by Zach Richter Today Publications

On January 20, 2010 approximately 150 people attended the second of two Apache Junction Unified School District (AJUSD) meetings on proposed school closures.

Thunder Mountain may be open for its last semester

District Superintendent  Dr. Chad Wilson began the meeting by outlining the importance of the task the school board has in front of it. " Choices and decisions we make here will affect the entire district," he said.  "The decision whether or not to close the schools has to match the expectations we have for the future."

The current proposal is to close down GCES and TMMS and redistribute the students to different schools. Elementary schools will switch to a K-6 model and the remaining middle school, Desert Shadows, will become a 7/8 school. This comes in response to a management and operations budget override that failed to pass by less than 250 votes last Nov. and a six percent drop in enrollment for the 2009-2010 school year. Six percent might not sound like much, but it translates into a loss of roughly 1.5 million dollars in federal funding.

As a result, the budget for the 2010-2011 school year requires the reduction of 70 jobs. The board decided to propose closing the schools to make the cuts instead of cutting  jobs from each school. Dr. Wilson explains, " It is the people and programs, not the buildings that make a school. There is a natural attachment to buildings where memories are made but they are just brick and mortar." If closed, the buildings will not be sold, rather they will be leased out with the hope of reopening them when the district begins growing again.

Closing the schools means cutting out more administrative and maintenance jobs and leaving as many teaching positions intact as possible. What's more, the closures allow the district to keep the very best and brightest teachers due to the reduction in teaching spots available.

Unfortunately class sizes will increase, though according to Dr. Wilson, not nearly as much as if the schools do not close. The maximum number of students per classroom under the new plan will be 35 in 7th and 8th grade classrooms and 30 in the lower grades. If the schools don't close, more teachers will have to be let go and class sizes could balloon  up to 40 students per class.

The schools were picked for potential closure due to their small sizes, age, and location. If GCES is closed, all student living in Gold Canyon will attend Peralta Trails Elementary School. Gold Canyon students living in the area east of Idaho Rd. west of Tomahawk, north of Southern and south of Broadway will now attend Four Peaks Elementary. Minor redistricting means students will spend less time on buses and more time learning.

If TMMS closes then  Desert Shadows  will become a new school serving grades 7/8. According to Wilson the school will be given a new name and identity so everyone feels at home. Classes will begin at 7:25 a.m. and end at 2:10 p.m. which is consistent with Apache Junction High School start times. While this was done in order to bus middle and high school students together and save $100,000 annually; vehement parental outcry at the notion makes it seem unlikely to show up in the final plan.

Dr. Wilson also laid out a plan for the future of learning in the AJUSD. One of the major components is to not "power down" students in the classroom. The plan is to give every 7th grader a laptop starting next year. While parents were worried about the liability of giving children expensive equipment, Wilson explained that students actually take better care of laptops than books because they are  more relevant to their lives.

Additional plans for the future include an expanded selection of electives including foreign languages and a robotics class without any fees attached.  More rigorous classes are also in the works including pre-AP classes to help students prepare for high school.  Wilson also pointed out that the district's goal is to keep all special needs advocacy programs in place.