8 target districts to flip the state legislature to one that is pro-public education – so we are asking our volunteers to “adopt” a district and commit to volunteering there – whether in person (canvassing or driving canvassers), or by phonebanking virtually with us.

To ADOPT a district, sign up TODAY! → bit.ly/SOSAZpledge

This weekend - Saturday, Sept 4th, 5th, and 6th - is our SOSAZ Statewide Weekend of Action! 🔥📋👟 Volunteer for a #PublicSchoolProud door-knocking canvass or phonebank, connect with fellow public education advocates, and help us flip the legislature to one that will create strong schools, strong jobs, and a strong economy for all of us.

📋 Public School Proud Canvasses! 👟

Saturday, September 5 - 9:00am-11:30am in LD2

Saturday, September 5 - 8:30am-10:30am in LD4

Saturday, September 5 - 9am-12pm in LD 9

Multiple Dates and Times in LD13

Saturday, September 5 - 9am-12pm in LD 16

Sunday, September 6th - 9am-12pm in LD 17
With Dr. Teresa Ruiz for State Superintendent!

Saturday, September 5th - 5-7pm in LD 23

Sunday, September 6 - 5-7pm in LD 27

☎️ Public School Proud Phone Banks! ☎️

Join our team on zoom from 5-7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 12-2pm on Sundays to call critical voters and introduce them to pro-public education candidates for the legislature and school board in their area!

Sign up Here!

“Know Your Ballot” Trivia Night w/ SOSAZ Network: Get ready for an evening of friendly competition featuring trivia about Arizona elections, public education, state history, current ballot measures, pop culture, music, and more. Whether you’re a trivia champion or just there for the laughs, it’s a great opportunity to reconnect with fellow volunteers and public education supporters while supporting the next phase of our work.

Event Details

📅 Date: Tuesday, September 15
🕠 Time: 6:30-8pm
💻 Location: Virtual (Zoom)
🎟️ Registration: bit.ly/2026Trivia

👉 Register to join #TeamSOSAZ for trivia night OR to make a donation if you can’t attend 👉 bit.ly/2026Trivia

Play from the comfort of your home! Join as an individual, invite family and friends to play alongside you, or create a team with fellow volunteers. Throughout the evening, you’ll have opportunities to win prizes and put your knowledge to the test before voters head to the polls this November.

We hope you’ll join us for an evening of celebration, community, and fun as we continue this important work together to fundraise for our grassroots, community centered work to protect public education.

👏 WIN 2 tickets to see Leslie Jones in Mesa!

Sign up for SOSAZ Network’s 1000 Strong monthly donor program at any amount between now and Sept. 15, and you’ll be entered for a chance to WIN! 👉 bit.ly/1000StrongAZ

Whether $5 a month, $10 a month, or $100 a month, your recurring contribution will help fuel our grassroots work – AND get you an entry into the raffle 🎉

The winner will be announced at Trivia Night on the 15th, so stay tuned and share with friends and family. The show is at the Mesa Performing Arts Center on Friday, Sept. 19, so mark your calendars in case you are the lucky winner 🍀

Check out some incredible pictures and stories from across the state that make us #PublicSchoolProud! Do you know a story we should spotlight? Post it on social media with #PublicSchoolProud or email leda@sosarizona.org to let us know.

📊 In Ms. Coon’s Pre-AP Geometry with Statistics classes at Liberty High School, students are doing more than just taking notes – they’re actively applying what they’re learning to everyday life! Students were given three data sets and a day and a half to crunch the numbers, then presented their findings to their peers, making arguments supported by their analysis.

Students from the Pendergast Elementary School District had the chance to compete in a ~delicious~ pizza cook-off, hosted by the district’s foodservice vendor, Chartwells K12. The winning pizza had a surprise ingredient - mango!! 🥭🍕

🧑‍🏫 Check out this video of students in the Early Childhood Education class at Corona del Sol High School in Tempe learning CPR and First Aid training! Public school students learn valuable skills they can use far beyond the classroom every single day.

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.

SUBSCRIBE HERE

Don’t forget to join us on social media. Pick your favorite(s) and join us for fun, engaging content! This is where we post important updates, key news articles, and informative graphics and videos you can’t get anywhere else.

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 32
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 31, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

AZ Supreme Court Kicks Protect Education Off 2026 Ballot

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 16:28:48 GMT

Lea en Semanario en Español

As we reported last week, the fate of the Protect Education Act was in the AZ Supreme Court’s hands. Unfortunately, the Court ruled against Protect Education, and the measure will not be on the November ballot. Here is our statement.

Thousands of SOSAZ volunteers gave this measure their all for 14 weeks, pounding the hot pavement and talking to Arizona voters. This decision has gutted all of us, knowing that the $1 billion voucher program will remain unchecked with no regard to student safety or taxpayer accountability, and knowing that the impacts of the voucher drain on public schools will mean continued school closures, teacher and staff layoffs, and program and resource cuts.

Arizona students deserve so much better – but our state is the tip of the spear when it comes to the war on public education, and we are up against powerful and deep-pocketed special interests that want to see our schools privatized, turned into unregulated private models that can pick and choose their students and profit off of our tax dollars. They don’t want Arizona voters to have a say in this $1 billion, taxpayer-funded voucher program because they know they voters are with us and would have passed Protect Education hands down.

What happened? We believe in full transparency and giving our volunteers who worked so tirelessly the full information, so here is a breakdown. We were so proud to have turned in ~420,000 signatures, which then went through the Secretary of State’s office for their review. Their office removed some signatures due to detached or un-notarized pages, invalid dates, wrong counties, etc., which was a predictable margin that left us with 387,249 signatures.

Then, a 5% sample from each county was sent to that county’s Recorder’s office to determine a validity rate that would be applied to the full county sample. Our validity rates were extremely high, due primarily to our incredible volunteers: Apache 75%, Cochise 89%, Coconino 93%, Gila 95%, Graham 93%, Greenlee 75%, La Paz 100%, Maricopa 73%, Mohave 78%, Navajo 80%, Pima 81.5%, Pinal 82%, Santa Cruz 86%, Yavapai 94%, and Yuma 61%. The statewide validity rate was determined as 75.2% — far higher than most initiatives! — which meant we were left with about 292,820 signatures.

However, the scorched-earth lawsuits from the voucher lobby proved too damaging given the numbers. The lower court threw out many signatures on ticky-tack technicalities, and the Arizona Supreme Court (packed with former Gov. Ducey’s appointees) upheld the lower court’s rulings. The voucher lobbyists suing Protect Education challenged the initiative’s validity on 47 different categories of objections, many focused on picayune details like the phone number or address a paid circulator used when registering with the Secretary of State. By throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink, it became a numbers game. In one example, the court ruled against a paid circulator, who gathered 10,419 signatures, for using a mailbox for her address on her registration form out of fear for her safety. In other words, 10,419 voters were disenfranchised on a technicality. As Gov. Hobbs pointed out, the Republican-controlled state legislature has spent years making citizens’ initiatives increasingly difficult, with strict compliance setting a nearly impossible bar.

The Courts also favored Goldwater on the issue of “duplicate” signatures – which Protect Education rightfully argued double counts the rejection of duplicates. This matters because (due to the fake petition circulated by voucher-pushers) there were over 20,000 duplicate signatures on petitions — people wanted to make sure they signed the right one. Protect Education’s argument was that if the county recorders’ reports result in invalidating ~100,000 signatures and the law says that for every signature removed for being a duplicate one valid signature must be kept, you cannot prove that happened unless every signature is checked. That wasn’t done, the math is off, and this results in a double count of many duplicates.

When all was said and done, the Court rejected around 40,000 signatures, leaving Protect Education ~12,000 signatures short, around 3% of the number we turned in.

This was not the outcome we wanted, but we hold our heads high knowing that we fought a fight that matters deeply, that we are on the right side of history, and that we had hundreds of thousands of conversations with Arizona voters about the critical importance of public education and the devastating impacts of private school vouchers. Those conversations matter, and as we pivot to effecting change in this election and flipping the state legislature, they will make the winning difference.

Prop 145 Also Kicked Off the Ballot: It is a small consolation that Prop 145 (HCR2048, the poison-pill referral designed to block Protect Ed and any effort to regulate vouchers in Arizona, disguised as “military scholarships”) was also kicked off the ballot. A lower court ruled it unconstitutional and the Arizona Supreme Court upheld that ruling this week. A “yes” vote on that measure would have enshrined ESA vouchers into our state constitution, so we are relieved.

📋👟 It’s TIME: Vouchers are not on the ballot, but electing a new legislature that will enact the Protect Education Act’s reforms IS. We must also elect pro-public ed school board members and statewide officials like Dr. Ruiz for Superintendent of Public Instruction, PLUS achieve NO votes on Props 320, 318, and 144.

There are 8 target districts to flip the state legislature to one that is pro-public education – and we only have 11 weeks left to educate voters!!! We are asking our volunteers to “adopt” a district and commit to volunteering there – whether in person (canvassing or driving canvassers), or by phonebanking virtually with us.

LD2 (NW Phx, Deer Valley)
LD4 (NE Phx, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley)
LD9 (Mesa+)
LD13 (Chandler, Sun Lakes, Gilbert)
LD16 (mostly Pinal)
LD17 (Marana, NW Tucson)
LD23 (Yuma, plus parts of Maricopa, Pinal, Pima)
LD27 (NW Phx, Glendale, Peoria)

To ADOPT a district, sign up TODAY! → bit.ly/SOSAZPledge

There are plenty of ways to get involved this week! Join a Public School Proud canvass or phone bank, connect with fellow public education advocates, and help us build support for Arizona’s public schools.

☎️ Public School Proud Phone Banks! ☎️

Multiple Date and Times in LD13

📋 Public School Proud Canvasses! 👟

Every Monday - 5-7pm in LD2

Every Tuesday - 5-7:30PM in LD9

Thursday, Aug 27 - 5:30-8:00pm in LD27

Saturday, Aug 29 - 9-11am in LD16

Multiple Dates and Times in LD13!

Saturday, Aug 29 - 8:30-12:00pm in LD17

Saturday, Aug 29 - 9-11am in LD23

Sunday, Aug 30 - 8:30-10:30 in LD4 with AG Mayes

We’re proud to continue growing the list of #PublicSchoolProud candidates!

Check out our latest endorsements and see the candidates and leaders standing up for Arizona’s public schools. Stay tuned, there are more on the way!

You can view all of our endorsements at: https://sosarizona.org/vote4publiced

At Paradise Valley Unified, school bus driver Chris Duhame is making a difference for students every day. Duhame, who drives students with disabilities, says, “If your child is on my bus, your child is my child” ♥️ His dedication to his students and the special needs community recently earned him a surprise celebration from Arizona’s Family Surprise Squad.

🌱 Students at Round Valley High School are growing more than vegetables! After planting their agriculture garden last spring, students are now enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of their hard work 😉, including pumpkins, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

Congratulations to the Gilbert High School Unified Flag Football athletes and coaches on an amazing start to their season! We’re proud to see students bringing teamwork, energy, and school spirit to the field.

Chinle Unified School District showed off its school spirit at the Central Agency Fair Parade! The district’s float brought together the Transportation and Security Department, Lynx Family Resource Center, and Wildcat Cheer Team, who handed out more than 1,000 popsicles while proudly representing their school community.

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 31
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 24, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Protect Education Trial Updates

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 15:58:49 GMT

Lea en Semanario en Español

This week, the trial to determine whether the Protect Education Act qualifies for the ballot concluded, and Maricopa County Superior Court Judge McDowell made his ruling. However, it remains unclear whether Protect Education will be on the ballot.

🧑‍⚖️ Prop 212 Trial: The judge ruled in favor of Protect Education on many fronts. The voucher lobbyists suing Protect Education (the Goldwater Institute, Free Enterprise Club, etc.) challenged the initiative’s validity on 47 different counts, many focused on picayune details like the phone number or address a paid circulator used when they registered with the Secretary of State (which may be different now than it was in March, or may be impermanent due to home, work, health, and life changes). This is what we mean when we say “scorched earth” – objecting on every issue no matter how minor or true in an attempt to invalidate EVERY signature possible. This forced our team to spend countless hours securing affidavits and court appearances from over 40 different circulators — a Herculean task that saved about 20,000 signatures.

However, Judge McDowell tossed thousands of other signatures based on address issues and other accusations. His ruling also favored Goldwater on the issue of “duplicate” signatures – which Protect Education rightfully argued double-counts the rejects of any duplicates found by county recorders or the Secretary of State. This matters because (due to the fake petition circulated by voucher-pushers) there were over 20,000 duplicate signatures on petitions — people wanted to make sure they signed the right one. The judge wrote, “The court agrees it is conceivable that a double count could occur, but the court cannot make a decision based upon a hypothetical double counting of duplicate signatures. The court feels it has already been asked to address situations untethered to facts actually received in evidence because of the timeline in this case and the lack of reports from several of the counties.’‘

⏳ Waiting for Maricopa County… The most pressing issue? We are still awaiting signature counts from Maricopa County, the largest county and therefore the one that had to process the largest number of signatures (nearly 12,000!) from the random 5% sample sent to them by Sec. of State Fontes. This means that the future of Prop 212 could come down to the signature checks conducted by this office.

SO — it all comes down to the final math, likely hinging on appeals to the Supreme Court from Goldwater and/or Protect Education. The state’s deadline to print ballots is this Thursday, August 20th, so it’s safe to say it will be a rollercoaster of a week filled with a lot of ups and downs.

Protect Education’s lawyers continue to defend every signature collected. We know Arizona voters overwhelmingly support the Protect Education Act and will pass it as Prop 212 in November when given the chance. We won’t stop fighting to ensure their voices are heard and public education is protected for 1.1 million Arizona students!

Defending our signatures is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. Please consider contributing $10, $20, or $50 towards the Protect Education Legal Fund today!

