Category: Announcement

Please Turn In Your Signature Petitions NOW!

In three weeks, Save Our Schools Arizona turns in signatures to stop yet another universal voucher scheme — they need them back ASAP!

This year’s ill advised, universal voucher expansion already has 6500+ applicants, the vast majority of which have NEVER stepped foot in a public school. Vouchers have never been about “choice”: it’s about subsidizing private education while defunding public schools. This number will expand dramatically over the next few months if we do not turn in 118,823 valid signatures by Sept. 23 — stripping hundreds of millions from our public school classrooms, teachers, and children. 

We have got to get this job done and stop this horrific bill in its tracks. That means we need every signature and every petition back ASAP. We’ve got this, but only if everyone does their part. 

Save Our Schools has events all over the state where you can notarize & return signatures: teamsosarizona.com/signature-slam/

Find a notary here: teamsosarizona.com/notary/

Public schools are on the line. Find detailed directions HERE for turn-in. 

AZECA’s Full Partnership Meeting and the Rollout of the New Membership Model

The Arizona Early Childhood Alliance (AZECA) will hold a full partnership meeting on August 29th, 2022 to discuss the roll out of the new membership model and updated website.

AZECA is an alliance of 50+ cross-sector partners statewide who are working together to give every Arizona child a great start in life. AZECA serves as Arizona’s shared and unified voice on early childhood, providing informed messages and credible resources that help leaders create positive change for Arizona’s children. These efforts are designed to ensure that all Arizona children are prepared for kindergarten and are on track to succeed by the end of third grade.

Starting in 2023, AZECA’s new membership model will offer partners exciting new benefits including access to the AZECA Children’s Policy Institute and an opportunity to participate in the annual Early Childhood Day at the Capitol lobby event.

AZECA welcomes new partners to join in on their critical work of directly influencing program and policy solutions for early childhood by collectively working together with lawmakers, practitioners, foundations, businesses, and other supporting collaboratives.

Please join AZECA virtually for the Full Partnership meeting:

When: August 29th, 2022 from 12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Where: Zoom

Discussion and Insight on:

Legislative Update

The rollout of the new AZECA Membership Model
AZECA Member Benefits
Membership Drive Activity
Leadership Team Nomination Process
Partner Information, Celebrations and Announcements

Click HERE to register for the meeting

Save Our Schools Arizona Petition Drive

Save Our Schools Arizona is running a statewide referendum to stop the universal voucher expansion passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor earlier this summer. This expansion will strip Arizona public schools of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. This means our taxpayer funds will be diverted to unaccountable private academies with no transparency or oversight of public dollars. Mad? Furious? Join the efforts to Stop Voucher Expansion: teamsosarizona.com.

The Arizona legislature passed this bill in June, defying the will of Arizona voters who already rejected universal vouchers in 2018 by a 2-1 margin. But SOSAZ is fighting back. By collecting 218,823 valid signatures by Sept. 23, 2022, they are working to stop the law from going into effect and put it on the 2024 ballot, where AZ voters will reject it once and for all.

The stakes could not be higher - this is a referendum to decide the future of education in Arizona and across the nation.

How can you help?

Join the August Signature Slam this weekend: teamsosarizona.com/signature-slam/

If you already have petitions, thank you! Please turn them in as soon as possible, and consider grabbing another to fill out in August. There are easy opportunities to plug in and volunteer: bit.ly/SVEvolunteer.

If you need petitions to circulate to friends and family, PLEASE act quickly. You can get petitions at any Petition Hub at or any August Signature Slam event this weekend: teamsosarizona.com/signature-slam/

Make no mistake - our public schools are under attack and Arizona is the tip of the spear.

We must put a stop to this before they eradicate the cornerstone of our democracy - public education. Donate at sosarizona.org/donate.

Happy Birthday to the Children’s Health Insurance Program!

Today marks a special anniversary: the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is 25 years old. The program, known as “KidsCare” in Arizona, has established itself as a critical federal-state partnership to meet children’s health care needs.

Arizona hasn’t always embraced the program. In fact, for years Arizona was the only state in the US without an active CHIP. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t reaped its benefits.

Over the past 25 years, CHIP and Medicaid have sharply reduced the rate of uninsured children—in Arizona, the child uninsured rate dropped from 16% in 2008 to 9% in 2019, despite a lengthy KidsCare enrollment freeze.

KidsCare covers kids whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid (AHCCCS) but too little to afford private health insurance. Together with Medicaid (AHCCCS) and the Affordable Care Act, KidsCare works to provide no- or low-cost health coverage for kids - including doctor and dentist visits, immunizations, prescriptions, emergency care, and more. These programs work together to meet children’s health care needs and ensure that no one is left behind.

