Hidey ho, Secular FAMarinos, Happy Wednesday. How’s everybody hanging in there today?
Last week, I shared an update about the goings-on of Peoria Unified School District (PUSD). A special meeting was requested by members of the governing board asking for the board to consider voting for new leadership.
Over the last four years, there have been MANY reasons why Board Member Rooks should have been stripped of her title, but the straw that broke the elephant’s back happened when she ran to the press after she didn’t get her way. At the April 23rd meeting, she asked for an independent investigation into the mandated reporters at Centennial High School, but the board voted to table that (3-2) to allow the active investigation(s) to continue.
Board Members Rooks and Bowles have spent the last few weeks demonizing their own district and insinuating that educators and the teachers’ unions want to protect child abusers. She’s also said as much about her colleagues on the board, claiming there is a districtwide “coverup” of abuse. Her removal was about her disregard for the will of the board, violation of board policy, political grandstanding, and interference with active investigations involving alleged pedophiles.
During the special meeting on May 5th, 2026, many speakers and three members of the board (Tobey, Proudfit, and Ewing) voiced their concerns about Ms. Rooks. Another handful came to show their support.
Parents, teachers, students, and community members expressed concerns over the rogue way she runs the board and board meetings. People cited how much she’s cost the district in lawsuits and how she changed the mission/vision/values of the 4th largest district in Arizona without any input from community stakeholders. Other longtime fans and folks who supported her in the past said they were duped and referred to her as “toxic.”
One of the parents from the Peoria Unified Parent Council (PUPC) said that Ms. Rooks’s political aspirations are taking precedence over her service to PUSD. She also admonished Ms. Rooks for her lack of support for the district override and for her violation of district policy. She urged a change in leadership, and then it was time for the board to discuss.
Board Member Ewing opened the discussion by “providing clarity” to explain why she requested a special meeting. She said that Ms. Rooks’s “recent actions and media statements undermine the credibility and integrity of the board, the district, the Peoria Police Department, and the investigative process in this matter” and claimed that “[Rooks] is “advancing a narrative based on belief rather than evidence.”
She claimed that Ms. Rooks “is positioning herself as the investigator, judge, and jury.” She went on to criticize her for potentially undermining an active investigation and advocated for a new president who can “govern through board and district processes grounded in policy, procedure, and law.”
Ms Ewing has been the voice of reason for the past few years in PUSD, and on May 5th, she really knocked it out of the park.
Next up was Board Clerk, Becky Proudfit. She explained how many executive sessions the PUSD board has participated in during this investigation - which again, is overstepping, IMO; school boards need to keep their noses out of active investigations until something comes to the board for a vote. She then shared how Ms. Rooks has been running all over town, accusing her board colleagues of being involved in a coverup.
She also said that she believes that Ms. Rooks genuinely cares about children, and I agree. But I believe that her puritanical ideology has caused her to do the exact opposite of what it takes to protect them. Additionally, if Ms. Rooks hadn’t fought so hard to advocate for parental rights over students’ rights back in 2022, the district might not be in the position it is.
You see, back in June of 2022, when Candidate Rooks was running for the PUSD governing board, she was rallying the troops to speak out AGAINST a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a local “healthy relationship education” organization called Bloom365.
Four years ago, the pArEnTaL RiGhTs troops stormed the PUSD boardroom to complain about an opt-in program promoting healthy relationships because they didn’t like that it acknowledged toxic masculinity is a thing and that it honored students’ pronouns and nicknames. No joke.
Rooks’s running mate, Devon Day, also spoke against Bloom365 because it went against her pArEnTaL RiGhTs to checks notes raise her boys to be toxic AF.
Fast forward four years, and I wonder if any of these Bloom 365 resources may have come in handy in PUSD?
But the self-service and confidential aspect of Bloom365 bothered these misguided mamas. They all believe that organizations like Bloom365 and staff members like social workers and counselors are TrAnSiNg oUr KiDs. Because of their narrow understanding of the world and their willingness to believe just about everything they’re told, now NONE of the children and families of PUSD have access to this great OPT-IN resource within the schools.
Even her favorite mayor, Jason Beck seems to be OK with Bloom365, since the City of Peoria partners with Bloom365.
I wonder who Mayor Beck will support in the LD28 primary and the PUSD general elections…
Anyway, back to the meeting.
After Ms. Proudfit spoke, it was Sister Fratelli’s turn.
