Fountain Hills High School Principal Cain Jagodzinski could not have been happier with the year that his school experienced in 2018-19, and Jagodzinski knows that with the continued effort from the Falcons, FHHS will carry that the success into the 2019-20 school year.

Reflecting on this past year, Jagodzinski said he was most proud of the high school’s tremendous success on the state AZMerit test.

“We announced earlier this year that FHHS earned an ‘A’ letter grade from the Arizona Department of Education,” Jagodzinski said. “Out of 231 high schools in Arizona, only 36 earned an ‘A’ letter grade. It is a testament to our students and teachers that FHHS was one of those 36.

“In fact, FHHS had the highest growth of any high school in the state from 2017 to 2018. After having the second highest AZMerit scores of all comprehensive public high schools last year, our focus is on sustaining them. We had tremendous success again, and our overall on AZMerit was within two percent of 2018.”

Along with ranking at the top of the AzMerit test results, FHHS was also recognized last year by US News & World Report as a “Best” and “Nationally ranked” school, the organization’s highest level of distinction.

Jagodzinski was also very happy with the success that Falcons earned in extracurricular activities in the past year.

“We successfully implemented two new sports with the addition of swim and boys indoor volleyball,” Jagodzinski said. “What was originally started as an idea form the students led to the formation of these programs. We had our first ever state championship for the band, several individual state champions this year, and our stock market team won a first place title as well.”

Going into the 2019-20 school year, Jagodzinski said he hopes to continue what has already given the school success as well as put a focus on student social and emotional wellbeing.

“I am looking forward to continuing to build our positive culture on campus,” Jagodzinski said. “We have some new ideas this year and a new reward program that will continue to focus on the social and emotional wellbeing of our students. The addition of a new counselor, a resurgence of our MPOWRD program, and a couple of new ideas will help us continue to truly care for our student’s emotional wellbeing.”

Jesse Love, a recent graduate with a Master’s in school counseling from the University of Wyoming, will be joining the flock this year to work with 10th and 12th grade students, but Love is not the only new face to join FHHS this year.

“It is my pleasure to introduce Mrs. Barrie Pinto, who will be serving FHHS as the new assistant principal,” Jagodzinski said. “Barrie comes to us with a vast amount of experience as a classroom teacher, dean of students and as an elementary principal in Brazil and Phoenix. Austin Keating, a Falcon from the class of 2015, will be joining the faculty this year as an English and P.E. teacher. Keating recently graduated from ASU and student taught last year with Mr. Bragg.”

Along with Pinto and Keating, Carmen Ontiveros will be the high school’s new registrar and Pam Mynars will be moving from her role as an aide in the Life Skills course to be the new library specialist.

“We are looking forward to a great year here at Fountain Hills High School,” Jagodzinski said.