In August of 2025, the Maricopa County Superior Court released their 114-page decision in Glendale Elementary School District et al v. State of Az et al, the newest case in a long series of cases about the terrible school funding in Arizona. This case has gone on for years with massive work by attorneys and thousands of pages of documents, exhibits, and arguments. A two-week trial was held in May 2024. This lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of Arizona’s system for funding the capital needs of Arizona’s K-12 public schools – again.
The AZ Constitution says that education is a right and the responsibility of the state. (Ariz. Const.art. XI, § 1(A).) The legislature makes the policy decisions on how best to allocate the state’s resources to meet the public schools’ capital and other needs. The court can only decide if the system set up by the legislature meets the constitutional mandate. The Court in this case ruled that the current public-school capital finance system does not meet the constitutional minimum standards established by the Arizona Supreme Court.
PLAINTIFFS
Plaintiffs include four school districts (Elfrida, Chino Valley, Crane in Yuma, and Glendale Elementary) as well as the Arizona School Boards Association, the Arizona Education Association, and the Arizona School Administrators, and a taxpayer Kathy Knecht, who owns property in the Peoria Unified School District (“PUSD”) and previously served on the PUSD board.
THE DEFENDANT
The Defendant is the State of Arizona (the “State”). But the “State” chose not to defend the legislature’s shenanigans, so it fell to the “special intervenors” - the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and the President of the Arizona State Senate. Elections matter.
HISTORY
The court spent many pages going over the history of and changes to the school funding formulas in AZ. In 1998, the legislature enacted “Students FIRST.” (originally codified at A.R.S. §§ 15-2002, 2011; recently recodified at A.R.S. §§ 41-5702, 5711)). It was based on the promise that the State would fund all school facilities to meet minimum state standards and provide new facilities when needed due to enrollment growth. Schools could with local monies go beyond the minimum standards, but they had to at least meet them because the physical standards support student achievement. That didn’t happen.
The program was changed over the years, did not account for inflation, did not meet the inspection requirement, standards became out of date, and did not allocate sufficient monies. For example, in 2025 the schools needed $587 million, ADOA asked for less than $222 million and less than $200 million was budgeted. In 2024, they asked for $350 million and got $200 million.
Some of the deficiencies corrected in 1999-2005 when Students FIRST was passed are now 20 years old and need correcting again. The building renewal fund has historically run out of grant money annually. The result is that things were not fixed. Roofs leaked resulting in more damage from leaking, wet insulation, rusting, mold and exposed asbestos, and water stains. This then exposes districts to lawsuits e.g. for mold exposure. The legislature is being penny wise and pound foolish as usual.
The court gave example after example from schools around the state that needed repairs. Rural and native schools were especially hard hit. Required inspections were not done, sometimes for over 10 years. Safety needs were ignored from deteriorating school buses to the threat of school shootings. The court pointed out that non-academic space is a necessity not a luxury such as administrative offices (consolidation can save money) and bus barns (saves money on protection of buses). Another example of penny wise and pound foolish.
In 2013 the legislature changed the way it was decided that new schools could be built. It was no longer based on projections of need but on actual need i.e. the school had to be overcrowded. That meant that children had to endure the poor conditions for at least the three years it took to build a school. The legislature then changed that formula again but only for elementary schools.
A further unfairness is shown by the fact that funding is indexed to inflation for charter schools but not public schools. Charter schools have private boards that are not answerable to the public and have fewer restrictions and requirements. Most of the private schools are religious and could not survive without your tax dollars. The impact of inflation since 1999 means purchasing power dropped to 70% of what it was when the bill was passed.
Schools could use bond money to build but only two-thirds of bond requests pass, the amount usually was only half of what was needed, and not all districts could pass bonds especially if they were in poorer areas of the state with lower land values and average income thus increasing the inequality. A district’s bonding capacity is a function of the property wealth within the district. A district’s statutory bonding capacity reflects the limit on bond indebtedness set by statute. Bonding capacity is set at 10% of a district’s assessed valuation, less any outstanding bonds.
The court then outlined disparate bonding capacities per pupil include:
a. Riverside Elementary School District’s statutory bonding capacity is $79,764 per pupil, which is 36.8 times Gadsden Elementary School District’s statutory bonding capacity of $2,170 per pupil.
b. Tempe Union High School District’s bonding capacity is about 350%, or 3.5 times, greater than Yuma Union High School District’s bonding capacity.
c. Sedona-Oak Creek Joint Unified School District has about 50 times the bonding capacity as Douglas Unified School District.
Further discrimination is structured in the tax rates:
“The tax rates required to raise the same amount of money also vary greatly among districts. It costs lower-wealth districts more money than wealthier districts to raise the same amount of money per pupil. Examples of tax rate disparities among districts to raise $100 per pupil include:
a. Gadsden Elementary School District’s tax rate of $0.57 per $100 of assessed valuation is 34.6 times greater than Riverside Elementary School District’s tax rate of $0.02 per $100 of assessed valuation.
b. Yuma Union High School District’s tax rate of $0.08 per $100 of assessed valuation is 3.1 times greater than Tempe Union High School District’s tax rate of $0.03 per $100 of assessed valuation.
c. Douglas Unified School District’s tax rate of $0.44 per $100 of assessed valuation is 43.7 times greater than Sedona-Oak Creek Joint Unified School District’s tax rate of $0.01 per $100 of assessed valuation.”