👏 Republicans’ Protect Education Publicity Pamphlet Language Struck Down: In an Arizona Supreme Court order late Thursday, Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer said the wording to explain effects of Prop 212 (the Protect Education Act) written by Republicans who control the Legislative Council was “argumentative, speculative, and non-neutral.’‘

She said the explanation gave only the interpretation of the GOP lawmakers who

oppose the initiative’s proposed changes to the ESA voucher program. Timmer said the lawmakers’ description would have inaccurately told voters that approving Prop 212 would allow the Protect Education committee to sue families who use vouchers.

What the Legislative Council writes is critically important to elections because it goes into a brochure — which by law must provide an impartial explanation of all ballot measures — that is mailed to the homes of all of Arizona’s 4.3 million registered voters.

🙏 Supreme Court Considers Prop 145 (Poison Pill Voucher Bill): Lawyers from the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest and Coppersmith Brockelman briefed the Arizona Supreme Court this week on Republicans’ deceptive Prop 145 (which GOP lawmakers referred to the ballot as a fix for military families, but is actually a poison pill seeking to invalidate the Protect Education Act).

In their final filing responding to a pair of “friend of the court” briefs from conservative organizations, our side cast Prop. 145’s backers as increasingly desperate. The far-right, pro-voucher Arizona Free Enterprise Club and school choice advocacy group EdChoice (whose Board former Gov. Ducey recently joined) “make excuse after excuse” for the Republican-controlled legislature’s decision to “cynically … exploit goodwill towards military families to serve an entirely different purpose… (Their) arguments prove only that saving (Prop. 145) requires eviscerating the Separate Amendment test,” attorneys Sambo Dul and Daniel Adelman wrote.

These are the final filings in the legal fight over Prop. 145, and there will be no oral arguments. The Supreme Court is expected to rule before Aug. 20, the final date for ballots to be sent to the printers in advance of the Nov. 3 election.

☎️ Public School Proud Phone Banks! ☎️

Monday, Aug 13 - 1:30-3:30pm in LD13

📋 Public School Proud Canvasses! 👟

Monday, Aug 16 - 5-7pm in LD2

Tuesday, Aug 18 - 3-5pm in LD4

Tuesday, Aug 18 - 5-7:30PM in LD9

Multiple Dates and Times in LD13!

Saturday, Aug 22 - 9-11am in LD16

Saturday, Aug 22 9-11:30am in LD17

Sunday, Aug 23 - 8:30-12:00pm in LD17

Students and staff in the Flagstaff Unified School District are excited for another school year! Whether you’ve been back for a month already or just starting up again, we hope everyone has a fantastic fall semester 😄

🚴 At Drachman Montessori in Tucson, the Middle School Bike Club is about more than just riding a bike – it’s about building confidence, independence, and awareness in young cyclists!

Check out the inspiring story of Alain Gomez-Gudiño, a recent graduate of Saguaro High School in Scottsdale and the 2025-26 Gatorade Arizona Baseball Player of the Year! Alain and his family immigrated from Venezuela in 2023, traveling on foot across 8 countries to reach the United States and apply for asylum. “When we passed through the [Dorian Gap], I almost lost my mom. That day it was raining, so everything got wet and it was hard to walk. We passed next to the river and she fell. She almost gave to the river and I just grabbed her and got her up.” Now, after winning two state championships at Saguaro, Alain participated in the MLB Draft Combine and will attend (and play baseball at) the University of South Carolina.

“The first thing I always say before I go to practice or I go to the baseball game is just have fun,” Gomez-Gudiño said. “This is the sport; have fun there, always smile. I always get a smile on my face, talk to my teammates, talk to everybody. I just try to have fun.”

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 30
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 17, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Trial Begins for Protect Education

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:27:35 GMT

Lea en Semanario en Español

This Friday marked the first day of the trial for the Protect Education Act — or Prop 212. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge heard arguments on whether voters should have the chance to consider Prop 212’s sweeping private school voucher reforms this November.

Although the Protect Education coalition turned in over 421,000 signatures in July, deep-pocketed special interests have issued a scorched-earth legal challenge that seeks to overturn as many signatures as possible in order to keep Prop 212 off the ballot. The lawsuit, backed by the ultra-right Goldwater Institute and Free Enterprise Club, seeks to invalidate signatures on the basis of circulator registration issues, notary stamp issues, duplication issues, and much more.

The court case will continue into next week, and Protect Education’s lawyers are ready to defend every signature collected!!! We feel confident that we turned in more than enough to qualify, and will keep you updated on the trial.

We know Arizona voters overwhelmingly support the Protect Education Act and will pass it as Prop 212 in November. We won’t stop fighting to ensure their voices will be heard and public education will be protected for 1.1 million Arizona students!

Defending our signatures is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. Please consider contributing $10, $20, or $50 towards the Protect Education Legal Fund today!

😡 Judge Rules against Prop 145 Ballot Description: In not-so-good news, a judge has ruled against Secretary of State Fontes’ ballot description for the deceptive Prop 145 (which GOP lawmakers referred to the ballot as a fix for military families, but is actually a poison pill seeking to invalidate the Protect Education Act). Fontes’ language warned in the first line that a yes vote on Prop. 145 would invalidate Prop. 212 (Protect Education). Simple, right?

Guess again 🙄 Maricopa County Superior Judge David McDowell acknowledged that Prop. 145 nullifies any other measure in its entirety that affects those vouchers – but said that Fontes broke the law when his description said that approval of Prop. 145 would “nullify Proposition 212.’‘

The key, said McDowell, is Fontes is supposed to describe the effect of ballot measures on “existing law.’‘ And because Prop. 212 is not now existing law but simply a proposal, the judge said any reference to how Prop. 145 would affect it is illegal. “It may or may not become a law,’‘ McDowell wrote. “But that determination isn’t made until all votes are cast.’‘ More to the point, he said, if Prop. 212 fails, it doesn’t become law and, therefore, Prop. 145 has no effect on it.

🤞 Not the last word? McDowell ordered Fontes to recraft the description, this time leaving out any reference to Prop. 212. The new order, however, may not be the last word. Calli Jones, spokeswoman for Sec. Fontes, said he is weighing whether to seek Supreme Court review. “We stand by our decision to include the provision in the ballot language detailing the impact of a ‘yes’ vote on the citizen’s initiative,’‘ Jones said.

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 29
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 10, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

AZ Court Rejects Two GOP-Led, Anti-Public School Ballot Measures

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 19:01:27 GMT

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🎉 Judge Rejects Poison Pill Voucher Measure: We are so thrilled to report that this week, a Maricopa County Superior judge ruled that HCR2048 – the poison pill measure designed to invalidate the Protect Education Act – is unconstitutional. The Maricopa Superior Court found that HCR2048 violates the Separate Amendment Act because it hides an attempt to void Prop 212 under the guise of protecting military families.

It’s beyond shameful that the Republican-led state legislature is so scared of Arizona voters having a voice in how our tax dollars are spent that they will resort to trickery, deceit, and downright unconstitutional behavior in order to void a vote on Prop 212’s reforms to Arizona’s $1 billion private school voucher program. And we know that Republicans will stop at nothing to prevent these common-sense reforms.

We fully expect Republican lawmakers to appeal this ruling to the Arizona Supreme Court and we are ready to defend this ruling and continue fighting for Arizona voters. We are grateful to the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest for representing SOSAZ and Protect Education in this lawsuit and for defending public schools, democracy, and the rule of law.

🎉 Judge Rejects Anti-Union, Anti-Teacher Measure: Another Maricopa County Superior Court judge threw out a Republican ballot referral that sought to put Arizona teacher’s unions out of business. The judge concluded that it would have also outlawed all public sector unions, including fire and police, which would violate the Separate Amendment Rule.

Republicans will not seek an appeal on this case, since they were under major pressure from police and fire unions (which often spend big on Republican campaigns) to not pass or support HCR2040 in the first place.

👎🗳️Vote NO on Prop 320, Spread the Word: We posted this week about Prop 320 – another incredibly dangerous anti-public school proposition Republicans put on the ballot in the dead of night to punish against the Protect Education Act. This would require 60% of school funding to go to classroom expenses, which might sound good until you realize that so much of what benefits kids (special education programs, math and literacy coaches, librarians, counselors, air conditioning, buses, and SO MUCH MORE) doesn’t fall into this category. And in a state that’s 48th in per-student funding, 60% is impossible. Republicans have set it up so that a failure to meet the 60% bar means massive cuts to classroom funding (make it make sense 🙄). Bottom line: this means cuts to programs that benefit children.

Help us get the word out NOW so voters are educated by November. Here are Facebook and Instagram posts to share.

💪 First Review Complete! This week, the Secretary of State’s office finished its initial review of Protect Education signatures! It verified that we turned in 41,995 petition sheets which contain 417,481 signatures 🎉

📅 What’s next? Now, Sec. Fontes’ office has sent random samples of 5% of each of our 15 counties’ signatures to their respective County Recorders. The County Recorders are working to verify those signatures, and their validity counts will be applied to the whole county sample to achieve a verified number of valid signatures. The smaller counties will trickle in soon, butd larger counties like Pima and Maricopa may not come in until mid-August. All smooth sailing!

🧑‍⚖️When will the Protect Education lawsuit be heard? The opposition has filed a robust lawsuit to our signatures, and the trial will start next Friday, August 7. Our lawyers are hard at work doing all the research required to ensure a victory 🎉

Defending our signatures is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. Please consider contributing $10, $20, or $50 towards the Protect Education Legal Fund today!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 28
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 3, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Protect Education Becomes Prop 212! 🎉

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:24:11 GMT

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IT’S OFFICIAL: The Protect Education Act will be Proposition 212 on your Arizona ballot this November! This week, the Secretary of State’s office released the proposition numbers, and Protect Education is Prop. 212!!! 🎉

While this is a visible symbol of progress, we have a huge hill to climb against the lawsuit the voucher lobby threw down against our signatures. But we’ve got this – the signatures are valid, we did the work, and they’re running scared.

🛡️⚖️ Protect Education Legal Updates: This week, lawyers representing SOSAZ and Protect Education made oral arguments in a lawsuit against HCR2048, which blatantly attempts to invalidate the Protect Education Act under the guise of protecting military family’s scholarships. HCR2048 is an example of the worst form of legislative trickery, as it was passed in the 11th hour of the last day of legislative session as a striker bill that never went through the legislative process. Judge Kreamer heard the case, and expressed concern throughout regarding the Separate Amendment Rule. When examining the big picture, he stated that he was worried the “precedent that would be set for the legislature to undermine citizens’ initiatives is potentially extremely problematic.”

🔥 Must-Read OpEd on the lawsuit against HCR2048 🔥

These lawsuits will move quickly, as everything must be settled before ballots and publicity pamphlets are printed in late August. Judge Kreamer has said he will rule early next week, and this case will surely be appealed and heard by the Arizona Supreme Court. We will keep fighting the good fight! 💪

Save Our Schools Arizona was proud to endorse in some key races this cycle – and is thrilled to announce that most of the candidates we backed WON 🎉 These candidates are #PublicSchoolProud through and through — and we congratulate them!

‼️Coming soon: Stay tuned for our full lists of endorsements for the Arizona legislature, school boards, and more!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 27
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of July 27, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Protect Education Sues AZ Legislature over Ballot Analysis 💪

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 18:12:13 GMT

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🛡️⚖️ Protect Education Files Suit: Protect Education has taken legal action against the Republican-led state legislative committee, challenging their heavily biased and misleading ballot description. This language will be used for the November election’s publicity pamphlet, which is distributed to 4.3 million Arizona voters to help determine how they will vote.

The lawsuit argues that the language passed by the committee to describe the Protect Education Act intentionally distorts the measure, despite the law requiring the analysis to be fair and impartial. Attorney Bo Dul says the language “misrepresents the initiative’s provisions” and adds “language designed to cast the measure in the worst possible light, while also omitting accurate information that may cast the initiative in a favorable light.”

Dul added that the language added by Republicans “was intended to be inflammatory and clearly advocacy oriented and nowhere within the language of the initiative itself.”

Protect Education’s lawsuit also takes issue with the description of HCR 2048, a GOP “poison pill” measure designed to nullify the Protect Education Act – even after voters approve it this November. The analysis entirely omits this fact, failing to inform voters of the true purpose of the measure: to void Protect Education.

These lawsuits will move quickly, as everything must be settled before ballots and publicity pamphlets are printed in late August. We will keep fighting the good fight; stay tuned!!

The lawmakers in charge at the state Capitol are beholden to voucher-pushing special interests, and they will stop at nothing to prevent Arizona voters from having a voter-protected say in ESA voucher reforms and how our tax dollars are used. Why? Because they’re scared. They’re seeing the polling, and they know that Arizona voters overwhelmingly support these common-sense reforms.

ProPublica released a scathing new report this week, detailing the utter lack of regulation of private schools in states where taxpayer-funded private school vouchers are being pushed by special interests:

Arizona’s top education official, Supt. Tom Horne, publicly lauded Mike Tyson as a “champion of education” for lending his name to a voucher-funded private school operating out of a strip mall.

Sadly, this is all too common: pop-up private schools are rampant because Arizona doesn’t require them to meet any academic standards, safety requirements, or financial oversight to accept hundreds of millions a year in taxpayer-funded ESA vouchers.

Despite the mountain of reporting, Republican lawmakers continue to reject all reforms to make the ESA voucher program safer, transparent, and accountable to Arizonans. THIS is why we must pass the Protect Education Act in November 💪

Don’t forget to vote in this year’s primary by this Tuesday, July 21! It’s too late to put your ballot in the mail, but you can return it at a vote center or vote in person: iwillvote.com

SOSAZ is proud to endorse in a handful of primary races this cycle. We will be adding more statewide, legislative, and school board races after the July primary. Check out our endorsements here!

For Superintendent of Public Instruction, we have endorsed Dr. Teresa Leyba Ruiz, a lifelong educator and champion of public schools, students, and educators!

Public School Proud Phonebanks!

