Principals make pitch for override at board meeting

The Maricopa Unified School District held its first governing board meeting of the 2014-15 school year Wednesday.

In front of a crowd of mostly school administrators, Superintendent Steve Chestnut, Board President Torri Anderson and board members Patti Coutré and Leslie Carlyle-Burnett discussed topics including performance grades, current enrollment and performance pay for teachers.

During the Call to the Public, a few administrators made their pitch for the public to support the seven-year, 5 percent override for the MUSD on the November ballot.

“Arizona is 47th in education spending and we would have to have a 42 percent increase in spending per capita to reach the average levels of spending across the nation,” said June Celaya, Maricopa High School principal. “We cannot rely on Ak-Chin all the time. They are so gracious in helping us, now it’s time the community helps and supports us because we are here for them.”

“As an educator for the past 27 years, I can see the difference class sizes make on student achievement,” said Randy Lazar, Pima Butte Elementary School principal. “When class sizes are large in the primary grades with about 30 or 32 kids, it makes it very difficult for the teachers to work with the students and for the students to get that intensive interaction and education which students really need in those primary years.”

This override would give an extra $1.525 million in revenue to the district each year, and allow for the district to hire 22 more teachers and three more support staff members.

During the superintendent’s report, Chestnut went over the Arizona Department of Education grades for the schools in the district and highlighted the schools with the most progress.

Santa Cruz Elementary School made an 18-point jump from a “C” to a “B” grade, Maricopa Elementary made a 24-point jump from a “C” to a “B," and Maricopa Wells Middle School also made a 15-point jump and earned a "C."

“It gave me goose bumps when I saw some of those scores,” Chestnut said. “That is remarkable progress by those three schools.”

To view all of the district grades click here.

Chestnut also went over the up to date enrollment in the district for the 2014-15 school year, which is 6,067 students.

“It’s the first time since 2008 that the district has been above 6,000 students,” Chestnut said.

Next up MUSD Human Resources Director Tom Beckett presented the Pay for Performance draft to be voted on by staff once approved by the governing board.

In the proposal, teachers rated as highly-effective and effective in end of year evaluations would receive 100 percent of the performance bonus from the 301 fund, while partially effective teachers would earn 75 percent of the bonus and ineffective teachers would receive no bonus.

Anderson suggested altering the proposal so highly effective teachers would get 110 percent of the bonus, effective would get 100 percent of the bonus, and partially effective teachers would get 65 percent of the bonus.

“I think that teachers who are highly-effective teachers deserve more,” Anderson said. “Because they are going above and beyond what needs to be done.”

Beckett said the committee will meet one more time to discuss the pay for performance plan before presenting it to the governing board for approval and the district staff for a final vote.

The governing board also voted to allow home-school students to participate in extracurricular activities at the high school.

There is a state statute that grants home school students the ability to participate in extracurricular activities on the middle school level.