An Arizona school board member on a religious crusade has cost her district over $218,000

Peoria schools are paying the price—literally—for Heather Rooks' relentless push to preach at public meetings

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A school board member who has been using her seat to advance her personal religious views has cost the district over $218,000—money that will not be spent improving education for students in the community. Despite multiple warnings that her personal crusade could be costly, the board member continued treating school board meetings as a church service. Now everyone is paying the price.

All of this started a few years ago in Arizona’s Peoria Unified School District.

Heather Rooks sued the district for telling her to stop quoting the Bible at meetings. She was backed by the right-wing First Liberty Institute, which said there was nothing inherently religious about what she was doing; she was simply citing “inspirational quotes from religious, historical, and philosophical sources and figures as a source of personal inspiration.”

Rooks began pushing her religion shortly after joining the board in January of 2023, during a portion of the meetings called “Board comments,” where members could say anything they wanted. Most of the time, members use the opportunity to commemorate a holiday or draw attention to issues faced by the district.

Rooks used that time to spread the Gospel—and so did one of her allies.

On February 23, for example, she began her remarks by citing Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (That’s a verse that’s been used to justify child abuse.)

On March 9, she opened her remarks with a reference to 1 Corinthians 16:13: “Be on guard. Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong.”

That comment was soon followed by a reminder from Board President David Sandoval that their own attorneys had told them reciting Scripture at board meetings went against the Establishment Clause. In fact, those attorneys said the First Amendment didn’t apply to Rooks in this situation because she was “speaking as a member of the public governing body, not an individual.”

By May, things had only gotten worse: Fellow conservative board member Rebecca Hill opened her remarks with a recitation of a Bible verse that has often been interpreted as a threat to non-Christians:

But whoever causes one of these little ones—who believe in me—to stumble and sin by leading him away from my teaching, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. - Matthew 18:6

Rooks followed that up with a reference to 1 Corinthians 2:5: “That your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

(Incidentally, a month later, Jeanne Casteen, the Executive Director for Secular AZ, spoke during the public comments portion of a board meeting and apologized to all non-evangelicals students and families “as a caring adult in this room that last month one of the board members called for your eradication.”)

The Freedom From Religion Foundation soon sent a letter to the district warning them to put a stop to this:

While board members are free to promote their personal religious beliefs however they wish in their personal capacities outside of the school board, as government officials they cannot be allowed to commandeer the board in order to impose their personal religious beliefs on district students, parents, and employees. We ask that the Board take whatever action necessary to ensure that Ms. Rooks and all other members of the Board respect the constitutional rights of the Peoria Unified School District community.

FFRF pointed out that a lawsuit they filed for a similar reason against the Chino Valley Unified School District in California led to the district having to pay out more than $200,000. If this board didn’t want to face the same consequences, they needed to take action immediately. They later sent a follow-up letter urging the board to “censure any school board members who abuse their position by pushing their personal religious beliefs during board meetings.”

At the very next meeting, Rooks… didn’t give a shit. She cited a verse from Ephesians: “Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so that you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil.”

If that was meant to be an inspirational quotation, she had serious problems since she was obviously referring to advocates of church/state separation as the “enemy.”

By July, though, Rooks said she would “refrain from reciting Bible verses at this time and will have my attorneys at first Liberty Institute handle this matter.” Her colleague Hill didn’t make the same statement but said that when she joined the board, "I swore to God that I would uphold the Constitution, which includes my First Amendment rights.”

So how was the matter handled?

Simple. Rather than keep her religion to herself, Rooks sued the school board for telling her not to quote the Bible at meetings. (Take that, FFRF! She sued them first!)

Heather Rooks on March 9, 2023 (screenshot via YouTube)

The 28-page lawsuit said Rooks deserved “absolute legislative immunity” for reciting the Bible at meetings, asked a judge to rule that her Bible readings were legal, and requested money for damages and attorneys’ fees and as a relief for all the previous times she was told not to recite those verses.

The suit also said Rooks was no different from other elected officials:

After all, the current U.S. President, the first U.S. President, and an unbroken chain of U.S. officials in between have quoted scripture to solemnize official occasions or speeches, encourage their fellow citizens, and fortify themselves to carry out their official duties. There is nothing unlawful about Rooks doing likewise.

That’s a lie because, as we’ve seen with invocation prayers, the courts have repeatedly noted a key difference between, say, Congress or a city council having an opening prayer and school boards doing the same: There are children involved in the latter. Because kids are often present at school board meetings, those gatherings are basically treated as school-sponsored events. It’s illegal for administrators or employees to push faith on kids, even if, like Rooks, they insist they’re not trying to proselytize. (That’s obviously different from studying certain passages for academic reasons.)

First Liberty claimed:

Rooks’ use of quotations from a sacred and historical text—the world’s best-selling book—to solemnize public occasions and fortify herself to perform her official duties fits comfortably within a longstanding, well-accepted tradition. This Court should declare its lawfulness and dispel the threats that have forced Rooks to suspend her practice of it.

Besides the fact that anyone who needs to read a Bible verse out loud, in public, in front of a microphone to do her job well isn’t fit to do the job, reciting Bible verses at school board meetings is not a “longstanding, well-accepted tradition.” First Liberty is just pretending that what Rooks is doing is the same as a president because there’s no actual legal precedent for school board members doing what she’s doing.

