Southwest
Arizona homeschooling moms say state imposing burdensome regulations with policy change: 'Feels deliberate'
Arizona homeschooling parents are accusing the state of imposing burdensome regulations on families after Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes cracked down on the state’s voucher program requirements this summer.
Homeschooling moms Velia Aguirre and Rosemary McAtee are plaintiffs in a new lawsuit, filed by The Goldwater Institute, against the state of Arizona, Arizona Department of Education and Superintendent Thomas Horne. Aguirre and McAtee participate in the school’s Empowerment Scholarship Account “ESA,” which gives homeschooling families 90% of state taxpayer dollars that would otherwise go to the public school district or charter schools to purchase educational materials, including books and supplemental materials, for their children’s schooling.
The suit alleges that in July, AG Mayes issued “legal threats” to the Department of Education to make sure every ESA purchase had a curriculum tied to it. Goldwater says that the education department is now rejecting reimbursement requests from ESA families for the purchase of “basic educational materials,” including things like pencils and erasers, “unless parents could provide an explicit ‘curricular’ document justifying the use of each specific book title or material for their child.”
“It’s very hard. Because I’m spending several hours a week developing curriculum for things I’ve never had to develop curriculum for when I was a district employee or being in the program for four years,” Aguirre told Fox News Digital.
“So it’s cumbersome. It’s really time-consuming. It’s burdensome,” she added. “It feels like I have to present this false narrative of developing a curriculum for erasers or pencils or colored markers.”
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“It’s just odd because the attorney general just seems to lack a lot of knowledge with the whole ESA program entirely. It’s really causing strain, and it feels deliberate, being imposed on families that already have it hard educating children with developmental delays,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre teaches her three boys with special needs at home and draws on her experience as a former public school Special Education teacher to develop lessons, activities and goals tailored to each of her children’s specific needs. But the lawsuit says when she submitted receipts for several educational materials, including the classic novel, “Where the Red Fern Grows;” a periodic table of elements; math and spelling activity books; and pencils and erasers to the department in August, her reimbursement request was denied.
Parents are already required to submit expense receipts for every item purchased with the scholarship funds, the suit says. It alleges the new requirement imposes a burden on parents that “violates state law and state regulations” while adding to the “backlog of tens of thousands of purchase orders awaiting review” and puts a “senseless burden” on parents.
The second plaintiff, Rosemary McAtee, has homeschooled seven of her nine children with funding from the ESA program since 2019. She also had her purchases denied by the state after she bought four books, including the children’s classic “Brown Bear, Brown, Bear What Do You See?,” and a Catholic Encyclopedia for Children.
Both moms appealed these denials, the suit shows, but the Board of Education denied them, citing the need to provide a formal curriculum that includes these books.
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“I honestly am kind of afraid to buy anything now because if they can change the rules at the drop of a hat, and break the law, – it does break the law that the legislature put in 2020 — it just leaves me with a question mark of, ‘Am I going to be stuck carrying thousands of dollars that I’m waiting to be reimbursed on, and then they’re going to deny me, even if it meets my contract to my curriculum?’” McAtee told Fox News Digital.
According to Goldwater, Arizona lawmakers added clarifying language in 2020 to the law ensuring supplemental material that is not explicitly tied to a curriculum would not be denied to families in the ESA program. Additionally, they say the State Board of Education has also “approved rules for the program explicitly permitting the purchase of these materials without additional documentation.”
Read the full article from Here
Southwest
Texas man convicted after saying he mutilated victims, ate human heart as part of 'ritualistic sacrifices'
A Texas man was convicted of killing three people, dismembering them and burning their bodies after admitting to investigators that he was called to “commit sacrifices.”
Jason Thornburg was found guilty of capital murder on Wednesday and now, the same Tarrant County jury that convicted him must determine whether he receives a death sentence or if he will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to Fox 4.
In September 2021, Thornburg killed three people, dismembered their bodies and stored them under his bed at a motel in Euless, Texas, before lighting the bodies on fire inside a dumpster in Fort Worth.
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Thornburg confessed to investigators that he felt a compulsion to commit “ritualistic sacrifices” and that he ate a victim’s heart and other parts of the victims’ bodies.
His attorneys argued he was insane when he carried out the murders and suffered from a severe mental disease.
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When he was arrested on murder allegations, Thornburg confessed to police he killed his roommate in May 2021 during a suspicious home explosion and his girlfriend in Arizona back in 2017.
These two previous murders were brought up in court on Thursday when the punishment aspect of the trial began.
The victims’ families cannot speak publicly until the punishment phase is finished.
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Los Angeles, Ca
Vehicle, 2 occupants plunge into crowded Southern California harbor
Two people were taken to the hospital after a vehicle they were inside plunged into the harbor Sunday night in Marina Del Rey, officials confirmed to KTLA.
Details are limited and It’s unclear exactly how the incident occurred, but authorities with the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to 4675 Admiralty Way just after 6 p.m. on reports of the vehicle in the water.
L.A. County Fire Department Public Information Officer Marco Rodriguez said the two occupants were able to get themselves out of the vehicle after it went into the water.
Both were examined by medical personnel with the fire department and taken to a nearby hospital in unknown condition.
Rodriguez said that two L.A. County Lifeguard divers were deployed to ensure there were no other occupants trapped in the vehicle.
A witness, Johnny Hamcheck, told KTLA that a third person, a woman, exited the vehicle before it went into water, though officials did not confirm that detail.
Footage of the recovery effort showed crews attaching large yellow floating devices to the vehicle as it was anchored to a crane and eventually pulled out of the water and loaded onto a tow truck.
The vehicle showed heavy front-end damage, presumably from crashing through the steel railing and into the water.
An investigation into the crash is ongoing and no further details were provided.
Southwest
24 states' attorneys general call on Supreme Court to keep biological boys out of girls sports
Attorneys general from 24 states are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling and uphold an Arizona law to prohibit biological boys from competing on girls’ sports teams.
The petition comes after a federal appeals court ruled that the law likely violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
“Sports teams are divided by sex to begin with to give girls a level playing field so they’re not competing against boys,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a news release. “Arizona’s law restricting girls’ sports teams to biological females is just common sense, and it protects girls from competing against bigger, stronger males who identify as females.”
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In addition to Wilson, the attorneys general supporting the petition are those from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.
The petition notes that these states have laws similar to Arizona’s that restrict girls’ sports to biological females.
It also argues that the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit states from offering separate sports teams for men, women, boys and girls.
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“In sports, equal access means a level playing field,” the attorneys general write in their brief. “And a level playing field usually means sports teams divided by sex so that girls can compete against other girls.”
“Basing the distinction on biology rather than gender identity makes sense because it is the differences in biology—not gender identity—that call for separate teams in the first place: Whatever their gender identity, biological males are, on average, stronger and faster than biological females. If those average physical differences did not matter, there would be no need to segregate sports teams at all,” they continued.
The attorneys general are asking the high court to “make it clear that the Constitution does not prohibit states from saving women’s sports from unfair competition and providing meaningful athletic opportunities for girls and women,” according to Wilson’s news release.
Read the full article from Here
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