Court Hands East Valley School Districts Victory Over EVIT

PHOENIX – For the second time in two months, on June 29, 2026, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury has ruled against the East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT) and in favor of nine East Valley school districts. Today’s ruling denied EVIT’s application for a preliminary injunction and rejected EVIT’s core legal argument: that districts can only spend vocational education funds on EVIT-approved courses. The court was unambiguous. EVIT was wrong. The districts were right.

This issue started more than 18 months ago when EVIT refused to renew the existing intergovernmental agreement and instead attempted to insert provisions the districts identified as both illegal and harmful to students. Over the course of those 18 months, the nine districts submitted 18 separate proposals, each designed to preserve fair, effective career and technical education access for students across the region. EVIT rejected everyone. Including proposals that matched the payment rate EVIT had agreed to with other districts.

Together, the nine plaintiff districts serve more than 25,000 students in career and technical education programs. EVIT’s centralized campus serves approximately 3,500. Despite that gap, EVIT sought to seize financial control over how districts spend funds generated by their own students’ enrollment, and to redirect those dollars toward its growing administrative operation. The court said no.

The judge upheld one segment of the lawsuit, ruling that EVIT has some quality control authority over satellite CTED programs but put firm limits on what EVIT could and could not do, referencing EVIT’s arguments on its authority as “unpersuasive”.

In May 2026, Judge Coury issued the first ruling, finding that EVIT and the districts must jointly determine how satellite CTE funding is apportioned, that any agreement must be documented in a formal intergovernmental agreement, and that EVIT cannot retain funding beyond the actual cost of services it provides to the districts. EVIT was required to itemize what it delivers in exchange for every dollar it keeps.

Today’s ruling goes further. The court found that Arizona law does not restrict district vocational education fund accounts to EVIT-approved courses only. Districts can use those funds to expand any career and technical education programming for students, whether or not EVIT has sanctioned it. The court also denied EVIT’s request for an injunction that would have frozen district spending entirely. Had EVIT’s request been upheld, it could have brought an immediate halt to CTE outside the EVIT campuses, adversely affecting thousands of students.