A small school in the San Tan Valley area wants to grow from about 20 students to 35. Pinal County has put that decision off until November while a more basic question is answered: whether county zoning rules already allow the school to be there.

State 48 Arts and Academics, a nonprofit run by Karli Kemper, teaches on an acre and a half west of West Allen Road and North Royce Road, in the Chandler Heights Ranches neighborhood southwest of the Town of San Tan Valley. Classes are held in the house, a detached garage and two sheds. The land is unincorporated, so Pinal County, not the town, decides what can operate there.

The county got involved after neighbors filed a code complaint.

A woman who lives next door told the supervisors the school moved in about two years ago and that it has not been quiet since. The noise keeps her from opening her windows and doors, she said, and she counted 21 cars going in and out of the driveway in a single day. She and her husband built their house there 10 years ago for the quiet. A man who lives behind the property said the school is turning a rural residential lot into a commercial one.

Parents described a different property. Several said drop-off and pickup happen inside the gate, on a loop through the grounds. One said no more than 10 to 15 children are outside at any one time, for about 20 minutes a day. Families who drive in from Johnson Ranch and Morning Sun Farms said their children, including children with autism, ADHD and auditory processing disorder, had not done well in larger schools and are doing well in this one. One father said his 8-year-old son had never finished a full school year anywhere until he enrolled here.

Kemper applied for a special use permit, which is the county's permission to do something the zoning on a piece of land does not already allow. The application asks to allow up to 35 students, with hours of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. In July the county Planning and Zoning Commission voted 7-2 to recommend denying it, and listed 19 conditions to attach if the supervisors approved it anyway.

The supervisors were set to decide on Sept. 16. Instead they voted 3-2 to wait until Nov. 18 while Kemper pursues a different question.

What the Zoning Rules Say About Schools

The property is zoned General Rural, the county's category for large-lot rural land. The uses allowed there include churches, clubs, libraries, clinics, parks, playgrounds and, in the same list, "school."

The code does not say what "school" means there.

It defines a private school and a public school separately, and it does not define a microschool anywhere. County planning staff told the supervisors that Arizona law does not define one either, and that they reviewed the application as a private school because nothing else in the code fit.

Kemper is asking the county's Board of Adjustment, a five-member board that decides what the zoning rules mean when the wording is in dispute, to rule on whether the school already counts as a "school" under the General Rural rules.

The county requires a special use permit when a property's zoning does not otherwise allow the use. If the board finds the school already falls under the "school" use that General Rural zoning allows, that could remove the zoning reason for requiring the permit.

That would not automatically end the permit case. County rules let an applicant ask the supervisors to withdraw an application at this stage, and the supervisors decide whether to allow that or to hear the case anyway.

The answer would also change how the student numbers fit in. The General Rural rule that allows a "school" sets no limit on students. The 15-student and 49-student figures county staff mentioned at the hearing came from research into how other places handle microschools, not from Pinal County's code.

Microschools had already come up the last time the county set out to rewrite its zoning rules. A full rewrite released in January 2025 would have added them to the code. Supervisors canceled that draft the next month, after about 90 minutes of public comment, and told staff to start over. The replacement is being written one section at a time, and it has not reached schools yet.

Supervisor Stephen Q. Miller told the board he cannot define a microschool and wants the county to set numbers before it votes on one.

The words in dispute are not written for this property alone. They are part of the General Rural rules that apply to land across unincorporated Pinal County. A ruling would settle how the county reads that language. It would not change the zoning code, and county rules say each case is still decided on its own facts.

What Happens Next

Kemper told the supervisors she is aiming to have the Board of Adjustment take up the question at its Oct. 22 meeting. As of Sept. 19, the county had not posted that hearing.

The permit case returns to the supervisors on Nov. 18 at 9:30 a.m. at 135 N. Pinal St. in Florence, and the meeting can be watched live or afterward online. Supervisors reopened public comment when they delayed the case, so anyone can speak for or against the permit that day, whether or not they spoke in September.