Candidate record requests cost Peoria Unified $300,000
More than 4,600 hours worked by district employees
Posted
Record requests
In 2019, Peoria Unified received 91 public records requests, officials said. Staring in 2021, school board candidates Heather Rooks, Devon Updegraff-Day and their surrogates have submitted 460 public record requests, to date. Here is a breakdown.
During the past two years, a slate of Peoria Unified School District candidates and their supporters have led a campaign of submitting hundreds of public record requests targeting district employees and programs related to diversity, inclusion, equity, sex education, transgender and LGBTQ+ issues, to name a few.
The wide-ranging requests have cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars to respond to, which is required by law.
PUSD school board candidates Heather Rooks and Devon Updegraff-Day filed for their candidacy earlier this year, but they have been campaigning and vocalizing opposition to the district since at least 2020, and they have put in a significant number of public record requests with the district since then.
Staring in 2021, Rooks, Updegraff-Day and their supporters have submitted 460 total requests — 297 in 2021 and 163 in 2022, year to date, according to information obtained from the district.
This represents a sizable increase compared with past years. For example, in 2019, the district received 91 public records requests, officials said.
Additionally in past years, few unique individuals submitted multiple requests, compared with the past two years. In 2020, each requester submitted less than two requests, on average, officials said. That has changed during the past two years, with the vast majority of requests coming from Rooks, who personally requested 404 records during the past two years, to date — 272 in 2021 and 132 in 2022.
Rooks even submitted a public record request to see if anyone had put in any requests regarding herself. She has paid more than $1,100 in requests received, according to the district.
The influx has forced the district to hire a new employee to take up the load. The targeted campaign has cost taxpayers more than $300,000 — about $200,000 in 2021 and $100,000 so far in 2022, according to information obtained from the district.
The $300,000 accounts for the added staff member, plus the hours of other staff members who also work on records, as well as all associated legal fees.
Compiling and completing the requests has added up to more than 4,600 hours spent by PUSD employees.
“While we have received a high volume of requests over the past two years, we continue to provide timely responses to all record requests in accordance with state law. We believe strongly that access to public records increases transparency and builds trust with our community,” said PUSD spokeswoman Danielle Airey. “Peoria Unified principals and teachers welcome and encourage parent involvement in the educational experience of each child. We also have a transparent process for adopting curriculum which is aligned to the Arizona State Standards. We do not teach critical race theory or sex education at any grade level in our schools.”
When asked about the public records requests, Rooks sidestepped and instead issued a series of questions accusing teachers and district administration of hiding information, introducing critical race theory into classes and ignoring parents, among other things.
When specifically asked why she targeted specific people or key words in her search, Rooks said, “Why do schools keep using cryptic buzz words about their education programs to hide their leftist political agenda? Why were some Peoria district employees trying to push in the CRT ideology into teacher training and schools behind parents’ backs? Why shouldn’t parents know if the schools in Arizona are trying to bring in sexual explicit content to young children?”
She continued, “When did the Peoria Unified School District start sneaking in their agenda? Was it 10 years ago? Two years ago? Was some of the Peoria board members behind it? Who was behind the shift of direction from academics to indoctrination? How much thought was put into hiding information from the parents and community by the Peoria Unified School District?”
Critical Race Theory
School board elections are non-partisan but have increasingly become more politicized.
Rooks and Updegraff-Day have connections to right-wing groups and have pushed talking points echoed across the country that are targeting school districts.
The two candidates attended training in 2021 at Washington, D.C.-based FreedomWorks, a conservative and libertarian advocacy group that has ties to former President Donald Trump and the Koch brothers.
Traci Kinney, who is being paid at least $30,000 by the Patriot Party for election consulting this cycle, according to campaign finance records, is also working on the Rooks and Updegraff-Day campaigns.
One other candidate, Melissa Ewing, is also running for one of the two seats in this school board election.
In recent years, Rooks, Updegraff-Day and their supporters have frequented PUSD school board meetings to speak during the public comment section on the subjects they have mined through their hundreds of public records requests.
As early as 2020, critical race theory has been an issue of contention for the two candidates, claiming the subject is taught in district classes, and it has been among their requested subjects submitted for, along with other curriculum-related requests.
This opposition took center stage at a school board meeting December 2020, which was the subject of an American history elective course set to be taught at Centennial High School.
