President defends serving on Cartwright School Board with daughter

PHOENIX (AZFamily) —After months of heated and contentious school board meetings, Arizona’s Family sat down with the person at the center of the controversy, Cartwright Elementary school board president Lydia Hernandez.

She and her daughter, Cassandra Hernandez, are facing a lawsuit challenging the legality of the pair being on the board together.

“Did you think, with her winning, that the legality of her being on the board would be put into question?” asked Arizona’s Family reporter Steven Sarabia. “No, not really, no,” said Lydia.

Cassandra was 19 years old when she won her school board election in November. The lawsuit against them cites Arizona law, which states that immediate family members who have lived in the same household within the past four years are ineligible to serve on a school board together. Lydia continued to insist that her teenage daughter did not live with her.

“There’s a timeline, but she lived with the family. She was a young mom, okay. She was a young mom, so she lived with the family, and then she pursued her schooling. Finishing her school, and then lived with her sister. She was a victim of a crime, so she needs emotional support. There’s some things that happened in our neighborhoods, and that’s the story,” Lydia said after being pressed about where her daughter was living during that 4-year timeframe.

Lydia is also a state representative. She’s currently sponsoring HB2883, which would change the law allowing people like her daughter and herself to serve on school boards together. When asked if the bill was an attempt to change the existing law, Lydia said it is meant to “clarify the law.”

Lydia continued to argue that her daughter has done nothing wrong and was transparent about her decision to run.

“So she disclosed in those documents that she was your daughter?” asked Sarabia. “Right. She disclosed it. She shared the story. It’s still something that’s up on the website, so she did everything that was asked of her,” responded Lydia.

In this case, Lydia plans to argue in court that the current law is unconstitutional. She claims it violates the 1st and 14th amendments. “The voters within Cartwright, in Maryvale, have made their decision. They voted her in,” she said.

A judge will hear arguments on this case in July. Lydia is urging the people who currently have a problem with the school board to wait and let the courts decide.

“The focus should go back to the academic achievements. I wish they were that upset if their kids were going through our schools and they’re not able to read, write, and do math,” she said.

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