Saturday, July 18 - 3-5pm

Sunday, July 19 - 2-4pm

Monday, July 20 - 5:30-7:30pm

Tuesday, July 21 - 9-11pm

Make calls to friendly voters with fellow volunteers on zoom!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 26
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of July 20, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

The Fight is Just Beginning 💪

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 17:56:34 GMT

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Signature Update! It’s been nearly a week since we turned in hundreds of thousands of signatures to qualify the Protect Education Act to the ballot, a first-in-the-nation effort to rein in a $1 billion private school voucher program!!! 👏🎉 This week, the Secretary of State’s office finished processing the Protect Education petitions — over 40,000 petitions with over 420,000 voter signatures!! We were there to observe the process, and we can report that Sec. Fontes’ team did a phenomenal job protecting your signatures!!! Next, signatures will be scanned and a random sample will be sent to each of Arizona’s 15 county recorders for signature verification.

No Rest for the Voucher Pushers: In the meantime, our opponents have been busy 😡 Within hours of Protect Education filing signatures, the Betsy DeVos-backed special interest group American Federation for Children announced it intends to take us to court to keep us off the ballot. Then, former Governor Ducey announced a new PAC aimed at invalidating the Protect Education Act. We expect bad-faith lawsuits to be filed against us any day now.

They’ll stop at nothing. Why? Because they’re scared. They’re scared of our grassroots army of volunteers and the incredible conversations we’ve had across Arizona. They’re scared that voters will have a real, voter-protected say in the ESA voucher program and how their tax dollars will be used.

And they should be. We’ve seen the polling, and we know that Arizona voters overwhelmingly support these commonsense reforms to the $1 billion. That’s why we were able to collect 420,000+ signatures in 14 weeks in 100-degree temperatures.

BUT, in order for Arizona voters to weigh in, we need to defend these signatures in court. And this is expensive. We are working tirelessly to raise $100,000 in emergency legal funding by next week — if everyone on our list of public school defenders across Arizona were to each give $10, $25, or $50, we would meet our goal immediately.

🏛️ AZ Leg Republicans Force Biased Language on Protect Ed & More: Legislative Council met on Wednesday to determine language (which is supposed to be an “impartial analysis” according to state law) to describe ballot referrals in the statewide voter pamphlet delivered to Arizona’s 4.3 million voters. In a series of party-line votes, the GOP majority council defeated efforts by Democratic lawmakers to add clarity for voters.

However, when the time came to tell voters about the one measure they never wanted on the ballot: the Protect Education Act, Republicans didn’t hesitate to make draconian amendments clearly intended to harshen the language (from “recoup” funding to “take” funding) and to confuse voters (for example, telling voters Protect Education gives a PAC the right to sue families, which it does not).

When it came to HCR2048, the legislative referral that blatantly attempts to invalidate the Protect Education Act under the guise of protecting military family scholarships, the committee refused to add language explaining that the intent of their measure is to kill Protect Education — leaving out the main result and what voters most need to know. Rep. Nancy Gutierrez said the effect of that provision should be made clear in the ballot pamphlet and proposed adding language to tell voters that approval of this

Republican measure would specifically invalidate the entire Protect Education Act, “which would enact commonsense reforms to rein in the fraud, waste and abuse in the

current ESA voucher program…. People should know that, by voting for this, they are also voting to negate a citizens’ initiative. And I think that needs to be extremely clear.” Her amendments were shot down in a party-line vote.

Lawsuit Filed: Lawyers representing SOSAZ and Protect Education have filed a lawsuit against HCR2048, which blatantly attempts to invalidate the Protect Education Act under the guise of protecting military family’s scholarships. HCR2048 is an example of the worst form of legislative trickery, as it was passed in the 11th hour of the last day of legislative session as a striker bill that never went through the legislative process. The case will be heard in the Maricopa Superior Court in the coming weeks, and Legislative Democrats have already filed an amicus brief in support. Stay tuned!!!

More Perfect Union came to Arizona this summer to cover our state’s off-the-rails $1 billion voucher program and its devastating impacts on school closures, kids, and communities. It’s a MUST Watch 📽️ Watch the full video ⏩

Public School Proud Phonebanks!

Saturday, July 11 - 3-5pm

Sunday, July 12 - 2-4pm

Monday, July 13 - 5:30-7:30pm

Tuesday, July 14 - 5-7pm

Wednesday, July 15 - 5-7pm

And more!

Make calls to friendly voters with fellow volunteers on zoom!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 25
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of July 13, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

WE DID IT!!! 421,451 Signatures Filed to Protect Education

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 18:20:51 GMT

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We were incredibly proud to deliver an estimated total of 421,451 signatures for the Protect Education Act alongside our partners at the Arizona Education Association this Thursday morning. Because of all of YOU – the incredible volunteers across the state – the Protect Education Act turned in more than enough signatures to withstand court challenges from voucher-pushing special interests 🎉

These hundreds of thousands of signatures represent the clear will of Arizona voters to place significant reforms on the ESA voucher program that is siphoning $1 billion from Arizona’s underfunded public schools. Arizona voters are more than ready to add common-sense guardrails to provide far better transparency and accountability, to curtail waste, fraud and abuse, and to ensure safety and quality academics for all students.

Donate Today to Defend the Signatures in Court!

We know that the voucher pushers are preparing scorched-earth legal attacks — and we must be able to defend our signatures.

Can you contribute to the Protect Education Legal Fund today?

These 421,451 signatures represent the tireless dedication of thousands of volunteers — parents, educators, students, retirees, and community members — who care deeply about Arizona students and the future of public education in our state. In 14 short weeks and in 100-degree temperatures, Protect Education’s army of volunteers and statewide, grassroots coalition partners talked to hundreds of thousands of voters about the critical importance of public education, laying the groundwork for a YES vote to Protect Education in November.

As we write this, the Secretary of State’s office is destapling and scanning the petitions. Next, signatures will be scanned and a random sample will be sent to each of Arizona’s 15 county recorders for signature verification. The entire process follows strictly specified statutory guidelines. Stay tuned!!

Turning in these signatures was a massive step towards a historic, first-in-the-nation effort to rein in universal vouchers and prioritize public education. The next step is winning in court against special interests! We are so honored to help build this people-powered movement to give Arizona voters a voice to Protect Education!

SOSAZ is proud to endorse Dr. Teresa Leyba Ruiz for Arizona’s next Superintendent of Public Instruction! Dr. Ruiz is a lifelong educator who believes in fully funded, well-resourced public schools for all students.

Dr. Ruiz respects educators and will listen to and respect them. She will prioritize public education and ensure that she administers the ESA voucher program in a manner that stops the waste, fraud, and abuse that is currently being ignored by the Arizona Department of Education.

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 24
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of July 6, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

LAST CHANCE for Protect Education Initiative!!!

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 16:58:28 GMT

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Last Chance!! It’s your FINAL CHANCE to return ALL petitions and plug in and help Protect Education over the finish line. If you have 1, 3, 5, 15, or 100 signatures, TURN THEM IN!!! Every single signature counts, and we will need every bit of cushion to withstand the massive legal challenges we know are coming — we’ve got the voucher pushers trembling in their boots, but we’ll win if you bring them in! We have just a few more days – run, don’t walk, to add your signature, and request a petition to ask friends and family to sign (or grab at a depot near you)!

Procrastinators Unite 👏 Even if you have been meaning to get active and you wish you would’ve done more - you can still get a petition and get some signatures! Every bit counts, and we appreciate you ALL for anything you can do!

We typically see petitions POUR in during the final week, so be part of the cascade and BRING ‘EM ON HOME!!!!

How to Plug In!

1. Turn in ALL of your petitions -- even if they only have one signature. We need every single sheet with any signatures, no matter how full, returned ASAP. Click the button below to find all of our notarize-and-return events this weekend!. Don’t see an event that works for you? Fill out our *NEW* Request a Notary form, and we will connect you with someone within 48 hours!

2. Check out 1-2 more petitions to help Protect Education meet our goal. After you turn in your current sheets, take a few more with you if you can to ensure Protect Education will be on the ballot this November 🙂 We need everyone to chip in during this final week to ensure we don’t fall short! Reach out to your friends, neighbors, hairdressers, babysitters, and anyone else you can think of to ask them to sign! As always, you can access our Volunteer Resource Hub for everything you need to collect signatures.

🚨 Once again, Republicans are threatening to negotiate away the will of Arizona voters by seeking a special legislative session to invalidate all signatures for the Protect Education initiative, just DAYS before signatures are due.

To be clear, calling a special session to accomplish this would require action from the Governor’s office or a two-thirds vote of the legislature.

Republicans are terrified of the Protect Education Act. They know Arizona voters are ready to pass this long-overdue voucher reform in November, so politicians are doing everything they can — including cutting shady backroom deals — to prevent Protect Education from reaching the ballot.

Save Our Schools Arizona calls upon all lawmakers and Governor Hobbs to refuse to take part in any deal that would invalidate the will of hundreds of thousands of Arizona voters who signed to put ESA voucher reform on the ballot.

Here’s How YOU Can Make a Difference 📲 📧☎️

Click to get email and call scripts to reach out to your lawmakers and Gov. Hobbs!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 23
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of June 29, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Protect Education Initiative Survives 🎉 Republicans Stack Ballot with Anti-Public School Measures 😡

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 20:06:21 GMT

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The state legislature adjourned around 5am on Saturday morning, after a grueling 18-hour day of political subterfuge in which the Republican majority went scorched-earth on Arizona kids by passing several anti-public-school ballot referrals.

The Republicans also attempted to kick the Protect Education initiative off the ballot, attempting to work a deal that would invalidate the hundreds of thousands of hard-earned signatures our volunteers and partners have gathered from Arizona voters across the state eager to sign to rein in the $1 billion ESA voucher program and recoup major funding for our public schools. The Republican majority at the Capitol is clearly terrified of this common-sense measure being put to Arizona voters, because the voters are clearly on our side.

Protect Education is Alive!!! 🎉🎉🎉 The Protect Education AZ initiative survived these vicious, anti-democratic attacks — now it’s time to double down on gathering signatures, they are DUE June 30! We have just 18 days to seal the deal and gather enough signatures to withstand the massive legal attacks we know are coming. Run, don’t walk, to add your signature, and request a petition to ask friends and family to sign (or grab at a depot near you)!

We want to extend our gratitude to every Democratic lawmaker who stood with the people of Arizona by rejecting any attempt to invalidate Protect Education petitions. And we are so grateful to all of you who raised your voices in opposition with calls, emails, and even showing up en masse to the legislature to bear witness! Together, we fought for public education, and now we are going to have to knock a lot of doors and help Arizona voters understand how bad these public school attack measures are for our students and educators. We are READY, and we know you’re with us! 🔥♥️

Here are the anti-public school measures that will now be on our November ballot:

HCR2048: This Trojan horse measure uses military families as a pawn to cloak its true intent: to invalidate the Protect Education Act after voters approve it in November. While the measure claims to be focused on preventing unused funds from being swept from the voucher accounts of military families, Subsection B of the measure makes the true intent clear: “If a bill enacted into law or a measure approved by the voters on or after November 1, 2026 violates Subsection A of this section, the entire bill or measure is void. A court may not sever any portion of a bill or measure that violates subsection A of this section.”

Republicans hope that if both Protect Education and HCR2048 are passed by voters in November, this language will allow the courts to disregard the will of Arizona voters and throw out the entire act. When asked if Republicans were running this measure because of the failed attempt to reach a deal on voucher reform, Republican Senator John Kavanagh flat-out admitted, “That’s the reason why we’re running this.” As Democratic House Leader Oscar De Los Santos said, “I smell fear in this building. I sense politicians that know that the people of Arizona are ready to take on the fraud and abuse of the ESA [voucher] program.”

But there’s a simple solution: we need to talk to Arizona voters in force, so they recognize this measure for the scam it is. We’ll defeat it so that when voters pass Protect Education, our state will finally enact the voucher reform Arizona so desperately needs.

HCR2007 / SCR1032 is a blatant attack on school funding, designed to micromanage and defund public district schools (but not charter or private ESA voucher-funded schools). The measure asks voters to force public schools to spend at least 60% of their funding on “direct instructional expenses” or have the difference withheld by the state. It might sound good for Arizona schools to spend more on classroom instruction — however, 60% is an unreasonable benchmark that schools have not met at any point since 2003 when the Auditor General’s Office began monitoring the number. Why?? 👉 “Direct instructional expenses” only covers teachers, some aides, instructional supplies, field trips, and athletics. This narrow definition doesn’t address ALL the other pieces required to make a kid’s school day work.

We will work tirelessly to ensure voters know to vote NO on this public school attack bill that will harm students and educators.

HCR2040 is a retaliatory and incredibly dangerous measure intended to punish teachers and aiming to do away with school unions in our state. It targets teachers’ right to collective bargaining – a process that improves working conditions for teachers and learning conditions for students – outright banning the state or any school district from “negotiating with a labor organization for an exclusive representation agreement, collective bargaining agreement, memorandum of understanding, contract or other agreement regarding the terms and conditions of employment.”

The measure goes even further, banning teachers from deducting their union dues directly from their paychecks in a blatant attempt to shrink membership and banning districts from using any public resources to support labor organizations. That means schools couldn’t offer their facilities to host union meetings (even when rented like other clubs or organizations) or even allow union members to have a presence at events like new teacher orientations.

These proposals are widely unpopular, and polling shows that voters would be less likely to support legislators who voted for the measure. We expect Arizona voters to soundly defeat this proposal in November – and we’ll be knocking doors in force to make sure they do!

This weekend, we’re finishing up our massive, statewide Week of Action – and getting down to the last 2.5 weeks to collect signatures for the Protect Education initiative to rein in the $1 billion private school voucher program and redirect desperately needed funds to our local public schools! That’s right — all volunteer signatures are due Tuesday, June 30! We’re in the home stretch – we’ve got this, team!!!

This is the perfect time to:

Get all of your petitions notarized and returned – you can find locations with notaries (marked) on this list of signing events! Whether full or partially full, we’d like to get ALL petitions turned in so we can get an assessment of where we are going into our last month!