The course description of this one-credit class stated students would explore the experiences and perspectives of a diverse array of American groups and study concepts like identity, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality and culture.
At the meeting, Updegraff-Day spoke out against the class.
Former PUSD student Alexa Hart proposed the class to district officials as part of her senior capstone project. After graduating, Hart became a student at Northern Arizona University.
Sometime after the public meeting, Rooks requested “any and all emails from NAU Alexa Hart to/from any/all Peoria District employees from dates January 2020 to April 2021.”
The class has been removed from curriculum, but the public records requests were unable to unearth critical race theory teachings in district schools.
Requests targeted at specific people such as Hart have not been uncommon in their public record requests, particularly, administrators and other PUSD employees.
Related to curriculum, requests for emails were submitted for Jennifer Mundy, former social studies curriculum and instructional specialist; Kendra Bell, chief academic services officer; and Marla Hobbs, executive director of K-12 curriculum and professional development.
“During my last year-and-a-half as a curriculum coach in the district, I spent an extensive amount of time compiling information for public records requests as well as additional email and phone requests for information, and I was more than happy to provide the transparency. I did, however, struggle with the amount of time that fulfilling those requests took away from helping and supporting students and teachers, and it ultimately was one of several reasons I chose to take my 20 years of teaching and curriculum experience and apply my skills elsewhere,” Mundy said.
Top requests also included the subjects of restorative practices, anti-racism, diversity, inclusion and social emotional learning, particularly in the realm of training for these subjects.
Other common keywords requested often for emails from specific PUSD employees were: quarantine, masks, COVID, vaccine, in-person learning, teacher walkout, social justice, sexuality, Anytown, gender identity, gender Unicorn, LGBTQ+, and safe zone training.
Bloom 365 Founder and CEO Donna Bartos said the organization focuses on preventing the root causes of violence, interrupting the risk of a young person using violence, providing emotional support, as well as healing and safety services to 11-24 year olds who have witnessed or experienced interpersonal violence.
Rooks requested all emails of Student Support Services Coordinator Kathleen Leornard, who provides social emotional learning at PUSD and works with Bloom 365, with the specific word Bloom, between December 2019 and June 2022, including attachments.
Rooks and her supporters have spoken numerous times at school board meetings on the subject of Bloom 365.
Services the nonprofit offers — interpersonal violence prevention and response trainings for staff, peer support groups and healthy relationship education for students, as well as intervention services for students who are at risk for harming others — are currently on hold.
Bartos said Bloom 365 was making positive progress to help students thrive socially, emotionally and academically, support their families or guardians, as well as alleviate the risk factors that lead to school shootings, toxic relationships, break up violence, murder suicides, sexual harassment and stalking. But then, she said, Bloom 365 became the political scapegoat of two school board candidates, a Peoria City Council candidate and a West Valley parents’ rights group.
“They have harassed and attempted to defame our organization, our staff and our families online and in public forums in order to mobilize a radical political base to win seats on the PUSD school board and Peoria City Council,” Bartos said.
At last count, there were 76 PUSD students assessed and deemed at risk for harming other students and staff, she said.
“It’s one thing to want to view curricula that our kids are receiving at school, which as a parent I can appreciate. I fully support the opt-out option,” Bartos said. “It’s another thing to launch an all out war against a nonprofit organization, teachers, and school counselors to disrupt student, family and staff access to essential safety services and social emotional learning resources.”
Other targets
Other individual targets have included former Peoria Education Association President Trina Burg, school board President David Sandoval, governing board members Cory Underhill and Bill Sorensen, former PUSD governing board president Monica Ceja Martinez, and Kim Kontra, administrative secretary to the superintendent, among others.
Rooks also requested “any/all communications, including emails, text messages, communication programs, to/from AZ Highground Public Affairs Consultants Inc. ... with any/all Peoria employees and board members,” including attachments and links, during the time frame of 2020-2022.
In an emailed statement to Peoria Independent, Paul Bentz, senior vice president of research and strategy at Phoenix-based Highground, stated his company has never worked with PUSD governing board members in a political nature, but has provided consulting for educational PACs to see how viable proposals like bonds and overrides might be.
“HighGround Inc. is the oldest public affairs firm in the state of Arizona with extensive experience in the West Valley and throughout the state. We provide clients in both the public and private sector with superior advocacy through public affairs, lobbying, campaign management, public relations and polling,” he said. “Over the years, we have contracted with a significant number of school districts, including the Peoria Unified School District, to provide public opinion research.”
