The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) nixed a faith-based advisory committee following pushback from parents.
The initiative originated from TUSD’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusiveness (EDI) department early last month, in an attempt to promote cultural diversity through inclusiveness of different religious faiths.
Kinasha Brown, the assistant superintendent for EDI, advised the TUSD community in an email that the faith-based advisory committee would partner with the district to weigh in on TUSD initiatives, programs, policies, and projects; coordinate K-2 literacy activities; support TUSD enrollment and registration drives; develop service-based learning opportunities; and offer an annual faith-based symposium.
“Our community prepares all students to become responsible, ethical and engaged global citizens by creating relevant, dynamic and joyful educational experiences that embrace cultural diversity,” read the email.
Following parental outcry over the committee, TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo issued a statement via email that the committee gave the impression that TUSD wasn’t secular and religiously neutral. Trujillo further clarified that the committee wouldn’t have decision-making power.
“This advisory committee is not going to have any decision-making power in any area of curriculum, instruction, programming, policy-making in schools, but we would like to at least reach out to the faith-based community in terms of where they can contribute with the overall needs of TUSD kids,” Trujillo said.
Trujillo’s email followed parents’ statements of opposition to the proposed committee during last week’s special governing board meeting.
One mother, Kate Goldman, said she was “really upset” by the proposed committee. Goldman questioned how TUSD would “equitably” ensure that all religious and non-religious groups would be represented.
“My child we intentionally put in a public school where I felt there would be a safe difference, a distinction, between church and state,” said Goldman. “I just don’t see the need, for a secular institution that I thought prided itself on critical thinking to be advised in any way by any faith whereas the evidence advisory committee that’s stupid, that’s school I thought. You are the evidence advisory, I thought. Why are we having a faith-based one?”
Goldman expressed worry that a faith-based group would squash all other equity efforts.
Goldman also testified that she attempted, unsuccessfully, to sign up to join the group, claiming that the signup links and emails wouldn’t go through.
Arnie Bermudez, a father, challenged the legality of the committee.
“Why are we trying to shoehorn religion into our school district since there are already private schools all over Tucson that can fill this gap?” asked Bermudez.
Watch the TUSD governing board meeting remarks against the faith-based advisory committee here:
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s (R-AZ06) reelection campaign released a new advertisement Tuesday targeting Democratic challenger JoAnna Mendoza. The ad links Mendoza to Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and highlights Mendoza’s past comments about reallocating police funding.
The advertisement, titled “Radical Allies,” accuses Mendoza and Romero of sharing an approach to policing, taxation, and homelessness that Ciscomani’s campaign says has harmed Tucson. The spot concludes by warning of “fewer police officers,” “more dangerous streets,” and “the same failed radical policies.”
“JoAnna Mendoza has a clear record of undermining support for and trust in local law enforcement – just listen to her in her own words,” Ciscomani said.
Sharing the advertisement in a post to X, Ciscomani wrote, “JoAnna Mendoza is endorsed by Tucson’s Failed, Unpopular Mayor Regina Romero for AZ06.” He added, “ Under Romero’s failed leadership: Police officers and firefighters stretched thin, Homelessness and crime are rampant, Business owners left to pick up the mess.”
🚨RADICAL POLICIES. RADICAL ALLIES.🚨
JoAnna Mendoza is endorsed by Tucson’s Failed, Unpopular Mayor Regina Romero for AZ06.
Under Romero's failed leadership: ❌Police officers and firefighters stretched thin ❌Homelessness and crime are rampant ❌Business owners left to… pic.twitter.com/FwRy7thZBz
Ciscomani said residents of Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District deserve elected officials who prioritize public safety and provide law enforcement agencies with the personnel and equipment needed to protect their communities.
The advertisement describes Romero as a Mendoza ally and cites her endorsement of the Democrat nominee. Romero publicly endorsed Mendoza in July 2020, when Mendoza was running for the Arizona Senate in Legislative District 11.
“JoAnna has demonstrated her lifelong commitment to serving our country and the people of Arizona,” Romero said during the 2020 campaign.
Mendoza thanked Romero for the endorsement and said she had helped with Romero’s successful 2019 campaign to become Tucson’s first female and Latina mayor.
