Official says 4 classroom complaints to Arizona hotline have merit

PHOENIX — The state’s top schools official said Thursday a hotline he set up two months ago has resulted in credible tips about what he calls “critical race theory’’ unacceptably being taught in Arizona classrooms.

But Tom Horne, a Republican elected to the post in November, refused to say how many such reports there were. He acknowledged there were 30,000 “crank’’ calls to the hotline, which invites parents and teachers to report what he calls unacceptable practices in Arizona classrooms of controversial issues. When pushed for specifics of complaints with possible merit, he cited four.

None of those, however, resulted in his Arizona Department of Education taking action. Instead, Horne said, his office has reached out to the districts for more information.

One of the four incidents he cited — a list from a principal at Orange Grove Middle School in Catalina Foothills school district of the pronouns students wanted used for them — occurred in 2021. District policy is not to hide information from parents, and staff will answer any questions parents have, district spokeswoman Julie Farbarik has said of that incident.

Horne conceded at a Thursday news conference he called about the hotline that even if he could prove validity to complaints that a school district has what he believes is unacceptable racially tinged curricula, he lacks the power to do anything about it. That ability exists within individual school boards, which are locally elected.

That answer did not sit well with two self-defined “dissident’’ members of the Scottsdale Unified School District governing board, invited by Horne to the news conference, who complained about materials being used at the elementary and high school levels. One module for lower grade students is “how to be a good citizen,” said board member Karen Warner.

“It’s showing children protesting with politically charged posters as well as racially charged posters,’’ Warner said. Pushed to define what she called “racially charged,’’ she said “Black lives matter.’’

There also was what she described as a test for upper grades so students could see “how racist you are.’’

“Our kids deserve better than this,’’ Warner said.

Only thing is, the materials were approved by the other three board members, who all determined they were appropriate.

Horne said state law gives parents the right to review all books, teaching materials and supplemental lessons available to students. And all parents are free to lobby school board members about what they should and should not approve for classrooms.

Won’t make complaints public

The Thursday news conference was the latest bid by Horne to wipe out what he calls “critical race theory.’’

That academic concept is about racism and how society continues to be affected by historical and current factors such as discrimination, red-lining to keep minorities out of neighborhoods, and subtle racism.

But in what has become a culture war, Horne and many other Republicans contend any lesson that teaches anything other than equality is critical race theory. He said that theory tells children race is the primary factor of how people treat each other.

“This all started during COVID when parents could see what the students were being taught because it was online,’’ Horne said. “And many parents were shocked at what they saw, especially critical race theory kinds of things that were being taught to the students.’’

One result was Horne’s hotline, billed as a place where parents and teachers can report what the Department of Education called “inappropriate public school lessons that detract from teaching academic standards.’’

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Those, the department said, include not just focusing on race or ethnicity rather than individuals and merit, but also “promoting gender ideology, social emotional learning, or inappropriate sexual content.’’

Horne has refused to make the complaints public.

Nor would he say on Thursday how many of the calls or emails were legitimate.

“We can try to use our influence,’’ Horne said, when asked what the point of calling the hotline is if he can’t act on complaints. “If a teacher is abusing the position of using a captive audience to promote an ideology, that might be unprofessional conduct,” he said.

All that would allow him to do is recommend that the state Board of Education suspend or revoke the person’s teaching license.

‘Outrageous to me’

Horne said nothing in his objections to critical race theory prevent the teaching of historical facts, such as slavery and Jim Crow laws discriminating against people of color.

But he was less clear about how to handle current issues of racism.

Earlier Thursday, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama lawmakers drew congressional districts in a way that discriminated against Blacks. The justices said the maps put together had just one district out of seven where Blacks were likely to be able to elect a candidate of their choice in a state where more than one in four residents is Black.

Horne said discussing the court ruling itself would be acceptable in classroom lessons under the category of “accurate history.’’

Asked what a teacher should be able to tell a student who complains of being a victim of discrimination, he answered, “I think the solution is teach the other kids that they are to treat everybody as an individual and that race is not relevant and that sexual orientation is not relevant, not to tell kids that they live in a white supremacy country. That’s outrageous to me and I think it’s unprofessional as hell.’’

Horne said his concerns go beyond critical race theory. He also lashed out at anything that teaches about a dominant culture, unconscious bias, privilege and “restorative justice,’’ the last he defined as talking to people when they misbehave versus punishing them.

Amy Carney, another member of the Scottsdale school board invited by Horne to the news conference, acknowledged that parents are entitled to opt their children out of lessons they find inappropriate, such as the ones the board adopted earlier this week over the objections of Warner and herself. Students must also be provided with alternative assignments.

But that doesn’t address her objection, Carney said.

“I’m sorry, but we should not be buying any curriculum or assigning things to our elementary school students that parents have to worry about opting out of,’’ she said.