As we mark the anniversary of CHIP’s federal passage into law this week, we celebrate a bipartisan commitment to caring for our nation’s kids. We must renew this commitment and permanently fund CHIP so that states like Arizona can successfully and responsibly keep KidsCare running, and kids can get the care they need.

READ MORE:

When the COVID-19 continuous coverage protections are lifted, thousands of children in Arizona are at risk of becoming uninsured. This will disproportionately affect BIPOC children, children living in rural Arizona, and – importantly – families who participate in KidsCare.

That’s why Children’s Action Alliance worked with state lawmakers to pass legislation protecting coverage for children who participate in our CHIP program during the 2022 Legislative session.

HB2551 – sponsored by Representative Regina Cobb – helps cut through the red tape and burdensome paperwork requirements. It will ensure that children who qualify for KidsCare can stay continuously covered for a full year – even if their household’s circumstances temporarily improve.

Looking ahead, Arizona can do more to help children thrive by removing barriers to enrollment in AHCCCS and KidsCare. We must:

Make CHIP funding permanent at the federal level, so kids health care isn’t used as a political bargaining tool.
Raise the income limit for KidsCare to at least the national median of 255% FPL.
Remove monthly KidsCare premiums.

End the 3 month wait period for KidsCare coverage.
Expand coverage options for immigrant children.
Ensure children who participate in AHCCCS are also guaranteed twelve months of continuous coverage.

RESILIENCE Through the Eyes of a Child, Tuesday, October 25

Thank you to all our sponsors and attendees for their support of our mission!

Children's Action Alliance is proud to honor amazing community members and elected officials who support children and families.

2022 HONOREES

Horace Steele Child Advocacy Award Honoree

SHAWN PEARSON, Founder of Zion Institute

Jacque Steiner Public Leadership Award Honoree

SENATOR LELA ALSTON

Jacque Steiner Public Leadership Posthumous Award Honoree

SENATOR DAVE BRADLEY

Abortion is More Than Health Care

Children’s Action Alliance envisions an Arizona where all children and families can thrive. We cannot stay silent about today’s decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Today’s decision will not stop abortion in our state – not for those with resources. But it will prevent Arizonans from exercising their right to make informed decisions about their health care, maintain autonomy over their bodies, and to choose when and how to start a family.

Abortion is health care – and it’s so much more. Abortion is financial security. It’s an education. It’s the ability to plan for a better future. Without that choice, Arizonans will continue to fall prey to a system that’s designed to benefit those with means by harming those without.

For over three decades, CAA has been advocating for children and families. For over three decades, our state lawmakers have systematically denied these families the tools to build a better future. There has rarely been anything “pro-life” or “pro-family” about how our state invests its resources.

Since our nation’s founding, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color have been forced to fight for the most basic of rights: control of their own bodies. From slavery and colonization to the Tuskeegee study and forced sterilization to today’s unacceptable maternal mortality rates for BIPOC individuals, the United States government and its institutions have maintained White supremacy through conscious restriction of reproductive rights.

The state of Arizona is equally complicit in this subjugation.

Each year Arizona receives millions in federal TANF dollars. Most states use these funds to provide flexible assistance to families struggling to afford rent, utilities, diapers, medicine. But only a tiny portion of Arizona’s TANF money is invested in keeping families clothed, fed, and housed. The lucky few who do receive assistance through the program are wound up in red tape and reporting requirements and lose access to aid after just two years.

It's no wonder, then, that Arizona families struggle to pay rent, put food on the table, and provide the essentials. And it’s no wonder that 92% of DCS referrals are not a result of physical or sexual abuse, but neglect – insufficient shelter, poor nutrition, inadequate childcare, unmet medical needs.

Seven in ten Black children in Maricopa County will experience a DCS investigation at some point in their childhood, and Black parents are four times as likely to have their parental rights severed by the state. Arizona’s standard TANF payment for a family of four is just $335 per month; by contrast, foster parents in the state are paid an average of $700 per child per month, which does not include additional costs assumed by the state when a child enters DCS care.

It should not come as a surprise that the vast majority of foster caregivers in the state are White.

It’s not just a lack of financial assistance that hinders Arizona families’ ability to be well and stay together. Inequity is baked into our health care systems. One in four American Indian children in Arizona is uninsured, despite being disproportionately likely to qualify for AHCCCS or KidsCare; though centuries of treaties are supposed to assure Tribal members access to health care, the US government has never adequately funded the Indian Health Service or other Tribal health programs. Unsurprisingly, Indigenous individuals in Arizona are nearly four times as likely to die during or in the year after pregnancy. Despite being more likely to work year-round, Latinx households are less likely to have access to employer-sponsored health coverage. Black and Latinx children are more likely to be impacted by chronic diseases like Asthma, but less likely to have access to preventive care to keep them out of the hospital and stave off medical debt.