The Ciscomani campaign’s release did not identify a separate endorsement issued by Romero during the current congressional race. Romero is not listed on Mendoza’s current campaign endorsement page, which includes Democrat Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, Attorney General Kris Mayes, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, and several other elected officials and organizations.
Later Tuesday, Romero explicitly endorsed Mendoza in a post responding to Ciscomani, “@JuanCiscomani has failed Tucsonans. He voted to remove SNAP & Medicare benefits from children & seniors to give his billionaire buddies tax breaks. We need leadership that is more interested in results than theatrics. That is why we must retire Juan & elect @Mendoza4AZ.”
@JuanCiscomani has failed Tucsonans. He voted to remove SNAP & Medicare benefits from children & seniors to give his billionaire buddies tax breaks. We need leadership that is more interested in results than theatrics. That is why we must retire Juan & elect @Mendoza4AZ
Romero referred to Medicare in the post. Congressional Budget Office analyses of the reconciliation law identified Medicaid and SNAP as the principal benefit programs affected by reductions in federal spending.
Romero and Mendoza appeared together in February during a Tucson panel on gun violence with Giffords and Tucson Unified School District Governing Board member Natalie Luna Rose.
The new advertisement also draws from comments Mendoza made during a 2020 town hall hosted by the Arizona Clean Elections Commission and the Arizona Capitol Times amid nationwide protests and disputes over police funding.
“I support the reallocation of funding to programs that would allow people to live their best lives,” Mendoza said when asked whether she supported defunding police, according to a report from Fox News.
Mendoza identified social services, housing, public education, health care, economic stability, and environmental safety among the programs she believed should receive funding.
The Ciscomani campaign also cited Mendoza’s statement that police reform represented “one aspect of the systemic racism” present in the United States. The campaign characterized her support for reallocating funding as an endorsement of the movement to defund police departments.
Mendoza has rejected that characterization. Her campaign told Fox News that she supports providing police with additional resources, including training and body cameras, and said she has repeatedly opposed defunding law enforcement.
“I do not support defunding the police,” Mendoza said during another virtual event in 2020. “Police officers are being asked to do too much.”
Mendoza reiterated that position in an opinion article in the Arizona Daily Star in March 2026 that was republished be her campaign.
“The answer is not to defund law enforcement—it’s to fund law enforcement with intention,” Mendoza wrote.
She called for additional training, body cameras, clear identification, and oversight while expressing support for police officers, Border Patrol personnel, and immigration agents who lawfully perform their duties.
Ciscomani’s campaign also highlighted federal funding the congressman has supported for local public safety agencies. His congressional office said he obtained $4.2 million in Community Project Funding to replace aging Tucson Police Department vehicles.
A January spending package included $809,687 for replacement radios for the Sahuarita Police Department. Ciscomani has also sponsored legislation intended to establish coordination centers where federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies could conduct joint operations.
Ciscomani and Mendoza advanced to the Nov. 3 general election after running without opposition in their respective July 21 primaries. Ciscomani has represented the district since 2023 and won reelection in 2024 with 50.0 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat Kirsten Engel by 10,822 votes.
A Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) teacher committed suicide while fleeing arrest for the sexual abuse of a minor.
Steven Charles Mitten III, a history teacher at Shadow Mountain High School, fled from police on Wednesday shortly before taking his own life, according to a media advisory issued by the Phoenix Police Department (PPD) on Thursday.
Mitten, 65, previously worked at Cactus Shadows High School within the Cave Creek Unified School District (CCUSD). CCUSD awarded Mitten their Excellence Award in May 2018, given to one teacher in the school for outstanding contributions to students.
Per PPD, an unnamed adult female reported to law enforcement on Monday that Mitten initiated a sexual relationship with her when she was 16 years old. That relationship purportedly lasted for approximately three years.
The Crimes Against Children Unit (CACU) immediately investigated the woman’s claim and found probable cause to arrest Mitten.
The media advisory explained that Mitten fled from the Fugitive Apprehension and Investigations Detail (FAID) in his vehicle with a firearm. After law enforcement used a grappler to stop Mitten’s vehicle, Mitten turned his gun on himself and shot himself in his vehicle.
Detectives and the Special Assignments Unit (SAU) apprehended Mitten, and the Phoenix Fire Department transported him to a hospital. Mitten later succumbed to the self-inflicted gunshot wound.
