Arizona education group urges governor to veto controversial bill about empty school buildings
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — House Bill 2640 would require all public schools to disclose all information on their unused buildings to the state so it can be viewed publicly.
For example, this means the state would receive all the details about the schools closing in the Roosevelt Elementary and Phoenix Elementary school districts, along with others.
If a district were to decide to sell buildings, it must allow charter and private schools to have a chance to submit bids. If the district doesn’t sell to either, they must prove that the other buyer is offering a better deal.
Supporters say it gives a chance for these buildings to continue to be used for education. Critics feel it incentivizes public schools to sell their buildings to private schools.
“With all these budget constraints, so what this does is it says, hey, you know what you can do, you can sell this to a private school and then all of your bill problems go away. But unfortunately, then our privatization problems in Arizona, especially with the voucher program, proliferate,” said Beth Lewis, director for Save Our Schools Arizona. Her public school advocacy group is pushing for the governor to veto the bill.
“With schools facing closures a lot of times that’s temporary or they can repurpose the campus to be like an early child Learning Center, something great for the community instead of selling it off to a private school,”said Lewis. “For example, that might be predatory, it might be taking in voucher dollars, which actually further exacerbates the public schools budget,”
This bill also would require public schools that lease buildings to private and charter schools to go through a lengthy process with the school board before they can cancel the lease, which included providing a valid reason for doing so.
Arizona’s Family contacted the bill’s author, Rep. Matt Gress, for comment but didn’t hear back by publication.
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