Crunch time
24 hours to decide … New rules for classrooms … And setting their sights on Hollywood.
School officials in Arizona have a serious deadline to meet tomorrow.
They were put in a tough spot when President Donald Trump told them to get rid of policies that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne followed close behind, telling school districts that he considered DEI to be racial discrimination and they better do what Trump said.
The deadline for schools to certify they’ve completely cut ties with DEI, or lose out on federal funds, is Thursday.
The stakes are huge for cash-strapped schools, and a lot of Arizona school districts haven’t said yet whether they’ll get rid of DEI or gamble on losing federal dollars.
When we reported on the Trump administration’s gambit two weeks ago, nobody really knew how much money was at stake, just that it was a lot.
But Horne put a dollar value on it last Thursday: $770 million in federal funds.
So far, about half of Arizona’s 658 public school districts and charters have sent letters certifying they no longer have anything to do with DEI, Horne said.
School officials have good reason to be worried about defying the Trump administration.
Back in March, federal officials pulled $16 million in grants from the Osborn, Avondale and Gadsden school districts, saying it was due to their DEI policies. And the Maricopa County School Superintendent’s Office also took a big financial hit for the same reason.
Now, the Kyrene School District in Tempe could lose $1.5 million. Horne said the district’s proposed “Staff Social-Emotional Wellness” policy would violate the Trump administration’s DEI policy.
As tomorrow’s deadline approaches, all eyes are on a federal judge in New Hampshire who is considering whether to block the Trump administration’s new policy, at least temporarily (a similar lawsuit also is playing out in Maryland).
Court observers expect she’ll make a ruling this week.
One big question is, if she issues an injunction, will it apply only to New Hampshire or to every state, including Arizona?
Seeking clarity
The new policy is part of a full-scale assault on DEI that federal officials launched as soon as Trump took office in January.
The most recent move came earlier this month, when the U.S. Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague Letter” saying DEI policies violate federal civil rights laws.
Education officials already have to certify they follow federal civil rights laws, so they were a little puzzled when the letter arrived.
What’s happening now is conservative activists are pushing to redefine civil rights as a whole.
They’re framing DEI as discrimination “against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students,” as federal education officials put it in a February 14 letter.
So the Trump administration tacked on anti-DEI conditions and demanded that schools re-certify that they follow civil rights laws.
But months after the White House launched its anti-DEI crusade, it still hasn’t clearly defined what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
The New Hampshire lawsuit is bringing at least a little clarity to the issue.
The National Education Association and the Center for Black Educator Development sued the U.S. Department of Education, arguing that if federal funds are withheld, then school districts would have to cut their teacher diversity programs.
More broadly, they say the Trump administration’s order is just too vague and goes beyond what Congress says federal agencies can do with local education.
Without some clarity about what is or isn’t allowed, teachers will have to go on the defensive and avoid a wide array of issues because they’re worried they could get their district in trouble or that they could end up getting fired, the New Hampshire Bulletin reported.
Government lawyers argue it’s all an overreaction and school officials just misunderstand what the Trump administration wants them to do.
They’re saying a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that blocked affirmative action at Harvard and North Carolina University should be applied to K-12 public schools, too.
All school districts have to do is avoid discrimination, they said, an argument that was echoed by Republican lawmakers in Arizona earlier this month as they debated an anti-DEI bill.
That sounds reasonable, right?
Well, check out how the Trump administration described public education in their letter demanding schools stop teaching DEI.
“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices,” the letter reads.
What? Then how does slavery fit into that “false premise”?
What if a student talks about stories they heard from their grandparents about living under Jim Crow laws in the South? If that made some students uncomfortable, would it violate the new DEI policy?
How about if teachers gathered photos of every member of Congress since the founding of the country and a student asked why the vast majority of them are white men?
That’d be tricky, wouldn’t it? If your job were on the line, what would you do?
Federal officials haven’t gotten into the weeds enough to answer those questions yet.
For now, school officials in Arizona and across the country are waiting to see what the New Hampshire judge decides, and what the Trump administration will do after the deadline arrives tomorrow.
But all signs point to a wide-ranging crackdown, followed by months or years of litigation.