DISPARITIES
The court spent even more space outlining the horrifying conditions of Arizona schools and the disparities. Even in schools that have replaced textbooks with laptops still have to pay annual licensing fees and updates. Fifteen districts currently use buildings that are more than 100 years old.
Tolleson Elementary School District
In June 2023, the roof over the cafeteria collapsed. The school was being pushed to use bond money to fix it but if they did, then the State would consider it “excluded space” under rules that if a school uses their own money to fix something, the State won’t ever again fix it. This creates a disincentive to raise and use their own money.
Elfrida Elementary School District
Elfrida District has no textbooks, so teachers must scour online and spend personal money for teaching resources. There are not enough tablets for each student, and the internet goes out frequently. The leaking roof requires students to reposition trash cans to catch rainwater. It has overflowing toilets, no gym in the elementary school, no music program because a tree fell on the roof, and the water from the faucets is foul. See photo.
Bowie Unified School District
It needs three roof replacements. Here’s one. They applied for funds, but the funding had run out.
Snowflake Elementary School District
Snowflake’s entire high school campus is cooled by a cooling tower. In August 2023, about two weeks before the start of the new school year, the cooling tower’s bearings failed. As a result, Snowflake had to spend its own funds for emergency repairs, even though the State will not reimburse a district when it spends its own funds which is another disincentive for schools. Note that Snowflake has the second Mormon Temple in Arizona and a fancy golf course, but it can’t fund its schools.
Mohawk Valley Elementary School District
In August 2019, Mohawk Valley described the restrooms as follows:
The boys and girls [sic] bathrooms are no longer safe and barely usable. Stall dividers are barely hanging and have been repaired as best as can be and have torn metal pieces exposed. Some sinks are broken or not existent.
The faucets leak and break, causing dangerous conditions. Several urinals no longer work or continually run creating a flooded floor. Toilets are not of commercial grade and do not flush properly. Baseboards are gone. Vents are broken. Some plumbing does not work. Bathrooms are not handicap accessible.
Their request for repairs was denied “because preventative maintenance is inadequate and ADA accessibility is not yet required as there are currently no students for which accommodation is needed.” Of course this makes no sense because lack of preventative maintenance is precisely the problem that should be repaired and the ADA law does not say that places have to be handicap accessible only after someone requests it.
The district applied again when it was even worse:
The existing three restrooms in the mail building (1930 & 1996 renovations) are in a failed state. The urinals in the boy’s restroom leaked into the walls and have been closed off. The flooring structure is damaged and has a large crack in the foundation. In certain times of the year a fungal-type mushroom plant grows up where the foundation meets the wall. Partitions are broken, unrepairable, and well beyond their life span and are not ADA compliant. Both boy’s and girl’s restrooms have broken toilets and sinks that are not safely secured to the wall. The walls are in need of repair that securing the sinks and partitions will require proper backing and blocking plumbing.
If that’s not bad enough, the fire alarm system doesn’t work, and they don’t have an intercom or even a reliable phone system especially when it rains. In 2016, the water treatment plant was malfunctioning and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality informed Mohawk Valley that its water was unsafe for students to wash their hands in — let alone to drink. Apparently, the health and safety of these students didn’t matter. I’ve lived in other third world countries and seen better schools.
Quartzsite Unified School District
In paragraph 335, the court outlines the issues for Quartzsite. “Since 2018 or 2019, the condition of Quartzsite Elementary School has become unsafe to the point that even the district’s business manager “wouldn’t want [her] children going to school in those buildings.” One such safety issue is the fire alarm system that QUSD is “having to pay to put Band-Aids on” because the district does not “have the money that it would cost to replace [the] fire alarm panel because it includes rewiring the whole school.” In addition, three main classroom buildings are shut down for structural safety reasons.”
Chino Valley Unified School District
As of 2019, Chino Valley had chemistry books that had not been replaced for 15 years. They have not had a textbook adoption but one in math in more than 10 years. They don’t have the tools to teach. They can’t meet the academic standards due to lack of curriculum resources, inability to keep classrooms at temperatures within the minimum limits, and aging buses. Charter schools however who get more money per student and have an inflation index have buses that the public school has to borrow. The obvious goal of our legislature is to destroy the public school system.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
After this lengthy recitation of disgusting facts, the court outlined their conclusions of law. First, they discussed the standards for deciding whether the constitutional requirement of a general and uniform public school system is being provided by the state. This requirement was necessary for admission into the U.S. “The conventioneers believed that an educated citizenry was extraordinarily important to the new state.” “As the heated debates about education as a requirement for voting show, the conventioneers believed that a free society could not exist without educated participants.” That is precisely why those now in power are trying to destroy the public education system. They don’t want an educated citizenry that is knowledgeable about voting to ensure our democracy.
