The Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board held its first meeting of the 2020-21 school year this past Wednesday, Aug. 12, where members approved emergency purchases and established the position of a technology director.

The highlight of the night was the return and reopening of schools with almost every item revolving around that topic. Superintendent Kelly Glass, in her first meeting as superintendent, provided the board with an update on the reopening plan.

Glass told the board FHUSD had received the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) benchmarks for reopening. Currently, FHUSD falls in the green category of ADHS’s benchmarks for reopening with only 1 percent of the community in Fountain Hills infected with COVID-19. FHUSD schools plan to reopen for in person instruction on Sept. 8.

The board also had to make three emergency purchases during the meeting under COVID-19 Executive Order #41, allowing them to bypass procurement laws. The purchases were laptops from DHE and Best Buy and the Elevated K-12 online teaching program for a sixth grade math teacher and an eighth grade language arts teacher.

Also on the topic of returning to school, the board approved leaves of absence for a couple of local teachers.

With all of this new technology coming to the district the board voted to change the job title of technology lead to technology director and changed the job description to reflect that change.

Finally, the school board also increased meal prices for the year with breakfast at all three FHUSD locations going from $1.60 to $1.75 and the price of lunch at McDowell Mountain to go from $3 to $3.10.

The next school board meeting is scheduled for Aug. 26.