The Fountain Hills Unified School District community extends a sincere welcome to everyone to the 2019-2020 school year. I am excited to begin my second year as superintendent and meet our new and returning families. I hope the open houses in the past week provided a great opportunity to meet teachers and get updated with school and classroom practices.
As our new kindergarten students enter as the graduating class of 2033, it is interesting to take a brief look back at the history of FHUSD. Fountain Hills School District began in Sept. 1974 as an elementary district with 150 students using a temporary school building on Colony Drive. The first permanent district school was Four Peaks Elementary, which opened in April 1975. High school students during those years typically attended Coronado and Saguaro High Schools in Scottsdale. We became a K-12 unified district in 1992 with the 1993-94 senior class being the first to graduate from FHHS with 95 students.
There have been many changes over the years with the addition of McDowell Mountain Elementary School in 1986 and Fountain Hills Middle School in 2002. For this year, we are opening our doors to approximately 1,400 students in grades K-12, plus a preschool enrollment beginning with 40 students.
As we embark on our 46th year as a school district, we welcome new staff to our administrative, instructional and support teams. But we also recognize long-serving employees who have worked for FHUSD since the 1990’s. Current staff hired in 1999 or earlier include Darlene Matus, Kathleen Rawn, Cynthia Keith, Flor Lisa Rivera-Cartagine, Laurel Cundiff, Linda Ness and Wendy Bozzi at McDowell Mountain Elementary; Deborah Jones, Susan Hare and Adrienne Larson at Fountain Hills Middle School; and Dr. Paul McElligott, Debra Petrick, Karla Primosch, Kate Pruett and Jodi Langworthy at Fountain Hills High School. District office staff with over 20 years of service are Eloyse Jones, Margaret Ziefert and Jeanette Simmons.
From the excitement and enthusiasm of new children and new staff to the depth of experience from long-time families and employees, welcome to a new year with FHUSD. We greatly appreciate the continuing community support on the journey to “achieve and celebrate educational excellence.”