Jump in and volunteer - the weather will be nice and we have about a million ways you can jump in and get involved 👉 SIGN UP for a shift near you HERE! Or just grab a clipboard and post up at any public pool, splashpad, park, dog park, library or trailhead – ask folks, “Do you have a moment to sign to help our public schools?” Ask a buddy to join you to make it even more fun!

Pick up a few more petitions for the last few weeks! (Or a stack! 😉) You can check out petitions at any depot location, or request petitions and get connected locally - here’s the Petition Request form.

Many people are plugging in now that it’s summertime – and we’re ready for reinforcements for the final stretch!!! Thank you so much for stepping up! If you’ve already been collecting, we hope you’ll double down on your efforts in June! We have less than 3 weeks to get Protect Education on the ballot, but we need 400,000 signatures in order to make it through the massive legal challenges we know are headed our way.

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 22
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of June 15, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

FINAL MONTH to Protect Education

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 30 May 2026 18:23:20 GMT

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We’re swinging into June, the LAST MONTH to collect signatures for the Protect Education initiative to rein in the $1 billion private school voucher program and redirect desperately needed funds to our local public schools! That’s right — all volunteer signatures are due Tuesday, June 30! We’re in the home stretch; let’s hit this out of the park ⚾☀️🧢

This is the perfect time to:

Get all of your March-May petitions notarized and returned – you can find locations with notaries (marked) on this list of signing events! Whether full or partially full, we’d like to get ALL petitions turned in so we can get an assessment of where we are going into our last month!

Jump in and volunteer - the weather will be nice and we have about a million ways you can jump in and get involved 👉 SIGN UP to request petitions HERE and you’ll be connected to your local organizers! Or just grab a clipboard and post up at any public pool, splash pad, park, dog park, library or trailhead – ask folks “Do you have a moment to sign to help our public schools?” Ask a buddy to join you to make it even more fun!

Pick up a few more petitions for the month of June! (Or a stack! 😉) You can check out petitions at any depot location! *Note: you should also be able to pick up Protect the Vote petitions at these depots!

Many people are plugging in now that it’s summertime – and we’re ready for reinforcements!!! Thank you so much for stepping up! If you’ve already been collecting, we hope you’ll double down on your efforts in June. We have less than 5 weeks left to get Protect Education on the ballot, but we need 400,000 signatures in order to make it through the massive legal challenges we know are coming from the voucher pushers…

💥 Need more petitions, or ready to get started??? Here’s how to plug in:

Pick up petitions at a Depot near you – here’s the Petition Depot list
Request petitions and get connected locally – here’s the Petition Request form
Here is the training video. It’s critical that everyone who circulates watches it, no matter how many times you’ve volunteered for petitions. The rules change frequently, and we want all signatures you collect to be counted.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

Exciting New Endorsements!

We are excited to share that Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes have endorsed the Protect Education Act, joining Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva!

She doesn’t even go here! In the latest in a long string of fraud in Arizona’s ESA voucher program, a woman has pleaded guilty to continuing to receive voucher funds – amounting to almost $30,000 – for a year after moving from Arizona to Texas.

Notably, she was not caught by the Arizona Department of Education – they were notified by a concerned family member who reported the case to the department.

SOSAZ organizer Raquel Mamani put it best in an interview with AZ Family: “The Superintendent of Public Instruction [Tom Horne] … spends a whole awful lot of time talking about how there’s no fraud going on. But time after time, [reports] show that there is a lot of fraud going on. The legislature could have fixed this universal part of the ESA program if they wanted to in one day, but they have refused to make any commonsense fixes or changes that could, save taxpayers a lot of money.”

Update on the FAKE, Betsy DeVos-backed ballot initiative: The Arizona Agenda wrote a great breakdown of the difference between Protect Education, the real effort to put much needed guardrails on the ESA voucher program, and “Fortify AZ,” a decoy effort meant to confuse Arizonans. “Fortify AZ” – an astroturf group funded by the American Federation for Children (AFC) – has engaged in underhanded, deceptive practices like copying language directly from the Protect Education campaign, misleading voters, and even offering a “bounty for each circulator successfully poached” from the Protect Education campaign.

Now, new reporting reveals that “Fortify AZ” did not do their due diligence before introducing their initiative, and the measure is likely unconstitutional. Arizona’s constitution requires that ballot initiatives must identify a funding source for any immediate and future costs imposed by the measure, which the AFC initiative does not do. That means that even if the fake initiative gets enough signatures to make the ballot, which is unlikely, it is very likely to be struck down by courts. Jim Barton, an attorney for Protect Education, shared: “Continuing with a ballot measure that is likely to be struck down by the courts is disrespectful to voters and dishonest.”

Thankfully, there is a REAL effort to reform Arizona’s voucher program to add commonsense child safety measures, transparency, and accountability – the Protect Education Act! Click here to find a signing location or volunteer opportunities near you.

⏳ Still baking: Though Capitol observers were hoping to see budget bills drop this week, negotiations are still under way. The official line remains that Arizona is “on track” to meet its constitutionally mandated budget deadline of midnight on June 30, and that talks are going well. We hope to see a deal introduced next week.

Temporarily burying the hatchet: While our politicians conduct their discussions behind closed doors, journalists have observed a major change in their tone. In the past week, Republican legislative leaders and the Democratic governor have gone from hostile to oddly conciliatory. As veteran journalist Howie Fischer says, “The really big change is the rhetoric.” And Craig Harris from 12 News says, “It seems like a budget is near. How do I know? They’re being nice to each other!”

We are waiting to see whether this is a budget that supports (and funds) K-12 public education and refuses to opt in to Trump’s federal voucher scheme. Click below to urge Gov. Hobbs to veto any budget that includes Trump’s voucher scam:

NO FEDERAL VOUCHERS

Regardless, we know that Republicans are once again refusing to pass any reforms to the $1 billion ESA voucher program for private schools — and that we the people must stand up and give Arizona voters a say. See above and join us to protectedaz.com!

🤓✅ The SOSAZ 2026 Bill Tracker, a live document with full information about all bills SOSAZ supports or opposes in 2026, gives you up-to-the-minute information on where these bills stand. Bookmark the Bill Tracker to stay in the know.

Congratulations to all of Arizona’s students who are moving up from middle school to high school! Flagstaff Unified is celebrating the perseverance, achievements, and all of the amazing things their students accomplished in middle school.

In Higley, students in San Tan Elementary School’s Spanish Dual Language Immersion program participated in their annual Parade of Nations, showcasing the amazing power of cultural education and appreciation.

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 21
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of June 1, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

40 Days Left to Protect Ed!

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 23 May 2026 18:04:19 GMT

Lea en Semanario en Español

We’re thrilled to announce that Protect Education is hosting a Weekend of Action from Friday, May 22, to Monday, May 25! We’re taking advantage of the 3-day weekend to double the events and double our signatures — so help us spread the word! Click here to find a location near you, and don’t forget to check out a petition or two while you’re there 👉 bit.ly/pe-woa!

Only 40 days left 🥵🥵🥵 If you haven’t plugged in yet to Protect Education and rein in off-the-rails $1 billion ESA vouchers, now is the time – and if you’ve already been collecting, we hope you can double down on your efforts! We have a little over 5 weeks to get Protect Education on the ballot, but we need over 400,000 signatures in order to make it through the vicious legal challenges we know are coming. We need FAR MORE signatures to build the cushion we need – and we need everyone who cares about the future of public education in Arizona to do their part. Whether it’s collecting 5, 15, or 100 signatures, bringing your friends and family to a signing location, setting up at your local library/splashpad/pool/rec center, or sharing on social media — every bit helps!!

💥 Need more petitions, or ready to get started??? Here’s how to plug in:

Pick up petitions at a Depot near you – here’s the Petition Depot list
Request petitions and get connected locally – here’s the Petition Request form
Here is the training video. It’s critical that everyone who circulates watches it, no matter how many times you’ve volunteered for petitions. The rules change frequently, and we want all signatures you collect to be counted.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

Exciting New Endorsements!

We are excited to share that Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, AZ PTA, and Arizona List have all endorsed the Protect Education Act!

Not cooked yet: Senate President Warren Petersen (R-14) told media this week that Gov. Hobbs and Republican legislative leaders are “meeting almost every single day” to hash out the particulars of a budget deal. He said an agreement (which is negotiated behind closed doors by legislative leaders only, then shown to the public and sent to rank-and-file lawmakers for a vote) is “very close” and “I feel like we’re probably 97% of the way there.” He also indicated we could see movement on budget bills in “early June.”

Still officially on vacation: The Senate has been meeting on Mondays only; the House adjourned on May 11 and isn’t expected back until June 1. Lawmakers must pass a budget by midnight on June 30 to avoid a state government shutdown.

SOSAZ is proud to honor the following candidates with the #PublicSchoolProud seal of approval:

Congratulations to Arizona’s 2026 Public School Graduates!! We’re so proud of all you’ve achieved and can’t wait to see what your futures hold. 🎓

While the Class of 2026 is preparing for a new journey, the Class of 2038 is just getting started! At Salt River Elementary School in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, former kindergarten students celebrated a year of learning and growth, marking the beginning of their education journey!

At Navarrate Elementary in Chandler, Project-Based Learning is the name of the game! The whole school came together for their year-end showcase, with each grade showing off their special projects. With costumes straight out of Ancient Greece, recycled instruments, and a wax museum, an amazing year of learning was on display!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 20
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of May 25, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

So… You’re Saying There’s Fraud in the Voucher Program???

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 16 May 2026 18:36:48 GMT

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This week, Arizona’s off-the-rails private school voucher program came under fire once again — this time due to a scathing report from the Auditor General.

👀 “Weak controls, questionable spending, and internal failures”: According to the 12News Investigative team, “the report paints a troubling picture of a billion-dollar taxpayer-funded [voucher program] plagued by weak controls, questionable spending, and internal management failures… The report found the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) lacked basic financial controls and standardized procedures to monitor spending.”

The AZ Republic published an extensive review, sharing that auditors found the state could not prove it reviewed or took action in over half a million “high risk expenditure transactions” from July 2023 to October 2025, totaling nearly $100 million. The Auditor General report also shows the ADE failed to address potentially unlawful purchases until deadlines to recover the misspent money had passed.

Vouchers Ripe for Abuse: The new report paints the $1 billion-plus ESA voucher program as ripe for abuse due to neglected or otherwise weak reviews of purchases. One review found deficiencies in 14 out of 15 transactions. Another found the ADE failed to identify 25 samples of 63 transactions with problems, including “missing documentation, indicators of possible misuse, overpayments, and unallowable expenses.”

🤯 ADE Accused of Misleading the AG’s Office: What’s worse, the Auditor General’s Office slammed the education agency in the report for “misleading” its investigators. Auditors disputed the ADE’s claim that it audits 2 million orders for education tuition and expenses, saying “we found in practice that the Program’s audit methodology did not constitute a comprehensive risk-based approach.” The report details how auditors were told about robust processes to catch misspending, while a complete lack of documentation told a different story.

In another example, program officials “represented to us on multiple occasions that it was selecting 30% of orders for audit according to its undocumented policy and procedure. However, when we found contradictory evidence through our observations that demonstrated the Program’s percentage of transactions assigned for an audit was lower — 6.5% to 23.9% — the Program pivoted and reported it was in fact ‘a goal’ and not its undocumented policy and procedure.”

In its response to the report, Supt. Horne’s office said it “does not concur” with the recommendation that it should use a comprehensive risk-based auditing system. We were shocked to read this, considering Supt. Horne has been claiming he’s using a risk-based auditing system for years 🙄

🍿 Conflict of Interest, Who Dis? The report details how the ADE failed to properly check potential conflicts of interest by employees who use the program.

For example, ESA Director John Ward had 12 voucher transactions auto-processed without an independent review, while two families that the program identified “as being conflicts for executive director had their transactions reviewed quickly and had missing documentation, unallowable expenses, and overpayments totaling $4,031.” The report also noted that a transaction for Ward’s child for music lessons did not include the required evidence of instructor accreditation.

Oh, now you want an audit? While legislative Democrats continue to demand a full audit of the program, which they have been calling upon for years, their colleagues across the aisle now appear to be coming to the table in light of this report. House Speaker Montenegro said in an interview, “concerns identified by the Auditor General should be addressed directly and appropriately.”

We won’t hold our breaths for the Republicans to usher in any real reforms this session, so we are taking the reins and working tirelessly to pass the Protect Education Act! See the next section to find out how YOU can help! 👇👇👇👇👇

There are only 7 weekends left to collect signatures for the Protect Education Act? We are going to need every single signature to bring long overdue reform to the $1 billion ESA voucher program – and return hundreds of millions of dollars in unused funding back to our public schools!

Protect Education is launching a Halfway There Signature Slam Weekend from THIS Friday, May 15 to Monday, May 18. It’s time for all of us to get out there and collect every signature we possibly can to make sure we have the cushion needed to withstand massive legal challenges from out-of-state special interests. We’ve got this! 💪

Grab your clipboards! It’s a great time to try a local coffee shop, splash pad, park, market, festival, or other event that draws in would-be signers! We also encourage volunteers to go to your local public school events, including end-of-year concerts, plays, graduations, parent pick up and drop off lines - just make sure you stay off campus and across the street. We recommend signage to attract signers - we’ve had GREAT success, and school is wrapping up across AZ so this is your last chance!

If you haven’t had a chance to sign yet, PLEASE DO! Protect Education is hosting signing events in every corner of Arizona — please click here to find a location near you (and bring along some family and friends so they can sign and check out petitions, too!) 👉 bit.ly/pe-sigslam3! Events with notaries are marked, if you’re ready to turn in!

💥 Need more petitions, or ready to get started??? Here’s how to plug in:

Pick up petitions at a Depot near you – here’s the Petition Depot list
Request petitions and get connected locally – here’s the Petition Request form
Here is the training video. It’s critical that everyone who circulates watches it, no matter how many times you’ve volunteered for petitions. The rules change frequently, and we want all signatures you collect to be counted.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

😡 A one-day (or zero-day) work week: The Senate met Monday to consider HCR2040, a punitive response to the Protect Ed initiative that aims to legislate away school unions, but stopped short of advancing the bill to a full vote. HCR2040 now stands a single vote in each chamber away from inclusion on our November ballots. The Senate then adjourned until next Monday. The House remains off the floor until June 4.

