PEORIA, Ariz. — In a head-scratching moment of this 2024 election season, a candidate for a prominent Arizona school board – who has a decent shot of winning a seat - told a crowd last month she would rather have a root canal than actually be on the board.
Peoria Unified School Board candidate Janelle Bowles made the remarks during the public comments portion of a September 26th PUSD board meeting. Bowles, a former employee of the district, is endorsed by the local Republican Party precinct along with two other candidates.
Bowles told 12News after the meeting that she wanted to serve on the board and said she made the comment because she was concerned about how two sitting school board members had been treated. The two members she referred to had previously voted against federal grant funding for social workers. That vote caused public backlash and a flood of comments on social media.
Bowles also supported Peoria board members Becky Proudfit and Heather Rooks in discontinuing the federal grant, even though the grant cost the district nothing.
“First of all, I would rather have a root canal that I don’t even need than be on the school board because they don’t even get paid for the abuse that they take,” Bowles said, speaking in defense of Proudfit and Rooks. “I know these women don’t believe we don’t need counselors on campuses.”
“We need a plan because we can’t live off the federal government forever.”
The remarks surprised many onlookers.
“To say you would rather have a root canal says to me she didn’t value the opinions of people in the audience,” said Melissa Girmscheid, another candidate for the board. “You are always going to have people who agree and disagree. Someone who has been as political as her would know that.”
Bowles told 12News she wants to get elected to help state foster kids attending school in the district and said she’s worried about “boys and girls being convinced they are the opposite gender.”
In recent years activists have attended school board meetings to criticize LGBTQ-affirming policies.
“Unfortunately, we spend a lot of time on culture wars, hot-button topics and we haven’t focused a lot of time on what’s best for students,” Girmscheid said.
The social worker debate reflects the broader movement activists bill as being about “parental rights.” They want to narrow or eliminate the role of support staff involved with mental wellness and outreach on campuses. Even State Superintendent Tom Horne weighed in last month, saying he supported ending the social worker grant.
“I philosophically agree with that school district,” Horne told 12News.
The other two candidates endorsed by Republicans are Jeff Tobey and incumbent Proudfit.
The local Democratic Party precinct endorsed Girmscheid, Mikah Dyer, and incumbent David Sandoval. Arizona’s teacher’s union has endorsed Girmscheid and Sandoval.
The social worker program serves hundreds of students whose parents signed consent forms for their participation. Examples of services the social workers provide include helping students regulate test anxiety, supporting homeless students, providing grief counseling, and connecting students to outside social services. Critics expressed concerns about guardrails for the program because it included more than a dozen college interns working on campuses. According to the district, it has received no official complaints from parents about the program over several years.
Ultimately, Rooks and Proudfit changed their position after two weeks and voted to preserve the program through the end of the year. However, it was too late to utilize the federal grant, which means the sequence of votes by Rooks and Proudfit cost the district about $250,000.
Bowles also happens to be the sister of Peoria state lawmaker Anthony Kern, who has garnered publicity in recent years for attending the January 6th insurrection and being named by a nonpartisan democracy watchdog as an “election denier”.
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