State SealARIZONA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 

SB 1073: school district consolidations

PRIME SPONSOR: Senator Allen S, LD 6

BILL STATUS: Education

 

 

Overview

Requires the successor school district that resulted from the consolidation of a school district and was participating in a Career and Technical Education District (CTED) during the consolidation to automatically continue participating in the CTED in the same manner as the former school district☐ Prop 105 (45 votes) ☐ Prop 108 (40 votes) ☐ Emergency (40 votes) ☐ Fiscal Note.

History

Consolidation is the process by which two or more school districts combine to create a unified school district provided that they are either located in the same county or adjacent counties. Consolidation may be initiated in two ways. Either:

·         The school district governing boards that wish to consolidate may request the consolidation to the county school superintendent; or

·         The qualified electors can request the consolidation if ten percent or more signatures of qualified electors have been collected. These qualified electors must live in the school district where the proposed consolidation will occur.

Ultimately, the qualified electors must vote in favor of consolidation in an election in the fiscal year preceding the fiscal year in which the consolidation is proposed for this consolidation to occur (A.R.S. § 15-459(A)).

Consolidations that can occur include:

a.       changing the boundaries of a school district to include any part of the adjacent school district;

b.       the desire of all common school districts within a union high school district to consolidate;

c.        two or more adjacent school districts, either common, high, or unified, wish to consolidate into one district;

d.       a common school district that is not a part of a union high school district that wishes to consolidate with an adjacent unified school district;

e.       two or more common school districts wish to consolidate into a unified school district;

f.         changing the boundaries of a school district that has received a letter grade of an A or B that wishes to consolidate with a school district within 20 miles; or

g.       a common school district that is a part of a union high school district made up of two or less common school districts wishes to consolidate with the union high school district (A.R.S. 15-459(B)).

Provisions

1.       Requires the successor school district that resulted from the consolidation of a school district and was participating in a CTED during the consolidation to automatically continue participating in the CTED in the same manner as the former school district (Sec. 1).

2.       Repeals A.R.S. § 15-459 as amended by Laws 2018, Chapter 335, Section 2 and Laws 2018, Chapter 335, Section 3 to resolve conflicting statutes relating to:

a.       Governing board elections after the consolidation or unification of a common school district; and

b.       The effective date of the signed law, which would have been on January 1, 2021 (Sec. 2).

c.         

d.        

e.       ---------- DOCUMENT FOOTER ---------

f.         Fifty-fourth Legislature                               SB 1073

g.       First Regular Session                    Version 1: Education

h.        

i.         ---------- DOCUMENT FOOTER ---------