ElIndeNews.com

Between an ongoing concern to tighten the budget and a $12,000 spending fiasco involving Sunnyside High School's superintendent, an unsuspected source of hope emerged at Sunnyside Unified School District's Governing Board meeting Jan. 26.

While the primary concern for many in attendance was answers from the board regarding Superintendent Manuel L. Isquierdo's personal use of a district credit card, a band of students and faculty from STAR Academic Center gathered for a different cause.

Los Niños Elementary School celebrated their fourth straight year as a performing-plus school. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne visited the school in early November to give them a plaque. 

In 2001, former Arizona Governor Jane Hull signed into law Arizona LEARNS, a bill that defined standards for schools and has held them accountable for not meeting those standards and for making progress.

The legislature and state board of education made labels for schools. These labels are “excelling,” “high performing,” “performing plus,” “performing,” “underperforming” and “failing to meet academic standards,” depending a school's baseline level of achievement. They are re-determined every year. It also includes the amount of improvement over time on the AIMS test and the progress on Stanford 9 test over the course of one year.

Davis Bilingual Magnet School is one of only two schools in Tucson Unified School District to use a Spanish immersion program.  

At Davis, where the program has been in effect since 1979, kindergartners and first-graders are taught only in Spanish. In second grade, teachers begin speaking in English 15 percent of the time. From third through fifth grade, students are taught in English 30 percent of the time.

The Wildcat School is in its fourth year and is continuing to benefit from its affiliation with the University of Arizona.

The school offers sixth through eighth grade, and is focused on  math and science. The school currently has 97 students.

In 2005, when Ileanna Arispuro was in fifth grade, a friend told her about a program sponsored by Arizona Quest for Kids.

The deal was, Arizona Quest for Kids would pay Arispuro’s college tuition if she kept her grades and attendance up. Arispuro joined and they set her up with a big sister who helped Arispuro with her schoolwork to keep her GPA high. 

Four years later, in November, Arispuro was told Arizona Quest for Kids would not be able to pay for her tuition.  In a two-hour meeting, Quest for Kids explained to Arispuro and the other students in attendance that they did not have the money they had promised to the students for their tuition. 

They did however pledge to work with students who still wanted to remain in the program and would assist them in filling out college and financial applications.

The Tucson Unified School District held its first festival of schools at the Reid Park Zoo in November to let the public know what each of their 105 schools has to offer. The event was attended by more than 9,000 parents and students, who received free admission to the zoo according to David Scott, the director of accountability and research for TUSD. 

“I think it was an excellent venue for this event,” said Jon Ben-Asher, principal at Wrightstown and Henry Elementary schools. “There’s a natural draw for the kids to want to come to the zoo.”

Due to the $90,000 worth of damaged and stolen property since August, Sunnyside Unified School District is installing more security cameras, alarms and tracking devices for all school laptops.They are also hiring more security guards. The district will be using $300,000 from insurance for the upgrades.

Upgrades include consolidating  security companies and installing new cameras. The district uses several companies to operate their alarm systems, but will now use one; and starting in January, the district will test security cameras and make a recommendation to the board about whether or not to use the equipment.

Tucson Oasis is offering a new tutoring program to develop reading skills among elementary school students at El Rio Public Library.The Oasis Reading Club is a free program that works on building these skills through the power of writing.

During each hour-long tutoring session, students are in charge of writing a journal. According to Carlinda Dirks, stand-in coordinator for the Oasis intergenerational tutoring program, the tutoring model was derived from the saying, “If you can think it you can say it, if you can say it you can write it, if you can write it you can read it.”

The Arizona Academy of Leadership opened its doors two years ago and has grown to include extracurricular activities that set it apart from other local charter schools.

Tonya Strozier, the director of the Academy, and her husband Kelvin, the middle school principal, opened the school in August 2007 with 88 students at 5660 S. 12th Ave. Both had been teachers in the Sunnyside school district.

Strozier said the area really needed a school like the Arizona Academy of Leadership. 

“We want to be an excelling school on the south side, which is hard.  But when it happens, it won’t be on accident,” she said.

There were about 40 hands-on, science-related booths at the seventh annual Junior Scientists Kids’ Day, an event designed to get students excited about science. 

The UA Libraries and Tucson Unified School District’s Career and Technical Education programs partnered  to create an event for children ages four to 12 that would be a fun and educational approach to science, engineering and general education. Parents were also welcome.

The event was free for parents and students in TUSD. There were more than double the number of booths from last year’s event, said Jeanne Pfander, an associate librarian and outreach director.