Agua Fria enrollment growth brings full classrooms, new staffing needs
Image by: Stacy Mantle
During its Aug. 12 meeting, the Agua Fria Union High School District Governing Board received an update showing enrollment had surpassed projections while the district began the school year fully staffed.
Agua Fria Union High School District opened the school year with enrollment exceeding its budget projection by more than 270 students while beginning classes with a teacher in every classroom.
District officials presented an enrollment and staffing update during the Agua Fria governing board’s Aug. 12 meeting.
The district had 10,753 students enrolled during the second week of school compared with the 10,482 students used to build its working budget for the 2026-27 school year.
Enrollment ended the 2025-26 school year at 10,175 students.
District officials expect approximately 70 students who have not been in attendance during the first 10 days to be removed from the enrollment count. That would leave the district with just under 10,700 students — nearly 200 more than its budget projection.
The district intentionally used a conservative enrollment estimate because student counts are a major component of its operating budget.
“We knew that there’s growth in our community, but we wanted to be fiscally responsible and make sure that we had a conservative budget number,” Phillip Nowlin, deputy superintendent of academics and schools, told the board.
The number of anticipated 10-day withdrawals is also lower than in recent years. District officials said approximately 100 students were removed after the first 10 days in each of the previous two years.
Enrollment may continue to grow
Enrollment could continue to grow as additional families move into the West Valley. The district reported approximately 226 students enrolled between the first day of school and the Aug. 12 meeting.
“Our district is very different than a lot of districts that we see in the East Valley right now that are closing schools,” Nowlin said.
The higher-than-expected enrollment is placing pressure on some classes. Core academic classes generally range from 34 to 36 students, although some have between 22 and 25 students, depending on the course and campus.
The district’s standard classroom cap is 36 students after schedules have been balanced. Physical education classes can have as many as 40 students because of facility capacity, while band classes may also be larger.
District officials expect to complete most schedule balancing by the end of the third week of school. Additional teachers or class sections could be added where enrollment warrants them.
The district uses a staffing ratio of approximately 30.5 students per teacher, but course demand and specialized programs can cause individual class sizes to vary. International Baccalaureate and upper-level Advanced Placement courses may be offered with fewer than 18 students to preserve advanced academic opportunities.
Superintendent Mark Yslas said the district intends to add sections when enrollment supports doing so.
“I refuse to let higher-level programs die,” Yslas said, citing upper-level calculus courses as an example.
School year begins fully staffed
Despite the continued growth, Assistant Superintendent Todd Stevens said the district began the year fully staffed, with no classrooms relying on substitutes and no teaching schedules canceled because of vacancies.
The district hired 94 teachers and 50 classified employees for the new school year. It now employs approximately 1,050 people, including 495 teachers.
An unexpected teacher resignation occurred the Friday before school began, but the school had arranged for a long-term substitute and has since selected a replacement.
“We are back to being 100% fully staffed right now,” Stevens said.
The district is also relying less heavily on teachers accepting an additional class. The number of those assignments declined from 84 last year to 51 this year.
District officials said they will continue monitoring enrollment and class sizes as students complete placement testing and schedules stabilize.
Editor’s note: A grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation made this story possible. The foundation awarded 15 newsrooms to pay for solutions-focused education reporters for two years. 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.
Meet Stacy Stacy Mantle is joining the team at Independent Newsmedia, Inc. as an Education Solutions journalist, thanks to a grant from the Arizona Community Collaborative. She has a long history in education that ranges from teaching junior high and middle school to developing curriculum and standards-based assessments.
Community: A longtime advocate for animal welfare, Stacy is deeply involved in rescue efforts and volunteers with several nonprofit organizations.
Random Fact: Once upon a time, she shared her home with a pet coyote and two wolf hybrids. The experiences were wild enough to become the subject of her first book!
Education: She holds a BA in English with a minor in Political Science, a Post-baccalaureate in Secondary Education, and an MBA with a emphasis on Marketing.
Hobbies: In her spare time, Stacy writes fast-paced urban fantasy novels, crafts small-batch artisan soap, and is always up for hiking or off-roading through the Arizona wilderness with her husband of 23 years.
By 
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here