PHOENIX — Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne claims his office is looking into what he claims are valid concerns parents and teachers have called into the state’s “Empower Hotline.”
However, Horne would not say how many legitimate concerns the state’s empower hotline has received and are being investigated, only claiming 30,000 “crank” calls and emails have been sent in.
In a nearly one-hour press conference Thursday, Horne claimed parents and teachers have called in legitimate concerns into the state’s Empower Hotline launched in March of this year. The hotline was designed to report “inappropriate content being taught that detracts from teaching academic standards.”
Four examples were presented by Horne that he said were being followed up on by the one person in the Department of Education working part-time on reports received from the hotline. But Horne did not lay out a formal process for which the claims are followed up.
“Right now, it’s phone calls with the districts to find out what’s going on,” Horne said.
12News has contacted all of the districts named by Horne regarding the incidents Horne claims are “valid concerns” reported by parents and teachers.
Among the reports detailed by Horne was one situation regarding a club at Chandler Unified School District that Horne claims acted against Arizona law.
“The district has not received information nor communication on this matter from the Arizona Department of Education,” Stephanie Ingersoll, Executive Director for Marketing and Communications at Chandler Unified School District, responded to 12News’ questions via email regarding the incident Horne detailed.
Horne said that no teachers had lost their jobs over the complaints.
“We’re not looking for people to lose their jobs. We’re looking for people to teach academics,” Horne said.
Horne also would not say what standards the claims are measured against to determine if they’re serious enough to follow up on and said he didn’t know how far the Department of Education could go to force districts to stop teaching curriculum reported.
“First of all, we could try and use our influence. Secondly, I mentioned that if a teacher is abusing the position of using a captive audience to promote an ideology that might be unprofessional conduct, or a principal or superintendent. So there are things we can do. I said I wasn’t sure the extent of what we could do to force it, but there definitely are things that we can do,” Horne said.
12News has also requested copies of the emails and voicemails sent to the hotline in March but has not received any requested documents.
Arizona Education Association president Marisol Garcia helped lead a protest against the hotline in March.
“Instead of making any actual effort to promote and elevate our public schools, (Horne’s) office is keeping busy fielding prank calls and pursuing random allegations and complaints, some of them years old. Arizona deserves so much better,” Garcia said in response to Horne’s press conference Wednesday.
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