📅 Regular meetings: According to reports, Hobbs and Republican legislative leaders have “agreed to a regular cadence of meetings going forward” to hash out budget details behind closed doors in advance of the June 30 deadline. Hobbs also lifted her “bill moratorium,” but whether this new round of talks will truly be in “good faith” (one of two conditions she set last month in that moratorium) remains to be seen.

💸 Day 120: This past Friday marked Day 120 of what is designed to be a 100-day legislative session, a milepoint that sees lawmakers’ per diem pay drastically cut. Regardless, while Arizona lawmakers are recessed, the Arizona Mirror reports they will collectively take almost $200,000 in taxpayer-provided per diem, whether or not they travel to the Capitol or do any work. The majority of legislators represent Maricopa County; their per diem is being cut from $35/day to $10/day. Non-Maricopa County lawmakers get substantially more, but see cuts as well: their per diem drops from $269/day to $135/day.

📉 The math isn’t mathing: In an op-ed this week, the director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress argued that Arizona’s Republican majority needs a reality check on their budget math. He writes for the Arizona Republic, “The state is facing real constraints, yet instead of addressing the revenue shortfall, lawmakers are doubling down on the same approach: cutting taxes and hoping for a different result. That is a gamble Arizona can no longer afford… You cannot cut revenue year after year and still expect to fund the basic building blocks of a strong economy” such as public K-12 education.

May 18, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM MST

Location shared upon registration

🧑‍⚕️🏅 Congratulations to the Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) Nursing chapter at Queen Creek High School for their great showing at the recent HOSA AZ competition! Lily and Zoey earned a 2nd-place finish in CPR/First Aid, and Andrea earned a 3rd-place finish in Medical Terminology! Way to go to these future nurses!

Students at Killip Elementary School in Flagstaff have STEM learning integrated into their lessons every day! From designing LEGO carnival games and building wooden boats to creating microscopes with 3D-printed parts, these students have the opportunity to engage in hands-on, real-world learning that prepares them for a lifetime of innovation. 🔬

🎥 The Paradise Valley High School Media program had an amazing showing at the 4th Annual West Valley Film Festival, with four students placing in the top three! Congratulations to Evan, who earned 2nd Place in the Best How-To Video category,

Daniel, who earned 2nd Place in the Best Typography category,

Zavien, who earned 3rd Place in the Best Mise-en-Scene category, and

Nilay, who earned 3rd Place in the Best Sound Editing category. But that’s not all – the PVHS media program had a nominee in every single one of the 18 categories!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 19
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of May 18, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

It’s Petition Round Up Weekend! 🤠

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 09 May 2026 17:41:11 GMT

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This weekend is Protect Education’s May Petition Round Up Weekend from Friday, May 8 - Monday, May 11 - and we want it to be HUGE! Our volunteers were on 🔥 bringing in nearly 1000 petitions during our last turn-in weekend, and we need y’all to do it again!

Do you have petitions with signatures on hand? Yeehaw, get ‘em turned in! No matter how full your sheet is, we are asking every volunteer to return as many petition sheets as you can so we can get an accurate count. We currently have 8,000 (‼️) petitions checked out to volunteers in the field, and we need as many back as possible — don’t fret, we’ll give you some more blanks once you do 😉 Let’s do this, Arizona. For our students, for our educators, for our future!

All of the statewide turn-in events listed here have a notary to make turning in your petitions easy for you. There will be return events in every corner of Arizona — please check here to find a location near you (and of course you can also bring friends and family to sign and check out new petitions!) 👉 bit.ly/pe-roundup!

📋 8 Weekends Left! We have just 8 weekends left to collect 256,000 signatures from Arizona voters to qualify the Protect Education Act for the November 2026 ballot. We are going to rein in AZ’s $1 billion ESA voucher program and redirect saved funding back to Arizona’s public school classrooms — which serve over 90% of Arizona students 🍎🏫🎒

💥 Need more petitions, or ready to get started??? Here’s how to plug in:

Pick up petitions at a Depot near you – here’s the Petition Depot list
Request petitions and get connected locally - here’s the Petition Request form
Here is the training video. It’s critical that everyone who circulates watches it, no matter how many times you’ve volunteered for petitions. The rules change frequently, and we want all signatures you collect to be counted.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

🔥 Here’s an excerpt of our newly published OpEd – read the whole piece here:

“Are you tired of hearing reports about millions misspent on voucher-funded Disneyland trips, appliances and lingerie? Well, if Arizona Republicans at the state legislature have their way, get ready for a whole lot more stories of voucher waste, fraud and abuse.

This week, Republican lawmakers pushed through an irresponsible, non-negotiated budget (which Gov. Katie Hobbs promptly vetoed) that would have forced Arizona to opt in to Trump’s federal voucher scheme. This nationalized voucher scheme would trigger a massive transfer of wealth to Arizona’s private schools — the same ones already cashing in on our state’s $1 billion universal ESA voucher program — without any guardrails or protections against fraud or discrimination.

Opting in would double down on the massively inequitable, two-tiered system of haves and have-nots that’s been pushed into Arizona with universal ESA vouchers, which have become a “handout for the wealthy.” It incentivizes disinvestment in — and therefore the dismantling of — public schools, which serve over 90% of Arizona students.

And as U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, who recently introduced a bill to rescind the federal voucher scam, points out, this program is set to irresponsibly explode the federal debt by $25 to $55 billion a year.

Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility? Not anymore...

We won’t hold our breath waiting for the Trump administration to ensure the program doesn’t just serve as a tax shelter for the uber-rich — but we do know that these guidelines won’t be issued until after our state budget has passed and the legislative session has concluded.

That makes opting in this year not just reckless behavior, but downright political malpractice…

Arizonans deserve a responsibly crafted budget that doesn’t contain poison pill voucher programs that are wide open for waste, fraud and abuse. Arizonans deserve politicians who are honest with the people and who prioritize proper funding of our public schools so students are equipped for their future. And Arizonans deserve leaders who will stand strong against federal tax cuts that benefit the wealthy when Arizonans are struggling to make ends meet.”

Speak Up NOW

⚰️ Another budget bites the dust: In what is unfortunately becoming an annual exercise, this week Hobbs promptly vetoed the non-negotiated budget Republican legislative leaders sent her. She blasted it as “unbalanced and reckless,” then invited the House and Senate to set up a budget meeting. She told KTAR she and Republican negotiators met Thursday, and that she hopes talks will eventually be productive. We’re glad to see them meeting, as prior to this, Republican leaders were spending most of their time finger-pointing and slinging accusations.

🏖️ Must be nice: The Arizona Legislature has decided to take a paid vacation for the rest of the month. The House voted along party lines to skip town until June 1, saying there is currently nothing else for them to do (⁉️). The Senate will convene again on Monday, but plans to take the rest of May off as well. The governor’s bill signing moratorium remains in effect until Republican legislative leaders participate in “good faith” budget negotiations, but is effectively moot with both chambers adjourned.

🙄 Wanting it all: Senate President Warren Petersen (R-14) said Hobbs shouldn’t expect major changes from negotiations, but that’s not realistic. Republicans are insisting on having it all: full $1.4 billion tax conformity, massive cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, across-the-board agency cuts, and zero reforms to their $1 billion universal ESA voucher scheme. They’re also betting that Hobbs will wholly capitulate to their demands rather than risk a government shutdown — but, as the Arizona Agenda notes, “Negotiating with the governor is a thing you have to do when the governor’s signature is required.” The Agenda also points out that Republicans’ “performative budget standoff didn’t work out well” last year.

⏰ Tick tock: The calendar is counting down toward lawmakers’ only constitutionally mandated responsibility: the passage of a state budget by midnight on June 30. Here’s hoping the approaching deadline lights a fire under our do-nothing legislative majority!

Join Public Funds Public Schools on Tuesday, May 12, at 11am AZ time (2 pm ET) for a timely webinar on Trump’s federal school voucher scheme.

Register now for No Accountability, No Transparency: The Risks of Scholarship Granting Organizations under the Federal Voucher Program on May 12 at 11am AZ time (2 pm ET).

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all of the amazing educators who work day in and day out to support our students and overall community!

“I met Ms. Gonzales, and she was that catapult for me.” Check out this amazing video from ABC15 spotlighting Ruth Harris, a former educator and current vice principal at Wilson Elementary in Phoenix – the same school she attended as a first grader. Ruth walked into the school “scared, alone, and unable to speak English,” but thanks to her teacher, Ms. Gonzales, Ruth immediately felt accepted. Now, Ruth is trying to create that same experience for the next generation of students!

🧑‍🍳👨‍🍳👩‍🍳 It isn’t just Teacher Appreciation Week – Marana Unified is celebrating their amazing Food Services staff for National Lunch Hero Day! Thanks to all of the incredible cafeteria staff across the state who keep our students fueled and strong – kids can’t learn on an empty stomach!

Yuma Elementary District is giving a huge thank you to their dedicated nursing staff for National Nurse Day! From administering medication and conducting health screenings to treating bloody noses, caring for sore tummies, providing first aid, and everything in between, our school nurses make sure our students are healthy and safe on campus. Thank you, nurses! 🧑‍⚕️👨‍⚕️👩‍⚕️

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 18
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of May 11, 2026

AZ GOP: Political Theater & Bad Budgeting

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 02 May 2026 17:02:45 GMT

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Budget chaos: This week in the Arizona state legislature, Republican leaders introduced and advanced a highly partisan, non-negotiated budget that utterly ignores Arizona’s $1 billion voucher-sized hole by cutting everywhere except the actual problem — and without introducing any solution to renew Prop 123 K-12 funding or attempt to settle the $7 billion school facilities lawsuit which the courts have given lawmakers until November to fix.

Cuts funding for public education. As multiple journalists have noted, this budget also cuts public education spending, including $127.8 million for K-12 and $39.7 million for higher ed, according to 12News’ Craig Harris.

Instead of investing in our kids’ future, the proposal would flush a jaw-dropping $1.4 billion in revenues over three years by copying last year’s massive federal tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthiest into state law.

Leaves voucher fraud untouched. Despite rampant reports of massive misspending of tax dollars ($10 million in one year alone!), the proposed GOP budget refuses to rein in Arizona’s universal ESA voucher program, and chooses instead to hack budgets for all state agencies by 5% — even the Arizona Department of Education, which is tasked with overseeing the ESA voucher program. With this unserious proposal, Republicans are doubling down on their failure to address runaway waste, fraud and abuse — including the 20% ESA voucher misspending rate on items such as diamond rings, Kenmore appliances, Broadway shows, and trips to Disneyland — and looking everywhere else instead, cutting the programs and services Arizonans actually depend on. It’s greenlighting the continued profligate, wildly irresponsible waste of taxpayer funds, and that’s unacceptable.

Want to DO something about it, since our legislature won’t? Find a location to sign the Protect Education petition here, and then check out a petition to have friends sign, too 👏 Every signature matters!!!!!

🔥🎤 “It gives data centers and large corporations lofty handouts while rural hospitals are cut, food assistance is cut, public universities are cut, housing resources are cut. Maybe we need to call our rural hospitals, food assistance programs or public universities ‘ESA vouchers’ so that they are safe from public scrutiny.” — House Assistant Minority Leader Nancy Gutierrez (D-18) on this week’s Republican-only budget

Fails to renew Prop 123. Republicans are also flatly refusing to re-up Prop 123, a voter-approved measure that pulled roughly $300 million a year from the state land trust to fund public schools, which expired last year. One of the chief architects of this budget, Matt Gress (R-4), says the chances of a renewal this year are “almost zero” because “there isn’t consensus in the (Republican) caucus right now” and “there are only a few people that care a lot about 123.” The stated excuse, that including Prop 123 funds in a budget is “bad governing” because the measure requires voter approval, is ridiculously flimsy. It’s straightforward to include conditional budget language that increases school funding only if voters approve a renewal — in fact, that’s what lawmakers did in 2016.

What happens next? The Republican-only budget passed out of the House on Wednesday along party lines. The Senate plans to vote on the bills Monday. Incredibly, Senate President Warren Petersen (R-14) challenged Gov. Hobbs to come up with an alternative to the failed proposal, saying, “If she doesn’t want to make those (agency) cuts, she’s going to have to come up with something to balance” them. (We know where they can find $1 billion!)

The political reality, of course, is that these budget bills are a negotiating salvo, not a real proposal, and everyone knows it. In a divided government, with Republicans narrowly holding control of the legislature and a Democratic governor on the 9th floor, bills must receive input from both parties in order to become law. Hobbs has all but guaranteed a veto, telling media Republicans’ failed proposal prioritizes “special interests and billionaires over everyday Arizonans,” but has left the door open for restarting talks to work on a serious budget rather than this political theater..

“This budget is copying the chaos from Washington by passing tax breaks for billionaires, data centers and special interests at the expense of public education.” — Hobbs describing this week’s Republican-only budget

What about the bills? Hobbs is also hinting that she may not lift her bill moratorium “until (Republicans) also engage in good-faith negotiations” — which is unsurprising given that part of her demand in issuing the moratorium in the first place was that they do so. It’s high time for Republican legislative leaders to now come to the negotiating table in good faith, and to work with Gov. Hobbs and Democratic lawmakers to build and pass a real budget that takes into account the real needs of Arizonans.

📋 9 Weekends Left! We have just 9 weekends left to collect 256,000 signatures from Arizona voters to qualify the Protect Education Act for the November 2026 ballot. We are going to rein in AZ’s $1 billion ESA voucher program and redirect saved funding back to Arizona’s public school classrooms — which serve over 90% of Arizona students 🍎🏫🎒

Take Part in our May Signature Slam! Grab your clipboard and get those signatures! Don’t forget to turn them in at a notary event as soon as possible, too!

