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The Isaac School District has been placed in receivership resulting from gross mismanagement of school funds, and possibly criminal activity, by its leaders. A report on what has been happening has been published in a recent issue of the Arizona Daily Independent.

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House Leaders Want Answers, Call For Criminal Investigation Of Isaac School District

State legislators were swift to come up with a temporary emergency solution to keep the school doors open and the staff salaries paid.

Representative Matt Gress, Republican, District 4, and chairman of the House Education Committee called a special meeting of the committee for Tuesday, January 28, to consider House Bill HB2610.

The original bill was already intended to address some of the problems afflicting some school districts. The developments at the Isaac district prompted the swift action by Rep. Gress.

HB2610 is a long and complicated bill, with a lot of provisions and a substantial amendment. The bill, as amended, may be read by CLICKING HERE Some of the provisions are as follows:

  • Terminate for cause the school district superintendent
  • Remove each of the school district’s governing board members
  • Fill the governing board vacancies
  • Provide $2,500,000 to keep the district afloat for a few days while a permanent solution is developed.
  • Contains an emergency clause, which means it will go into effect as soon as it is signed by the governor.

The bill passed unanimously, 12-0. However, the Democrat members of the committee had very serious reservations, and implied by their comments that they would not have supported the bill if it were not dealing with an urgent situation. Most of the reservations centered around two issues.

One was that they wanted a permanent solution right now, to which Rep. Gress responded by stating that a permanent solution will be forthcoming. But the nature of the legislature is such that it has to move slowly, and enacting this bill now provides temporary relief while a permanent solution is found.

The other was that they wanted some or all of the current board members to be allowed to stay, so that a leadership vacuum could be avoided. The response to that was that unless any of them could demonstrate a credible effort to address the situation, they were not worthy of staying.

It is noteworthy that Representative Stephanie Simacek, while explaining her vote, departed from the issue at hand by engaging in a diatribe about how horrible Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA’s) are and how they are riddled with fraud and never held accountable.

Simacek provided the only sour note in a meeting characterized by civility and a genuine desire by members of both parties to solve a major problem within our public school system.



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