Glendale Elementary School District v. State of Arizona

By Benjamin Hall. 

Article XI, Section 1, of the Arizona Constitution states, “The legislature shall enact such laws as shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a general and uniform public school system.” This language appears to provide heightened protections for Arizona public schools, but the vast disparities between rich and poor districts call its efficacy into question. Many districts rely heavily on bonds to fund their capital improvements. Similar to loans, bonds are authorized by voters, purchased by investors, and eventually repaid through future property taxes. While districts with high property values and more commercial property possess greater bonding capacity—allowing them to supplement government funding—districts without adequate bonds struggle to raise the money to fund capital projects.

Schools in poor districts continue to endure inadequate facilities, some of which have created unsafe conditions for students. Many schools do not have a working air-conditioning system. The structural integrity of classroom walls are failing. Basic security is often lacking. Excessive CO2 and acoustic deficiencies exist at every district that the School Facilities Division (“SFD”) has inspected over the last five years. In 2017, the Arizona School Boards Association, Arizona Education Association, Arizona School Administrators, and several school districts sued the State of Arizona to address these issues in Glendale Elementary School District v. State of Arizona. Plaintiffs argued that the Legislature’s school funding system has forced poor districts to live with substandard facilities, violating the State’s constitutional obligation to provide a general and uniform system of education. Trial concluded in the summer of 2024, and the parties submitted final briefs in February 2025 and are now awaiting the court’s decision. 

History of Arizona’s School Funding System and Subsequent Litigation

In Roosevelt v. Bishop, the 1994 seminal case on capital funding, the Arizona Supreme Court first addressed capital deficiencies in schools, finding that the State’s financing scheme—which involved a combination of heavy reliance on local property taxation, arbitrary school district boundaries, and only partial attempts at equalization—created enormous disparities among school districts. The Court declared this system unconstitutional and required the Legislature to fix it. 

The State attempted to amend its funding scheme, but a few years later in Hull v. Albrecht, the Court deemed the State’s efforts insufficient. The Court determined that the legislative proposal failed to establish minimum standards for adequate capital facilities and failed to create a system that enabled schools to comply with those standards. 

In response to the Court’s requirements, the Legislature passed the initial version of Students Fair and Immediate Resources for Students Today—commonly known as “Students FIRST.” This legislation was created under the assumption that the state would fully fund districts to ensure compliance with state standards. Students FIRST created the School Facilities Board, which developed Minimum Adequacy Guidelines (“MAG”) for the quality and quantity of capital facilities necessary for students to achieve the State’s academic standards. In 1998, the Court decided the second iteration of Albrecht (Albrecht II), clarifying the Legislature’s obligations: the State must 1) establish minimum adequate facility standards and provide funding to ensure that no district falls below them, and 2) this funding mechanism must not cause substantial disparities between districts. The Court found that Student’s FIRST mostly satisfied the State’s constitutional obligations, and its final version was soon enacted. 

Current Landscape and Introduction to Parties’ Arguments

In the years following Albrecht II, the Legislature underfunded or repealed key aspects of Students FIRST. For example, Students FIRST created the Building Renewal Formula (“BRF”), which calculated funding based on a district’s unique capital facilities. However, the Legislature has since replaced BRF with the Building Renewal Grant (“BRG”) program. Whereas BRF enabled districts to proactively refurbish building systems, the BRG requires failure of a system before a school can apply for funding, pushing schools into a crisis as they scramble to fix essential facilities while educating students.

Plaintiffs contend that the underfunding and understaffing of this program, as well as the inadequate design of the new funding system, has forced some districts to cope with these MAG deficiencies for years. They argue that this constitutes a clear violation of the State’s constitutional duties. Plaintiffs point to the fact that hundreds of existing deficiencies are being indefinitely deferred due to lack of funding. According to the Plaintiffs’ Findings of Fact, the State projected over $587 million in BRG needs for FY 2025 based on only known deficiencies, almost triple the State’s $200 million budget. Many schools do not have the resources to navigate the grant application process, leaving many deficiencies unaddressed. 

The current disparities in bonding capacity between districts are considerable. For example, evidence at trial showed that Riverside Elementary School District has 36.8 times the statutory bonding capacity per pupil as does Gadsden Elementary School District. Plaintiffs presented evidence that districts can only maintain MAG compliance through bonds and overrides. They contend that this disparity between advantaged and disadvantaged districts is created by the State’s inadequate funding system, violating the test laid out in Albrecht II. The State, Governor, and the SFD all acknowledge that the MAG is severely outdated. Indeed, MAG provides almost nothing for security. Plaintiffs argue that this outdated model contributes to the unconstitutionality of the current system. 

Special Intervenors Arizona Senate President Peterson and Arizona House Speaker Toma, who in 2023 assumed primary responsibility for the State’s defense, have argued that Plaintiffs failed to prove that the funding scheme itself has caused the substantial disparities in districts’ abilities to meet the guidelines. They contend that discretionary budgeting decisions, failure to seek BRG monies, and districts’ failure to maintain their building systems are at the heart of these disparities. The districts may exceed minimum guidelines at their discretion, which creates inherent, acceptable disparities.

Special Intervenors emphasize that the State has the discretion to administer funding according to its own timeline. Despite admitting that poor learning conditions exist throughout the state, they argue that it is not the purview of the courts to question legislative policy decisions regarding how and when the State addresses these issues. Likewise, the adequacy of the current minimum guidelines is a non-justiciable issue that is not subject to judicial review, as it is an inherently political, legislative consideration. 

Arizona Education Compared to Other States

Glendale Elementary School District v. State of Arizona will likely be appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court. Regardless of whether the Legislature’s school funding system violates the general and uniform clause of the Arizona Constitution, both parties recognize the serious deficiencies within the facilities of public schools throughout the state, especially in rural communities. Arizona ranked 50th in education funding and resources in 2022-2023, and a recent Consumer Affairs report ranked Arizona among the worst states for public education. The methods for improving these rankings are disputed, but one thing is for certain: many public schools lack the financial capacity to provide a proper education. Time will soon tell whether this inadequate funding is unconstitutional.