PPD advised that other details were omitted from public communications given the ongoing nature of the investigation.
“This case reflects the unwavering dedication of our detectives, who work tirelessly on behalf of survivors, especially in cases involving crimes against children,” stated the advisory. “We recognize the lasting impact these incidents have on survivors and their families, and we remain committed to seeking justice while handling these sensitive investigations with care and professionalism.”
The Arizona State Board of Education (AZSBE) does not have any disciplinary records pertaining to Mitten.
Arizona Department of Education records reflect Mitten received a standard professional secondary certification covering history, political science and American government, and social studies for the sixth through twelfth grades in April 2021. Mitten also had a full endorsement for structured English immersion covering preK-12.
Another Arizona teacher was arrested this week for sexual exploitation of a minor. An elementary school teacher and high school coach, Timothy James Sonier, 48, was arrested on Thursday for uploading child sexual abuse materials. Sonier faces 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Sonier taught at Dodge Traditional Magnet School and coached girls’ junior varsity basketball at Salpointe Catholic High School. Sonier has lived in Tucson for nearly 30 years; he passed a background check by Tucson Unified School District.
Prior to Dodge and Salpointe, Sonier worked at Dietz K-8 School, Catalina High School, and Sabino High School.
The AZSBE latest enforcement action report reflected that enforcement actions increased nearly eightfold from 2014 to 2024. AZSBE attributed this increase to the increased staffing and efficiency of case processing, not an upward trend of immoral or unprofessional misconduct in schools.
Although males comprise only 24 percent of total educators, they represented 61 percent of all enforcement actions.
A majority of enforcement actions since 2012 have come from sexual offense cases (671 out of 1,876 cases, or 36 percent). These cases are not distinguished between offenses against minors versus adults. In 2024, 29 percent were associated with sexual misconduct behaviors.
AZSBE has not published its enforcement action report for 2025 as of this report.
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Arizona lawmakers have introduced legislation aimed at preventing disruptions to public school operations by prohibiting teacher strikes and coordinated work stoppages, while tying state funding more closely to in-person classroom instruction.
House Education Committee Chairman Matt Gress (R-LD4) and Senate Education Committee Chairman Hildy Angius (R-LD30) are advancing the proposal as a striker amendment to House Bill 2313.
The measure would make it unlawful for teachers in Arizona public school districts and charter schools to engage in strikes or any organized efforts to halt work against their employers.
Teachers who participate in such collective actions would forfeit key employment protections, including civil service status, reemployment rights, and benefits or privileges associated with their public school positions. These penalties would apply only to group participation in strikes or work stoppages—individual employment decisions or absences would not be affected.
“Taxpayers fund instruction delivered in classrooms,” stated Rep. Gress in a press release announcing the striker. “When adults coordinate mass callouts to shut down campuses, that is a strike in practice. It robs students of instructional time and throws working parents into chaos. Public schools exist to educate children. If someone organizes a work stoppage, they should not retain the privileges and protections of public employment. If regular school days are moved online because of coordinated political action, funding must reflect that.”
In addition, the bill directs the Arizona Department of Education to cut down a school’s base support funding when remote instruction increases as a direct result of an organized work stoppage. The legislation includes safeguards for schools operating under approved alternative instructional models, full-time online programs, or during declared emergencies.
Lawmakers say the proposal is a response to events in late January, when thousands of teachers and staff members in Tucson called out sick in connection with a nationwide protest. This action led to the temporary closure of around 20 campuses in the Tucson Unified School District, disrupting student learning and creating challenges for families.
“Parents should not wake up to closed campuses because of organized protests,” added Senator Angius. “The Tucson closures showed how a coordinated call-in can shut down learning overnight. This legislation restores accountability and stability for families and keeps the focus where it belongs, on students in seats and classrooms open.”
Consideration of the striker amendment to HB 2313 is expected soon.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Channel 12 continued its clumsy crusade against school choice this week with a breathless report about fraudsters abusing Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to buy diamond rings and necklaces, flights and hotel stays, and even lingerie.
It paints a picture of a program rife with abuse. But is it?
The Arizona Department of Education gave Channel 12 the records for more than 1.2 million ESA requests. Yet when askedrepeatedly what percentage of those requests were fraudulent, Channel 12’s reporter refused to comment.
