By Philip Haldiman
Twitter: @PhilipHaldiman

Peoria Unified School District employees, students, parents and others received a snapshot of who their next superintendent could be via an eForum Dec. 9.

The four finalists are Alexa Cunningham, Scott Menzel, Jason Reynolds and Arsenio Romero. 

For more information about them click here.

The forum was hosted by Jeff Berggren, Huntington University director of Arizona operations. He asked four predetermined questions, based on community feedback sent in a few weeks ago, and the finalists had 15 minutes to answer them. The candidates drew to determine the order.

Scott Minzel

What personal strengths do you bring to Peoria to help the district improve and what might be one or two strategies you would employ to accomplish them?

I would say first is a deep sense of integrity, transparency and commitment to open communication with the community. During the last nearly 18 years as superintendent, I have had the opportunity to work with a broad cross sector of community members and I know that what’s really important as a leader in public education is to have an open door policy, to be transparent with decisions that are made, the reasons decisions are made, and to pull people together as a part of a shared vision for the future. At the end of the day, what we are talking about is preparing the next generation of students to be successful.

We’ve got parents in the district. We have community members who are impacted by the things we do. I believe in tackling ambitious goals. I  have a George Bernard Shaw quote in my office that says, “Those who say it is impossible shouldn’t interrupt those who are doing it.”

And so I believe that when you look at what’s happening  in the Peoria Unified School District, there are a lot of really great things that are happening for kids everyday in each one of the buildings. There are some issues and challenges. Academic achievement is good but not great. Peoria Unified School District can be the no. 1 top performing school district in the state of Arizona, but it is going to require some work and effort. 

And so I believe the leadership I bring and my leadership experience has prepared me to work with the community, with  teachers and staff within the building, to make Peoria the top performing district in the state.

I also believe there are a number of challenges with respect to funding and that’s not a surprise to anyone who’s listening, whether it was the most recent maintenance and operations override or the last two bond issues, there are opportunities to re-engage with the community to get the support we need for the children in this district. I have had the opportunity to lead successful bonds and campaigns in Michigan and I look forward to working with the community here to tackle those same kinds of  challenges.

Budget and finance are always a challenge as there is rarely a time when there are enough resources to meet needs. How would you specifically approach working with staff and the board to determine funding priorities, and how can those decisions be impactfully communicated to district and community stakeholders?

Answer: I believe a budget actually reflects the values and priories of the people who set the budget. So part of it is working with the board to be clear on what the vision and values are for the district. Every student, every day, prepared to shape tomorrow is a compelling vision. How do we then allocate resources in order to ensure we are accomplishing that every day for every student throughout the district? I believe it is also important to get input from people on the ground working closest with students and so having an inclusive process, a collaborative effort in order to identify what is working well, what might we be able to abandon, and how do we ensure the way we allocate resources is producing the value added that tax payers in the community expect.

When you think about the way in which schools are funded, money is following students and ultimately it is necessary to do what we can to make Peoria Unified the first choice for the students that live in the district.    

And when we think about where we are able to allocate resources, it is also critical to figure out what can we take off the plate. So often we are trying to add more things to people’s plates. I’m interested in a concept called strategic abandonment — what can we stop doing so we can really focus on the things that matter most.

I also approach budgeting not from a “we need more money standpoint,” but are we spending the money that we have in the best way possible? Then we determine if we need more resources. And it very well could be the case at the end of the day that more money is necessary, but I think we have to start with asking those questions in order to ensure we are operating efficiently and effectively.    

Superintendents have to be skilled in working with various school and community stakeholders. What would be your approach to engage these groups and what might we expect to see as an outcome of these efforts?

I absolutely believe in engaging the community and two-way communication. One of the things I would anticipate if I were selected for this position would be to engage in a 90-day listen and learn tour that would take me to every building in the district, to invite the community in and share their hopes and aspirations for their children, for the community, and for the school district to identify what they believe their school district is doing really well, what they want to protect and preserve, and to identify the areas where they believe there’s an opportunity for improvement. That’s not only a conversation to be had with parents in the school district, it’s a conversation for business leaders, it’s a conversation with community leaders, whether it’s informal or formal roles. It’s a conversation with youth-serving nonprofits. There are a lot of stakeholder groups within the community. Bringing them together to have this conversation, as a new person coming in to understand the hopes and aspirations for the district as well as opportunities to improve, would be important.

As a result of that, I would be able to articulate the vision the community has to go from here. The board has done a really nice job of framing a strategic plan that guides the direction of the district. I believe the mission vision and values are compelling. Being able to articulate those using the words of the community rather than imposing something that I might bring to the table will ensure we’re building this together because we’re all on the same team. 

At the end of the day, most people want to look back and see they have achieved success. How would you measure your personal leadership success in the short term (1-6 months) and the long term (1-3 years)?

