The APPLE Coalition  
  AZ Parents for PubLic Education

MISSION: APPLE is a coalition of parents from school districts throughout the state, who advocate for high quality public                                                                      education so that all Arizona children in kindergarten through twelfth grade can reach their full potential.     We promote                                                                communication between parents & legislators, and collaborate to create an organized voice of parents throughout Arizona.                                                                                

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Here is a page for Legislative Bills that APPLE AZ is monitoring

Bills to watch:
 
HB2288- corporate tax credit.  This bill will be coming for a floor vote and is likely to pass. It would repeal the sunset clause on the corporate tax credit law that currently allows companies to give millions of their taxes directly to private schools, and has a built in increase mechanism of 20% per annum.
 
HB2120 (Boone)- change bonds.  Districts would be allowed to add furniture and technology to bond measure, but length of bond cannot exceed durability of stuff (Ie we would have 20 year bonds for buildings, 5 year bonds for tech, 10 year furniture)  
 
HB 2122 (Boone)- 15% override.  This bill would supplant the current M&O and K-3 overrides with a single K-12 override option.  Districts could pick their percentage (5%, 7%,10%, etc up to 15%), but once chose you are locked into the rate for the duration of the override.  At this point, the override duration matches the current 7 years of our M&O overrides.  For the first 2 years it is enacted, districts will be able to go our for an election in months other than November.  There is some attempt at amending the bill right now to make permanent this clause of flexible election dates.  High school districts will probably love this.  Districts that cannot even pass the current overrides might not.
 
HB2292: compulsory attendance; age; increase
Raises the compulsory school attendance age from sixteen to eighteen.
 
HB2309 (Crandall)- changes to individual tax credit.  This bill would primarily allow for tax credit to public school to be useable for college entrance testing.  The State is making a push to use standardized college exams as a means of gauging college readiness of our students and possibly supplanting AIMS.  (Arizona, not surprisingly, is at the bottom of the barrel in the number of kids who take college entrance exams) This bill is great for districts that raise a ton of tax credit.  The problem is that the districts that don't are the ones whose kids really need the incentive and the funds to take these tests and the State won't be paying ($31/student).  There is currently a pilot program funded by a grant and 8 Arizona districts are participating in blanket testing all Juniors with the ACT (Flagstaff, Globe, Lake Havasu, Mesa, Peoria, Phoenix Union, Round Valley, and Window Rock)  
 
HB2169: tax credit; classroom activities; technology
Expands the public school tax credit for extracurricular activities and character education to allow a taxpayer to receive an income tax credit for contributions made to a school for classroom technology or the support of classroom activities
 
 
HB2466- School districts maximum tax rate.