Phoenix Union Honors Employees of the Year

Central Teacher Maria Chacon; Metro Tech Principal Kate McDonald; Camelback Student-Parent Liaison Monica Meza; Cesar Chavez Lead Security Kevin Scroggins, and Suns-Diamondbacks Education Academy Principal Rick Beck were presented with Phoenix Union High School District 2010 Employee of the Year awards by Superintendent Kent P. Scribner at the District’s Opening of Schools Convocation, Tuesday.

Chacon is a social studies teacher who models rigor and relevance and inspires staff and students with her own life story. She has taught for four years, but is Central’s World History Professional Learning Community (PLC) leader, AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) history teacher, and has constructed her social studies curriculum to press students toward excellence in writing. Born in Chihuahua, Mexico and a Central High graduate, she has enhanced cultural awareness on the campus. She created Los Linces, a ballet folklorico group, bringing in a professional instructor, purchasing and making costumes and booking performances throughout the city. The MECHA club sponsor, Chacon is instrumental in the school’s multicultural programs, including the school’s Peace on Earth Day.

McDonald is truly an instructional leader at Metro Tech High School. The school has been Performing Plus for several years, meets Adequate Yearly Progress, and consistently turns in some of the top AIMS scores in the District. McDonald secured the largest school grant ever from Science Foundation Arizona to implement a sustainability program which was infused across the curriculum, and student-driven projects in sustainability have emerged all over campus. Metro Tech opened the state’s first student-run Credit Union on a high school campus and the school’s automotive department has reached the highest certification possible to train aspiring auto technicians. A two-time National Board Certified Teacher, she co-taught a humanities course with her administrative team last semester to stay actively involved in pedagogy and assessment. McDonald has been Metro’s principal for two years. She was the District’s Language Arts Content Specialist, and taught English at South Mountain and Alhambra during her 20 years in Phoenix Union.

Two employees were named Support Staff Employees of the Year. Meza assists English Language Learner students and families with success in school. She makes home visits, facilitates support groups and is a member of the school’s Intervention Team. One colleague says, We feel as though she is an angel on our campus. Meza began her career at Camelback in 1998 as an Instructional Assistant.

Scroggins sets the tone for campus safety, customer service and respect for students and staff at Cesar Chavez, where he has worked for six years. He demonstrates leadership, professionalism, experience and communication skills, particularly with conflict resolution. He goes out of his way to help students, even outside the school environment, working with them in the community. Says his co-workers, he mentors, mediates and guides students as they search for ways to be successful. His position is that when a student fails, he fails.

Beck, Special Achievement Employee of the Year wears all the hats at his small school, Suns-Diamondbacks Education Academy. He is part principal-part staff. He started the school 10 years ago, and has watched it grow out of its original location, as he and his staff have turned over 800 would-be dropouts into high school graduates. He never turns down an opportunity to serve our students and parents. Our school would have never become what it is without him, said one staff member. Beck has been with the District for 23 years as a special education teacher at Metro Tech and South Mountain.

Phoenix Union Certified and Support Staff Employees of the Year were selected by a committee of peers, based on nominations made up of school and site Employees of the Year. Phoenix Union employs over 2800 people, including approximately 1700 teachers. The following is a list of Certified and Support Staff Employees of the Year, by school.

Alhambra: Michelle Gutierrez, Counselor; Joe Sells, Lead Security.
Trevor Browne: Cecilia Moreno, Business Teacher -Instructional Leader; Cookie Byler, SPED Admin. Assistant.
Camelback: Michelle Charles, Nurse; Monica Meza, ELL Liaison.
Cesar Chavez: Rayna Aguilar, SPED Math Teacher; Kevin Scroggins, Lead Security.
Central: Maria Chacon, Social Studies Teacher; Patty Harris, Registrar.
Betty Fairfax: Sandra Baker, Math Teacher - Instructional Leader; Rose Hendrix, Credentials Specialist.
Carl Hayden: Tom Brewer, Science Teacher; Frances Figueroa, IMC Coordinator.
Maryvale: Robert Turley, Instructional Specialist; Sandra Aguilar, Senior Security Assistant.
Metro Tech: Sarah Endres, SPED Teacher; Lizeth Garay, Credential Specialist.
North: John Patrick Doherty, Math Teacher; Chris Montenegro, Campus Operations.
South Mountain: Shannon Sanderson, English Teacher; Rosa Noel, Library Computer Tech Asst.
Small Schools: Yunbo (Crystal) Gu, ESL Teacher, Bostrom; Natasha Foster, Senior Office Assistant, Bostrom
Plant Operations: Tony Scarfo, Quality Assurance Tech.
District Office: Russ Shaffer, Science Content Specialist; Dean Walker, Maintenance Tech.

Achievement Labels and NCLB Designations Released

Bioscience High School earned an Excelling label, North High was Highly Performing and eight of 14 Phoenix Union schools received State Achievement Profiles of Performing Plus or better, according to accountability labels released today by the Arizona Department of Education.

The No Child Left Behind federal accountability measure of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) were also released today.

The rankings are based, in part, on 2010 AIMS Spring results. The District saw a seven-point gain in 10th Grade AIMS Reading, a slight gain in Writing scores, but its Math scores, like scores throughout the state, dropped.

Five schools-Betty Fairfax, Franklin Police and Fire, Metro Tech, Bioscience and Cyber met AYP.

