Arizona Senate education committee moves ahead with antisemitism, adoption education bills

PHOENIX – Arizona teachers could be banned from sharing material deemed antisemitic and required to discuss adoption any time sex education is taught under bills approved Wednesday by the state Senate Education Committee.

The measures now advance to the full Arizona Senate. If passed, they will be sent to Gov. Katie Hobbs for her signature.

Proposed changes to how teens learn about sex education

House Bill 2040 would require teachers to include adoption information anytime contraception, sexually transmitted diseases or sex education is brought up in the classroom. It would also mandate any sex education curriculum be available to parents to review ahead of instruction, with parental permission required in writing for a student to participate.

Isela Blanc of the Arizona Education Association, a teachers union, spoke against the bill at the hearing, saying Arizona already limits what sex education can be taught and this measure would make it even harder.

“From a classroom perspective, this does not improve education. It adds another layer of compliance to an already unworkable system and further discourages schools from offering any form of sex education instruction at all,” she said.

Previously vetoed antisemitism bill advances

House Bill 2575 could ban teachers from sharing material considered to be antisemitic. It mirrors a piece of legislation that Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed last year.

“Unfortunately, what this bill did is weaponize the issue of antisemitism against our public school educators and hold public school educators personally liable,” Hobbs told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Outspoken with Bruce and Gaydos in June 2025.

Barry Aarons, a lobbyist for the Arizona Association of County School Superintendents and international president of the Jewish fraternity Zeta Beta Tau, told the committee that rising antisemitism has left students scared and action must be taken.

“We have to do something,” said Aarons. “If the only thing we can do today is to vote for a bill that we know the governor is going to veto, by God, do it.”

Last week, public school teachers protested the bill at the state Capitol, saying the bills’ terms of antisemitism and explicit content are defined differently across various legislation and laws, which blurs the lines of what is acceptable and what isn’t.

Student club parental consent bill advances to Senate

Another approved bill is House Bill 2600, which requires parents to give permission for their child to join any student club or organization.

Jeanne Woodbury, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona, spoke at the committee hearing, explaining why the bill could see diminished club activity.

“Once you impose this parental consent requirement before a kid can even try out a club, a lot of people who might have some kind of sensitive identity, whether that’s an LGBTQ identity or a religious identity or a scenario where a kid wants to explore their ethnicity, their cultural background … can’t do that,” Woodbury said.

Other approved bills include House Bill 2142, which would create a school safety center within the Arizona Department of Education to support campus officers and safety regulations.

CORRECTION: Isela Blanc’s first name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

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