There will be events in every corner of Arizona — please check here to find a location near you to sign 👉 bit.ly/pe-sigslam2

💥 Need more petitions, or ready to get started??? Here’s how to plug in:

Pick up petitions at a Depot near you – here’s the Petition Depot list
Request petitions and get connected locally - here’s the Petition Request form
Here is the training video. It’s critical that everyone who circulates watches it, no matter how many times you’ve volunteered for petitions. The rules change frequently, and we want all signatures you collect to be counted.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

🤡 New privatizer, same as the old privatizer: This week, the Navajo County Board of Supervisors appointed Sylvia Allen to the state House. She replaces David Marshall, who resigned his seat last week after being nominated as Navajo County recorder (despite legal questions about whether the Arizona Constitution permits him to accept the job). Longtime SOSAZers will remember Allen as the Senate Education Committee chair who in 2017 co-sponsored and advanced SB1431. This universal ESA voucher expansion bill spurred SOSAZ’s formation, our successful referral of SB1431 to voters, and the resounding 2-to-1 ballot defeat of the measure it became, Prop 305. Undeterred from doing the bidding of special interest lobbyists against clearly expressed voter will, Allen continued to push for ESA voucher expansion in 2019 and 2020. As the Arizona Republic article notes, “She was also known for incendiary comments about race and repeating scientific inaccuracies” such as her beliefs that the earth is just 6,000 years old and the government manipulates our weather using chemtrails. Allen, a charter school owner who lost her primary in 2020 to Wendy Rogers, was promptly sworn in on Wednesday, the morning after her appointment.

Join Public Funds Public Schools on Tuesday, May 12, at 2 p.m. ET for a timely webinar on Trump’s federal school voucher scheme.

With the program projected to funnel tens of billions of federal tax dollars through SGOs to vouchers, this webinar will highlight how these organizations have repeatedly been shown to lack adequate accountability and transparency leading to significant waste, fraud, and abuse of public funds. SGOs also heighten the risk of discrimination against students and families with their broad discretion over who receives a voucher. The panel will discuss why the growth of SGOs under the federal voucher scheme is yet another reason states should reject the program and instead use public funds to support and strengthen public schools.

The webinar will be moderated by Education Law Center Staff Attorney Katrina Reichert and will feature Carl Davis, Research Director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy; Dr. Sally Butzin, past President of the League of Women Voters of Tallahassee, Florida; and Dr. Alyssa Bowen, Deputy Executive Director & Director of the Equality Project at True North Research.

Register now for No Accountability, No Transparency: The Risks of Scholarship Granting Organizations under the Federal Voucher Program on May 12 at 2 p.m. ET.

🏊‍♀️ Congratulations to Josie, a freshman at Shadow Mountain High School in Paradise Valley Unified, on breaking three women’s SB9 American records in para swimming!! Josie, who was born with hemiplegic cerebral palsy, has quickly cemented herself as a key member of the SMHS Swim & Dive team – and she is only in her first year! We’re excited to see what the next three will bring.

At Knoles Elementary in Flagstaff, the Beacon program for students with special needs is creating a supportive, inclusive environment for the entire school! Through events like reverse inclusion days, where mainstream students attend pullout classes, students are building confidence, friendships, and a strong sense of belonging. 😁

⚙️ Page High School has a new sign advertising their CTE program, designed and created by students in the program! Lucy designed the sign in her CTE Graphic Arts class, Daren fabricated it in his Welding Technologies class, and Chloe painted it in her Auto Collision class. These students did an absolutely amazing job!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 17
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of May 4, 2026

🎉🎉🎉 150,000 Signatures to Protect Education!!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 17:43:25 GMT

Lea en Semanario en Español

👏Let’s gooooooooo!!!! 👏 On Friday, the Protect Education campaign announced that our coalition has collected just over 150,000 signatures — more than half the number required to put this initiative on the ballot!

We know our work is far from finished, as the billionaires who forced voucher expansion on our state are committed to doing whatever it takes to challenge our signatures, spending their untold millions to thwart the will of Arizona voters. We’re not going to let them win! We plan to collect hundreds of thousands more signatures than the law requires to make sure that we can withstand any and all legal challenges — and if our coalition’s early numbers are any indication, we’re on track to do just that.

We have people power — and we’re using it! So join us in celebrating 🎉🎉🎉 and then check out a few more petitions, dig deep, and help us triple this number by July 2 — when we will turn in a historic number of signatures together!

📋 10 Weekends Left! We have just 10 weekends left to collect 256,000 signatures from Arizona voters to qualify the Protect Education Act for the November 2026 ballot. We are going to rein in AZ’s $1 billion ESA voucher and redirect saved funding back to Arizona’s public school classrooms — which serve over 90% of Arizona students 🍎🏫🎒

Take Part in our Statewide Weekend of Action! The weather will be gorgeous – before the hot hot temps kick in, grab your clipboard and get those signatures! Don’t forget to turn them in at a notary event as soon as possible, too!

There will be events in every corner of Arizona — please check here to find a location near you to sign 👉 bit.ly/ProtectEdEvents

Don’t forget to use the map function (top left below) to find a location nearest you!

💥Ready to get petitions and get started??? Here’s how to plug in:

Pick up petitions at a Depot near you – here’s the Petition Depot list
Request petitions and get connected locally - here’s the Petition Request form
Here is the training video. It’s critical that everyone who circulates watches it, no matter how many times you’ve volunteered for petitions. The rules change frequently, and we want all signatures you collect to be counted.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

Legislative Vacation 🏖️ The Arizona Senate recessed on Tuesday, skipping out on work in order to focus on budget negotiations and “related work.” The House adjourned Wednesday for the rest of the week for the same reason. Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate are now working together behind closed doors to finalize a spending plan – which they still haven’t released. It seems their urgency has increased after Gov. Hobbs threatened last week to veto all legislation until a budget agreement is reached.

Hobbs Slams Rs: Gov. Hobbs’ office slammed Republicans in a press release this week, blaming them for not yet releasing a budget proposal to the public: “It has been a month since Governor Hobbs called on legislators to show their budget to the public, and Republican leadership has given Arizonans nothing but evasive answers and empty promises about their budget proposal. It’s time for Republican leadership to show the people of Arizona their plan and come back to the negotiating table to pass a bipartisan and balanced budget.”

Budget Cuts are Coming: For their part, the Senate Republicans say they are nearly ready to release a budget – and Craig Harris of 12News reported that their plan will reduce state agency budgets up to 5%. Thankfully – and likely due to the immense public outcry it would cause – reports indicate that K-12 funding and public safety programs will not receive cuts under the proposal. But despite the state’s looming financial issues, Senator Kavanagh (who is leading the negotiations for the Senate Republicans) says the GOP will add zero reforms to the off-the-rails $1 billion ESA voucher program — despite reports that about 18,000 ESA parents had misused more than $10 million last year on banned items, including jewelry, Kenmore appliances, and iPhones. If they won’t, we will – sign up to volunteer to put voucher reform on the ballot at ProtectEdAZ.com.

The budget is “anybody’s guess”: When asked about renewing Proposition 123 funding this year, Kavanagh was blunt: “I would think that it’s not going to happen.” For now, the timeline remains uncertain. Kavanagh said a deal could come together quickly—or drag on into the summer. “We could theoretically have a budget in two weeks… or we could be here till after June. It’s anybody’s guess,” he said.

🤗 Last week, SOSAZ Communications Manager Tyler Kowch traveled up to Fountain Hills Middle School to deliver our Champion of Public Education award to Principal Kimberly Wheeldreyer, our School Administrator of the year. But that wasn’t all – when he got there, he was surprised by his 8th-grade social studies teacher, Mr. J, who is now the Superintendent of Fountain Hills Unified!

At Morenci High School, the chips are flying – wood chips, that is! The Wildcat Welders Carpentry Cats took not only 1st place at EAC Skills Day, they also placed 2nd and won an honorable mention! Their instructor shared, “Man, I couldn’t be more proud of these students. This didn’t just happen overnight, this is hard work, teamwork, and grit paying off. They’ve put in the hours, trusted the process, and built each other up to get where they are today.” 🪵

Happy Earth Day from Manzo Elementary School in Tucson! This year, in honor of the global theme for Earth Day 2026, “Our Power, Our Planet,” Manzo Elementary School proudly announced a $10,000 donation from Fry’s Food Stores and The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation! This funding will support the school’s garden and greenhouse, directly empowering students to take local action through hands-on environmental science and urban farming.

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 16
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of April 27, 2026

Arizona Says NO to Trump’s Federal Voucher Scam

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 16:20:45 GMT

Lea en Semanario en Español

What a week! Thousands of volunteers across Arizona are working tirelessly to rein in our state’s universal voucher program by collecting signatures for the Protect Education initiative — check out our
BRING ‘EM BACK Weekend of Action below, get those petitions returned 🔥🔥🔥

Meanwhile, our state’s leaders have been hard at work defending against Trump’s federal voucher scam 👇

👏 Gov. Hobbs Vetoes Federal Voucher Bill: On Monday, Governor Hobbs vetoed SB1142, which would have forced our state to opt in to the federal tax credit voucher program in Trump’s HB1. This voucher program is designed as a tax shelter for the rich that would transfer untold billions to private schools — doubling down on the massive inequities created by our state’s ESA voucher program and further eroding public education in our state. We’re grateful our state has a leader who prioritizes the public schools that serve over 90% of Arizona students!

👏 Senator Kelly Launches the Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act: Then, on Wednesday, Senator Kelly filed his bill to rescind Trump’s federal voucher program along with 29 other Senate Democrats as co-sponsors.

Senator Kelly penned an incredible OpEd, which we hope you will read and share.

I’m a product of great public schools. I believe in the American Dream because I lived it, and I know it starts with a good education. Every child, in every zip code, deserves a fair shot. That’s not a policy position—it’s an American value. But in Arizona, and increasingly across the country, universal school voucher programs are threatening that promise for millions of families.

Arizona’s experiment with universal school vouchers should be a cautionary tale for my Republican colleagues. It is busting our state budget and threatens to close public schools and make it harder for working class kids to get a good education. We should not take Arizona’s failed experiment national, but that is exactly what most Congressional Republicans and the Trump Administration did in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Since 2022, our state’s universal voucher program has diverted and drained money from public schools; last year alone cost Arizona taxpayers nearly $1 billion. Instead of investing in classrooms, special education services, or school safety, lawmakers pushed massive tax giveaways and created a parallel education system that lacks transparency and accountability.

Who benefits the most from Arizona’s school voucher program?

Here’s the truth: most working families aren’t benefiting and the program is a magnet for waste, fraud and abuse. The majority of voucher recipients in Arizona were already in private school before the program expanded. That means taxpayers are now footing the bill—thousands of dollars per student—for families who were already paying private school tuition. And the wealthiest neighborhoods use the most vouchers.

Taxpayers are essentially cutting blank checks for things they have no business paying for. In March, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office released new data from an audit that examined a random sample of purchases from December 2024 through October 2025. That data showed that over 20% of purchases were identified as “unallowed.” Meanwhile, investigative reporters found 18,000 parents spent over $10 million from the voucher program on things like diamond necklaces, cell phones, jet ski rentals, gaming consoles, a designer purse, Air Jordan sneakers and hotel rooms.

Families of students with disabilities have been hit especially hard. Public schools are legally required to provide special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Private schools aren’t. That means parents who depend on those protections are often left out entirely.

How can the federal voucher program affect public schools?

Instead of addressing these problems, the Trump Administration is doubling down. Trump’s signature bill included a massive, deficit-increasing, $26 billion national private school voucher program.

We have an opportunity to fix this by passing the Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act, which I introduced April 15. This bill, endorsed by more than 160 education and disability rights organizations, would repeal the federal tax credit voucher program, halting one of the major wrecking balls the Trump Administration has taken to public education.

America’s public schools helped build the strongest middle class the world has ever seen. If we want to keep that dream alive and keep improving education, we must keep public funds in public schools that serve all kids. That’s how we build our children’s future and honor the American promise that hard work, not privilege, determines your path in life. It did for me, and I want to make sure it does for every kid. Let’s strengthen, not abandon, our public schools.

Our kids and our country deserve it.

Senator Kelly’s office released a press release, which featured SOSAZ’s Director, Beth Lewis, who said, “We proudly support the Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act to prioritize funding for our neighborhood public schools, which are accountable to taxpayers and accept all students, rather than Trump’s federal voucher program that is designed to benefit the wealthy few. In Arizona, we’ve watched as our state’s $1 billion universal voucher program, rushed through with no accountability and no cap, has led to skyrocketing costs, massive cuts to teacher salaries and programs, and unprecedented school closures across the state. Arizona’s voucher program has been plagued by countless stories of fraud, waste, and abuse. We are grateful to Senator Kelly for standing up and for rightfully acknowledging that public funds belong in our public schools,” said Beth Lewis, Director of Save Our Schools Arizona.

You all made this happen!!! Without your tireless advocacy for years, the tide wouldn’t be shifting like this. Let’s keep going, team 🔥💪👏

We have just 11 weekends to collect 256,000 signatures from Arizona voters to qualify the Protect Education Act for the November 2026 ballot. We are going to rein in AZ’s $1 billion ESA voucher and redirect saved funding back to Arizona’s public school classrooms — which serve over 90% of Arizona students 🎉🍎🏫🎒

Do you have any petitions with signatures on hand? It’s time to turn them in! No matter how full your sheet is, Protect Education is asking everyone to notarize and return their petition sheets at their Bring Em Back & Sign Weekend from Friday April 17 to Monday April 20!!! There will be events in every corner of Arizona — please check here to find a location near you to sign and check out petitions 👉 bit.ly/pe-bringback !

Can’t make it this weekend? That’s okay - here’s how to plug in:

Pick up petitions at a Depot near you – here’s the Petition Depot list
Request petitions and get connected locally - here’s the Petition Request form
Here is the training video, it’s critical that everyone who circulates watches it, no matter how many times you’ve volunteered for petitions. The rules change frequently, and we want all signatures you collect to be counted.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

⚔️ You Shall Not Pass: After more than three weeks of waiting, Gov. Hobbs announced Monday she would veto all bills sent to her desk until Republican legislative leaders publicly released their budget numbers. She then followed through, promptly vetoing the bills Republicans had sent to her anyway. Unsurprisingly, voting action on the House and Senate floors has slowed way down as a result. Leadership also appears to be holding on to the bills they pass (which is constitutionally questionable) rather than advancing them to the governor’s desk for action.

