Can an Arizona county get state education money for non-disabled adult inmates ages 18-21 who attend a jail education program?

Plain-English summary

The Pima County Attorney had concluded that any inmate aged 18 to 21 enrolled in the county jail's accommodation-school education program qualified the county for state education funding, because the program ran through a school district. Attorney General Mark Brnovich revised that opinion. He concluded that state funding only flows to two narrow groups: every inmate under age 18, and inmates with disabilities up to age 21. A non-disabled 19- or 20-year-old inmate sitting in the same classroom does not generate state aid.

The reasoning turns on reading A.R.S. § 15-913.01 as a whole. Subsection (A) tells counties what they must offer ("an education program to serve all prisoners who are under eighteen years of age and prisoners with disabilities who are age twenty-one or younger"). Subsection (C) sets the funding rate at 72% of accommodation-school per-pupil amounts for "each pupil enrolled in the accommodation school county jail education program." The AG read the funding language in (C) as referring back to the mandatory enrollees in (A). A general rule in (C) cannot override the specific definition in (A).

The AG also rejected three statutory cross-references the Pima County Attorney relied on (§§ 15-821(A), 15-797(A), and 15-361). § 15-821(A) is expressly subject to "any other law," and § 15-913.01 is exactly that kind of "other law." Even without that limiting clause, the more specific jail-education statute would control over general-admission statutes under standard canons of construction.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2019. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Historical context: what the opinion meant in 2019

For Pima County and other counties operating jail education programs

The opinion did not say a county could not offer education to non-disabled adult inmates. It said the state would not pay for it. A county that wanted to run that broader program had to fund it itself. Pima County had been making the program available to all inmates under 21 regardless of disability status, and the AG's reading meant only the under-18 and disabled-21-or-younger pupils could be claimed for state aid.

For corrections and juvenile-justice advocates

The line drawn here matched the federal IDEA framework: school districts have to provide special education through age 21, and that obligation reaches into county jails. Non-disabled adults who happen to be jailed do not have a comparable federal right to district-funded education. The opinion preserved the statutory floor without expanding it through state appropriations.

For accommodation school administrators

The funding formula in § 15-913.01(C) (72% of per-pupil accommodation-school funding) only applied to the two mandatory categories. The phrase "each pupil enrolled in the accommodation school county jail education program" in (C) was read narrowly, as a reference to (A), not as an open-ended invitation to count anyone the county chose to enroll.

Common questions

Q: Who exactly is the state required to fund through a county jail education program?
A: Two groups: (1) all inmates under age 18, and (2) inmates with disabilities who are age 21 or younger. A 19-year-old inmate without a documented disability is not in either group.

Q: Can a county still offer education to a 19- or 20-year-old non-disabled inmate?
A: Yes. Nothing in the opinion prohibits the county from providing the program. The opinion only addresses state funding. The county would have to pay for it from local funds.

Q: Does this opinion override the Pima County Attorney's earlier opinion?
A: Yes. Under A.R.S. § 15-253(B), the Pima County Attorney was required to submit the earlier opinion to the Attorney General, who then could "concur, revise or decline to review." This AG opinion expressly revised PCAO 2019-01.

Q: What about the general school-admission statutes the Pima County Attorney cited?
A: A.R.S. § 15-821(A) (admission of children 6-21 to schools), § 15-797(A) (alternative-education attendance counts), and § 15-361 (evening and night schools) are general statutes. § 15-913.01 specifically governs jail education programs. Under the canon that specific statutes control over general ones, § 15-913.01 wins.

Q: What's an "accommodation school"?
A: A school district set up under A.R.S. § 15-308 to serve students who don't fit into traditional schools. Counties operating jail education programs can run them through an accommodation school and qualify for the 72% funding rate in § 15-913.01(C), but only for the mandatory enrollees defined in (A).

Background and statutory framework

A.R.S. § 15-913.01 sets the floor for what counties must do for incarcerated youth. Subsection (A) requires every county that operates a jail to offer an education program for two categories: prisoners under 18, and prisoners with disabilities under 22. Subsection (C) gives the county a funding option: it may run the program through an accommodation school, in which case "each pupil enrolled in the accommodation school county jail education program shall be funded at an amount equal to seventy-two per cent" of the regular accommodation-school per-pupil amount.

Pima County had stretched the program to serve all inmates under 21 regardless of disability. The County Attorney read the (C) phrase "each pupil enrolled" as funding-eligible regardless of which category the pupil fell in. The AG rejected that reading, finding that (A) and (C) had to be read together. Read together, the funding in (C) is the funding for the mandatory program in (A), not for whatever broader program the county chose to operate.

Statutory-construction canons did the rest of the work. The general statute on school admission (§ 15-821(A)) opens with "Unless otherwise provided by … any other law," which the AG identified as a built-in deference to specific statutes like § 15-913.01. And the rule from Arden-Mayfair, Inc. v. State, Dep't of Liquor Licenses & Control, 123 Ariz. 340 (1979), applies broadly: when general and specific statutes touch the same subject, the specific one controls.

Citations and references

Statutes:
- A.R.S. § 15-913.01 (county jail education programs)
- A.R.S. § 15-308 (accommodation schools)
- A.R.S. § 15-821 (admission to public schools)
- A.R.S. § 15-253(B) (AG review of county attorney opinions on school matters)

Cases:
- Glazer v. State, 244 Ariz. 612 (2018), statute read as a whole
- Arden-Mayfair, Inc. v. State, Dep't of Liquor Licenses & Control, 123 Ariz. 340 (1979), specific statute controls over general

Source

• Landing page: https://www.azag.gov/opinions/i19-003-r19-010
• Original PDF: https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/files/2025-06/I19-003.pdf

Original opinion text

To:

Daniel Jurkowitz

Deputy County Attorney

Pima County Attorney

Question Presented

When a county offers a jail education program through an accommodation school under A.R.S. § 15-913.01(C), is the county eligible to receive state education funding for county jail prisoners who participate in the program and are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one but are not persons with disabilities?