And BOY, did she take her TURN! She spent nearly thirty-five minutes going off on a tirade asserting that 5.7 million children are abused in schools annually. I’ve looked everywhere to try to figure out where she got that statistic, but I can’t because…well…it’s completely made up. According to the National Children’s Alliance, 530,000 children are known to US authorities to be abused. I’m sure that there are many more that are unknown to authorities, but to leap from 530,000 to 5,700,000 shows how little Ms. Bowles cares about the truth.
She also started talking about the Los Angeles USD for some reason and then expressed her buyer’s remorse over voting for Ms. Proudfit as the Clerk in January. But she didn’t refer to Ms. Ewing or Ms. Proudfit formally, but as “Melissa” and “Rebecca” and then she huffed and puffed about how they’re “ALWAYS” breaking open meeting law without providing evidence. The grammar and syntax of her yammering was so broken and incorrect we all felt like an interpreter assigned to Felon 47 during an international conference.
At about 1:41:06 she said “good teachers don’t come to board meetings and fight.” and the audience, probably 50% teachers, audibly reacted and a point of order was called. Ms. Ewing tried to save Ms. Bowles from herself by asking district counsel if they were straying off topic, and Ms. Segal seemed to realize she couldn’t really rein her in and just watched her keep wrapping that winding rope of word salad around her neck.
And she didn’t stop there, Secular FAM. She kept going and complained about teachers unions. She insinuated that children are robotic pawns of the teachers unions and that they were bullied and deceived by teachers to walk out of classrooms earlier this year. She also suggested that teachers that need substitute teacher coverage should lose pay.
She went on to imply that educators couldn’t care less about pedophilia or their responsibility as mandated reporters, and that Heather is the only person in PUSD who does. I couldn’t help but seethe at the insinuation. Especially when we know who they all voted for in 2024.
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She went on to display how she still doesn’t understand board meeting protocol after 1.5 years on the board, and then she talked about COVID and what was happening in 2020 for some reason, and then, blissfully, she stopped talking.
Next, Jeff Tobey was up, and he kept his words short and to the point. He cited his experience as a law enforcement officer and explained his vote to table the 3rd party investigation vote as a “tactical pause and not do anything that might harm or interfere with the County Attorney’s investigation.”
He, like Clerk Proudfit, said that the things Ms. Rooks is claiming in public are not the same things that the entire board heard during the executive session (this is why boards shouldn’t HAVE exec seshes for this stuff until the investigations are over). He said that the district deserves a leader who prioritizes due process and to make decisions firmly grounded in facts.
Next, Ms. Rooks spoke for about twenty minutes and she repeated herself quite a bit. She also demonized teachers and teachers unions in her comments, and leaned into the assertion that she’s the only one who cares enough to do something.
But everyone wants something to be done. The teachers and their union don’t support pedophiles, and everyone believes that these things should be reported as soon as they’re uncovered. In six separate investigations, no evidence was found that the mandatory reporters didn’t do their jobs.
Could this be an opportunity for the district to put together a more stringent training for the next school year? Absolutely. Better yet, the district could choose to bring Comprehensive Sex Ed (CSE) or a program like Bloom 365 to the district so kids have access to answers to their tough questions. And EVEN better, bring back the social workers. I don’t know how many social workers were at PUSD for the last couple of years, but it sounds like the entire PUSD community could benefit from ALL of these things.
In the end, the board voted 3-2 to appoint Jeff Tobey as President and Becky Proudfit retained her position as the board Clerk.
The funniest part was after the meeting was adjourned, Ms. Bowles frantically grabbed the microphone, saying “I didn’t mean all teachers” over and over but it was too late, and the audience just chanted back, “Too late! Too late! Too late!”
Rooks ran out of the meeting, crying.
The next day Board Member Rooks ran to the nonconsensual porn-generating website that used to be called “Twitter,” and a few other local news outlets (again) and continued to violate the policy that prompted the special meeting in the first place.
Tomorrow there is a regular board meeting in PUSD, and she’s been working overtime to spread mis- and disinformation. Remember, she and Ms. Bowles basically said that teachers don’t care about mandatory reporting and actively work against protecting children. And Bowles said that “good teachers don’t come to board meetings and they don’t fight.”
The next board meeting is tomorrow at 6330 W. Thunderbird Road at 6:00. If you can’t make it, email the board and let them know how you feel about their opinions about teachers (and trans kids, and immigrants, and anyone who isn’t evangelical extremist):
We need to keep the pressure up, Secular FAM. The people of PUSD deserve better.