Today’s decision reminds us why it is so critical for Arizonans to select leaders at every level who will prioritize health care, economic supports, and reproductive justice.

Mid Session Update

The Spring season in Arizona is already well underway. Everything is blooming, the weather is warming, delayed Spring Training has given way to Opening Day and for those who pay attention to what is happening at the Capitol, we enter a new phase of the Legislative Session. Each year the session begins on the second Monday in January and is SUPPOSED to adjourn “sine die” (terminate for the year) no later than Saturday of the week in which the 100th day from the start of the session falls. This year, the 100th day is April 19th and that means the session should end no later than April 23rd.

Though this is the benchmark, in recent years that has rarely happened. This year, like many in the past, most of the committee work and regular legislative activity has ended or is wrapping up, but we are still awaiting the presentation of a budget proposal. And as of now, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen prior to April 23rd. During this lull in activity, we want to highlight some of the proposals that would improve the lives of children and families in Arizona that were either never taken into consideration or that died without making much progress.

Hundreds of bills are introduced each year and many die at some point during the process. This can happen when a bill fails to get assigned to committees or to a floor vote, when a committee chair fails to give it a hearing, or when it doesn’t have enough votes at any step along the way.

1295 Appropriation, Child Care, Waitlist- Senator Christine Marsh

Would have increased families' access to high-quality early learning programs by providing $5.7M to First Things First to expand access to Quality First, the Arizona Quality Improvement and Ratings system for child care and preschool programs in Arizona. This bill was assigned to two committees but never received a hearing.

SB 1635 Community schools Pilot Program, Appropriation (The David Bradley Community Schools Act)- Senator JD Mesnard

Establishes a pilot program housed within the Arizona Department of Education. Participants will partner with one or more local community-based organizations with the goal to coordinate academic, social, and health services to reduce barriers to learning and improve the quality of education for students in the community. The pilot would be named in memory of former State Senator David Bradley who for many years was a champion of children’s issues in Arizona. The bill had bipartisan support and was assigned to two committees in the Senate but never received a hearing.

HB2125 Electronic Smoking Devices, Retail Licensing- Representative Michelle Udall

Protects children in Arizona by bringing the state into compliance with federal law that regulates age requirements, penalties, restrictions, and licensing requirements relating to the purchase and sale of tobacco and vaping products. This bill moved through two committees in the House but stalled out before receiving a final floor vote.

HB2139 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women- Representative Jennifer Jermaine

Established and outlined participation on a study committee on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. The State Legislature has previously made a commitment to addressing this crisis in Arizona. There was an existing study committee but legislation that passed in 2021 as a part of the budget that made changes to it was overturned in court as part of the ruling that disallowed multiple subjects to be included in budget bills. Despite having bipartisan co-sponsors and support, this bill never received a hearing.

HB2205- CHIP Eligibility FPL Increase, Representative Kelli Butler

Would have expanded access to the state's Children’s Health Insurance Program (called KidsCare) to more low-income working families. This bill was a CAA Priority Bill but it was never assigned to a committee.

HB2206/HB2306 Dental Care-Pregnant Women- Representatives Kelli Butler & Jennifer Jermaine

This pair of bills would have allowed pregnant people on AHCCCS (the state's Medicaid program) to receive comprehensive dental health care benefits. Pregnancy can increase oral health problems that if untreated, can lead to adverse pregnancy outcomes.

HB2212 Schools, Immunizations, Registered Nurses, Posting- Representative Kelli Butler

Aimed to arm parents with important information about health and safety in schools, including whether schools had a Registered Nurse, how health and safety issues are addressed, and publicly posting the immunization report school districts are already required to submit to the state. This bill was never assigned to a committee.

HB2311 School Health Program, Appropriation- Representative Jennifer Jermaine

Would have promoted and enhanced healthy and effective learning environments for all students by supporting the costs of placing school nurses and psychologists on campuses. This bill was assigned to three committees in the House but never received a hearing.

Last week, we took the legislative lull between committee work and the presentation of the proposed budget to tell you about some bills that would have improved the lives of children and families in Arizona that were either not considered or died without making much headway. As the pause at the Capitol continues so does our midsession update. If last week’s update could be titled “the good”, this week can be called the “bad and the ugly.” These are misguided proposals that harm children and families, and unfortunately have either already been signed or are well on their way to becoming law. The common theme running through these bills: Preserving prejudice in the name of protecting children.

