By Staff Reporter |
Gov. Katie Hobbs fired an Arizona State Board of Education (ASBE) member following pressure from a public school activist group, email records revealed.
The emails obtained and published by FOIAzona revealed that Hobbs heeded a demand from Save Our Schools Arizona (SOSAZ) to fire former ASBE member Jenny Clark due to her general support for school choice.
SOSAZ led a ballot initiative in 2022 in an attempt to overturn the legislation that universalized Arizona’s school choice within the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program. The effort was unsuccessful after SOSAZ far overestimated their signature numbers when they turned in their signature sheets.
SOSAZ lobbyist Beth Lewis emailed Hobbs chief of staff Chad Campbell and deputy chief of staff Lourdes Pena in January of last year with the demand to fire Clark and another board member, Katherine Haley. Lewis alleged the pair were “anti-public school” due to their school choice affiliations.
Lewis recommended Hobbs replace Clark with an ESA parent of a special needs student, suggesting Kathy Boltz, a member of the SOSAZ board. Haley’s recommended replacement was Alison Bruening-Hamati, an administrator with the Tempe Elementary School District.
Three days after that initial email, Lewis sent a follow-up email to stress the urgency of both Clark and Haley’s removals, citing an upcoming (at the time) ASBE meeting to update the ESA Parent handbook.
Pena responded that they had “a plan in place to replace Clark,” and that they were holding “more ongoing convos” about Haley. Not much later, the former would be given the boot. For unknown reasons, the latter was permitted to remain on the board.
A little over three weeks later, Clark announced on social media that Hobbs’ office ignored her refusal to resign and notified her of a forthcoming letter confirming the end of her term. When that letter hadn’t arrived six days later, Clark again posted online to notify of the absence of the letter. Within hours, the governor’s office sent a letter notifying Clark that she had been replaced since her term had expired.
Several other members of the board were serving on expired terms when Hobbs ousted Clark. However, in a letter last March announcing the appointment of Lupita Hightower to replace former ASBE board member Anna Tovar, Hobbs’ office claimed no other ASBE members were serving expired terms. However, that was not true.
Haley, now the president, had her term expire last January. Both vice president Scott Hagerman and Jason Catanese had their terms expire in January 2024.
At the time of Hobbs’ letter last March, Karla Phillips-Krivickas and Jacqui Clay had unexpired terms. However, both of their terms expired this January.
Hightower did not replace Clark. Kathleen Wiebke, whose term was set to expire in 2029, replaced Clark last March but passed away in December.
ASBE also has two vacancies at present, one seat for a public member and one seat for a charter school administrator.
In all, five of the 11 board members are serving on expired terms and two are vacant.
Lewis, the author of the emails, responded that the publishing of her emails was “hilariously stupid” and accused the women she sought to remove from ASBE as “working to destroy public education.”
“[Y]all are just pearl clutching — take luck!” said Lewis.
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