It has been one year since Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne launched a hotline allowing parents and community members to bring up issues and controversial teachings in schools.
The Empower Hotline has reportedly been contacted about 35,000 times since the launch, and about 200 of those reports warranted more information or follow-ups, according to the Department of Education.
“That’s mostly crank calls. In fact, people used bots, robots from out of state to flood us, thinking it would cause us to stop the hotline,” Horne said. “They didn’t want parents to be able to communicate with us. Strange.”
The Arizona Department of Education launched the hotline for people to report “inappropriate lessons that detract from teaching academic standards."
The Empower Hotline website says reports can be made about lessons involving "race or ethnicity, rather than individuals and merit, promoting gender ideology, social-emotional learning, or inappropriate sexual content." This would include critical race theory, which educators have long denied being taught in schools.
The ADE said when they do get a sincere complaint they tend to just follow up with the school. To date, a spokesperson with ADE said an investigation would be pursued if there is any denial from schools or districts, which hasn’t happened yet. The department would not comment on, if any, how many open investigations there are.
In one example, Horne said the hotline was contacted, claiming a teacher was “evangelizing religion inside the classroom.”
“We called the principal, he said he was on top of it and put a stop to it,” Horne said.
Horne says only one person, hired as an investigator, is going through the calls and emails. That person has other duties in the office as well.
“It doesn’t take much time or resources,” Horne said.
Critics of the hotline feel resources could be used elsewhere. The Arizona Education Association has protested the hotline since the start.
“It was, once again, disappointing that the highest elected person overseeing education would choose this mechanism in which to support educators,” said Marisol Garcia, the president of the AEA.
Hear more about the Empower Hotline in the video player above.
