On October 11, 2025, Madicyn Reid resigned her position as a member of the Fountain Hills Unified School District (FHUSD) Governing Board. The resignation was effective immediately and follows the February 20, 2024, resignation of Libby Settle. Both Reid and Setttle homeschooled their children and during their campaigns were vocal critics of the FHUSD.
Settle and Reid, both elected in the November 6, 2022 General Election, appeared to embrace many of the concerns about public education voiced by Moms for Liberty (M4L). Although M4L describes itself as a national “parental-rights advocacy group” its mission appears to be undermining financial support for public education through the promotion of school-choice policies, vouchers and education savings accounts, while at the same time, transforming the curricula and policies of those schools able to withstand the loss of funding, to comport with their ultra-conservative vision.
From its founding in 2021, M4L has revealed itself as a leader in the culture wars. Initially, focused on Covid related mask mandates and school closures, the group shifted to efforts to divert much needed revenue from public education and assume control over school curricula and policies.
M4L has supported removing curricula addressing sexual orientation and gender identity and systemic racism and racial inequality. M4L has attacked policies supporting the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion in public instruction and has led the charge in removing books from public school libraries they deem to culturally inappropriate.
“They really are seeking to undermine public education holistically and to divide communities,” said Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director for research, reporting and analysis at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In 2022, when Reid and Settle were elected, M4L was intent on gaining control of the governing boards of public schools throughout the country by endorsing and supporting candidates that shared their views. This effort was successful. It was reported that in 2022, more than half of the 500 M4L endorsed candidates for school boards won their elections. https://whyy.org/articles/election-2024-moms-for-liberty/ Since that time M4L’s influence on voters appears to have diminished. In 2023 approximately one-third of the organization’s endorsed candidates were elected and that downward trend appears to be continuing, due in signifciant part to the organized efforts by Teachers’ Unions and LGBTQ+ Advocacy Groups to oppose their efforts. https://www.the74million.org/article/moms-for-liberty-has-lost-ground-at-the-polls-but-it-still-wields-influence/
With Reid now out of the picture, it will be up to Maricopa County School Superintendent Shelli Boggs to fill the vacancy on the FHUSD Governing Board. Applications to fill the vacancy were due on December 1, 2025. Applicants must be Arizona residents, live in the district and cannot be FHUSD employees.
The next regular FHUSD Governing Board election will be held during the General Election on November 3, 2026. In 2024, Councilmember Gayle Earle’s, daughter-in-law, Ashley Earle, announced that she was forming a local chapter of M4L. It appears likley, that in the coming months, M4L will recruit and support candidates to fill the vacant seats on the FHUSD Governing Board . We will be watching.
