The Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board met for a work study session last Wednesday, March 22. The Board discussed finances, consolidation and a rough draft of a new student code of conduct.

The Board will meet for a short special session at 5 p.m. tonight, Wednesday, March 29. They will convene to approve and submit a grant request for a new middle school gym floor, which if approved by the state, would provide $130,000 to replace the rubber flooring with wood floors.

Before discussions began at the March 22 meeting, the Board held district celebrations for Kim Flowers and the wrestling team and both boys and girls basketball teams. Both basketball teams made the playoffs, and the boys had the first undefeated regular season in school history. The wrestling Falcons sent six to the state tournament and had two place fourth in the state.

Flowers restarted the Veterans Heritage Project (VHP) Club at Fountain Hills High School this year, and she earned the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Arizona Teacher of the Year award. Flowers has also been nominated for the VFW national Teacher of the Year award, which will be announced this summer.

Sr. Vice Commander Bill Luzinski of the Fountain Hills VFW post 7507 presented the award to Flowers. Luzinski was one of several local veterans to share their story with students in VHP and have his story published in the book called, “Since You Asked.”

Consolidation

After public comments, the Board moved to discussion items. The discussion on finances was almost entirely limited in context to consolidation, which will now be done in phases. Superintendent Dr. Cain Jagodzinski shared his priorities with the Board to have the school buildings be safe and operable by the beginning of next school year.

Jagodzinski also said he is committed to having the playground, library and two team rooms finished at the new elementary school during the first phase of consolidation. Jagodzinski was tasked with raising enrollment when he was first hired as superintendent, and he said he's had a good start with the first enrollment increase in a decade, but also admits he has more work to do.

Jagodzinski has repeatedly framed consolidation as an investment in advertising for the district. The Board will start to see consolidation procurement items roll in at future meetings, and Jagodzinski reminded everyone that the $2.5 million consolidation budget comes from built up savings.

“There has to be something that brings more people in the door,” Jagodzinski said. “It hasn’t been state championships, academic excellence, small class size, small town community. None of that’s worked or we wouldn’t have 350 kids in Scottsdale. So, I’m trying something different.”

Code of conduct

The Board discussed more best practices to stay in tune with each other before moving on to the code of conduct. Jagodzinski said his understanding was that the current code of conduct was not utilized last year before he took over, and he and other administrators felt it needed improvement after it was put back in place.

Jagodzinski and Executive Director of Student Services Kris Alexander presented a 75-page rough draft of a new code of conduct. The existing code was only three pages, and Jagodzinski and Alexander drew inspiration from surrounding districts to widen the acts described in the code and include a scale for actions to be taken.

Staff

The Board wrapped up the meeting by quickly discussing the Pay for Performance Plan, and the job descriptions for an instructional coach and a school counselor.

Jagodzinski said the Pay for Performance Plan has hardly changed, except for an end-of-year survey to provide feedback to teachers. The plan was approved by staff during the meet and confer meetings.

FHUSD doesn’t have the ability to afford a full-time instructional coach, but they are looking for experienced staff to step up for additional pay. The instructional coach would help new teachers adjust to their positions and help prevent teacher burnout by being another form of support.

The counselor job description was modified to clarify the roles and gives more scope to the position. Board member Libby Settle asked to see the original job description to see the changes herself and also asked that all job description changes include the previous description at future meetings.

After the special meeting tonight, the next regular Board meeting will be a business meeting on Wednesday, April 12, at 6 p.m. All meetings are held in the FHUSD Learning Center and are recorded and livestreamed on the FHUSD YouTube channel.