Most of the members of the Arizona State Board of Education are not elected, and the demands they made today of the duly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas has many wondering if they should be. The Board gave until the end of the day Tuesday to comply with their demand that its investigator, who works for Douglas, but answers now to the Board, have access to teacher records.
If she does not comply, the Board may sue her.
For years the State Board operated almost completely without public scrutiny. Board members used their private email boxes to conduct public business. Unlike her predecessor John Huppenthal, who shared the pro-Common Core, pro-corporate controlled charter school positions with the Board members, Douglas has attempted to take her role as the supervisor of Board staff seriously as well as exercising her limited role in policy making.
As a result, Douglas has butted heads with Governor Doug Ducey, whose role it is to appoint Board members. The culture shift has also rankled Christine Thompson, the board’s executive director.
Thompson, who previously answered only to the haphazard Board, was fired by Douglas along with her assistant. Ducey inserted himself in the situation and ordered the staff back to work. Since then, a hostile work environment was allegedly created by Thompson according to emails between Douglas’ staff and Ducey’s staff.
On Friday, Douglas sued Ducey in an effort to clarify who controls what. Douglas sued in response to Board staff moving out of the Department of Education (ADE) and into Ducey’s offices.
Douglas called the move by the Board “illegal.”
In her lawsuit, Douglas requests that the judge issue an injunction which will direct Board staff to return to their offices and the ADE and if they don’t return – allow Douglas to fire them.
The Board also voted today to fight Douglas’ lawsuit.
Lawmakers expressed concern with the situation. Rep. Kelly Townsend said, “It is not without precedent that a Superintendent’s duties are protected in a court of law. We saw this power struggle in Wyoming recently, where Cindy Hill filed a lawsuit to reinstate her duties as Superintendent and prevailed. Unelected bureaucrats cannot legally vote to change statutes. They cannot illegally remove her employees and displace them to another building, and they cannot demand that she surrender their equipment. Diane Douglas is within her legal right and authority to stand against this embarrassing attempt to strip her of her elected authority, and I support her effort to fight this in court. As we saw in Wyoming, the law prevails and I am confident that she will eventually be free to perform her job without obstruction. I am ashamed that we have come to this, and I call for an immediate application of decorum and proper observation of our statutes.”
Rep. Mark Finchem said, “Since we have an appointed board of education that is not directly accountable to the people whom they are allegedly serving, maybe it is time to re-create the State Board of Education, making it an elected body with certain qualifications? I am deeply disturbed that there appears to be a power struggle between an elected official dedicated to serving her constituency, and a bureaucracy focused on amassing power that is supposed to be driving quality education for our children. I would like to explore an elected State School Board.”
Rep. Bob Thorpe stated, “Similar to our locally elected school board members, I fully support the legislature moving the AZ State Board of Education members, from positions that are appointed by the Governor, to being elected by the public during general elections, in order to make them directly accountable to the public. Additionally, the Legislature and the voters should have the ability to recall board members for violating the public trust and for ethical violations.”
This past year, Rep. Townsend introduced HB 2048, which would have allowed the Senate to recall a member of the Board with a 2/3 vote. Rep. Paul Boyer would not allow the bill to be considered by lawmakers.