Chandler school board approves 2026-27 metrics

By Jason W. Brooks
Mail | X: @JasonWBrooks2

On the heels of an in-depth presentation about board metrics at an August meeting, the Chandler Unified Governing Board approved a 2026-27 set of goals and numbers for the district to aim for at its Sept. 9 meeting.

The board voted unanimously to approve a document called 2026-27 Journey to Excellence Board Metrics. That’s an annual planning and review document that the board has tried to both pare down and create both realistic and “stretch” higher-reaching goals in various measures of student achievement.

For Chandler Unified, the metrics are a sort of localized dashboard that uses plenty of state and other standards, but also keeps an eye on all of those with emphasis on improvement.

Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Fletcher has been arranging and directing the verbiage of the metrics criteria the past few years.

She presented a thorough overhaul of the metrics at an Aug. 19 study session, using board feedback from the past year, and used even more feedback to present a final set of metrics Sept. 9 for a vote.

Here are this year’s metrics:

-Board Metric 1 - Equity in Student Perception, Achievement and Access, 15%

-Board Metric 2 - Student Achievement, 25%

-Board Metric 3 - College, Career, and Life Readiness, 25%

-Board Metric 4 - “District of Choice,” 15%

-Board Metric 5 - Resource Optimization, 20%

Fletcher said the highlights of the updates for this school year were consolidating 11 prior board metrics down to only five and adjusting the weighting of each of the five metrics.

Board President Patti Serrano said she is pleased with the changes,
“This is a clear pictorial of you listening to us, as a board,” Serrano said. “I love seeing data and how it informs us. And it’s always great to know we’re only going to keep getting better.”

Board Vice President Barb Mozdzen said she’s pleased with the simplification, as well as the weighting for student acheivement and life readiness. Board member Claudia Mendoza praised all the work Fletcher and other staff put into the metrics and that she appreciates all five metrics are student-centered.

Board member Ryan Heap said it’s an important update that supports the board’s and the district’s goals.

Board member Kurt Rohrs — perhaps the most vocal critic of what he felt were too many metrics — said he appreciates how tough it was to compress 11 metrics into five, though future metrics lists could be even shorter.

“We try to work on too many things at the same time, it gets really confusing,” Rohrs said. “So maybe we can get it down to three or four goals, which is what I hear from organizational development, then you might actually get something done.”

Jason W. Brooks can be reached at jbrooks@iniusa.org. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.