Higley volunteers: Board member attacking others via fake online profile

By Tom Blodgett
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Some Higley Unified School District parents and teachers and district volunteers are accusing a board member of being behind a social media account that campaigned against the district's bond and override and that attacked three board candidates.

A group of active volunteers say they have discovered board Vice President Anna Van Hoek as being the operator of a Facebook account “Tim Lee.” Two of the volunteers first alluded to the discovery, without naming Van Hoek, at a district board meeting Nov. 19. 

However, one volunteer said she tied the account’s email and phone number to Van Hoek, though she said the account has since changed both. 

For her part, Van Hoek has not directly addressed the accusation but also said publicly she was sent a threatening package by a volunteer. Gilbert Police, however, dismissed the claim as unfounded and said they declined to pursue charges as the case was “without probable cause.” 

Attempts by the Gilbert Independent to reach Van Hoek via email and phone for comment have been unsuccessful. 

Other board members also told the Independent they are not Tim Lee, but one said she had been shown information that it was Van Hoek and another said she believes it is a board member. 

Board Member Amanda Wade said by text she has never created a social media account with anything other than her name and does not know who Tim Lee is, but “that account has said things that give me reason to believe it is a board member.” 

Board Member Tiffany Shultz, who was attacked by Lee in posts, went further. 

“I am not Tim Lee but have been told it is board member Anna Van Hoek and have been shown proof that it is, as well,” she said by text. 

However, Board President Michelle Anderson said while she did not know who Lee is, she  found it disturbing such an unsubstantiated accusation against a board member was made during public comment. 

“I am saddened a concern from community members who dislike and disagree with a board member was brought forward in a manner (with zero proof) that brings negative attention and drama to the district,” Anderson said by text. “Higley staff and community are trying to move forward after the bond and override failed, and we want to continue our focus on the students.” 

She added using the meeting to spread rumors and make disparaging remarks is “disappointing and not OK.” 

Board Member Kristina Reese also said she is not Lee, nor does she know who Lee is. 

Tim Lee account 

The account for Tim Lee has no profile picture, no posts on its own page and no friends. 

Mindy Brocker and Barbara Summers are the two community members who spoke about the Lee account, but neither identified Van Hoek as Lee during the Nov. 19 meeting. Both are district parents and active volunteers who regularly attend board meetings. 

Brocker said the Tim Lee account attacked her when she posted online against book challenges, defending a parental right to choose more sensitive material. She said a small group is trying to control available literature through the board in the name of protecting children. 

She quoted a Tim Lee post in response to her that challenged her ethical standards and said how she was raising her child “raises significant concerns about your mental health.” 

Higley USD parent Mindy Brocker said a fake online profile from a board member questioned her mental health. (Screen capture from YouTube)

Screen capture from YouTube

“I'll be honest, I was floored,” Brocker told the board. “Who would talk about my child in such a way?” before saying she learned later it was a board member. 

Barbara Summers, also without naming anyone, accused a board member of spreading misinformation and working to legally challenge educators and dismantle student support systems, calling it “unprofessional.” 

“These actions undermine the core values of our district,” she said. “Our board members are entrusted with the responsibility to act with integrity, transparency, and respect for the very people they're supposed to serve. When one of our own chooses to manipulate information and act in secrecy, they erode the trust we place in our leaders and set a damaging example for our students.” 

Afterward, Wade requested district administration look into whether such behaviors breached district policy. Van Hoek then fired back at the speakers. 

“Those of you that spoke are creating chaos in the community,” she said. 

She accused them of being part of an organization from which a community member sent her a sexually explicit book and rope as a threat as well as a text message group the “She-Woman AVH Haters Club.” 

Summers said the name of the text group was meant to be light-hearted as the group changes names occasionally. She said it was picked up from a post by former board candidate D. Taylor Francis, who used the term in a post characterizing their online discussions as getting the district nowhere and making everything about Van Hoek. 

“I believe (Van Hoek) thinks we spend our time talking about her and coordinating a takedown, but we honestly just mostly talked about our families and school stuff and a little about board meetings in general,” said Summers, who added the group dates to 2020, before Van Hoek even ran for the board. 

Tracing the account

Summers said it was she who traced the Tim Lee account to Van Hoek. She said the account was created in December 2023 and immediately requested to join a number of Higley-related Facebook groups. One is administered by Summers. 