It’s that time of year when Arizona’s governor gets the final say, for the most part, on bills that have made it out of the Legislature.
Arizona schools are watching out for a solid crop of new rules they’ll have to comply with. Other bills are in the final stages before they head to Hobbs’ desk.
No ICE in schools: Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have allowed federal immigration agents to enter schools, the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports. The Republican-backed bill would have forced local police to comply with the Trump administration’s wide-ranging immigration crackdown. But Hobbs said she didn’t want local officials to “take marching orders from Washington, D.C.”
Better reporting: Hobbs signed a bill that requires teachers to report cases of sexual abuse to law enforcement, KTAR’s Payne Moses reported. Right now, educators are only required to report such cases to school administrators.
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Chaplains incoming: Arizona lawmakers approved a bill that would allow chaplains in public schools, the Daily Independent’s J. Graber reports. But the bill hasn’t quite made it to Hobbs’ desk yet — it has to go to a conference committee at the Legislature first.
Use it or lose it: Education advocates want Hobbs to veto a bill that would require school districts to disclose information about unused buildings to the state, and give charter and private schools a chance to buy them, AZFamily’s Steven Sarabia reports.
One step further: Hobbs signed a bill last week that banned students from using cellphones while they’re in class. Now, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is pushing for stricter rules that would extend the ban not just to classroom time, but the entire school day, KJZZ’s Ginia McFarland reports.
If you want to see which bills Hobbs vetoed, her office issues press releases with her explanation for why she vetoed the bill. You can find them at her office’s website under “legislative action updates.”
But there might not be a lot of news about Hobbs signing new school-related bills into law any time soon. She vowed to veto any new legislation until lawmakers bring her a deal on funding the Division of Developmental Disabilities that she thinks is fair.
Visa crackdown: As the Trump administration goes after international students, the number of students at Arizona State University who have had their visas revoked has climbed to more than 100, Cronkite News’ Brendon Pricco reports. They’re among 1,500 across the country. ASU officials say they can’t give exact numbers, but they confirmed none of the students have been deported and none were tied to on-campus protests. At the University of Arizona, students say they are planning to leave the country soon, the Republic’s Helen Rummel reports. And two students at Pima Community College are taking their visa revocations to court.
Quite a price tag: The Peoria Unified School District spent about $218,000 defending the district from a lawsuit brought by one of the district’s governing board members, KJZZ’s Matthew Casey reports. Heather Rooks, who is now president of the board, says she won the case and can go back to quoting Bible passages at public meetings.
Tackling problems: The Arizona Board of Regents extended three research grants aimed at solving some of Arizona’s toughest problems, KJZZ’s Bridget Dowd reports. The funding comes from a sales tax that voters approved in 2000, and each project starts by asking public agencies which problems they need help with. The grants are geared toward making an inventory of hazardous abandoned mines, reducing water contamination from PFAS chemicals and preventing Valley Fever cases.
Best intentions: A high school teacher in Somerton was fired after she let a male student who was being bullied wait in her office, which was connected to the girls’ locker room, the Republic’s Alexandra Hardle reports. The student was the only boy on the cheerleading team and male students were telling him to kill himself, so Alyssa Plaza offered him a safe place to wait before cheer practice. A petition to reinstate Plaza now has 27,000 signatures.
For all the kids out there wondering if they can ever do what their heroes do, look no further than two University of Arizona students who are realizing their dream of becoming filmmakers.
Gaël Baup and Matthew Maxim used free software and props they made on a 3D printer to film “The Glass Planet,” a sci-fi movie that’s turning heads and will premiere at the Fox Theatre in Tucson on May 10, KGUN’s Joel Foster reports.
They even launched their own fundraising campaign last fall to pay for it all.
Baup and Maxim were inspired by directors like Christopher Nolan to spin a yarn about a young man on a remote world looking for his father.
Baup also pointed to Spider-Man, which he loved as a child growing up in France, as the inspiration for their film.
“When I was a kid, I loved Spider-Man and wanted to become him. I thought, should I do it for real as a scientist or just ‘cheat’ using film?” Baup said with a smile.