The following is a Guest View. The writer refers to a LOVE article the we published last week. LOVE has provided the subheadings of the Guest View for reader convenience.
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The Amphi School District serves a diverse socioeconomic population
I recently reviewed last week’s LOVE article regarding Amphi Public Schools and Superintendent Jaeger's remarks at the Town Council meeting. I wanted to highlight a few issues that are relevant to this discussion.
I recently reviewed last week’s LOVE article regarding Amphi Public Schools and Superintendent Jaeger's remarks at the Town Council meeting. I wanted to highlight a few issues that are relevant to this discussion.
First, Mr. Jaeger is correct when he discusses the difficulty in assessing the overall quality of Amphi Schools given the significant socioeconomic diversity across the Amphi School District. The District stretches from Grant Road north to the County Line.
Some of the state's most impoverished urban neighborhoods are located in the Amphi School District
Educating school children in these areas requires different resources, strategies, and approaches. The District also serves Oro Valley, a generally affluent town with families of high socioeconomic status.
It is important to evaluate Amphi Schools serving the Town, and not generalizing over the entire Amphi District. When viewing school performance through that lens, Oro Valley's public schools knock it out of the park.
By way of example, on the most recent standardized test scores, Innovation Academy and Painted Sky Elementaries (both Amphi Schools and both in Oro Valley) scored in the top 7.4% and 11.3% in the state (including both public and charter schools). These two schools ranked higher than three of the four elementary schools in the Catalina Foothills School District (often rated as the top school district in the state). This is a point of pride for both Amphi and Oro Valley. Additionally, Canyon del Oro High School (CDO) (an Amphi School in Oro Valley) has an established history of high academic performance. CDO ranks near the top of the state in recent test scores, has an Academic Decathlon program that regularly wins state championships and places very high in the national competition, and ranks in the top 10% of Arizona high schools whose graduates go on to complete their four-year undergraduate degrees.
Oro Valley has been an integral part of the development of the Amphi School District
Oro Valley has been an integral part of the development of the Amphi School District
Although the LOVE article characterizes the Amphi District as an "accident of history" established years before modern Oro Valley, the growth and development of Oro Valley would disagree. When CDO was built in the early 1960s in what would become Oro Valley, the neighborhoods that would comprise the original incorporation area of Oro Valley (Shadow Mountain, Oro Valley Country Club, and Suffolk Hills--a later OV addition) actively supported the fledgling school and forged its story of success. As Oro Valley incorporated, much of the Amphi School Board was comprised of Oro Valley parents and residents. And Oro Valley was considered an affluent community then--much as it is today. Oro Valley residents and families have continually invested in Amphi Schools as the Town has grown.
I appreciate LOVE’s perspective on this issue, but my hope is that another perspective is recognized.
I appreciate LOVE’s perspective on this issue, but my hope is that another perspective is recognized.
Dan Huff
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Dan Huff is a Tucson native and an attorney practicing in the areas of family law, adoptions, juvenile law, and estate planning. Dan's family has lived in the Oro Valley area for nearly 100 years, arriving from New England in the late 1920s. Dan is a seminar presenter for the Arizona State Bar and Pima County Juvenile Court regarding various legal topics. He also serves as a Regional Council Member for Arizona’s First Things First (an initiative to support children ages birth to five), serves on Arizona Superior Court steering committees and as a volunteer Judge Pro Tempore in Pima County Superior Court, and he serves on the Board of Directors for Community Extension Programs (a not-for-profit focused on addressing local issues of poverty and education access).
