Well, it’s official, Four Peaks Elementary School and Fountain Hills Middle School have received Governing Board approval to merge into a single entity.

We realize it may be hard for some folks to say farewell to the name “Four Peaks Elementary,” as that was the first school to open its doors here in Fountain Hills. But much like the school’s location, things change. When the Board decided to consolidate campuses about six years ago, one of the grades that used to be housed under the Four Peaks campus was shifted to McDowell Mountain Elementary School while the other two went on to reside on the Middle School campus.

At the time, it was deemed in the best interest of students and parents to retain the school’s separate name, bus route and bell schedule. Some folks were worried about their younger students riding the bus with older kids or coming across them in the halls.

But again, that was six years ago and the students have proven they’re capable of getting along like one big, happy family on the same campus.

We’re happy to see this shift for a number of reasons. For starters, and absolutely the most selfish of all, is that it means our staff will no longer have to write out “Four Peaks Elementary School/Fountain Hills Middle School” when referring to that single site. Can you imagine the dozens of seconds that will save us while typing stories throughout the year?

Secondly, for outsiders looking in, we imagine it was pretty confusing to try and grasp the idea of two schools operating under one roof, even though they weren’t all that separate to begin with.

Finally, and most importantly to the students, parents and staff, are all of those reasons offered at School Board meetings and highlighted here in the paper from Superintendent Dr. Patrick Sweeney, current Principal Anita Gomez and Transportation Director John Flynn. They hold that uniting the campus will make scheduling bus routes, classes, extracurricular activities, professional training and the like infinitely more efficient by bringing the two entities together, and we tend to take their word on those matters. They also conducted months’ worth of research, studies, discussions and the like with all parties involved so, again, hard evidence to argue with.

With new principal Linda McKeever set to take over at the start of the next school year, the timing is basically perfect for this kind of fresh start on the Middle School campus.