Superintendents from local public, private and charter school districts exercised their collective brainpower to address financing, teacher evaluation, student achievement and other education-related issues during a panel discussion Dec. 1 at Kyrene district offices.
Included among the group of public school representatives were Superintendent of the Kyrene School District Dr. David Schauer, Superintendent of the Tempe Union High School District Steve Adolph and Superintendent of the Tempe Elementary School District Dr. Art Tate.
Pat O’Brien, superintendent of Summit School of Ahwatukee, a private school, also spoke regarding the workings of a private school district, and Jeff Sawner, superintendent of Ed Options High School, a charter school, addressed similar topics.
Schauer commented on the eligible forms of financing for public school districts, referencing two measures put on the ballot in the last election. While the Kyrene district’s bond recently passed, supporting facility improvements and maintenance, an override for implementing more technology in classrooms failed by 96 votes, he said.
“Unfortunately, the override did not pass, which is the first time in our history that that has happened,” Schauer said. “We know we need to do a better job of educating our community on what that (override) is.”
Schauer said the Kyrene district still has two more opportunities to put the matter on the ballot before funding goes away.
Summit School’s O’Brien said he is trying to plow as much money as he can afford back into the classrooms. One of his main focuses was on keeping class sizes low. Summit currently has an average class size of 18 students.
Sawner, of Ed Options, said the school is eligible to accept donations that will go directly into the classrooms because the school it is a 401C3 non-profit organization.
“The biggest part of our funding is based on our attendance – average daily memberships, because we are an independent public school,” Sawner said. “But, we are unable put things out on bond, or out to vote.”
Other remarks dealt with teacher certification requirements and special-needs programs in public, private and charter schools.
“All of the teachers in the Tempe Union High School District have a minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree, and the vast majority of our teachers also possess Master’s Degrees,” Adolph said. “Every teacher who teaches for us also has to pass both parts of the teacher proficiency exam.”
O’Brien said Summit School (pre-school through the eighth grade) is focused on hiring “qualified, experienced and certified teachers,” although the school has more latitude as to what certifications are required.
Overall, the superintendents agreed that the competition between public, private and charter schools encourages educational growth of each district and school.
“When parents do have choices, they can go somewhere for a specific type of program; we need to be thinking about if we should be offering some of those same choices or maybe different choices,” Schauer said.
Schauer noted that the organization of school districts in Arizona could use improvement.
“We have a very inefficient system in Arizona of organizing school districts,” Schauer said.
“So, you have these separate little entities that are all providing services…and we’ve seen efforts for unification, yet that flies in the face of creating all of these separate entities; there could be a much more streamlined way to do this.”