Similar tactics
The Maricopa County Election Department and other election departments across the country, have similarly reported being swamped with record requests, some from election deniers.
Ilene Haber, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, said election department public records requests have grown substantially during the past few years.
In 2021, the department had a total of 368 records requests with a focus on voter data and voter information. This year, their public records requests stand at 885 through Oct. 7. In the last quarter, 402 requests were submitted regarding election services, voter data, voter information and voter reports.
Haber said there also is an increase in requests for documents and records that are not scanned and therefore require additional production and security.
To handle the influx, the department has trained additional existing personnel to support different types of public records requests.
Haber said some requests have been extensive and require additional support. She cited one request that required the production of more than 10,000 documents.
The documents had to be produced and because of the nature of the documents and production, were presented in original format. This particular request involved four staff members working on it over four full days, she said.
“Staff had to be trained how to control and maintain the documents in the original format after the requesting party photographed the documents,” she said. “Under the guidelines of continuous improvement, we are constantly monitoring ways to expedite public records, improve the discovery, and research process through technology. I will add, we have exceptional personnel who work hard and are dedicated to fulfilling the requests.”
County officials said a portion of the activity is being driven by social media. By monitoring social platforms, Haber said staff has been able to predict a surge of requests.
“This allows us to be prepared, which is a critical element to production and response,” she said.
Last month, conspiracy theorist Michael Lindell, also known as the My Pillow Guy, took to social media asking followers to request a voter report known as “Cast Vote Record.”
This report is highly technical and is used by experienced election analysts, Haber said.
“(The report) is produced in a language that requires exporting to be manageable,” she said. “We received more than 300 requests for the report which required multiple follow-up communications with the requestors, as once received the requestor did not know how to open the file, manage the file, or use the file.”
Public records law
Arizona Public Records Law states records are open to inspection by any person at all times during office hours, and that records in the possession of Arizona agencies may be released unless an “important and harmful effect” on an official or agency would result from disclosure.
Although the public records law creates a strong presumption in favor of disclosure, case law states that “disclosure of purely private documents does nothing to advance the purposes underlying the public records law.”
Danee Garone, staff attorney for the ombudsman’s office, which specializes in open meeting and public records law matters, said it is not uncommon for agencies to have frequent requesters who may strain an agency’s ability to produce public records.
“The bigger the agency and/or the more prominent they are in relation to a hot political issue, the more likely they are to have folks like this,” Garone said.
She added the amount of time and energy an agency must put into handling a public records request depends on a variety of factors, including how specific the request is, and how easy is it to locate the records.
“If somebody asks for a copy of the ‘July 25 governor’s press release,’ that’s very easy to locate and produce. If somebody asks for ‘every text message sent and received by the following 15 numbers over the last 11 years, all emails sent and received by all employees on Wednesdays for the last 10 years, and [so on],’ that is going to take way longer,” Garone said.
“Similarly, volume of requested records is also a big factor. Is the request for five pages of records or 1 million?” Garone continued. “It also depends on the content. Do the records contain information that is protected by law or may need to be withheld on privacy/government interest grounds? If so, that will take longer and may require lawyers or management to review.”
Philip Haldiman can be reached at phaldiman@iniusa.org, or on Twitter @philiphaldiman.
Meet Philip Haldiman is an award-winning journalist who most recently took first place for investigative reporting in 2023 from Arizona Newspapers Association. He joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2015, covering Sun City West his first year. Since 2016, he has covered the city of Peoria. Prior to coming to INI, he was a reporter with The Arizona Republic for seven years, covering numerous cities throughout the Valley. Before that, he was a freelance writer.
Community: Haldiman spearheads the Peoria Independent Hometown Heroes Awards program, honoring local individuals and businesses that give back to the community. He has hosted local candidate forums over the years and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Haldiman also served as a member of the Journalism Program Community Advisory Board at Glendale Community College. Outside journalism, Haldiman served as a member of the city of Peoria Complete Count Committee for the Census, 2019-2020. Lastly, he has served as a member of his HOA governing board since 2021.
Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and a BA in Theater.
Random Fact: Haldiman is a fourth-generation Arizonan as well as wrote and produced an autobiographical comic book about his time spent in Hollywood and his life as a cult film star.
Hobbies: He enjoys hiking Arizona’s mountainous landscapes and is currently working on a play for the stage.
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