During the summer of 2025, a contract between the East Valley Institute of Technology and eleven other school districts in Arizona expired. However, when EVIT proposed a new deal—one that would not only change the way EVIT itself is funded, but how our own school is as well—seven of those districts refused to sign off on it. But, they didn’t stop there, as both sides soon sued each other over what they claimed were attempts to swindle millions more of each other’s money for themselves.
For almost twenty-five years now, EVIT has been providing students with the hands-on-training they need to not only study in, but also succeed in their career of choice. However, they have one been able to provide such opportunities with the funding they receive from the state. Funding that they were required to share with all of the schools they chose to do business up until their aforementioned agreement came to an end. In the past, these schools would then use these funds to help pay for their own on-campus CTE courses, but this newest negotiation made by EVIT would set out to save more of that money for EVIT than ever before.
However, almost all of the school districts EVIT had worked with were not all too keen on the idea, as EVIT would get to keep millions more in the money provided to them by both the state and its own students. But, when EVIT refused to reassess, or even respond to the school districts concerns and complaints, seven of them—including Chandler Unified School District—filed a case against the trade school. Claiming that EVIT’s attempts to withhold what was supposed to be the district’s funding may lead to Arizonian schools being unable to pay for or even provide their own CTE classes…