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VETO

Hobbs rejects Mesa lawmaker’s push for parental access to teacher training material

PHOENIX — A Mesa legislator proposed allowing parents access to all material school districts use to train teachers, including instructions on anti-racism, restorative justice and equity.

Gov. Katie Hobbs said no last week with a veto.

In winning legislative approve for his bill, Rep. Justin Heap, R-Mesa, showed colleagues what he said was a list of subjects in training sessions that teachers from the Mesa Unified School District were being required to attend.

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VETO

Hobbs rejects Mesa lawmaker’s push for parental access to teacher training material

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PHOENIX — A Mesa legislator proposed allowing parents access to all material school districts use to train teachers, including instructions on anti-racism, restorative justice and equity.

Gov. Katie Hobbs said no last week with a veto.

In winning legislative approve for his bill, Rep. Justin Heap, R-Mesa, showed colleagues what he said was a list of subjects in training sessions that teachers from the Mesa Unified School District were being required to attend.

They included anti-racism, non-binary, unconscious biases, restorative justice and equity classes.

All those, he said, are issues with which parents may disagree.

Rep. Judy Schwiebert, D-Phoenix, asked him what is wrong with teachers learning about issues like equity.

Heap said it would be fine to provide instruction on issues of equality. But equity, he said, is different, dealing with issues of being fair rather than being equal.

“Who decides what’s fair and what’s not?” Heap asked. He said equity gets into things like whether some group that has been historically marginalized should get special treatment.

Heap also said what is in his bill is no different than existing laws that already give parents access to the curriculum being used in classrooms.

Hobbs, in her veto message, said her objection was more basic.

She said making these training materials available to the public would put schools at risk of violating copyright law.

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