May 14, 2021
Home of the Falcons!
"We Achieve and Celebrate Educational Excellence"
Falcon Focus
Photo courtesy of azcentral.com "The Phoenix Area's 5 Most Beautiful Schools" April 2015
A Message From The Superintendent

Happy Friday Families,
 
This has been such an exciting week at the schools but more so at Fountain Hills Middle School. If you follow the FHMS Facebook page, you saw Mr. Markle taped to the wall by the students. This was an auction item from the PTO Gala where parents could purchase a roll of duct tape for $5. Students could continue to purchase duct tape at the school and the money was donated back to PTO.
THEN…..the students have been collecting cereal boxes for Cereal Box Dominos. Before the boxes were used for Cereal box dominos, they served as a jail for Mr. Markle and Mr. Dellacona to raise funds for PTO. The boxes were set up around the inside of the school and knocked over to set up the domino effect. The students enjoyed all the fun events that took place at the middle school to give back to our community and organizations that serve children. All the cereal boxes were donated to Extended Hands Food Bank after the event. 
Summer School 
We received ESSER II money to fund summer school at the middle and high school. If you are interested in having your child attend summer school at either school, please let the principals know to get your student a seat. The classes will be in-person learning with a real live teacher. We are focusing on English and Mathematics this summer. While seats are somewhat limited based on staff capacity, we will do our best to get everyone who would like to come to summer school enrolled and this program is FREE!!!. The ESSER II program does not cost families a thing. We are even offering transportation for your students. We are offering the traditional summer school at the High School through SchoolsPLP where students have a variety of offerings to apply towards their graduation requirements. The virtual academy summer school costs $200 per semester per course. At the high school, contact the counselors for registration in either the ESSER II summer program or the Fountain Hills Virtual Academy summer school. You can register for the FHVA summer school through RevTrak on the district website.
Summer Athletics
We had a snafu in getting the summer athletic schedule up in RevTrak for last Friday’s roll out. We’ve simplified the schedule and offerings for this summer. If a coach will be offering K-4 sports, a flyer will come home with information with how to pay for the program.  The brochure for summer sports is attached.


With two weeks of school left, I want to assure you that we will continue to wear masks and follow our COVID mitigation strategies. We want to thank ALL the families and staff who voiced their opinions about masking both pro and con. This past week, we received information about the different strategies to prevent the spread of coronavirus which causes COVID-19. Researchers surveyed more than 600,000 families across the country whose children attended 130,000 schools and the different mitigation strategies including teacher and student masking, daily symptom screenings, restricting entry to schools, creating extra space among students/staff, preventing the sharing of supplies, cohorting students, reducing class sizes, closing the cafeteria and playground, barring in-person extracurricular activities, holding classes outside, and having students attend part-time. “The researchers found no single mitigation strategy eliminated the risk of moving to in-person schooling, but families whose children attended schools that collectively implemented seven or more strategies had no greater risk of illness than families whose students did not attend school in person.” (Sparks, 2021). You can find the article to the research at this link. Our district has fared far better for school attendance and remaining open throughout this school year than others largely due to our COVID mitigation and our families attention to the health of their students. We have masks galore – if your child finds that theirs is in need of replacing, we can assist with that. Thank you so much for partnering with us to keep everyone safe. As we move into summer school, we are considering having masks be optional for students. More to come on that next week.
 
Have a great weekend. We look forward to seeing you at all the events over the next two weeks.

Kelly Glass
Superintendent
Fountain Hills Unified School District
Year End Message From The
FHUSD Governing Board

Dear Families, Staff, and Community Members, 
 
As the school year draws to a close for families and most district staff, we send you our thanks. Let us observe the year’s end as a milestone not just for students who are promoting to another building or officially becoming alumni of our district, but for each student and staff member who has labored during uncertain times and in sometimes difficult learning and working conditions to reach this point. 
 
Over the next several weeks there are numerous events taking place, from this week’s Senior Recognition to performing arts concerts and promotion and graduation ceremonies. You may very well see Governing Board members at these events as we join in the celebrations across FHUSD.   
 
When the majority of the district begins summer break at the end of May, administration and the Governing Board will continue to work through the end of June to finalize preparations for next school year and beyond. We take a short break in July and pick up the reigns again prior to August. 
 
We shared a mid-year update in the February 5, 2021 Falcon Focus. At that time, we indicated that the five main areas for the 2020-2021 school year we tasked Superintendent Glass to work on were: (1) Special education; (2) Discipline policies; (3) Academic rigor; (4) Communications from the district and schools; and (5) Unification of our three school sites across curriculum, processes, and practices.  
 
Within that Falcon Focus issue (02/05/2021) we also provided an update as to current progress. Since that time Superintendent Glass and district leadership have: 
  • Developed a Special Education manual that will provide both families and staff with common processes and procedures to ensure the success of all students.  Because of COVID restrictions at the end of the 19-20 school year and beginning of 20-21 school year, site level Special Education staff worked diligently to ensure that students were receiving a free and appropriate education. Meetings with parents of students with special needs have taken place to better understand the celebrations, concerns, and needs of their children.  We are using this information to improve the work we do with our children. 
  • Completed the required professional development (training) for site leads at each school for the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program. This is one of the first steps in the rollout of PBIS across our district. PBIS is an evidence-based initiative to address student behavior, promote social competence and academic achievement and other positive outcomes. PBIS will be in place for each site at the start of the 2021-2022 school year. For more information on PBIS, visit PBIS.org. 
  • Continued to dig into academic standards at each site to better align curriculum with current state standards and provide teachers what they need to be successful.  To this end, Beyond Textbooks, which is already in place at the middle and high schools, is being implemented at the elementary school. For more information on Beyond Textbooks, visit FHUSD Beyond Textbooks. Specific to the high school, analysis has been completed of the CTE (Career and Technical Education) offerings on-site as well as through our educational partners (EVIT, MCC) with actions underway to have new course options available for our students at the FHHS campus; a thorough review of the AVID (Achievement Via Individual Determination) program was completed and enhancements have been embedded to align with the national standards; and review of the AP (Advanced Placement) and dual- and concurrent enrollment options and offerings will begin later this summer. 
  • Worked on providing more frequent, timely and transparent communications across the district. Many of you may have participated in the Panorama survey(s) issued earlier this spring. A portion of that parent survey asked about methods of communication. We will be using the survey data to shape our communication strategy and approach moving forward. 
  • Continued unification of the school sites in multiple ways, including the previously mentioned rollout of PBIS and utilizing Beyond Textbooks at all school sites. Committees focused on technology, attendance, cultural inclusivity, DERT (District Emergency Response Team) and other topics have been formed consisting of staff across school and district sites as well as parents. These committees provide a range of viewpoints from various stakeholders and contribute to creating a unified view and approach to their areas of focus across the sites within our district. If you are interested in participating on any committee, please reach out to Superintendent Glass.  

Sincerely, 
FHUSD Governing Board 
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