In an earlier Arizona case called Roosevelt I, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected the notion that “the financing of public education in Arizona is the responsibility of school districts and not the state.” Just read the Constitution. The duty is put on the state not the individual district. For those rich districts, “Disparities caused by local control do not run afoul of the state constitution because there is nothing in art. XI that would prohibit a school district or a county from deciding for itself that it wants an educational system that is even better than the general and uniform system created by the state.” So you can go above the standard; you just can’t go below it.
The constitutional question is not whether the disparities are caused by unequal distribution of wealth (the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that is not discrimination), but whether the inequalities are caused by the financing structure the state itself set up. The court found it is. It’s a feature; not a bug.
The Roosevelt I case found that relying on local property taxation for district capital expenditures was unconstitutional because the structure created by the state relied on 45% of the money coming from property value in the district. “Thus, the state’s financing scheme could do nothing but produce disparities. The statutes are inherently incapable of achieving their constitutional
purpose. Because the state’s financing system is itself the cause of these disparities, the system, taken as a whole, does not comply with art. XI, § 1 of the Arizona Constitution.”
Hull v. Albrecht that followed in three years found that the changes made by the legislature to the funding scheme still were not constitutional. The court said that the baseline must be adequate, and buildings must be maintained in an adequate condition. The Students FIRST act in 1998 was the response to Hull. Then Governor Hull asked in Albrecht II that the AZ Supreme Court declare the Students FIRST scheme compliant with the state Constitution. The Supreme Court established a test that the court in this case had to meet i.e. minimum adequate facilities, funding for all districts to maintain that, and that the structure of funding itself must not be the cause of the disparities between districts i.e. a two-part test. The Supreme Court ruled Students FIRST did not pass the second part of that test.
The Act let districts participate in the scheme or opt out to pay for their capital needs solely by local financing. They can opt out only if they meet the minimum standards and the voters in the district approve. That part was constitutional. The problem was the restriction on bonding and the school district assessment ratios. Because of these structural problems, the Act was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court required that the legislature must first assure compliance with minimum adequate standards. While even that scenario has disparity issues, it is clear from the facts outlined extensively by the judge in this case, schools in AZ are not meeting the first test (minimum standards) because of the failure to meet the second (structural disincentive).
RULING
The judge ruled that the enormous facility disparities can be traced to the statutory scheme that relies on local property taxation – the same finding in earlier cases.
In paragraph 385, the court says:
Some districts have schoolhouses that are unsafe, unhealthy, and in violation of building, fire, and safety codes. Some districts use dirt lots for playgrounds. There are schools without libraries, science laboratories, computer rooms, art programs, gymnasiums, and auditoriums. But in other districts, there are schools with indoor swimming pools, a domed stadium, science laboratories, television studios, well stocked libraries, satellite dishes, and extensive computer systems.
This court found that the first test was failed because minimum standards for all schools were not met. Not even inspection requirements were met. Some schools had never been inspected since 1999.
The court also found that the second test was failed because for one thing the structure required that a school be below minimum standards to even apply for funding to meet minimum standards. In other words, school must be below standards, or they are not eligible. That is prohibited by the Constitution that requires general and uniform standards and the Supreme Court that said the scheme had to require that all districts meet minimum standards.
In addition, the system itself causes substantial disparities between districts by creating and exacerbating differences between districts that have access to local funds through bond and/or override elections and districts that do not have such access. Previous legislation had established a means to equalize funding, but it was repealed and the current system put in its place. This system depends on a district being able to access local funds. Property values and assessment ratios are critical to local funding and prohibit poor districts from accessing local funding – precisely what the AZ Supreme Court found unconstitutional in the Roosevelt case.
Local control is not violated by establishing a state standard for adequate capital facilities. Local control does not mean districts can choose unsafe and ineffective schools. Local control means the district can go above but not below the state minimum standard.
The main defense of the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate was that the plaintiffs had not proven that the condition of the facilities and the failure of funding directly related to the students’ academic success. No mention was made of their safety. Much could be said of this argument but most of it is not printable. These are the same people who want to put the 10 Commandments in the schools but take out free school lunches.
The court responded that the Roosevelt case focused on non-academic buildings and did not challenge the exclusion of such buildings from the repair program. But in this case, the schools were talking about classrooms, hallways, toilets, locker rooms, cafeterias, and gyms – not administrative offices.
Second the court hoisted the legislature on their own petard by saying it was you, legislature, who created this scheme and courts cannot substitute their judgment for yours. But you said that academic standards are related to minimum adequate facilities and that is why you excluded administrative buildings and bus barns. You cannot now deny the relation between adequate facilities and educational goals when “the legislature established as necessary to meet its educational goals.”
The plaintiffs also made arguments on equal protection and tax uniformity, but these were not considered under the argument that the more specific statute overrides the less specific one.
RELIEF
The court declared that the current public-school capital finance system violates the constitution. The court also granted a permanent injunction to stop the use of this scheme. However, the court did not set a timeline for compliance because the case will be appealed so the court ordered a temporary stay of its ruling to allow the appeal. So ceilings will fall, toilets will overflow, fire alarms won’t work for several more years as the wheels of justice grind our children into dust.