🙄 A Predictable Response: Senate President Warren Petersen (R-14) labeled Hobbs’ move “strong-arming” and accused her of “a temper tantrum” — language he never would have used in reference to former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who employed the strategy in 2018 and again in 2021 (not to mention former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer before him in 2013, etc.). As longtime lobbyist Barry Aarons observed, the move is “not that dramatic” and “really shouldn’t surprise anybody” given Arizona’s divided government. Petersen’s insistence that “it’s fine” and lawmakers are “pretty much done with our work” falls flat given how abruptly he has stopped bills from moving to her desk.

💰 Budget Details: It could still be several weeks until Republican legislative leaders produce the numbers Hobbs is asking for, since word has it they’re having trouble getting all members of their caucus into full agreement. Their top demand seems to be full tax conformity, a very expensive proposition at $1.4 billion over 3 years — and one Hobbs has pointed out they don’t have any way to pay for. Republicans are likely also agitating for the federal vouchers she just vetoed by arguing that “full conformity” includes them.

DOA: Regardless of when a partisan budget is introduced, this “veto bait” package of bills (something that unfortunately seems to be becoming an annual exercise) is doomed from the moment of its birth, as any budget must be signed by Gov. Hobbs in order to become law. Lawmakers also still have more than two months before the June 30 budget deadline. Once again this year, we’re almost certain to see a frantic flurry of activity on this topic in late June. This will be underpinned by the threat of a first-ever state government shutdown, along with the earlier-than-usual dropping of primary ballots on June 24, which will complicate budget negotiations for every sitting lawmaker with a contested primary (including the Senate president himself).

Speaking of money: This past Thursday, a panel of the state’s top economists delivered grim economic news. Arizona’s general fund has even less unallocated money than initially projected ($378 million down from $577 million in January), and federal-level chaos is dampening our state’s economy. They warned this will mean “challenges in addressing major budget issues such as tax conformity and ongoing one-time spending” — which is their way of warning that budget negotiations just got that much more complicated.

These bills are on Gov. Hobbs’ desk awaiting her signature or veto.

👏👏👏 This past week, Gov. Hobbs exercised her veto power to protect Arizonans from the following harmful legislation. You can contact her office to say thank you at 602-542-4331 or engage@az.gov.

Vetoed Monday, April 13

Read about Monday’s vetoes here; read about her veto of federal vouchers here.

SB1142, sponsored by Shawnna Bolick (R-2), would have made Arizona one of the first states in the nation to irresponsibly sign up for Trump’s federal voucher scam.

HB2600, sponsored by Matt Gress (R-4), would have required public schools to keep students in grades 6-8 out of student clubs and organizations unless they had written parental permission, dampening participation in clubs like Gender & Sexuality Alliance and worsening inequity.

Vetoed Tuesday, April 14

Read about Tuesday’s vetoes here.

HB2093, sponsored by Lisa Fink (R-27), would have repealed the statutory requirement for public schools to provide instruction in mental health.

HB4033, sponsored by Matt Gress (R-4), would have prohibitively complicated school bond elections by requiring separate ballot measures for specified facilities, technology and administrative buildings, with costs broken out separately.

Join author Jennifer Berkshire and SOSAZ’s Beth Lewis on Red Wine & Blue’s national panel to hear more about Trump’s dangerous federal school voucher program that opens the door for states to redirect even more public education funding to private schools. Federal vouchers will be devastating to the public schools that so many of our kids rely on. Tune in to learn what’s coming, why it’s risky, and how you can take action. Register HERE.

Congratulations to Ms. Stefany Garlid from C.I. Waggoner Elementary in Kyrene for being selected as the Arizona Chapter of the Down Syndrome Network’s 2026 Educator of the Year! Ms. Garlid was chosen for her “inspiring commitment to supporting students with Down syndrome and for making a meaningful difference for both students and their families.”

At L.M. Prince Elementary in Tucson, Gabriela Gonzalez is dedicated to making a difference at her school every single day. That’s why Chicanos Por La Causa selected her as a winner of the Esperanza Teacher Award. Gonzalez shared “Teaching is my passion and I grew up with a family who valued education and valued my teachers. I know that they’re really proud of the teacher that I’ve become so this is just really validation to all the hard work that all of us teachers put in day in and day out. It’s not an easy job, but it’s the most rewarding job.” 👏

🍭 Category Is: Candyland Couture! Fashion Design students from Metro Tech in Phoenix held their annual fashion show, featuring handcrafted garments, accessories, and decor. Congratulations to all of these fabulous designers!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 15
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of April 20, 2026

Signature Slam Weekend!!!

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 14:28:25 GMT

Lea en Semanario en Español

It’s here! Our very first Protect Education Signature Slam Weekend has arrived (though trust us, the past few weekends have certainly been slamming 🎉). The weather is gorgeous, events are popping, so grab a clipboard and a buddy and go grab signatures — people are thrilled to sign. It’s the easiest ask you’ll make all week!

We’ve got over 10,000 petitions out in the field, and our volunteers are working around the clock to fill them up (and then get more)!

Here are our Signature Slam locations across the state!

We have 12 weekends to collect 256,000 signatures from Arizona voters to qualify the Protect Education Act for the November 2026 ballot. We are going to rein in AZ’s $1 billion ESA voucher and redirect saved funding back to Arizona’s public school classrooms — which serve over 90% of Arizona students 🎉🍎🏫🎒

Ready to plug in? You can get petitions at any of the above locations. If these spots and times don’t work for you, you can visit a depot near you! Can’t make it to a depot? No problem – fill out our request-for-petitions form, and we will connect you locally with your closest Hub Captain — a local organizer who can get you petitions.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

Better re-ink that veto stamp: Lawmakers have been busy advancing a rash of bills to the governor’s desk along partisan lines (with only Republicans in support). With regular committee hearings done for the year and budget talks still stalled, Republican legislative leaders are spending their time scheduling floor votes on doomed bills and sending them to Gov. Hobbs. Whether it’s blatant culture-war nonsense, a model bill from a national pro-privatization group, an idea that’s already been vetoed twice, or a mean-spirited attack on teachers and students, we’re grateful to her for holding the line and putting our state’s public schools first.

As expected, Hobbs vetoed 3 such bills this week, and 4 more await her action. We’re still watching 28 bad bills (all the good ones have failed to advance) and 11 bad ballot referrals. See our “Veto Watch” section for a full list of SOSAZ-tracked bills that await Hobbs’ veto, check “Bills on the Floor” to see what lawmakers plan to vote on for Monday, or review the SOSAZ 2026 Bill Tracker for up-to-the-minute information on all bills.

Lawmaker or lobbyist?: Speaking of national lobbying groups, the Arizona Agenda reported this week that Matt Gress (R-4) moonlights in four other states as a paid anti-union lobbyist for “Americans for Fair Treatment” — an anti-public school, anti-educator, pro-voucher lobbying firm — working to pass the very same kind of legislation he’s introducing here.

The Agenda highlights that “Gress used his position as the chairman of the House Education Committee” to create and advance bills like HB2313, which carries “harsh penalties” for teachers, and the “union-busting” HCR2040, which they point out “is a huge priority for his employer, Americans for Fair Treatment.” The reporters observed Gress was “unapologetic” and “a little prickly” when questioned, finishing with a rhetorical musing: “When Gress buys himself lunch, does he have to report it?” While Gress’s work is not illegal (Arizona law bars legislators from working as lobbyists in Arizona, but not from lobbying in other states), the Agenda notes that “a lawmaker simultaneously working as a lobbyist might raise some ethical questions.” For our part, we’d love to see the chair of the Arizona Legislature’s House Education Committee actually working to advance and pass bills that support public education, in line with the legislature’s constitutionally mandated duty.

At least we get to recycle one of our favorite memes from earlier this year:

Prop 123 update: Speaking of Rep. Gress, he told media this week he thinks the odds of a Prop 123 deal this session are “almost zero,” and reiterated the lack of consensus among Republicans. Other Republican lawmakers implied their current strategy is to wait and hope voters re-elect them and replace Gov. Hobbs, so they will be freer to pass a contentious partisan renewal (which Hobbs opposes, as does the public education community). But that strategy may not succeed: House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos said he doesn’t know how lawmakers will pass a budget without Prop 123 this year. “I have a hard time seeing a budget without Prop 123,” he said, “given the serious budget shortfall situation we’re facing.”

Floor calendars come out in the evening just one business day before a vote, so this list is for bills being heard on Monday only. Any bill scheduled for debate may also be voted on. Please call or email your senator (for House bills now being heard in the Senate) and representatives (for Senate bills now being heard in the House) and ask them to oppose these harmful bills.

SB1013, sponsored by Janae Shamp (R-29), is a copy of a bill vetoed last year that would ban public schools from implementing hiring policies based on factors other than so-called “merit” as part of the MAGA attack on diversity, equity and inclusion. The bill would allow individuals to sue, which would lead to endless frivolous claims of “reverse racism.” Scheduled for House floor debate, Monday. OPPOSE.

SB1143, sponsored by Shawnna Bolick (R-2), is a copy of a failed bill from last year that would require each school district and individual public school to post on its website information on students’ race, color, national origin, sex, disability, and age that is meant for the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. ADE would then be required to create and post a report including “publicly available sources,” which could allow ADE to be biased in what sources they choose to pull data from. Public schools are already subject to many laws covering discrimination and bullying, making this an excessive and duplicative overreach. Meanwhile, ESA voucher-funded schools don’t collect or submit any such information. Scheduled for House floor debate, Monday. OPPOSE.

SB1741, sponsored by Warren Petersen (R-14), would require district and charter school boards to allow students to be excused from their classes during school hours for off-campus religious lessons, and forces those schools to give academic credit for programs they have zero control over. Any parent would be allowed to sue for violations. This model legislation, backed by the pro-voucher Center for Arizona Policy and Arizona-based anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, assumes schools will partner with LifeWise Academy, a controversial, far-right religious instruction program. The program is designed to inject religion into the school day, with the goal of “providing Bible education for every child in Arizona.” In LifeWise’s home state of Ohio, where this is already law, some parents say their students have been ostracized and bullied for not taking part, and that their education suffered due to the disruption during the school day. Children were warehoused in the gym while the majority of their class went to religious class, depriving those students of their educational time. Scheduled for a House floor vote, Monday. OPPOSE.

HB2060, sponsored by Rachel Keshel (R-17), would ban public schools and their employees from “encouraging or facilitating abortions” — which of course is not happening. This ridiculous bill is a solution in search of a problem, demonizes educators, and wastes time and taxpayer dollars. Passed Senate Government Committee 3/25 party lines. Scheduled for Senate floor debate, Monday. OPPOSE.

HB2086, sponsored by Khyl Powell (R-14), would ban district public schools (but not charter or voucher schools) from requiring masks or vaccines. Meanwhile, whooping cough in Arizona has reached a 12-year high, and schools are struggling with the impacts. Scheduled for Senate floor debate, Monday. OPPOSE.

HB4056, sponsored by Teresa Martinez (R-16), would ban public schools from charging a state lawmaker reasonable fees for a public records request. The striker comes from Matt Gress (R-4) in response to the Tolleson school district charging him the standard rate of $1 per page for his massive records request for two years’ worth of documents, which totaled 26,000 pages (and thus $26,000). Lawmakers already have an existing process to obtain public records via the Joint Legislative Audit Committee; meanwhile, the district’s fee does not even cover the staff time required to produce so many records. It’s petty, vindictive, and unnecessary for a lawmaker to stage this kind of publicity stunt instead of going through official channels. Codifying that into law would force taxpayers to shoulder the financial impact of any lawmaker who wishes to wage war against a local school district. Scheduled for Senate floor debate, Monday. OPPOSE.

These bills are on Gov. Hobbs’ desk awaiting her signature or veto.

SB1142, sponsored by Shawnna Bolick (R-2), would make Arizona one of the first states in the nation to irresponsibly sign up for Trump’s federal voucher scam. This scheme is designed as a tax giveaway for the rich; like Arizona’s voucher scheme, it’s designed to benefit wealthier students who are already in private schools. The federal voucher program has no cap, meaning it could funnel tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to unaccountable private schools already receiving state tax dollars via state vouchers. Like Arizona’s ESA vouchers, the federal voucher program is expected to have zero accountability to taxpayers, zero academic standards, and zero requirements for student safety. OPPOSE.

HB2093, sponsored by Lisa Fink (R-27), would repeal the statutory requirement for public schools to provide instruction in mental health. This instruction is essential for improving student well-being, reducing stigma, and fostering academic success by teaching coping mechanisms for stress and anxiety. It serves as a proactive measure against rising youth mental health crises, promoting early intervention, fostering safe environments, and teaching students how to recognize warning signs and ask for help when it’s needed. OPPOSE.

HB2600, sponsored by Matt Gress (R-4), would require public schools to keep students in grades 6-8 out of student clubs and organizations unless they have written parental permission. This is likely designed to dampen participation in clubs such as Gender & Sexuality Alliance, a student-led club which offers safe, supportive spaces for LGBTQ+ youth, and which is often legally protected under the Equal Access Act. It would also exclude kids whose parents are unable to be as involved in their lives, worsening inequities among kids who may already be under-resourced. OPPOSE.

HB4033, sponsored by Matt Gress (R-4), would prohibitively complicate school bond elections by requiring separate ballot measures for specified facilities, technology and administrative buildings, with costs broken out separately. This attack on local school funding measures would vastly increase the cost of running bonds, and the resulting ballot fatigue from multiple measures could increase the likelihood that one or all would fail. OPPOSE.

