CHESTNUT: District continues to show improvement

The 2013-14 school year is off to a good start. On Aug. 1, Arizona’s 2012-2013 A-F letter grades for all public schools and districts in the state were announced.

MUSD earned a district grade of “B” for 2012-2013. Pima Butte continued its streak as an “A” school for the fourth consecutive year. The following schools achieved a “B” grade for 2012-13: Butterfield, Saddleback, Santa Rosa elementary schools and Maricopa High School. Our other four schools earned grades of “C.”

I am very proud of our teachers and students for the excellent improvement on our AIMS test scores. There is still much progress that needs to be made, but we are improving as a school district.

On Aug. 2 we welcomed back 600 staff members, including three new principals. Gina Chaffin is the new principal at Santa Cruz, replacing Dr. John Flores, who retired. The new principal at Pima Butte is Randy Lazar, replacing Korrin Ledbetter, who also retired. At Desert Wind, Yvette Harpe is the new principal. She is replacing Dr. Joe Veres who took a new position with Grand Canyon University. We also welcomed Wade Watson, our new director of curriculum and instruction. He is replacing Dr. Ember Conley, who is the new superintendent in Park City, Utah.

We are very happy to welcome these four experienced administrators.

We had 5,600 students in attendance the first day. A historical pattern in our district is that enrollment grows slowly for the first two weeks. By Aug. 16 our enrollment grew to 5,766.

On Aug. 9, we were informed by the state that six of our schools will be considered charter schools this year: Butterfield, Maricopa, Saddleback, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa elementary schools and Maricopa Wells Middle School.***ADVERTISEMENT***State law requires one school at each level remains “traditional,” so Pima Butte Elementary, Desert Wind Middle School and Maricopa High School did not submit charter applications.

There will be no changes to educational programs at the six charter schools in 2013-14. However, beginning in September each school will hold a series of meetings with parents, staff and interested community members to develop an “academic focus” that will begin with the 2014-15 school year.

All nine schools will go through the same process, not just the six charter schools. Meeting dates will be announced soon.

The goal of MUSD is to be an “A” district with every school earning an “A.” We believe identifying the academic focus at each school will help us to reach that goal, and we are very excited to begin this process. It is going to be a great year.