Education law 101

The bill breakdown … The federal heist … And the coolest summer camp.

School is out and so is the Legislature.

But we’re still learning all about the future of education policy by scouring this year’s education bills.

Lawmakers introduced almost 200 bills related to K-12 and higher education this year.

More than 50 of those made it to Gov. Katie Hobbs. She signed about half of those bills into law.

Here’s our report card breaking down the big education bills signed this year, courtesy of some conveniently generated spreadsheets from our legislation tracking service, Skywolf:

If you struggle to track 200 education bills per year, be like intern Alysa and use Skywolf, our legislative intelligence service. Sign up for a demo this summer before the chaos starts again in January.

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Change, to a certain degree

Faced with a statewide physician shortage, legislators passed a law guaranteeing interviews for in-state medical school, which they hope will encourage more students to pursue their medical degree in-state. That law, SB1727, sponsored by Republican Sen. Christine Werener, will also require Arizona medical schools that are overseen by ABOR to publish application information, including minimum qualifications, fees, deadlines and interview dates.

University isn’t the right option for everyone, so legislators have expanded some options for those looking into community college.

The governor signed Republican Sen. David Farnsworth’s SB1504, which will formally lay out the requirements for community colleges to offer baccalaureate programs and what must be included in yearly reports. And Hobbs signed SB1021 by Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers, which will allow ROTC cadets to qualify for in-state tuition. The sponsor, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel herself, hopes that the bill will “attract more patriots to Arizona’s universities.”

Republican Rep. James Taylor’s HB2765 will allow any community college, regardless of whether they have post-baccalaureate programs, to participate in the Arizona Teachers Academy — which allows future teachers to attend college tuition-free if they commit to teaching in an Arizona public school after graduation.

In other news for diehard Sun Devil fans and sports betting fanatics — Hobbs signed Republican Sen. TJ Shope’s SB1615, which expands the rights for collegiate athletes to allow for compensation from using their name, image and likeness. The law will allow colleges and universities to aid and facilitate compensation through third-party entities.

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School safety and a side salad

The Legislature also took a stand to protect more students with a half-dozen health and safety-related bills that garnered the governor’s signature.

The highest-profile of those bills is Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci’s HB2164, which bans “ultraprocessed food” from being sold or served during school hours. That bill — which passed both the House and Senate unanimously — brought out celebrity endorsements, including from former race car driver Danica Patrick and cult B-movie actor and Arizona resident Rob Schneider, perhaps best known for his role as Deuce Bigalow, a male gigolo.

While the “you can do it healthy movement” crowd focused on food, other lawmakers were looking at students’ mental health and ability to stay focused in a classroom. Republican Rep. Beverly Pingerelli’s HB2484 will require district and charter schools to establish policies to limit students’ access to cell phones during learning hours. Teachers can still let them surf the web for educational purposes and for emergencies.

Equally important on the health and safety front were laws on school epinephrine delivery systems (SB1440); requiring individualized education programs for students with dyslexia to note that they have dyslexia (HB2170); and expanding the School Safety Program (HB2074) to include supporting the costs of school safety officers, safety technology, training, and infrastructure improvements. That law also requires school districts and charter schools employing officers on campuses to provide training on recognizing and interacting with children with disabilities

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Teaching a thing or two

As usual, lawmakers had all sorts of ideas for what teachers should teach, and how they should teach it.

But one of the more interesting ideas was walking back a previous law that mandated instruction about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In 2022, lawmakers put a law on the books stating all public school kids must receive “age appropriate” education about 9/11 — but they failed to specify that the whole traumatic episode is probably not “age appropriate” for kindergarteners. So this year, Republican Sen. J.D. Mesnard sponsored SB1225, cutting that requirement down to just students in 7th grade and older.

Lawmakers also opted to let students opt out of mandatory statewide standardized tests, Republican Rep. James Taylor’s HB2540 would let kids skip school standardized testing season, provided they take the SAT or ACT and submit their score to their local district or charter school.

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No misconduct left behind

Lawmakers also took aim at problematic teachers, abusive family members and college students who take protests to their limits.

Republican Sen. Carine Werner’s SB1437 expands the list of people required to report suspected child abuse to include substitute teachers and school governing board members, and says that simply telling a school resource officer is not enough — they must tell a law enforcement agency and the State Board of Education. And it specifies that only trained forensic interviewers may interview students who are potential victims of sexual abuse.

School principals will be allowed to ask the State Board of Education about allegations of misconduct against a teacher or potential employee — and receive that file even if the investigation is not complete. Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick’s SB1659 is an attempt to deal with the fact that teachers with a history of complaints often quit and get new jobs while investigations are ongoing, and schools that hire them have no way to know.

Finally, Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez’s HB2880 bans students from establishing “encampments” on college campuses, and forces universities and colleges to report any such encampments to law enforcement agencies. The bill came out of the pro-Palestinian protests that erupted on college campuses a few years ago.

GOP lawmakers and activists were popping champagne corks last week after Congress signed off on a federal school choice program.