In the short term, spending the time getting to know the people, the community, understanding the culture of the organization and the community would be really important.    

Although I would argue, if the job starts July 1, and there’s an election in November, that might have some impact. So there’s an opportunity there to be able to determine — have we been able to shift at all, the way the community feels about the district and its willingness to invest in the future of our students in Peoria?

In the long term, I think we really do have some academic challenges to tackle, and that within three years you should really see Peoria leapfrogging some of the similarly sized districts and performing at a higher level on the AzMERIT assessment as well as other benchmark assessments. Our students will be performing at a really high level, not only students who are advantaged, but students who come to us with difficulties and challenges in their home environment because each student every day is the priority of Peoria public schools.

Alexa Cunningham

What personal strengths do you bring to Peoria to help the district improve and what might be one or two strategies you would employ to accomplish them?

First and foremost, I care about students and I want students to be successful, so I will work diligently to make sure our students are provided every opportunity they can to have a quality education. I also want to make sure we have the right teachers in every school and that we are supporting those teachers. Teaching is a difficult profession and we have a great group of professionals in Peoria and I want to make sure I support them. Also, I want to make sure that I am clear in communicating so our stakeholders know what to expect from me and from the district. And I feel that I can communicate the vision, mission and values of the Peoria Unified School District. So I hope to use caring about students, caring about teachers and communication to move the Peoria Unified School District forward so that we can grow academically, grow in the arts, grow athletically, and that we can be a lighthouse district in the state of Arizona. 

Budget and finance are always a challenge as there is rarely a time when there are enough resources to meet needs. How would you specifically approach working with staff and the board to determine funding priorities, and how can those decisions be impactfully communicated to district and community stakeholders?

I think the Peoria Unified School District has  great tool in place to utilize making funding  decisions and that is the strategic plan. The four areas of the strategic plan highlight various parts of the district that might need additional funding. So we’d use that strategic plan in those areas to make those decisions, also keeping in mind that all budget decisions should be made based on what is best for  our students. So if we use the strategic plan and consider students in every decision, we should be able to build a budget that really supports the hopes and dreams of our district.

I think it’s critical that we communicate all that we are doing to our stakeholders, and make sure our budget is on our website so people know how we are spending money that is allocated to the Peoria Unified School District.  It is our tax payers and our state and our federal government that give us this money and we have to be mindful of that and make sure everybody knows how we are spending it and being wise in our decision to support students.

Superintendents have to be skilled in working with various school and community stakeholders. What would be your approach to engage these groups and what might we expect to see as an outcome of these efforts?

I think it’s important to realize that we have an obligation  as school leaders and as a district

So what you can expect from me is that I will be visible in the community, I will be visible at school. I want to go to the different schools and hear from our students and teachers. A technique I have used is Breakfast with the Superintendent, inviting stakeholders to meet me at different schools or departments so I can hear their feedback. I want to be visible at athletic games, at arts events and choir concerts and all the different things that are going on in the district.

I think it is also important to think about our community partners and listen to what our city council has to say, and meet with the mayor, the chief of police, our faith leaders, everybody needs to have a say in what they think is working and maybe we can achieve what we are working on.    

I think what is really important is that we as leaders have to go out into the community if we want true feedback. So you will see me visible.

At the end of the day most people want to look back and see they have achieved success. How would you measure your personal leadership success in the short term (1-6 months) and the long term (1-3 years)?

I do want to reference back to the strategic plan. I do want to work with the board to develop a pre-entry and entry plan that is focused on the four areas of the strategic plan, not only to introduce myself to the community, but to introduce the new leadership team, which is myself and the board to the community, because we will be a new team working together. So in the first one to six months, I would like to look at what we can do collaboratively to focus on communication, be visible in the community, reviewing data on student success, looking at the budget and safety measures as it relates to stewardship of our community resources, and then also focusing on safety and making sure our schools are safe for all our students and teachers.

After that, it is really about looking at where we are at from an academic standpoint, a social standpoint, and developing goals that will lead forward into the future, always focusing on students, always focusing on their success, remembering that people are our most valuable resources, so we need to include them in the plan — all working around the strategic plan with the board.

Arsenio Romero 

What personal strengths do you bring to Peoria to help the district improve and what might be one or two strategies you would employ to accomplish them?

It’s important to be able to come in and hit the ground running working within the community and bringing all these entities together. So a couple areas where I think I would spend and invest my time in would be with our staff and our leadership. It’s really important we provide opportunities to our teachers, our educational assistants, our nurses, our counselors, our social workers to work together to solve problems.

It’s amazing when we can put these groups together with the amount of experience they have, they can solve any problem we put in front of them. One of the best things I can do as a superintendent is to provide opportunities to be able to do that. And at the same time, make sure we provide them with the right tools and professional development to make those outcomes as successful as possible.