The lawsuit should have been dismissed outright because the board’s attorneys and FFRF were right all along. Prayers don’t belong at school board meetings, and board members can’t use meetings to push their faith on others no matter how innocuously it might seem. (Even football coach Joe Kennedy had to wait until after the final whistle had blown before he could perform his attention-seeking prayers at midfield after games.)

If Rooks wanted to pray, she could do it on her own time. She could do it while driving to a meeting. She could silently do it while others were speaking. She could do it during a bathroom break. Did she think her God was so weak that He was unable to hear those prayers? There’s nothing in the Bible that says prayers must be delivered publicly in order to “count.” In fact, if Rooks ever read the Bible, she’d know there are verses specifically condemning that.

In response to her lawsuit, Secular AZ told me it was “another in a long string of bullying behaviors aimed at intimidation of the Board, usurpation of legitimate authority, and enforcement of Christian nationalists’ dogma.”

They added in a statement:

The plaintiff seems to have a difficult time with separation. She can’t separate church from state; she can’t separate herself from her role as a school board member; and she can’t separate fact from fiction.

…

As a private individual, Rooks is free to practice as she sees fit. As a school board member, she must follow the law e.g. open meetings law, establishment clause, disclosure and conflict of interest laws, the district manual, oath of office, and the specific not general immunity given school boards in Arizona statutes.

In addition, Arizona law says that a school may not lay blame or judgment on any person because of who they are which is precisely what Rooks is doing with her recitation of verses that have attacked certain people and groups and that denigrate all non-religious students. Schools may not teach that one group is better than another because they believe in a certain religion or any at all.

TL;DR: The Rooks lawsuit is an attempt to force her religion onto children against the wishes of their parents. Religion should be taught at home by the parents, not at a public school board meeting by an unrelated person.

They also pointed out that Rooks cited Arizona law in making her free speech case, but that very same law included a provision that speakers were “responsible for the abuse of that right.” Similarly, Rooks made a state-based religious freedom argument, but Arizona’s Constitution also says, “no inhabitant of this state shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship, or lack of the same.” It could be argued that non-Christians were being targeted by Rooks.

So where are we at now, a year and a half after the lawsuit was filed?

The most important development is that, earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi (a Trump appointee) ruled that Rooks lacked standing to file her lawsuit. The judge explained that being told she couldn’t recite verses at meetings, even if she was interrupted while doing it, and receiving advice from the school board’s lawyers that reciting Bible verses at meetings violated the law weren’t violations of her First Amendment rights. The decision was brutal, saying none of the cases she cited in her defense made much sense and that she also didn’t suffer any legal injuries to pursue a case. “Without a cognizable injury,” the judge said, “Rooks lacks standing to bring any of her claims.” (First Liberty said it would appeal the decision.)

The problem with that decision is that it didn’t fix the actual problem.

Rooks, who is now the board’s president, reacted to her loss by… continuing to waste everyone’s time by reciting Bible verses at meeting. As one local media outlet put it, “At first, her attorneys promised to appeal. Now they say she essentially won already because the district won’t stop her from quoting the Bible.”

It’ll take an actual lawsuit to get her to stop.

But here’s the other side of that problem: Even though she lost the case, it came at a literal cost to the school district because they had to defend themselves in court. According to public records, the lawsuit has cost the district “roughly $218,000 in legal fees.” Another media outlet said the district “has so far spent $216,000 in legal fees related to Rooks' lawsuit, but the final dollar amount will be higher as the district is awaiting its last bill.”

Meanwhile, in a completely separate lawsuit, a transgender teacher has sued the district for harassment, specifically citing Rooks and Rebecca Hill (who has since resigned from the board). That teacher was placed on paid administrative leave shortly after sending a staff-wide email letting colleagues know how they could support students on the International Transgender Day of Visibility.

According to [River] Chunnui's lawsuit, Hill and Rooks began a public campaign against Chunnui, referred to them as a child “groomer” and accused them of “sexualizing children.” Rooks even disclosed Chunnui's home address, and afterward, someone tossed a rock at the teacher's window.

That means the district will have to spend even more money to defend itself from the actions of its own school board members.

This is what happens when voters install ideologically driven right-wing extremists to run a school district instead of competent adults whose main goal is making sure students receive a great education. The school board in Peoria is essentially a Republican hate rally and church service rolled into one.

Incidentally, it’s shocking that voters have kept Rooks in power given how much of a political agenda she has. Besides the prayer debacle, when Rooks recites the district’s slogan “Every student, every day” at the beginning of meetings, she has added “except the girls,” because she thinks the district’s trans-inclusive policies hurt girls. She follows neo-Nazi social media accounts. She whined about a promotional video all about the district’s history of racial diversity and inclusion, saying it “made it all about race.” She opposed social workers traveling to an out-of-state conference (even though it was funded entirely by grant money) because that conference included sessions with anti-racism components. She insisted that when the district sought out its next superintendent, one of the qualifications needs to be “love of country.” She rejected a free computer science partnership with Microsoft that would have benefitted numerous students because the company proudly boasted of its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

On most of those battles, she was thankfully outnumbered on the PUSD board by more rational people. But last year, right-wing groups flipped the board so that the majority of members are now conservative ideologues.

That means their actions will continue to rack up unnecessary expenses for the district because, in Peoria, the board members’ selfishness always takes priority over the needs of the children.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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