← Election Series · Down-ballot coverage · Arizona

No endorsement

The race

Tolleson Union High School District voters elect two members to four-year terms on November 3, 2026. Vote for up to two. All four candidates are principals in education-related litigation covered by The Arizona Republic — that is the Republic's characterization, and the reporting below bears it out. Every candidate carries a lawsuit; both slates carry a named organizational endorsement.

The certified roster is: Devin Del Palacio (incumbent; the certified list renders the name "Palacio, Devin"), Elda Luna-Najera (incumbent), Fernando Urbina, and Diann Amaro. The named endorsements, as reported by The Arizona Republic: the Tolleson Union Education Association (the district's teachers' union) supports Del Palacio and Urbina; Citizens for Schools Accountability, a nonprofit formed to demand accountability for district spending, supports Luna-Najera and Amaro. The district also asks voters to approve a $250 million bond and a 15% maintenance and operations override, covered in our measure coverage.

The candidates

Devin Del Palacio (incumbent). Del Palacio is a lifelong Arizona resident who first ran for this board in 2014 and was the first African American to serve on it, as reported by The Arizona Republic. He works as executive director of the Copper State Education Alliance and is a solar system ambassador for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He previously served as executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association; in 2024 he was accused of lying on his résumé about having a college degree, resigned, and created the Copper State Education Alliance — which the School Boards Association then sued in 2024, accusing it of illegally using the association's copyrighted material in a scheme to divert clients. That lawsuit is ongoing, per the Republic. The teachers' union supports him, its president saying the union backs him "based on the merits of his work with our school board."

Pros: A decade in and around this board and state education organizations, and the district teachers' union's named endorsement on the stated basis of his board work. Cons: The résumé-degree accusation and the association's ongoing lawsuit against his company are reported, unresolved and central — they concern exactly the honesty a board member's word runs on. We print them as allegations in an ongoing case, not as verdicts, and they are still facts voters must weigh.

Elda Luna-Najera (incumbent). Luna-Najera also serves in the Arizona House of Representatives, appointed in 2024 to replace her fellow board member Leezah Sun, as reported by The Arizona Republic. In 2025, while she was board president, Superintendent Jeremy Calles accused her of sexual harassment; the previous board announced an investigation had found a sexual relationship between the two, Calles filed a Title IX complaint, the next board declared the previous board's action retaliatory, and Calles was awarded a $450,000 settlement, per the Republic. Citizens for Schools Accountability supports her candidacy.

Pros: A sitting state representative and former board president with a named accountability organization's endorsement. Cons: The harassment complaint, the dueling board findings and a $450,000 settlement paid from the district's side of the fight are documented facts of her tenure — unresolved in the telling, expensive in the settling.

Fernando Urbina. Urbina graduated from Harvard University in 2022 with a degree in government, is the founder and CEO of a startup and serves on the board of the Greater Phoenix Equality Chamber of Commerce, as reported by The Arizona Republic. His stated priorities: investing more funds in classrooms, increasing school safety and adding counselors and mental health resources for students and educators. He has campaigned with Del Palacio and carries the teachers' union's support.

Pros: A published platform and the teachers' union's named support, campaigned as a slate with an incumbent the union credits for his board work. Cons: Unproven in elected office, four years out of college, and his slate-mate's litigation is part of the package voters are buying.

Diann Amaro. Amaro works as a paralegal and was the parent of a high school senior when she filed a federal lawsuit against the district and Superintendent Calles in October 2025, as reported by The Arizona Republic. Her suit claims she was banned from speaking at board meetings, where she frequently criticized the district, and accuses the district and Calles of violating her First Amendment rights. The case is ongoing. She also serves in a leadership capacity for Citizens for Schools Accountability, which supports her and Luna-Najera.

Pros: Her lawsuit is a First Amendment claim by a parent who says the district banned her from speaking for criticizing it — if the allegation holds, it is the board's own conduct on trial, and she is the one who filed it. Cons: She is asking voters to seat her on a board she is actively suing; that is a conflict voters should price openly, and her endorsement comes from an organization she helps lead.

OUR CALL

No candidate in this race reaches us clean enough to endorse, and we will not pretend the named endorsements settle it: the teachers' union backs one slate, the spending-accountability group backs the other, and each slate contains a candidate at the center of unresolved litigation about honesty, harassment or free speech. Our call: insufficient record — no endorsement. What would earn one: resolution of the School Boards Association's suit against Del Palacio's company, of the Luna-Najera/Calles complaints, or of Amaro's First Amendment case — verdicts, not allegations, are what an endorsement can stand on. Until then, Tolleson Union voters are choosing between lawsuits, and an honest guide prints exactly that.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

← Full down-ballot enumeration