School busses assemble in the shape of an assault rifle in Houston on July 14, 2022. The protest was organized by Change the Ref, a group that advocates for gun control. Handout photo via Change the Ref
Arizona law requires that nearly 2,000 schools create and implement detailed plans to help staff, students and first responders be prepared for emergencies.
But there is just a single employee at the Arizona Department of Education — who also has other duties — tasked with helping all those 1,400 district schools and 500 charter schools design and their emergency operations planning. And none of the emergency operations plans from 47 schools that the Arizona Auditor General’s Office reviewed last year fully met minimum standards required by state law.
Not a single one had been fully implemented and tested, either. (Until late last year, there were two people assisting schools with the plans, but the Department of Education didn’t respond to questions about why there is now just one person doing the job).
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On Tuesday, the Arizona House of Representatives Education Committee voted 8-4 to send a bill to the full House that would help with some of the issues identified in the audit — but not all of them, and not for all schools.
House Bill 2074, sponsored by House Education Committee Chairman Matt Gress, R-Phoenix, would require all school resource officers to undergo training in how to interact with students who have disabilities. It would also require schools that receive school safety grants to provide building blueprints and floor plans to local police, fire and emergency services agencies.
In the 2024-2025 school year, 818 schools received those safety grants, according to the Department of Education. The legislation expands the authorized uses for those grants, which were initially intended to hire school resource officers, social workers and counselors, so that the money can be used to hire retired officers or to pay for other safety upgrades like locks and training.
Gress said these changes were spurred by the $33 million given to schools through the grants that was never spent because the schools couldn’t find candidates to fill the positions for which they received the money. The proposal would also put additional safety assessment requirements on schools that are awarded the grants, and require charter school sponsors to ensure that their charters develop and implement plans that align with state regulations.
Student safety potentially at risk
Auditors last year found that most schools lacked procedures for assisting students who need additional help — in particular those who have mobility challenges or who are not proficient in English — during emergencies and for dealing with emergencies outside of the regular school day or off campus. Auditors wrote that this “potentially placed students’ safety at risk.”
“Students with disabilities or a limited ability to understand English are among the most
vulnerable during an emergency because they may have limitations in understanding and responding to verbal commands,” auditors wrote. “Consequently, it is critical that staff, including substitute teachers…have guidance for how to help them in an emergency.”
The audit report pointed to myriad areas of noncompliance with state standards, including lack of coordination with local law enforcement agencies and failure to conduct emergency drills.
These issues leave Arizona’s public and charter school students at risk, according to Auditor General Lindsey Perry.
But during a presentation about the audit in front of the House Education Committee on Tuesday, Mike Kurtenbach, the Department of Education’s director of school safety, told legislators that schools are trying their best — and that the department was meeting its statutory requirements when it comes to emergency operations planning.
“I don’t believe we have a widespread problem throughout our state that our schools are unsafe,” he told the legislators on the committee.
Kurtenbach is correct about the Department of Education’s statutory duties. The agency, alongside the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, is required to develop the emergency operations planning minimum standards. But neither department is tasked with monitoring whether school plans actually meet those standards.
Scott Swagerty, director of the schools division of the Auditor General’s Office, told legislators that lack of oversight likely contributed to the widespread lack of compliance with regulations.
Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, said that she believes that schools and the Department of Education take school safety seriously, but a lack of funding and staffing led to noncompliance.
Gress disagreed, pointing out that the state has spent billions on K-12 education since emergency operations planning requirements were implemented in 2001 — in the wake of the Columbine shooting in Littleton, Colorado — and some schools still aren’t doing the most basic emergency drills that the state requires.
“I’m not convinced that it’s a lack of resources,” Gress said. “I think that it has been put to the backburner by some schools.”
For years, Arizona has been one of the states that spends the least, per pupil, on K-12 education.
Gress also acknowledged that a lack of staff to maintain oversight played a part in schools failing to build and implement adequate safety plans.
“This is the first time the state of Arizona has taken a look at our emergency operations planning, and I don’t like what I see,” Gress said. “Hopefully, we have opportunities in the future to invest in better enforcement, but at the very minimum schools should keep student safety as the highest priority, before teaching can begin.”
