The Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board held a regular meeting on June 10 where members discussed revised and proposed budgets, learned about an online teaching resource and hired both a middle school and a high school principal.

Kristopher Alexander will take over at Fountain Hills High School while Jeffery Markle will be the new principal at Fountain Hills Middle School. The Times is reaching out to both in order to introduce them to the community in a future issue.

A large portion of the meeting focused on budgets, with Superintendent Dr. Robert Allen first presenting the audited report, from firm Henry and Horne, for the 2018-19 school year budget. Henry and Horne found no material weakness or significant deficiency in the budget.

The Governing Board also approved both the revised budget for 2019-2020 and the proposed budget for the 2020-21 school year (See related story). One big accomplishment the board pointed out was that FHUSD successfully achieved the Red for Ed goal of raising salaries for teachers.

During the information and discussion portion of the meeting the Board heard from incoming superintendent Kelly Glass about an online instruction tool called Elevate K-12.

Elevate K-12 is a resource that would allow students to take classes in the classroom with an instructor who is video conferencing over the internet. Glass explained that she brought this program to the board’s attention in case they are unable to hire math teachers for the middle school in time for next year.

In the action portion of the meeting the School Board approved the planned meeting dates for the next year, the renewal of the Beyond Textbooks agreement with Vail School District and offered Sodexo the food service contract.

Finally the board approved giving Dr. Allen the full five percent of his superintendent performance-based compensation pay, with Board President Jill Reed expressing the board’s appreciation for the work Allen has done in the job.