Summary Answer

No. State education funding is available only for the two categories of prisoners for whom counties are required to offer a jail education program: (1) all prisoners who are under the age of eighteen, and (2) prisoners with disabilities who are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one.

Background

Under Arizona law, "[e]ach county that operates a county jail shall offer an education program to serve all prisoners who are under eighteen years of age and prisoners with disabilities who are age twenty-one or younger and who are confined in the county jail." A.R.S. § 15‑913.01(A). "A county may operate its county jail education program through an accommodation school that provides alternative education services pursuant to § 15-308." Id. § 15-913.01(C). If it does, then "each pupil enrolled in the accommodation school county jail education program shall be funded at an amount equal to seventy-two per cent of the amount for that pupil if that pupil were enrolled in another accommodation school program." Id.

Pima County operates a jail education program through the County's accommodation school. It has chosen to make that program available to prisoners who are twenty-one years old or younger regardless of whether they are persons with disabilities.

Pima County Attorney Opinion No. 2019-01 ("PCAO 2019-01") concluded that state education funding is available for all "children ages eighteen to twenty-one" who participate in this program, "since the education program is offered through a school district." Pursuant to A.R.S. § 15-253(B), the Pima County Attorney submitted PCAO 2019-01 to the Attorney General. That statute requires the Attorney General to "concur, revise or decline to review" county attorneys' opinions relating to school matters. This Opinion revises PCAO 2019-01.

Analysis

Statutory interpretation begins—and, where the language is unambiguous, ends—with the statute's plain language. Glazer v. State, 244 Ariz. 612, 614, ¶ 9 (2018). This "'plain language' interpretation does not focus on statutory words or phrases in isolation." Id., ¶ 10. Instead, "'[w]ords in statutes should be read in context in determining their meaning,'" and "'[i]n construing a specific provision, we look to the statute as a whole.'" Id. (quoting Stambaugh v. Killian, 242 Ariz. 508, 509, ¶ 7 (2017)).

Read as a whole, § 15-913.01 leaves no doubt that state education funding is available only for the two categories of prisoners to whom counties must offer jail education programs. As noted, paragraph (A) of that statute sets forth the parameters of the jail education programs that counties are required to provide: "Each county that operates a county jail shall offer an education program to serve [1] all prisoners who are under eighteen years of age and [2] prisoners with disabilities who are age twenty-one or younger and who are confined in the county jail." A.R.S. § 15-913.01(A). Paragraph (C) then sets forth the state funding that is available when a county chooses to operate such a program through an accommodation school: "[E]ach pupil enrolled in the accommodation school county jail education program shall be funded at an amount equal to seventy-two per cent of the amount for that pupil if that pupil were enrolled in another accommodation school program." Id. § 15-913.01(C). That paragraph's reference to funding for "each pupil enrolled" cannot be read in isolation to mean that funding is available for any student whom a county chooses to enroll in its jail education program. Id. (emphasis added). Instead, paragraphs (A) and (C) must be read together as part of the same statutory whole. See Glazer, 244 Ariz. at 614, ¶ 10. And read together their meaning is clear: state funding is available only for the two categories of prisoners to whom counties must offer a jail education program: (1) all prisoners under the age of eighteen, and (2) prisoners with disabilities who are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one.

The Pima County Attorney's contrary conclusion—that all "children ages eighteen to twenty-one in a jail education program through an accommodation school . . . are eligible for state education funding" because "the education program is offered through a school district"—is incorrect. The County Attorney reasoned that under A.R.S. §§ 31-121(A) and 15-824(B), county jail prisoners reside within the Pima Accommodation School District; and under § 15-821(A), "all schools shall admit children who are between the ages of six and twenty-one years, who reside in the school district and who meet the requirements for enrollment in one of the grades or programs offered in the school." But it does not follow that § 15-821 requires that accommodation school county jail education programs must admit all county jail prisoners under the age of twenty-one. Section 15-821(A) begins with the limiting clause "[u]nless otherwise provided by . . . any other law," and § 15-913.01(A)—which defines the two categories of prisoners to whom counties must offer jail education programs—is such an "other law."

Even without the express limitation in § 15-821(A), principles of statutory interpretation require that the more specific definition in § 15-913.01(A) apply here. "When provisions of a general statute are inconsistent with those of a special nature on the same subject, the special statute controls." Arden-Mayfair, Inc. v. State, Dep't of Liquor Licenses & Control, 123 Ariz. 340, 342 (1979). Section 15-821 governs admission to all public common and high schools in Arizona. Section 15-913.01 specifically governs county jail education programs. If they were in conflict, § 15-913.01 would control over § 15-821.

Section 15-913.01 also would control over the other two, more general statutes on which the County Attorney relied: § 15-797(A), which generally provides that school districts may count pupils for daily attendance if they are enrolled in and attending an alternative education program; and § 15-361, which provides that school districts may establish evening or night schools open to children between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one. Both of these general statutes would yield to § 15-913.01, which specifically governs county jail education programs.

Conclusion

The State must provide funding to a jail education program only for those two categories of prisoners identified in A.R.S. § 15-913.01(A)—(1) all prisoners under eighteen years of age, and (2) prisoners with disabilities who are age twenty-one or younger.

Mark Brnovich

Attorney General