Special thanks
to our supporters

  • NewsMatch
  • John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
  • Hunter S. Thompson
  • The Water Desk
  • Google News Initiative
  • Access Tucson
  • Marcia Tingley
  • Santa Cruz for Tucson
  • Marion Chubon
  • Judith Bird
  • Margie Wrye
  • & many more!

We rely on readers like you. Join them & contribute to the Sentinel today!

Hosting provider

Proud member of

Local Independent Online News Publishers Authentically Local Local First Arizona Institute for Nonprofit News
 1 2 >
States are using billions in federal relief money to improve mental health services in schools.

In response to a yearslong decline in the mental health of the nation’s children and teens, officials are using COVID-19 relief dollars and their own money to build support services to recognize the symptoms of mental illness and help students who are struggling. Read more»

Steve Kanner, a Hamilton High School counselor, emphasizes that a counselor’s role is to help students navigate their way through high school and meet personal goals.

Some of the pandemic relief funding from the federal government will expire later this year, and Arizona school advocates worry extra counselors brought on by schools using the funding may be let go if a way isn't found to keep the positions. Read more»

Law enforcement agencies are already required to notify the community, including schools in the area, when certain types of sex offenders move there, but those offenders might enroll their children in schools in other communities.

One proponent of a bill in the Arizona legislature that would require sex offenders to notify their child’s school of their sex offender status says that a parent’s right to know trump’s that child’s right not to be ostracized or bullied. Read more»

A drag artist performs on the stage at Phoenix Pride Festival 2011. Photo by

Legislation that passed the Arizona Senate prohibits any entity that receives state funding from hosting a “drag show targeting minors” or risk forfeiting that money for three years, and bans school districts, cities and towns from using private money to pay for such a show. Read more»

Many Arizona schools don’t even have a nurse on site currently because of an ongoing shortage, and state law doesn’t require that schools have a nurse on staff at all.

Democratic legislators are working to bring free period products to Arizona public middle and high schools, but detractors say those products are already offered to students free of charge — if they go to the nurse’s office and ask for them, and the school has a nurse. Read more»

If the measure continues to receive unanimous opposition from Democrats, it’s unlikely that Gov. Katie Hobbs will sign it, given that she’s vowed to support only bipartisan bills.

Arizona parents would be given easier access to school curriculum and teacher training materials under GOP proposals that critics say only serve to further vilify teachers and force schools to violate legal agreements. Read more»

Critics of the bill say enshrining HB2291 into law would invariably convince superintendents to stay away from struggling school districts.

Arizona school boards would have broader power to fire superintendents they believe are failing to meet the job’s responsibilities under a proposal that critics say could put board members at odds with the person they hired to run the districts — to the detriment of schools they oversee. Read more»

Tyequan Colkey, 19, es un estudiante de 12º grado de El Dorado High School, una preparatoria chárter de Chandler, Ariz., que no suspende a los estudiantes por infracciones de asistencia.

Para el año escolar 2021-22, los distritos de todo el país enfrentaban lo que muchos denominaron una crisis de ausentismo debido a que el cierre de escuelas relacionado con la pandemia causó estragos en la asistencia, y los educadores tuvieron que actuar. Read more»

Buses line up outside Tempe High School in this 2021 file photo. Bus driver is just one of the positions that school administrators around the state say they have had trouble filling, along with teachers, nurses, custodians, secretaries and more, as school salaries often can’t compete with the private sector.

School staffers across Arizona may increasingly find themselves pressed to fill in on other jobs, as districts struggle to fill positions across the board and personnel officers say they have openings they cannot fill for everything from nurses to custodial employees and administrators. Read more»

While the pandemic caused substantial drops in some vaccination rates, the number of vaccine-exempt students has also increased over the past decade.

The impact of missed preventative medical care during the pandemic is beginning to emerge in the form of drastic declines in childhood vaccination rates among Arizona youth, now at lower levels than at any point in the past decade. Read more»

More schools around the country are ordering Narcan kits like this to reverse overdoses of opioids, including deadly fentanyl.

School districts around the country - including Arizona, one of only six states that requires schools to have a naloxone policy - are trying to quickly respond to the growing toll from fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin. Read more»

Participants gather in 2015 at Rillito Park for the Ann Schmidt 5K Run to Remember. Many young athletes spend hours in the hot sun every day.

With summer temperatures rising, youth sports leagues and school districts will need to update their practice rules and heat policies to keep players safe - paying particular attention to low-income, minority neighborhoods that can get excessively hot. Read more»

Omicron and recent climate-related disasters have emphasized the need for educational advanced planning.

Whether it’s a pandemic or climate change, the future of education looks like disruption - and by accepting that the COVID-19 virus is going to be a constant, school districts can innovate and prepare for a multitude of unknowns, including disaster. Read more»

Public education advocates rally at the Arizona Capitol on Feb. 21, 2022, to call on the legislature to lift a constitutional spending cap that will force schools to cut nearly $1.2 billion before the school year ends.

With legislators still undecided on how to spend the record $5.3 billion dollar budget surplus, the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union, is demanding massive increases in education funding. Read more»

New legislation given preliminary approval by the Arizona House would hand over the operations of the 180 Arizona schools that received a D or F rating in 2019 to a high-performing school, be replaced by a “Fresh Start” charter school or shut them down if they don’t improve. Read more»

 1 2 >