The other important area is leadership development. If there’s one thing a superintendent can do, it’s invest time in leadership development. If we do that we are going to see the best outcomes for students. I have been able to meet a handful of principals in the district and they are amazing. I’m really excited about the things that are happening within Peoria and I know there are so many more amazing things that can happen. So what I can do is provide them with those opportunities. I love working with principals. One of the things that I have done in my career is be a good principal. I was successful in many different areas and I want to be able to take the experiences I’ve had and share them with the principals that are here in Peoria —  provide coaching and feedback sessions to where I can really get to know them and really work with them and talk with them on their specific issues at their specific sites.  I’m looking forward to being able to do that at every school in Peoria.

Budget and finance are always a challenge as there is rarely a time when there are enough resources to meet needs. How would you specifically approach working with staff and the board to determine funding priorities, and how can those decisions be impactfully communicated to district and community stakeholders?

Again the expertise lies within our community and our teachers and our principals and our board. So it’s really about developing a relationship with every one of those entities so we can get down to where we need to spend dollars. How do we make sure the dollars get as close to the kids as possible?  It is possible.

So I need to be able to come in and just listen, listen to all the constituents out there, all the groups to see where we were, where are we now and where to we need to go in the future. I’m really looking forward to that. As I am listening, I am learning. I am learning about the specifics, the details about the district, where the big needs are, what are the things we’re not thinking of? Somebody out there has some great answers as to what we need to do. And if I can listen and I can learn, then I know what we can do next. That’s what we are going to do — work closely with the community, staff and with the board to come up with strategic plans about where we spend those dollars. And it is possible to make sure we are as efficient with those dollars as possible. We can make them go further and provide opportunities. And why do we do this? The profile of a graduate in Peoria Unified starts when they are 3 to 4 years old, coming in as kindergartners, through elementary and into high school. We want to make sure they have the opportunity to be as successful as possible. That all starts with how we spend the dollars.  

Superintendents have to be skilled in working with various school and community stakeholders. What would be your approach to engage these groups and what might we expect to see as an outcome of these efforts?

I've never met anybody who doesn’t want what is best for our kids.  The community is a huge part of this. One of the things you won’t see me doing is sitting in my office. You’re going to see me out in the community, engaging, not only in classrooms and with kids, not only with teachers and principles, but the police department, the fire department, the mayor’s office, our city councilmen, our county commissioners.

You are also gong to see me engaging very heavily at the state level, with our legislators, with our governor, with the Department of Education. Policy development is the key to what the next step is in our district, so we want to be sure we are part of those conversations, from the beginning to the end, so when a law is passed it benefits Peoria as much as possible. It’s one of my favorite things to do, and you will see me involved on all those levels. 

At the end of the day most people want to look back and see they have achieved success. How would you measure your personal leadership success in the short term (1-6 months) and the long term (1-3 years)?

This is very important that we have a process in place so I can reflect and make course corrections along the way. I want to make sure that I am doing a good job. I want to make sure that outcomes I have are there for kids. So what does that look like? Have that strategic plan in place as to what that the first 90 days are going to look like. And even breaking that down further — what do the first few days look like? The first few weeks, and the first few months?

The first few days on board are really important. I need to build relationships with everybody. When I come on board in July, what’s happening during that time? There’s still a lot happening within the district. I can go out and see summer school programs, credit recovery programs, athletics. But I’ll also have the opportunity to work with community engagement groups like economic development, working with the city and county. I am really looking forward to that. With that information I am able to continue to build those relationships and set goals with our board. 

I am looking very much forward to getting to know the board on a personal level so that we can work together for the positive outcomes of our students. With them, I want to continue looking at the vision moving forward with the goals the board has set. That will take us into the first few weeks and months.

This moves into the long term goals. It’s really important a superintendent has those long term goals. When we have a student that comes in as a kindergartner, very quickly they’re going to be a sixth grader and very quickly they are going to be a senior. We want to make sure that not only are we doing the right things for them today, but we are doing the right things for them in two, three, four, 10 years so that when they graduate and move on to be a member of this community they are successful as possible. I’m really looking forward to doing that right here in Peoria.

Jason Reynolds

What personal strengths do you bring to Peoria to help the district improve and what might be one or two strategies you would employ to accomplish that?

First and foremost is instructional leadership. I have spent a career working to hone those skills, working to really understand what it takes to make a difference in classrooms. What it takes to have an impact on student achievement. I have worked at all levels, specifically as a director of curriculum and instruction really leading that work and moving the needle when it comes to how students achieve and what it takes to get there, whether its providing professional development for teachers, whether its providing support and services that children need. That instructional leadership, that focus on academic achievement, and being able to take organizations, schools and districts from point A to point B, that will be the key to the future of Peoria.  