SB 1138 Irreversible Gender Reassignment Surgery, Minors—Senator Petersen (Status: Signed by Governor)

Prohibits physicians from providing irreversible gender reassignment surgery to minors regardless of whether the procedure is recommended by the child’s physician or consented to by the child’s parents.

SB 1165 Interscholastic, Intramural Athletics, Biological Sex—Senator Barto (Status: Signed by Governor)

Requires all public schools, and any private schools that compete against them, to expressly designate their interscholastic teams based on the biological sex of the participating students.

SB 1399 Adoption, Foster Care, Religious Discrimination—Senator Kerr (Status: Signed by Governor)

Gives faith-based foster care and adoption agencies broad license to discriminate based on the organization’s religious beliefs without any threat of lawsuits and allows foster parents to impose their own religious beliefs on foster children who are temporarily in their care.

HB 2086 DHS, School Immunizations, Exclusions—Representative Osborne (Status: Pending final vote in the Senate)

Would prohibit requiring immunization from COVID-19 or HPV as a condition of school attendance.

HB 2112 Classroom Instruction, Race, Ethnicity, Sex—Representative Udall (Status: Pending final vote in the Senate)

Would prohibit teachers from discussing societal issues related to race, ethnicity, and sex. Would also subject teachers to disciplinary action, including suspension or revocation of their teacher’s certificate, and subject school districts to civil legal penalties for subsequent or continued violations.

HB 2616 Mask Mandates, Minors, Parental Consent—Representative Chaplik (Status: Passed Senate and pending transmittal to Governor)

Bars any government entity, school or charter school from requiring a mask or face covering be worn by a minor without the express consent of their parent or guardian.

Supreme Court strikes down Invest in Education Act

Last week, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah was forced to rule in accordance with a confusing, heavy-handed opinion issued last year by the Arizona Supreme Court. Judge Hannah explained that the Supreme Court forced him to permanently strike down the Invest in Education Act, passed by 1.7 million Arizona voters in 2020.

Even though the Invest in Education Act had specific language exempting the new funds from the school spending limit, the Supreme Court rejected that language and ruled that if any of the newly raised funds could not be used by schools because the spending limit had been exceeded, then the entire Act would be struck down. They further ruled the entire Act would be struck down even though schools would not receive their first deposit of Invest in Education Act funding until next school year and there is no way to determine for several more months whether schools will exceed the spending limit next year; even though, as we experienced this year, the legislature could vote to lift the spending limit on a yearly basis.

Judge Hannah identified real issues in the case which would have upheld the voter-approved education funding law, but the Supreme Court’s heavy-handed decision left him no room to uphold the law. The Invest in Education Coalition will be looking into appealing the decision. Indeed, Judge Hannah noted that the Coalition would be free to argue to the Arizona Supreme Court that it should reconsider its ruling, which injected the Court into “a muddle of law and politics.”

With Arizona still at the bottom in the nation for funding public education, Children’s Action Alliance and the Arizona Center for Economic Progress remain committed to getting Arizona’s public schools the resources they need because it is so vital to building a strong future workforce and economy. And Arizona’s students deserve no less.

To learn more about the Invest in Arizona Coalition and how you can help, visit investinaznow.com.

Together, we can help families you serve get their full Child Tax Credit payments

The American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress as a response to the COVID pandemic, expanded the 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) to almost 90% of children in the U.S. This expansion is expected to reduce the number of children experiencing poverty by about 40% nationwide. Many studies have shown that additional income, like the expanded CTC, is associated with better outcomes for kids in families with low incomes, including stronger educational performance, improved health, and reduced stress.

But these positive outcomes will only occur if families with the lowest incomes claim the credit. In Arizona alone, there are approximately 62,000 children at risk of missing out on the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), through which families can get up to $3,600 per child if they file tax returns this year. These families include those who did not file taxes due to being below the threshold or for other reasons, those who face other barriers to filing, and those who didn’t get the full credit amount. Together, we can help families get their full payments.

On Wednesday, March 2nd from 10-11 am please join Children's Action Alliance, the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, Common Sense- Arizona, the Coalition on Human Needs, and Partnership for America's Children for a CTC training for Arizona service providers and other organizations. The training will include an overview of the CTC, how organizations can help families claim it, info on VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) sites in Arizona , and a preview of available multilingual resources for outreach. The training and available resource toolkit are designed to make it easy for organizations, schools, and other trusted community groups to integrate CTC outreach into existing programs and communications.