Facebook flagged the request as coming from a new account, Summers said, and seeing the lack of information with it, she denied the request. 

In May, the account began to interact on some groups, at that time, mostly attacking board candidate Kathleen Richards “in a very, very, very, very rude way,” making her wonder who Tim Lee is. 

“This person just kept attacking Kathleen, but then also seemed to have a lot of Higley school board knowledge,” Summers said.  

One example was suggesting that Board MemberTiffany Shultz, who was running for reelection, came to a board meeting “looking high.” But Summers, who has been involved with the district for about 15 years and regularly attends the sparsely attended board meetings, knew of no Tim Lee. 

That brought several posters to ask the Lee account who he actually was, but the answer was always that it was his real name and that he lives in Gilbert. 

Summers said she did a deep dive in public records and social media to find a Tim Lee in Gilbert, but she could only find a pastor who shares an account with his wife and, when contacted, said it was not him. 

Barbara Summers said she traced an online profile that attacked district teachers and parents and board candidates to Anna Van Hoek. (Screen capture from YouTube)

Screen capture from YouTube

After the Lee account expanded the attacks to candidate Scott Glover, she further traced the account and “hit the jackpot” in connecting it to Van Hoek by phone and email. 

Summers said she and several of her friends have been blocked by Van Hoek on social media since she ran for election and that they have been unable to talk to Van Hoek about it. 

Summers said several posters have questioned, “I don't think you're a real person. What are you hiding? Are you Anna? I think this is Anna. I mean, that rumor had been going around long, even before I connected the two. There was a suspicion.  

“And every single time the Tim Lee account would say, ‘Oh, nope, I'm a real person.’ Or I think the last thing I got was that I literally said probably a few weeks ago, ‘Tim Lee is Anna Van Hoek or Anna Van Hoek is Tim Lee. Tim Lee responded to me, ‘you need help.’ But that was the closest we got.” 

Package at district office 

Van Hoek supported a parent who earlier this school year protested that his parental rights were taken away when the book “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi was assigned as part of a dual enrollment class with Chandler-Gilbert Community College at Williams Field High School. The parent filed a police report that spurred an investigation, though no probable cause was found in the end. 

District officials confirmed during that situation, they contacted Van Hoek to let her know a package had been sent to the district office.  

Van Hoek reported to police the package contained a sexually explicit book and rope, with a note that said, “Read the book and maybe you’ll learn something.” Through a subpoena to Amazon, Gilbert Police determined it was sent by Lindzie Head, a district parent in Queen Creek. 

But Head said the book was “Homegoing,” and the Jute rope and a cat scratcher that also were in the package were supposed to go to Head’s home, but she forgot to change the address back from the Higley office to her home address. A reorder of the same materials, this time shipped to her home address, validated her story to police and her work. 

But a day after police dismissed the complaint as unfounded, a local conservative website published a story that said Van Hoek had received a package with “an apparent threat of violence from a leftist parent.” It also included her place of work and that she served on the Queen Creek Parks and Recreation Board, among other information. 

Anna Van Hoek (right) said some volunteers are "creating chaos in the community" and sent her a threatening package. (Screen capture from YouTube)

Screen capture from YouTube

That was picked up by the conservative X account “Libs of TikTok,” which has 3.8 million followers. Soon after, Head was threatened online, had to answer to her work about what happened and was forced to resign from the Parks and Recreation board. 

“It was not my intention to send that to her, but it also was not a threat,” said Head, who said she was reluctant to speak for fear of it coming back on her job again. “It was a cat scratcher and a cat rope. 

“I was not trying to threaten this lady. If she feels threatened by a book, I can't do anything about that. But Anna took it to a level that was just ridiculous.” 

The incident and nearly losing her job has left Head feeling “withdrawn from everything,” she said. All she had wanted was for Van Hoek to read the book to see that it was not as she was portraying it. 

“It's just one of those things that I'm like, I want to fight it more with her, but I don't want to risk with what has gone on and with how she is,” Head said. 

As for Summers, she said she and her friends are not the ones creating chaos in the community, charging that the fake Tim Lee account was created specifically to do just that. 

“We hold people accountable for transparency, and that was something that Anna Van Hoek herself said that she was bringing to the board,” she said. 

We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.       

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert

tblodgett@iniusa.org

Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.

Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism. 

Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.  

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).