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Board holds first meeting of new school year

Posted 8/16/22

The Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board met last Wednesday, Aug. 10, for a regular business meeting. Superintendent Dr. Cain Jagodzinski said the first day went well across all …

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Board holds first meeting of new school year

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The Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board met last Wednesday, Aug. 10, for a regular business meeting. Superintendent Dr. Cain Jagodzinski said the first day went well across all three schools, and enrollment was higher than expected at each site.

The enrollment on the first day was 1,264 across the three schools. Jagodzinski said he expects the enrollment to drop slightly by the 100 day count, but it was a positive sign on the first day. Jagodzinski also talked about the positivity he felt among the staff during its week of professional development the week before school started.

The schools are implementing a new rewards system for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) for students in grades four through 12. Those students will have their behavior and rewards tracked on the app “PBIS Rewards,” while elementary students will still receive Falcon Feathers for good behavior.

Jagodzinski held his second coffee meeting with community members the morning of the Board meeting, and said he had a packed house for his first two meetings. Jagodzinski has been talking with stakeholders and asking for feedback. Jagodzinski is also working with high school Principal Chris Hartmann to create a Student Advisory Board.

There were no public comments made, and most of the action items addressed in the meeting were standard for the beginning of the year. The Board approved its annual agreement with East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT), and the Board appointed member Judith Rutkowski as the delegate to represent FHUSD at the Arizona School Boards Association Delegate Assembly.

The Board did make changes to its facility rental agreements and approved Visp, LLC, as a third-party technology service provider. The Board changed the rent manual to allow four new organizations to request to use facility space on campus for free: Kiwanis, the Fountain Hills Coalition, Rotary Club and Golden Eagle Education Foundation.

The organizations that will continue to be allowed to rent campus space for free are the PTO, Booster Club, the Town of Fountain Hills and groups for districtwide professional development. The goal of allowing community organizations access to campuses is to build relations between the schools and the community.

The Board also approved five books for high school supplemental reading before moving on to discussion items. Approved supplemental reading for freshmen English were “The Sun is also a Star,”by Nicola Yoon; “The Alchemist,”by Paulo Coelho; and “Dear Evan Hansen,”by Val Emmich. “The Picture of Dorian Gray,”by Oscar Wilde, and “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,”by Tom Stoppard, were both approved for AP Literature.

The Board spent the end of the meeting discussing substitute teacher pay and the Four Peaks campus. Jagodzinski has begun to collect data from the past few years to determine average spending on substitutes through ESI, the company FHUSD uses to hire subs.

Several of the businesses that occupy the Four Peaks campus are coming up on their next rent contract. The Board wants to collect more data and discuss options of what to do with the campus, and they briefly discussed the possibility of increasing the rent to use Four Peaks campus. The Board will work with the Facilities Use Committee to determine future options.

The next Board meeting will be a work study session on Wednesday, Aug. 24, at 5 p.m. The next business meeting will be Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 6 p.m. All Board meetings are held in the District Learning Center and livestreamed on YouTube.