Bioscience earned an Excelling label for the third consecutive year, with 89 percent of its 10th graders passing AIMS Math, 99 percent passing Reading and 92 percent meeting the Writing standards. In Math, 26 percent of the students exceeded the standards.

North High School earned a Highly Performing label, climbing two rankings from last year’s Performing mark.

Metro Tech registered Performing Plus for the third year in a row and was joined by Cesar Chavez, Central, Maryvale, Trevor Browne and Franklin Police and Fire. Every other school was Performing.

The State Achievement Profiles are Underperforming, Performing, Performing Plus, Highly Performing and Excelling. Performing Plus recognizes schools that have enough students demonstrating proficiency to earn a Highly Performing or Excelling profile, but do not have a sufficient number of students who exceed the AIMS standards. Performing means that a school meets the state’s expectations with regard to student proficiency in reaching the state’s academic standards.
The Achievement Profiles are part of the state’s accountability system, Arizona LEARNS, that evaluates school performance based on AIMS results for 10th, 11th and 12th graders, five-year graduation and dropout rates. Credit is also given to schools that meet the federal government’s Adequate Yearly Progress requirement.

Meeting the federal AYP standards means that schools have met achievement targets on the 10th grade AIMS tests in math and reading, four-year graduation rates and have 95% or more test takers in each subgroup. Besides the overall 10th grade population, there are eight sub groups (Hispanic, Black, White, Asian, Native American, English Language Learners (ELL), Special Ed, and low income). For a school to meet AYP, it must meet AYP in each of 63 categories. If a school misses in one of those categories, the school does not meet AYP. The Phoenix Union schools that fell short did not meet achievement targets in Special Ed and/or ELL subgroups.

The District gained 7 percentage points in 10th grade AIMS reading to 67, and 1 point in writing to 57, but fell 9 points in math. The state average for math also dropped 8 points to 58 percent of students passing. Every school except Bioscience saw drops in math, some in double digits.

We are reflective of the entire state with our math scores. This year’s AIMS math test was a new test that was not only longer, but aligned more closely to the national core standards of math, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction and Accountability Deborah Gonzalez said. The bright spot is that we nearly doubled the percentage of students that exceeded math (from 7 to 13%).

The District’s reading scores moved to 67 percent, with every school making reading gains, except one, which showed no growth. Eleven of the 14 schools improved in both reading and writing scores.

Phoenix Union made modest gains in reaching the state averages in each category, improving reading by 4, math by 2 and writing by 1 point over last year.

One group of students that experienced AIMS success benefited from the AVID program, or AdvancementVia Individual Determination. The program identifies students in the academic middle and places them in an elective class that focuses on college preparation. For the second consecutive year, over 80% of 10th graders in the AVID elective met or exceeded AIMS Reading and Writing the first time, compared to non-AVID students. Reading scores were at 85 percent passing compared to 65 percent non-AVID. Writing was at 85 percent for AVID students compared to 58 percent for non-AVID. At a few schools, there was more than a 30 percentage point difference between the two groups.

2010 Arizona LEARNS Achievement Profiles
Central High School - Performing Plus

NCLB AYP
No

Click here to download the Phoenix Union High School District AIMS 2010 (10th Grade) scores.

Source: Phoenix Union High School District

Phoenix Union High School District Classes Start August 2

Betty H. Fairfax High School’s first senior class as well as over 500 incoming freshmen, Bioscience High School’s new McKinley Hall and a new location for Suns-Diamondbacks Education Academy will highlight the opening of the Phoenix Union High School District’s 2010-2011 school year that begins Monday, August 2 for over 25,000 students at 16 campuses.

Franklin Police and Fire High School will house a complete 9-12-grade school for the first time, and specialty programs will kick off at several schools, including Camelback’s School of Sustainability, Engineering and Architectural Design; Central’s School of Global Business and International Studies and Alhambra’s Medical Arts Pathways.

Betty Fairfax in Laveen will grow to over 2,000 students with a full compliment of ninth through twelfth-graders for the first time. The Class of 2011, which opened the school in August of 2007, will be the first graduating class next May.

Bioscience High School’s campus is complete with the restoration of the original McKinley School and construction of an adjacent building on the two-acre downtown campus to house a Medical Sciences school with five classrooms, a lab, conference room, technology center and student services office. The City of Phoenix provided a $2.4 million Small Schools grant to fund the project. The main school complex was completed in 2008.

Suns-Diamondbacks Education Academy moves to a new building at 2920 N. 7th Street to accommodate the alternative school’s growing enrollment. The school, beginning its 10th year, has rescued hundreds of at-risk students from dropping out with a more personalized accelerated credit recovery program. Suns-Diamondbacks began at 1505 N. Central Avenue, and has graduated over 800 students since 2001.

Phoenix Union schools follow a traditional school calendar. There are 180 instructional days, with 90 days in each semester. Students have fall break, October 4-8, a two-week winter break beginning Friday, December 17, and spring break, March 14-18. Graduation Days are May 18-19.

Students not yet pre-registered can enroll at the schools in their attendance zone. Students need a birth certificate, two proofs of address and immunization records. Incoming 9th graders who have not pre-registered will need AIMS test scores and an 8th grade diploma. Those from other high schools outside the district will need unofficial transcripts from their last school.

Students interested in enrolling in magnet programs offered at six campuses or the magnet high school, Metro Tech can contact the school, or magnet office at (602) 764-1309. Magnet programs and small schools Bioscience and Franklin Police and Fire afford open enrollment to anyone residing in the District.

Source: Phoenix Union High School District