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    Home » Sedona Schools News Corner
    Sedona

    Sedona Schools News Corner

    August 10, 20156 Comments
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    By Zach Richardson

    “Back to School Night” at the high school last Tuesday had a huge turnout with great positive energy. Let’s focus our excitement of this new school year on bringing our community and school district together.

    “Back to School Night” included parents meeting their children’s teachers. Our daughter has been waiting over 10 years to take Ms. Goldsmith’s zach with photoclassAP Literature class, which is one of the most rigorous classes at the high school. As we enthusiastically listened to Ms. Goldsmith discuss class curriculum, she pointed to the books the class would be reading and were startled as to their condition. They were so old that they must have been from Shakespeare’s original printing. The state’s lack of funding for books and supplies has been an ever increasing issue and this is just another casualty of the situation.

    Ms. Goldsmith’s course is hard enough for the students, without having the challenge of dealing with issues such as books falling apart, having to share books, or not have them at all. The class obviously needed funding for new books. As a result, I approached ten friends to donate $50 each and received twelve $50 checks ($600.00) that were given to Ms. Goldsmith last Friday.

    It is again obvious that our community supports education. We just need to get our focus moving in a positive direction as a community so we can work together to deal with the attacks on public education by the politicians in Phoenix. In the past 8 years, state education budgets have been cut over 35% according to AASBO, the largest cut in the country. In order for us to deal with these attacks, we need to change our educational paradigm in Sedona that has been in place for over 22 years. To accomplish this task, hard decisions will have to be made and we will not all agree on what needs to be done, though all is not gloom and doom. Below are some recent positive news worthy items you might have missed.

    Sedona Gift Shop

    1. After years of preparation, the district completed AdvancedED Accreditation Process, only 18 districts out of 220+ in Arizona to have accomplished this accreditation – Thank you high school librarian Elaine Vail.
    1. Eighty Five SRRHS students took 113 Advanced Placement exams which included English Literature, Calculus, Spanish Language, Environmental Science and U.S. History. Average Sedona student scores on these exams exceeded Arizona, National and even Global averages for these subjects – Thank you Mr. Karuzas and his great staff.
    2. The district hired fantastic new staff this year all of which should have profiles published. Just to highlight two new district administrators whose direct costs are less than the administrative personnel they replaced. But more importantly, they will increase instructional support to our teachers that will improve students academically and save tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars indirectly through teacher recruiting, training and retention.
    3. Newly hired, Mark Cunningham, former Yuma elementary school principal with a Masters in Education Leadership from NAU, will be the Education Specialist who will primarily be responsible for integration and continuity of district curriculum and formulation of analytical data. He will also handle various other district administrative tasks.
    4. Newly hired, Michael Remus, former Director of Special Education at the Deer Valley Unified School District (over 34,000 students) with a Masters in Special Education. Mr. Remus’ resume is so extensive that I will email it to anyone who has the time to read it. He is arguably one of the leading authorities on Special Education in the state and consults around the country.
    5. The West Sedona School Principal selection committee of 7 women and 2 men comprised of district staff, community members, and school board member Karen McClelland unanimously recommended Scott Keller to be the new principal from an internal and external candidate pool of 20 applicants.
    6. U.S. News and World Report recognized SRRHS as Best High Schools (National Ranking) and as the #18th best high school in Arizona (no high school north of Scottsdale is in top 50 other than SRRHS).

    Let’s rally our community around our school district with its positive accomplishments and educate ourselves with help of the local media as to the political issues in Phoenix that plague education today. The school district can only react to budget cuts, as voters we can do something about them.

    Thank you to Goldsmith Class Books donors:

    Sedona International Film Festival, Bonnie and Sheldon Golub, John D. Miller, Janet and Scott Jablow, , Patty and Roy Juda, Marc Sterling and Tommy Stovall , Carolyn and John Martinez, Felicia Blasdel, Jerrilyn Parker, Deborah and Brian Myers, Rhonda Auberle

    I am writing this letter as my own personal observation and in no way does it express the views of the school board.

    6 Comments

    1. Tana Rush on August 10, 2015 3:56 pm

      Thank you Mr. Richardson, for focusing on the positive changes that have come our way in the District, it seems there are many! I appreciate them all, and the community for stepping up and supporting us. Tana Rush

    2. Jerrin Morgan on August 10, 2015 10:10 pm

      Thank you Dr. Lisa Hirsch, fellow parent at Mrs. Goldsmith’so Back to School Night presentation, for bringing attention to the fact that the books your children would be reading were the same ones you taught from over a decade ago! Just the information that these concerned parents needed to get the ball rolling to help our children. Awesome!

      • John Roberts on August 12, 2015 6:43 am

        Some people sit around complain and others seek solutions.

        • Jerrin Morgan on August 14, 2015 9:58 pm

          ?

    3. J. J. on August 11, 2015 11:20 am

      A quick Google search of best high schools in Arizona will give you the top 50 high schools according to SAT scores (needed for entering higher education). RRHS does NOT make the cut.

      Only 5 AP classes offered? Such a shame. And no AP Math at all.

      Again, the problem stems from money – the lack of the stuff. So happy that your daughter will enjoy the AP Lit class, featuring Shakespeare. Arizonians need to take a page from Shakespeare as his pipes have been found with marijuana residue. Can the bard be wrong?

      We need to come together as a community to legalize marijuana. Look to Colorado and Washington state who have so much money for education that they don’t know what to do with it all.

      Happy New School Year!

      -J.

    4. steve Segner on August 12, 2015 12:03 pm

      J.J. Says
      We need to come together as a community to legalize marijuana. “Look to Colorado and Washington state who have so much money for education that they don’t know what to do with it all.”
      J.J Lets look at a little history.
      State lotteries were sold to the voters as a way to fund education in Arizona and many other states.
      And yes some money went to the schools at first then, little by little direct state funding dropped.
      The money from the lottery enabled the states to move monies away from schools to pay for pet projects or cover budget shortfalls.

      Monies from legalize marijuana would just make it easier for the state to take more money from the schools.
      The real problem is our republican dominated state government hates public schools, and would like all our kids to be either home schooled or taught in a religion based charter school owned by state legislators.

      48 and 49th in spending ,shame on us

      Mississippi
      Per-pupil amount of current spending: $8,130
      Arizona
      Per-pupil amount of current spending: $7,208

      Steve Segner


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    Don’t mess with symbols. Just ask author Dan Brown’s character Robert Landon. The worth of symbols cannot be measured. Symbols make the world-go-round. Symbols carry the weight of a thousand words and meanings. Symbols represent reality boiled down to the bone. Symbols evoke profound emotions and memories—at a very primal level of our being—often without our making rational or conscious connections. They fuel our imagination. Symbols enable us to access aspects of our existence that cannot be accessed in any other way. Symbols are used in all facets of human endeavor. One can only feel sorry for those who cannot comprehend the government’s response to the breech of the capital on January 6, with many, even pundits, claiming it was only a peaceful occupation. Regardless if one sees January 6 as a full-scale riot/insurrection or simply patriotic Americans demonstrating as is their right, the fact is the individuals involved went against a symbol, and this could not be allowed or go unpunished. Read more→
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