In Arizona, a state consistently ranked at the bottom for education, there is one public school district with funding secure enough to not even blink at the Trump administration’s threats to cut federal funding. There is one public school district whose superintendent ripped up Trump’s DEI mandate during a live recorded board meeting. This public school district provides free breakfast, lunch, and supper to its students. This public school district doesn’t just fund athletic trips but also funds its performing arts programs and provides free Career and Technical Education conferences and travel expenses to its students. This public school district offers discounted dual enrollment courses and A.P. exams to its students and boasts all A and B schools.
This is the Tolleson Union High School District, and AZ Republicans just successfully tanked its 2025 Bond and M&O Override campaign.
The two-pronged attack included garnering media attention through a JLAC investigation and collaborating with Citizens for Schools Accountability and a PAC called Protecting Their Future.
Tolleson JLAC Hearing
Matt Gress, Co-Chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, is well known for his pro-voucher, anti-public education agenda. Infuriated by Tolleson UHSD’s lease deal with the Isaac school district that both saved the Isaac district from being sold for parts to charter schools and has already earned Tolleson money back from interest payments, Gress launched an investigation into Tolleson’s finances. Gress used testimony from members of Citizens for Schools Accountability to make his case. Of course, school district finances are already audited annually, which has left some to wonder if the point of the investigation is not so much to find illegality, but to identify what has made a public school district so financially successful and then legislate against it.
Citizens for Schools Accountability & Protecting Their Future
AZ Republicans’ agenda to dismantle public education has been a staple of Arizona politics for years, but what they lucked out with in Tolleson was a chance to divide and conquer by giving the stage to former district leaders eager to feud with current district leadership. Here are the key players:
Kino Flores is the chair of Citizens for Schools Accountability, which acquired $55K from unknown donors during the election cycle to funnel to Protecting Their Future, a PAC that campaigned against the Tolleson Bond & Override.
Ironically, prior to chairing Citizens for Schools Accountability, Kino Flores was the superintendent of the Tolleson UHSD until a 2008 audit found he had misused the district credit card. The auditor general found $26K in inappropriate spending and flagged golf tournaments that were both potentially impermissible under state law and that misappropriated money meant for student scholarships. Flores resigned in 2009 and then ran for the Tolleson UHSD Governing Board in 2016. He was removed from the ballot by a judge in the 2024 election due to illegitimate signatures. He founded Citizens for Schools Accountability in 2025.
In a press conference in October of 2025, Superintendent Jeremy Calles played an audio recording from September 5th, 2024 of Kino Flores (Governing Board President at the time) pressuring him to choose certain vendors over others for upcoming district projects.
David Briggs is a member of Citizens for Schools Accountability and was the deputy superintendent under Kino Flores. Briggs announced his retirement (with then superintendent Flores) after the 2008 audit findings.
Kim Owens is a member of Citizens for Schools Accountability, is a Republican Party consultant, and was a Tolleson UHSD Governing Board Member for twenty years, including during Kino Flores’ tenure as superintendent and subsequent resignation.
With the $55K from Citizens for Schools Accountability, Protecting Their Future ran a successful campaign against the Tolleson Bond & Override by pushing a false narrative to the media about a domed stadium project and have now claimed to have submitted enough signatures to trigger a recall election against Governing Board Member Leezah Sun and Governing Board President Steven Chapman. Protecting Their Future has demanded resignations from both Governing Board members, which would allow MAGA Republican Shelli Boggs to appoint her candidates of choice to the board.
Where are the Democrats?
Historically, Arizona Democrats have run on pro-public education platforms and have courted teachers’ unions like the Arizona Education Association for endorsements. In fact, AEA endorsed LD22 Senator Eva Diaz in 2024, but rather than come to Tolleson’s defense, she stood side-by-side with Matt Gress in a stilted social media video about the JLAC investigation. Meanwhile, Representative Elda Luna-Najera of LD22, also a member of the Tolleson UHSD governing board, acquiesced to the Citizens of Schools Accountability by voting against putting the override on the ballot, knowing it would cost her district over $5 million in budget cuts. Other LD22 democrats have remained silent on the issue.
It is clear that Tolleson has now become the battleground in the fight over funding public schools. It’s time for democrats to take a side.
2008 TUHSD Auditor General's Report
Supt. Jeremy Calles Press Conference
About the Author
Esther Price is a parent of a public school student and fierce advocate for public education who lives in the West Valley of Phoenix, Arizona
