Centering Students This School Year Equals Success for the Whole Family

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

August 7, 2025

Phoenix, AZ – Just Schools’ response to Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne’s pushing “parents rights” as paramount this school year. 

As Arizona students return to school, it’s essential that we center their experiences, voices, and rights in every classroom. While parents already have broad rights to guide their children’s education, including the ability to opt them out of specific content, our public schools exist first and foremost to serve students: their learning, safety, and development as whole human beings.

Arizona’s students are diverse in culture, religion, family background, gender identity, and lived experience. Classrooms should reflect that reality and prepare all students to thrive in a complex society. That includes learning how to think critically, engage respectfully with people different from themselves, and better understand the world they live in.

Efforts to ban or censor discussions of gender identity, race, ethnicity or religion under the banner of “parental rights” risks stripping students of educational experiences. These restrictions do not make schools safer; they make them less inclusive and more harmful.

Real, impactful learning happens in safe, supportive environments where students feel valued and respected, not erased or targeted. Teaching about identity, history, and diverse perspectives is not “indoctrination.” It’s education.

Let’s be clear: fear-based political hotlines and blanket bans don’t help students read better or master science. They just make it harder for teachers to do their jobs and for students to feel like they belong.

Arizona’s young people deserve more than political talking points. They deserve schools where they can learn the truth, be themselves, and become who they are meant to be.

Just Schools will continue to educate, advocate and organize for inclusive, equitable schools for all students. 

Contact: Aten Morin Jr. 

Phone: 602-341-5543

Email: media@justschools.org

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Just Schools envisions a future where all queer and trans students thrive in school. Every student has the right to be affirmed and supported at school—but for many queer* students, this promise is broken. When these students are free to learn without discrimination, the entire school community thrives. Education Action Alliance educates, advocates, and organizes for inclusive schools where all queer students are valued and inspired to reach their full potential.

* We use the word queer to reflect a broad spectrum of LGBTQIA2S+ identities, including students who are intersex, asexual, nonbinary, questioning, or still exploring how they identify. This is the language many young people in our community use to describe themselves today—and we honor that by using the terms that reflect how they see and celebrate their own identities. We recognize that for some, queer carries painful history. We choose it with care, knowing that it has been reclaimed by a new generation as a word of pride, power, and possibility—and that it reflects the future we’re working to build.