The number of students and programs offered in Higley USD’s Career and Technical Education is rapidly growing, district officials told the HUSD Governing Board.
The programs now have 2,572 students enrolled at the district’s high schools, a 48% growth rate in the past five years, according to the presentation from Craig Pearson, the district’s assistant director for CTE.
Williams Field High School has 11 programs and Higley High nine, Pearson said. All of the programs can result in some certifications in the field, and many also have dual enrollment classes wherein a student can earn college credit taking them.
The HUSD students in CTE concentrations are both testing and graduating at a higher rate than the state average, according to data in the presentation.
Two Higley High School students who are in the graphic design program also spoke to the board about their experiences with the program and with SkillsUSA, a national CTE student organization. Lily Valencia is the national secretary and Estefania Sandez the Arizona state reporter. Board members praised their presentation and the poise with which they did it.
Override, bond spending
The district also made its required annual presentation on how maintenance and operations override and unrestricted capital bond money was spent in the previous fiscal year.
District voters in 2019 approved a 15% maintenance and operations override, meaning the district could add 15% to its maintenance and operations budget revenue control limit through a secondary property tax.
The override generated $12.01 million for the district in fiscal year 2021-22, and 51% of that was spent on increasing teacher compensation. Other uses included maintaining average class sizes (20%), supporting gifted education, special education and all-day kindergarten (13%) providing educational resources to classrooms (11%) and maintaining and improving elementary school special classes like music (5%).
A $70.58 million bond issue was approved in 2013, and in 2019 voters approved a reallocation of how the final $17.15 million would be spent.
In FY 2021-22, $2.06 million of bond money was spent, all of it on school facility construction. About $3.11 million remains, and it is expected to be exhausted this year on more construction, technology upgrades and buses that were ordered last fiscal year but did not come in by the close of the fiscal year.
Annual financial report
The annual financial report for fiscal year 2021-22 also was presented to the board, which approved it on a 5-0 vote.
Tom Blodgett Senior News Editor | Gilbert @sp_blodgett
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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