Why? Because the truth undermines the anti-ESA narrative.
The salacious report is intended to persuade policymakers who support ESAs to impose regulations that would undermine the ESA program. It goes without saying that anyone engaged in fraud should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and the Arizona Department of Education is appropriately cracking down on fraudsters. But before policymakers rush to amend the ESA program, they should know the context that Channel 12 left out.
ESA Misspending Is a Tiny Fraction of Total ESA Spending
The ESA program currently serves about 90,000 students at a projected cost of $882 million this year and $939 million next year, or about 6.7% of the $14 billion spent on Arizona’s district schools. Families can use ESAs to purchase a wide variety of educational expenses to customize their child’s education.
The typical ESA student receives about $7,500 per year, compared with more than $15,300 per pupil at Arizona’s district schools. Students with special needs—who account for more than 19% of ESA students, compared with 14% of district school students—can receive more funding, although the accounts are still worth 90% of what the state spends on similarly situated students at public schools. According to the Common Sense Institute, “a disproportionate share of middle-income households use an ESA.”
On Tuesday, the Arizona Department of Education revealed that their internal audit had turned up $622,000 in ESA funds that are “possible fraud or misuse.”
That’s less than one-tenth of 1% of total ESA spending.
Ignoring Mountains, Covering Molehills
Meanwhile, there are 30 school districts that the Arizona Auditor General currently deems to be non-compliant with state reporting requirements or that have internal control deficiencies. The total spending in those districts is more than $1.4 billion, more than the total spending of the ESA program. Yet aside from its coverage of the disastrous overspending in the Isaac Elementary School District, Channel 12 has barely covered it at all.
For that matter, Channel 12 has ignored the $7.8 billion that Arizona school districts are holding in cash reserves. That’s about $7,000 per pupil. The reserves have grown $2 billion in two years, yet Channel 12 doesn’t evince even the slightest curiosity about why.
Nor is anyone at Channel 12 interested in the $12 billion worth of unused and underutilized buildings that districts are sitting on, often just to prevent private or charter schools from buying them.
Channel 12 found space in the aforementioned ESA exposé to mention that a judge recently ruled that the state supposedly “isn’t properly funding capital needs for its public schools,” but the station had no space to mention that school districts are sitting on $20 billion in cash reserves and underutilized buildings.
Indeed, Channel 12 has barely covered any of these facts even as they pump out multiple anti-ESA stories each week, despite the fact that the ESA program is dwarfed by the spending at non-compliant districts, district school cash reserves, and underutilized buildings.
School-choice opponents and their media allies are hyper-focused on ESA misspending because they want to pressure lawmakers to undermine the program via regulation.
The Arizona Department of Education adopted its risk-based auditing strategy—automatically approving ESA spending requests below $2,000, then auditing accounts on the back end—because Superintendent Tom Horne’s previous “review every penny” approach was causing massive backlogs and delays in approving expense requests and reimbursements.
There were nearly 11,000 transactions in quarter 3 of this year alone. It’s impossible for the department’s staff to review each transaction in a timely manner, but parents trying to teach their kids can’t wait months just to buy a textbook or pay their child’s tutor or school.
To Horne’s credit, he listened to parents and made some incremental improvements that make it easier for parents to use the program. Now a tiny percentage of ESA holders are taking advantage of the looser rules, but they will be forced to pay the money back and could face prosecution.
The Arizona Department of Education has suspended 400 accounts due to improper spending —just 0.4% of the total accounts—and has referred some to the Attorney General for further investigation and prosecution.
Punishing fraudsters is necessary. Every government program is subject to some amount of fraud and abuse, and it’s incumbent upon public officials to implement rules that keep fraud as close to zero as possible. But it is not in the public interest to undermine a program’s effectiveness, especially when that program is helping kids get access to a better education and a brighter future.
School-choice opponents are using misspending as a pretext. If that was their real concern, they’d be raising alarms about all the waste, fraud, and abuse in the district school system. They’re not really concerned with stopping the 0.4% of ESA holders committing fraud, they just don’t want the program to work for 99+% of families just trying to do right by their kids.
Supporters of education freedom and opportunity should ignore the manufactured outrage and work to ensure that the ESA program works well for the families it serves.
Jason Bedrick is a Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