👏👏👏 This past week, Gov. Hobbs exercised her veto power to protect Arizonans from the following harmful legislation. Contact her office to say thank you at 602-542-4331 or engage@az.gov.

https://ktar.com/arizona-news/hobbs-vetoes-string-of-gop-bills/5844893/

HB2008, sponsored by Nick Kupper (R-25), would have banned public school libraries from using public funds to pay for any professional association, based on the sponsor’s personal belief that public school libraries are pushing “left-wing ideology” onto students en masse. Library associations provide training and professional development, help librarians improve service and share knowledge, offer vital continuing education, and support equitable information access for all communities. They are especially important for those in underfunded libraries; Arizona’s public schools are funded at 48th in the nation.

HB2075, sponsored by David Livingston (R-28), would have required school district governing boards to publish employment contracts for administrators. While we’re all for transparency, this bill is a major distraction from the skyrocketing salaries of CEOs running ESA voucher-funded private schools, as well as charter CEOs. Administrative costs at Arizona’s district public schools are among the lowest in the country at about 10% of overall expenses, while charter schools spend an average of 22% of their budgets on administration and private schools have no limit at all.

HB2289, sponsored by Justin Olson (R-10), would have changed “truth in taxation” notices to require taxation examples to be based on a $400,000 home instead of a $100,000 home. This would make school bonds and overrides look 4 times more expensive if voters don’t realize what’s happened.

📚 Join Save Our Schools Arizona Network’s From Page to Power Book Club! Our next book is “Navigating School Board Politics” by Carrie Sampson. Pick up a copy at your favorite local bookseller. Then, join us (virtually) for a discussion to connect, learn, and meet new people.

Sun, April 19 3-4pm

Register here!

“An Arizona We Can Afford” Townhall - Attorney General Kris Mayes, Senator Lauren Kuby and Representative Stephanie Simacek invite you to share how the affordability crisis is affecting you and your community. AG Mayes will share wins from her office around holding companies accountable for taking money out of the pockets of hard-working Arizonans. The Representatives will highlight bills they are working on to combat the affordability challenges in Arizona.

Tuesday, April 14th from 4:30pm-5:15pm

College Bulpitt, 1202 W Thomas Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013

At Lehi Elementary School in Mesa, students aren’t just learning – they can collect clothing, shoes, and non-perishable food items for themselves and their families, with no questions asked. Family Support Specialist Lidia Severson shared with ABC15 that “I get very emotional because I can see the need and the happiness when I help a parent. And I wish I had more to be able to help them more.” If you’d like to donate to Levi Elementary School’s Lehi Marketplace, call 480-472-5500. You can see a list of accepted items here.

Congratulations to the Helios Foundation 2026 Read to the FInal Four schools!

👑 Mary C. O’Brien Elementary School in Casa Grande third graders each read an average of 10,433 minutes

📙 Kyrene de la Colina Elementary School in Ahwatukee each read an average of 9,028 minutes

📘 Sun Canyon Elementary School in Phoenix each read an average of 8,462 minutes

📗 Villa de Paz Elementary School in Phoenix each read an average of 7,026 minutes

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 14
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of April 14, 2026

Horne’s Voucher Claims Debunked… Again

Save Our Schools Arizona — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 23:42:29 GMT

Lea en Semanario en Español

Budget Battles Brew: As the Arizona legislature locks into a stalemate around budget negotiations, Republican lawmakers are once again putting their heads in the sand and ignoring the runaway $1 billion ESA voucher fiasco that is eating up the state budget. Legislators face a budget deficit likely to total hundreds of millions of dollars or more. As State Senator Priya Sundareshan (D-18) said this week, “It will be very difficult to make a budget work if we do not talk about the big elephant in the room, which is all the waste, fraud, and abuse in the ESA program.” It’s worth noting that $440 million currently sits unused in ESA voucher accounts.

Vouchers are a ‘Sacred Cow’ — Despite Fraud: State Representative Nancy Gutierrez (D-18) said her Republican colleagues will not consider even the barest reform proposals: “So far they will not discuss it. It is a sacred cow to Republicans. They say, ‘It’s off the table. We are not talking about the voucher program.’ We are going to have to make cuts to our budget just to make baseline bills, and we are just supposed to ignore a billion-dollar program with no oversight?”

The Spin Artists Spin Themselves in Knots: Over the past few weeks, voucher-pushing special interest groups have worked themselves into an absolute frenzy attempting (and failing) to discredit 12News’ investigative reports of massive fraud, waste, and abuse in Arizona’s ESA voucher program – including Project 2025’s Heritage Foundation, the Ducey apologists at the “Common Sense Institute” (🙄), and State Superintendent Tom Horne. (PS - Don’t miss the Goldwater Institute’s submission for funniest headline of the year: “Arizona ESA Program Most Accountable, Successful in Government”! 😂)

However, this week Supt. Horne’s own team admitted that 12 News was accurate in its reporting that 20% of ESA voucher parents had misspent $10 million in one year, after 12News identified significant flaws in an analysis touted by Horne’s AZ Dept. of Education two weeks ago.

Horne’s Words Catch Up to Him: From 12News’ report: Supt. Horne recently attempted to prove that fraud is minuscule in the lightly regulated program. But after 12News interviewed the state official who oversaw the analysis last week, we were only left with bigger questions. Associate Superintendent Dr. Joseph Guzman acknowledged in the interview that he did not know why the department labeled hundreds of questionable expenditures as “allowed.” Horne had previously claimed Guzman’s expertise qualified him to determine that the misspending rate was less than 2%. Horne also claimed the analysis proved “misspending” rates were less than 2% and potential “egregious fraud” was only 0.3%.

The full scope of misspending rates remains unknown. A risk-based randomized audit of 385,000 transactions last year found that 18,000 accounts (nearly 20% of total account holders) had at least one misspent transaction. It also showed 84,000 instances of misspending.

⭐ This Tuesday is Arizona Gives Day! ⭐

Once a year, a special day is set aside to fundraise for nonprofits across Arizona.

We hope you will consider donating to Save Our Schools Arizona Network to fuel grassroots efforts to protect public education through voter engagement, awareness campaigns, research, presentations, and so much more!

We have a lofty goal of raising $20,000 to sustain our work through 2026 —

please help us get there!

Donate here: bit.ly/sosazn-azgives

What a weekend!!! Our volunteers were EVERYWHERE, getting signatures at parades, community events, parks, and more!

We are running full steam and we need EVERYONE to do their part to get this historic ballot initiative qualified to the balot. Can you get 5, 10, or 15 signatures from friends, family, and neighbors? Please do, and do it soon!

❓Depot List: Need petitions?? Ready to turn yours in? Head to a Depot or Recurring Event!

👋 Petition Request Form: Can’t make it to a depot? No problem – fill out our request-for-petitions form, and we will connect you locally with your closest Hub Captain — a local organizer who can get you petitions.

💥 Volunteer Resource Hub: Check out our Volunteer Hub, which is your one-stop shop for all circulator trainings, FAQs, and more. Make sure to bookmark or save the link! 📌

💥Circulator Training: Protect Education will be conducting more circulator trainings THIS week. Whether you’ve collected thousands of signatures in the past or are brand new to circulating, this training will provide critical information to ensure the signatures you collect are valid! You can also watch the Training Video on your own!

Tues, April 7 @ 5:30pm

Thurs, April 9 @ 5:30pm

Now entering the Fog of Secrecy: With regularly scheduled committees wrapped for the year, the bulk of the Arizona Legislature’s work is shifting to happen behind the scenes. Their only constitutionally mandated duty is to pass a state budget, and unfortunately, that is largely negotiated behind closed doors with only certain lawmakers playing a role.

Vacations incoming?: Budget talks remain on hold, with Gov. Hobbs and Republican legislative leaders talking to each other primarily via media statements. The next milestone in the process is likely the quarterly Finance Advisory Committee meeting on April 16. Several hundred bills also still await final votes (including 34 SOSAZ-tracked bills and 10 SOSAZ-tracked ballot referrals), but Republican legislative leaders can schedule those votes at any time between now and the end of session. Rumor has it that, with budget talks stalled and nothing else immediately pressing, Republican leaders will be scheduling multiple weeks of breaks for lawmakers, giving them time to campaign for their July primaries. While this is just a rumor so far, it already seems they’re slowing down: both chambers are taking Monday off.

These bills are on Gov. Hobbs’ desk awaiting her signature or veto.

HB2008, sponsored by Nick Kupper (R-25), would ban public school libraries from using public funds to pay for any professional association that promotes, supports or advocates for libraries, librarians and information services. This is based on the sponsor’s personal belief that public school libraries are pushing “left-wing ideology” onto students en masse. Library associations provide training and professional development, help librarians improve service and share knowledge, offer vital continuing education, and support equitable information access for all communities. They are especially important for those in underfunded libraries; Arizona’s public schools are funded at 48th in the nation. OPPOSE.

HB2075, sponsored by David Livingston (R-28), would require school district governing boards to publish 5 years of copies of employment contracts for all its superintendents, assistant/associate superintendents and chief financial officers. The bill also requires the Arizona Department of Education to post on its website the base salary and benefits for each. While we’re all for transparency, this bill is a major distraction from the skyrocketing salaries of CEOs running ESA voucher-funded private schools, as well as charter CEOs. District leaders are often responsible for massive budgets, staff, and students, while private schools and charters are only responsible for one campus — yet they might be making 10 times the salary and the public wouldn’t know. Administrative costs at Arizona’s district public schools are already among the lowest in the country at about 10% of overall expenses. Meanwhile, charter schools spend an average of 22% of their budgets on administration, roughly double that of district schools — and private schools have no limit at all. OPPOSE.

HB2289, sponsored by Justin Olson (R-10), is a copy of a bill vetoed last year that would change “truth in taxation” notices to require taxation examples to be based on a $400,000 home instead of a $100,000 home. This would make school bonds and overrides look 4 times more expensive if voters don’t realize what’s happened. OPPOSE.

Sun, April 19 3-4pm

Register here!

A huge congratulations to Taylor Kramer Kmetz, Williams High School Class of 2015, one of the quality engineers who worked on the Space Launch System that launched four astronauts on the first trip back to the Moon in over 50 years! Taylor shared on her Facebook: “I’ve worked hard to be here, and I’m proud I never gave up on that dream. I also wouldn’t be here without the amazing support system around me. It truly does take a village! This isn’t about boasting, it’s about sharing something I’m passionate about and hopefully inspiring someone else to keep going, or to supply hope to the next generation. No dream is out of reach. Motivation is key!”

Higley Traditional Academy in Gilbert collected 286 items for their 2026 Shelter Pet Donation Drive! Special shoutout to the third-grade students who categorized, counted, and bagged each donation for delivery.

At the annual Sahuarita SciTech Festival, middle school students learned about all of the different ways science, technology, engineering, and math could appear in their future careers!

Congratulations to Logan, a senior from Boulder Creek High School in Deer Valley, one of five student composers chosen by the Phoenix Symphony to have their composition performed by a professional orchestra!

Here are some other easy actions you can take:

Sign up for a Community Action Team (CAT) (NEW Region sign ups!): Central & South Phoenix, East Valley, Northeast Valley (Scottsdale/PV), Northern Arizona, Pima County, Pinal County, Rural Southern Arizona, West Valley & North Phoenix, and Yuma County! Your local coordinators will help you with using Request to Speak and contacting your lawmakers.
Request a presentation of our updated and fully refreshed SOSAZ Education Arizona Roadshow HERE
Sign up to automatically receive the SOSAZ Legislative Weekly Report HERE

Save Our Schools Arizona

The Year to FLIP the Legislature

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 32 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of August 31, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

AZ Supreme Court Kicks Protect Education Off 2026 Ballot

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 31 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of August 24, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Protect Education Trial Updates

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 30 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of August 17, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Trial Begins for Protect Education

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 29 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of August 10, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

AZ Court Rejects Two GOP-Led, Anti-Public School Ballot Measures

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 28 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of August 3, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Protect Education Becomes Prop 212! 🎉

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 27 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of July 27, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Protect Education Sues AZ Legislature over Ballot Analysis 💪

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 26 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of July 20, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

The Fight is Just Beginning 💪

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 25 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of July 13, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

WE DID IT!!! 421,451 Signatures Filed to Protect Education

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 24 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of July 6, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

LAST CHANCE for Protect Education Initiative!!!

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 23 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of June 29, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Protect Education Initiative Survives 🎉 Republicans Stack Ballot with Anti-Public School Measures 😡

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 22 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of June 15, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

FINAL MONTH to Protect Education

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 21 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of June 1, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

40 Days Left to Protect Ed!

SOSAZ is proud to honor the following candidates with the #PublicSchoolProud seal of approval:

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 20 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of May 25, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

So… You’re Saying There’s Fraud in the Voucher Program???

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 19 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of May 18, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

It’s Petition Round Up Weekend! 🤠

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 18 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of May 11, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

AZ GOP: Political Theater & Bad Budgeting

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 17 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of May 4, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

🎉🎉🎉 150,000 Signatures to Protect Education!!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 16 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of April 27, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Arizona Says NO to Trump’s Federal Voucher Scam

Vetoed Monday, April 13

Vetoed Tuesday, April 14

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 15 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of April 20, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Signature Slam Weekend!!!

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 14 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of April 14, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Horne’s Voucher Claims Debunked… Again

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 13 57th Legislature, 2nd General Session Week of April 6, 2026

©2025 by Save Our Schools Arizona® All Rights Reserved. Not for use in whole or in part without permission.

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 32
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 31, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 31
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 24, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 30
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 17, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 29
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 10, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 28
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of August 3, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 27
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of July 27, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 26
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of July 20, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 25
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of July 13, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 24
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of July 6, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 23
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of June 29, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 22
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of June 15, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 21
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of June 1, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 20
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of May 25, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 19
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of May 18, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 18
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of May 11, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 17
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of May 4, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 16
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of April 27, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 15
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of April 20, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 14
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of April 14, 2026

Save Our Schools Arizona Weekly Education Report • Volume 8, Issue 13
57th Legislature, 2nd General Session
Week of April 6, 2026