Starting January 2027, most families will be able to use federal tax credits to send their kids to private schools, marking a pivotal moment in the decades-long push to make school choice the norm across the country.

The Educational Choice for Children Act was tucked inside the massive federal budget bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last Friday.

Important details still need to be figured out, such as how much money each student can get, whether homeschoolers would be eligible and whether public school students could use the money for educational materials, the New York Times reports.

But here are the basics of how the program works:

In the federal program, you donate to a nonprofit and get a credit of up to $1,700 on your federal taxes. Then the nonprofit offers scholarships for K-12 students with the money you donated.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the federal program looks a lot like Arizona’s School Tuition Organizations, where tax credits are used to fund scholarships at private schools.

Anybody who makes up to 300% of the local median income will be eligible. In Arizona, the median income for a household is about $77,000, so families that make under $231,000 will be eligible.

Arizona students who use vouchers could double-dip, so to speak. In states that have a school voucher program, the federal dollars could be added to the voucher money.

As for the overall cost of the program, federal lawmakers didn’t put a cap on it.

For now, the estimated cost is about $4 billion a year, but critics of the program said they expect that cost to rise dramatically (kind of like what happened with Arizona’s voucher program).

A big concession Republican lawmakers made was to allow states to decide whether to opt in, Education Week reported.

That could raise the stakes for next year’s gubernatorial election in Arizona.

Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is not a fan of Arizona’s voucher program. But if a Republican wins next year, they might want to use those federal dollars to pay for private school tuition.

Can you guess why they did it?: Just as school districts were finalizing their budgets last week, the Trump administration alerted schools in Arizona and across the country that nearly $7 billion in federal funding would be withheld, the Wall Street Journal reports. The news came as a shock, particularly because Congress approved the funding and President Donald Trump signed it into law in March. In Arizona, the withheld funds came to $118 million, including $44 million for teacher training, $25 million for academic enrichment, $10 million for migrant student education, and $24 million for after-school programs, 12News’ Kyle Simchuk reports. As is so often the case with the Trump administration, the notice didn’t provide an explanation, other than to mention a review of some sort. Two days after announcing the funding freeze, Trump administration officials said their review showed some of the money was used to “subsidize a radical leftwing agenda,” such as supporting immigrants who are in the country without authorization and the LGBTQ+ community, the Arizona Luminaria’s Shannon Conner reports.

Boiling over: A dispute over how a school resource officer dealt with a student led the Tolleson school district to cut ties with the police department, the Republic’s Alexandra Hardle reports. The school district got an outside investigation, which said the officer used excessive force during an incident in September with a high school student. Police officials say that investigation missed important context, like threatening voicemails from the student.

Bus drivers wanted: With just a few weeks until classes start back up, school districts throughout Arizona are struggling to fill transportation jobs, ABC15’s Adam Mintzer and Elenee Dao report. The Kyrene School District says they won’t offer bus transportation for athletics in the fall. Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly is pushing a bill that could alleviate the problem by removing the requirement that school bus drivers get a commercial driver’s license, which he hopes will make way for more candidates.

Tea-time with toucans: The University of Arizona is launching the first open-access catalog of animal traditions, the Arizona Daily Star’s Prerana Sannappanavar reports. What’s an animal tradition? Think vocal communications and mating displays. Humans can play a big role in how those traditions develop and the database will explore how animals respond to human-caused environmental disturbances.

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Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Education Forward Arizona! They gather an amazing amount of data on Arizona’s schools and co-own the Arizona Education Progress Meter, which you can peruse here.

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This year’s state budget includes meaningful wins for education, despite a tight fiscal outlook. Among them: $34 million for the Arizona College Promise Program, $3 million for the Community College Promise, and dedicated support for dual enrollment, thanks in part to Governor Hobbs.

These investments didn’t happen overnight. They’re the result of more than a decade of work by postsecondary institutions and advocacy groups like Education Forward Arizona that remain focused on expanding access and affordability.

Still, it’s worth remembering: the state’s budget crunch isn’t due to a weak economy. It’s the result of years of tax policy decisions that narrowed Arizona’s revenue base — leaving lawmakers with fewer options and more constraints.

While the education investments in this budget are welcome, many are one-time funds. That makes long-term progress harder to sustain.

If Arizona wants to meet its Achieve60AZ goal and grow a competitive workforce, it will take more than short-term fixes. The state has billions to gain — but only if it commits to durable, long-term investment.

Read more: What the FY2026 State Budget Means for Education.

If you’d like to sponsor an edition of the Education Agenda, get in touch!

Here is where we usually highlight students doing cool, academic stuff.

But with school no longer in session, we have to look elsewhere.

So we dipped into what kids can do this summer. While there certainly are a lot of educational camps to choose from, this one just looks awesome.

The Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona offers a six-day Astronomy Camp every July for teenagers.

Students get to use real astronomy equipment (like the 61-inch Kuiper telescope on Mt. Bigelow), hang out with UA astronomy students and get “treated as colleagues.”

Plus, you get to stay at the astronomers’ dormitories at the Mt. Lemmon Observatory.

If you’re too old for the teen program, don’t worry. They also offer a program for adults.