Highest kudos to FHUSD Superintendent Cain Jagodzinski. He and his staff, his teachers and community volunteers have accomplished Houdini magic in the past few months. Consolidating our district’s schools and safely moving students and teachers should have required a couple years of planning and action. Dr. J’s team did it in seven months!

Lots of attaboys are in order for our wonder worker whose positivity, knowledge and hard work have made it possible for schools to be ready for our kids to learn on time and in attractive environments.

After watching the recent School Board retreat, however, I question whether Dr. J will be willing to stay on in Fountain Hills. The abuse and mistrust he was subjected to by Board Members Reid and Settle showed no appreciation for the miracles he accomplished for our students. Their lack of educational knowledge and institutional information should lead them to listen and learn from the experienced board members and Dr. J. Instead, the meeting seemed to require wasting time to explain, ad infinitum to them, how things work. They don’t yet understand that sometimes, in order to run a system, agendas must be flexible and no, there won’t always be time to allow them to research every issue. They have a smart superintendent to do that. And their obsession about disallowing even the slightest hint of social/emotional guidance for children is just their blatantly political agenda.

Reid and Settle seem to mistakenly think that their role is to be suspicious and to impede the work of the superintendent rather than to collaborate in partnership with him to efficiently accomplish improvements to the district. Perhaps, rather than creating roadblocks, they should step down if they can’t keep up.