While Gress’ bill does address some of the problems auditors identified in many of the schools’ emergency operations planning, it does not put any entity in charge of oversight or allocate additional funds to pay staff to ensure the plans are in compliance with state standards.
Arizona has so far been spared from the kinds of tragic mass school shootings that happened in places like Uvalde, Texas; Parkland, Florida; and Newtown, Connecticut. But school safety is still a major concern because of the increased frequency and lethality of school shootings across the country, auditors wrote in the report.
The report also made clear that such an attack is possible in Arizona. In 2024, a Phoenix high school student was arrested for bringing a gun to school, and guns were found in backpacks belonging to a Mesa high school student and a Phoenix elementary school student.
“The school EOPs we reviewed were missing numerous critical components that could impact schools’ readiness to respond to emergency situations,” Perry wrote. “For example, emergency response times may be unnecessarily delayed at schools that did not clearly specify how to activate their EOPs during emergencies.”
Three of the charter schools that were evaluated had no formal emergency operations plan, and told the auditors they were unaware of the minimum standards or didn’t know they were required to create a different plan for each school.
The audit found that nearly 60% of schools reviewed, 26 out of 44, met fewer than half of the minimum standards they tested.
“EOP requirements need to be more clearly communicated to charter schools, and all schools could benefit from increased outreach, guidance, and training on emergency planning,” Perry wrote in the report.
In addition, auditors found that some of the standards are too vague, may be impractical, or lack a clear purpose. They recommended a comprehensive review and update to those standards to ensure they are all necessary and clearly explained.
The Department of Education and Department of Emergency and Military Affairs just updated the standards last year, with help from stakeholders, but auditors found they needed more work.
The Auditor General’s report advises the two agencies to work together to evaluate what additional guidance is needed to help schools comply with the standards and provide assistance to schools in doing so.
But the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs’ response to the recommendations were combative. DEMA responded that it had complied with its statutory obligations and should not have to do more than that.
The department wrote in its response that it did not agree with the audit’s findings because it didn’t get to review the unredacted report before it was published, something that the Auditor General’s Office said was standard practice.
Gabe Lavine, director of the Arizona Division of Emergency Management, a division of DEMA, told lawmakers on Tuesday that seeing the unredacted report didn’t change the department’s stance on the audit findings. He added that DEMA didn’t agree with the auditors putting it in a position of potential oversight of emergency operations planning, which he said was a more appropriate job for the Department of Education.
Gress told Lavine that he found DEMA’s responses to the audit “somewhat evasive.”
“I look forward to seeing you work very closely with ADE as you continue to update the EOP minimum standards,” Gress told Lavine. “I think that link needs to be strengthened.”
Auditors recommended that those updates include a clarification of what part local law enforcement agencies should play in helping schools to develop their emergency operations planning.
Law enforcement officials told auditors that they provide school safety guidance when requested, but some agencies do not have the staff to work with all the districts and charters in their boundaries. Some said they didn’t know they were required to work with schools to develop the plans.
“Since law enforcement and emergency response agencies are among the first to respond to school safety emergencies, it is important that they be familiar with area school EOPs and have information from the plans to help facilitate their response,” auditors wrote.
Charter schools
Auditors recommended that charter school sponsors help ensure their charters meet the statutory requirement to develop and implement school safety plans — a proposal included in Gress’ bill — but the state’s two major sponsors, Arizona State University and the Charter Board said that they didn’t have the staff or resources to do so.
“While ASU does not have the capacity to independently monitor adherence to EOP Minimum Standards, we strongly advocate for a centralized, specialized agency to oversee this critical function,” ASU Sr. Vice President James Rund wrote in response to the audit.
Other states
Auditors recommended that Arizona follow the example of other states that have established better compliance and monitoring processes for their emergency operations planning. Those other states also contribute more resources to school safety than Arizona. For example, Texas employs 16 people whose sole focus is oversight of school safety plans.
Creating and implementing a better process will require additional resources, auditors acknowledged, but without it school might not be prepared for emergencies.
Auditors recommended that the education department look into staffing needs and costs necessary to put into place a process to regularly monitor compliance with the emergency plan standards for all district and charter schools and to communicate those needs, along with a monitoring plan to Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Legislature.
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