Fountain Hills Unified School District staff are already preparing for the first day of school on Thursday, August 3. Consolidation and scheduling changes will impact each grade level, every staff member and student, but FHUSD administration hopes to make the transition to new systems as seamless as possible.

The consolidation plan will turn the kindergarten wing in last year’s McDowell Mountain Elementary School into Little Falcons Preschool and convert last year’s middle school into the new McDowell Mountain Elementary School. Fountain Hills Middle school will return to the original campus shared with the high school.

There are still gates on campus from the initial designs that divide the middle school buildings from the high school buildings. There is a different drop-off zone, and each school will have a different lunch time to keep the students separated.

The elementary school served grades K-3 and the middle school taught grades 4-8, but now will be aligned to teach grades K-5 and 6-8, respectively. Superintendent Dr. Cain Jagodzinski believes this alignment and new program offerings will help continue to grow enrollment after FHUSD saw its first increase in years during the 2022-23 academic year.

FHUSD administration is introducing a new trimester schedule to the middle and high schools and tweaking the scheduling for the elementary school. Elementary students will have staggered learning sessions, two recess breaks and built-in “Intervention and Enrichment” times to assist students in areas they are struggling in.

Fourth and fifth grade students will pilot the ASU Next Education Workforce Model. The model turns individual grade teachers into a team of educators with distributed expertise. The new schedule at McDowell Mountain will also allow for 400 minutes of daily instructional time compared to 395 minutes in the previous model.

The purpose in changing schedules is to improve overall student performance and allow for more planning and collaboration time for teachers. Kris Alexander, FHUSD’s executive director of student services, described the trimester as having “all the benefits of block scheduling, without the built-in problems.”

High school students will take five classes per term instead of six, and middle schoolers will take six classes per term instead of seven. Students will be able to put more energy into fewer classes per term, all while getting 58 hours of additional instruction time over the year at both sites.

Each trimester will be 60 days long compared to 90 in a semester. Students can retake classes that they failed in the next trimester, and they’ll receive interventions regularly in hopes of reducing failure rates.

Students will be able to take more electives in a trimester schedule and take sport electives for the first time next year. P.E. teachers and coaches will be able to work on skill development frequently with athletes and other students interested in learning and improving their abilities.

Students will still take core classes like English, math, science and social studies, and they’ll have an easier path to graduation. The state of Arizona requires high school students to successfully earn 22 credits to graduate. Fountain Hills High School’s semester schedule offered a maximum of 22 credits, but now students can earn more than 25 credits through trimester scheduling.

The trimester schedule also incorporates a new senior project as a graduation requirement. The goal of the project is to help seniors discover interests in available career paths, gain a deeper understanding of expectations in the workplace, and practice the process of getting a job.

Students will have four options to complete the senior project: an unpaid internship, an internship through their EVIT Career Technical Education program, and an alternative research project into their chosen field. Some students are already employed as a necessity, and they will be allowed to use their job for the project upon approval.

Students will need to interview someone in their field for the research project and interview their employer if they use their job for the project. All options require students to take the Naviance Career Aptitude Test, work a minimum of 40 hours, and give a presentation at the end of the year to a panel including an assistant principal, an advisor and a community member.

FHUSD administration thinks the project will help build relationships with the community and Chamber of Commerce. According to Alexander, 92.2% of parents surveyed wanted their students to complete an internship, and 91% of students asked in focus groups felt they would benefit from the opportunity.

Jagodzinski introduced FHUSD’s “Portrait of a Graduate” this past March. It identifies six skills needed to be successful in school and beyond, and Jagodzinski hopes the senior project will emphasize the importance of each one. The attributes FHUSD hopes to foster in each student are leadership, critical thinking, communication, responsibility, self/goal-directed and problem-solving capabilities.