Page 27 - The Edge - Winter 2016

Technical Education Districts takes e ect. Both funding changes “We just don’t think teachers are paid enough,” Executive
will go into e ect in scal-year 2017 and an e ort is underway Director Aaron Hale said. “Our desire is to be the highest paying
to persuade lawmakers to restore JTED funding and delay the school system in every market brand.”
current-year funding policy. Hale said additional funding for schools in any amount is a big
Districts with consecutive years of shrinking enrollment, like deal.
TUSD, will have massive drops in funding, critics of the policy have “ is is a great rst step to, hopefully, a complete overhaul of the
asserted. school nance system in Arizona,” Hale said.
“Current-year funding, JTED funding, we stay at with any
new funding that comes in,” Sanchez said. “It doesn’t have a major WESTERN SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
impact, but I guess the silver lining is it could always be worse. If Number of schools: 1
this doesn’t pass, then we’ll end up having to identify where we’ll Enrollment: 400
cut six or seven million dollars.” Budget: $2.6 million
Sanchez said if those funding issues are dealt with, his district e stand-alone charter school opened in scal year 2015, so it
will look at spending the additional money on either teacher didn’t see huge hits to its budget like the schools that survived the
retention or xing deteriorating buildings and equipment, which recession did.
is the result of losing $98 million in capital funding since 2008. But school founder Peter Boyle said the school has had to scale
“Kids don’t learn when the lights don’t work and the air back a little already from its rst days, cutting back on foreign
conditioning isn’t on,” Sanchez said. language instruction.
e roughly $75,000 the school expects to receive from the
LEGACY TRADITIONAL SCHOOL settlement will go toward teacher retention and bonuses for top
Number of schools: 8 performing teachers, Boyle said.
Enrollment: 8,149 He said that amount of money for a school Western’s size is
Budget: $54 million substantial and will go a long way.
Legacy is one of the largest charter networks in the state. It’s “Our intent would be to support one of our needs, which is to
growing and plans to put the estimated $2 million it expects to identify great teachers and keeping them, which is one of the most
receive toward paying teachers more. important things we can do for our students,” Boyle said.

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