A second aspect is being able to build relationships. When you examine my career and talk to people I have worked with, they’ll talk to you about how important relationships are, and developing buy-in and developing a common and moral purpose in the work we do. So I am committed as the superintendent of Peoria to be out every single day working with teachers, staff, principals, parents, students and other administrators, as well as our community partners to keep those relationships strong and really build toward what we are aiming for for the future.      

Budget and finance are always a challenge as there is rarely a time when there are enough resources to meet needs. How would you specifically approach working with staff and the board to determine funding priorities, and how can those decisions be impactfully communicated to district and community stakeholders?

When it comes to budget and finance, it takes a great deal of work to be able to put together a plan, to make sure we are utilizing our resources effectively.  One of the key aspects to our strategic plan is being good stewards of our resources and being able to have an effective  budgeting process, to make sure that we are seeking guidance and  input from our community and how we allocate those resources is absolutely key. Of course, in Peoria schools we’ve had a bit of a rocky go, especially when it comes to going out and getting approval on some of our initiatives. So it is absolutely imperative right now that we have a solid process in place. We are currently working on that — making sure we get input from our parents, other district leaders, staff, teachers — to guide in that arena before we bring recommendations to the governing board.

One of the things I would employ as a strategy is starting that process early and making sure we have a way to communicate what we are doing to the community. I think one of the reasons we have fiscal responsibility in our strategic plan is to keep reminding us that we need to get out in our community and communicate how we are spending those resources and making sure that every dollar gets into the classroom where it is making the most difference, and getting the teachers and students the resources they need to continue to see success and to continue to improve along the way.

Superintendents have to be skilled in working with various school and community stakeholders. What would be your approach to engage these groups and what might we expect to see as an outcome of these efforts?

Part of the experience I bring is working with a variety of different schools. I have worked in Title 1 schools and in schools in more affluent neighborhoods. So I have a real understanding of how the communities work and the expectations we all have for our children’s success. So bringing that to the table and getting out and talking to schools, making sure we are working with our school councils, making sure we are continuing to build partnerships with our parent groups is absolutely imperative.

As a superintendent, it will be my responsibility to connect with schools, (make sure) we are utilizing our resources effectively and efficiently, and that, at the end of the day, the outcomes will be a truly unified approach to how we tackle the achievement gap and how we address student achievement.

At the end of the day most people want to look back and see they have achieved success. How would you measure your personal leadership success in the short term (1-6 months) and the long term (1-3 years)?

I have a transition plan that takes us from this spring all the way to the end of next semester. In that plan, I talk about putting together processes, how important it is to get out into the community and continue to build relationships. An advantage I have is that I have been here since July and had an opportunity to come and enjoy this amazing school district and meet the incredible people who have dedicated their lives to the children of our community and so that will continue. 

When we talk about 1 to 3 years, it really is about setting goals. It is about working with the governing board and stakeholders. It is about setting goals for myself and setting goals as an organization to ensure success. Of course, with any great goal, you have to have a way to measure that success. We need to put those metrics in to make sure the work we are doing is the work our community wants us to do, as well as having a way to communicate those successes and say, “here’s where we were, here’s where we are and here is where we are going to continue to move.” 

I truly believe one of the wonderful ways to measure your success is by listening to people, hearing what they have to say and making sure they are part of that decision making process.  

Philip Haldiman can be reached at 623-876-3697, phaldiman@newszap.com, or on Twitter @philiphaldiman.

Philip Haldiman
Senior News Editor | Peoria
@PhilipHaldiman

phaldiman@iniusa.org

Meet Philip
Haldiman is an award-winning journalist who most recently took first place for investigative reporting in 2023 from Arizona Newspapers Association. He joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2015, covering Sun City West his first year. Since 2016, he has covered the city of Peoria. Prior to coming to INI, he was a reporter with The Arizona Republic for seven years, covering numerous cities throughout the Valley. Before that, he was a freelance writer.

Community: Haldiman spearheads the Peoria Independent Hometown Heroes Awards program, honoring local individuals and businesses that give back to the community. He has hosted local candidate forums over the years and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Haldiman also served as a member of the Journalism Program Community Advisory Board at Glendale Community College. Outside journalism, Haldiman served as a member of the city of Peoria Complete Count Committee for the Census, 2019-2020. Lastly, he has served as a member of his HOA governing board since 2021.

Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and a BA in Theater. 

Random Fact: Haldiman is a fourth-generation Arizonan as well as wrote and produced an autobiographical comic book about his time spent in Hollywood and his life as a cult film star.

Hobbies: He enjoys hiking Arizona’s mountainous landscapes and is currently working on a play for the stage.