The Peoria Unified School District governing board voted 3-2 on Thursday to self-report a possible violation of the state's open meeting law to the Arizona Attorney General's Office. The dispute stems from a September 22 television interview in which Rooks allegedly disclosed confidential information from an executive session discussing an investigation into two former Centennial High School teachers.
Board President Jeff Tobey, along with members Becky Proudfit and Melissa Ewing, voted in favor of the referral, while Rooks and fellow member Janelle Bowles voted against it, according to the Daily Independent. Tobey said there was enough question surrounding the interview to refer the matter to the Attorney General's Office, as reported by Arizona's Family. Rooks has pushed back hard, saying she was falsely accused of disclosing information to a local news outlet and maintaining she only discussed her own opinion of how the district handled the Centennial investigation, along with broader concerns about accountability, per the same report.
What Rooks Is Accused of Saying
At the center of the dispute are former Centennial High School teachers Haley Beck and Angela Burlaka, who are accused of grooming or sending sexually explicit videos to the same student. The investigation into the two women opened in July 2026, and as of the most recent reporting, no criminal charges have been filed against either Beck or Burlaka. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has twice sent the case back to Peoria Police for further investigation — first in early April 2026, after Peoria Police had resubmitted felony charges that same month, and again in August 2026, per Arizona's Family.
Under Arizona law, executive session discussions are supposed to stay confidential.
A Board Already Split Along Familiar Lines
Thursday's vote did not come out of nowhere. In May 2026, the same governing board voted 3-2 to strip Rooks of her position as board president after she bypassed the board entirely and asked the Maricopa County Attorney's Office to investigate whether district administrators had violated mandatory reporting laws, according to KJZZ Phoenix. The board majority now contends Rooks overstepped again with her September interview, while Rooks has said other board members are targeting her.
The governance fight is unfolding against a far larger backdrop. Peoria Police executed an earlier search warrant at district headquarters and conducted a second search there in July 2026, seizing administrative records and documents, including items found in locked shredding boxes, as part of a probe into mandatory reporting compliance and teacher misconduct, according to the Arizona Globe. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said in May 2026 that Peoria Unified did not follow state reporting law, according to KTAR News.
Mounting Civil Claims and Leadership Turnover
The fallout has extended well beyond the board room. Centennial High School Principal Scott Hollabaugh resigned in May 2026, according to Arizona Globe. The district later appointed former athletic director Darian Schoolcraft as Centennial's new principal in a July 2026 vote that again split the board 3-2, with Rooks and Bowles objecting, according to FOX 10 Phoenix.
Civil liability has piled up alongside the criminal and administrative turmoil. A second former Centennial High School student filed a $7 million notice of claim against Peoria Unified in September 2026, accusing the district of failing to protect him from grooming, drug use, and exploitation by Beck, according to 12News. That claim followed an earlier $20 million notice of claim filed in June 2026 by another former student alleging sexual abuse and administrative failure to report grooming behaviors, bringing the total claimed damages to $27 million, per KJZZ Phoenix.
Both Beck and Burlaka were pushed out of the district before any criminal charges were determined. Burlaka surrendered her teaching certificate and was terminated on January 26, 2026, while Beck was terminated on March 26, 2026, following an internal Title IX investigation into sexual harassment policy violations, KTAR News reported. With the Maricopa County Attorney's Office having returned the case to police twice, and now a sitting board member facing possible state scrutiny over what she said about it on television, the question of who can speak publicly about the district's handling of the scandal remains unresolved.
