The past 12 months have been busy for local schools.

From an organizations change to summer school and a partnership with EVIT to all sorts of new high school course options and an FHUSD rebrand, 2016 has been a busy year.

Following is the second a two-part series looking back at 2016 within local schools and other areas that impact Fountain Hills teachers, students and parents. This second part covers the months of July to December.

Summer school

From partnering with the Boys & Girls Club McKee Branch to cutting back on staff, the Fountain Hills Unified School District summer school program underwent several changes this year.

Originally planned to be spread across the high school and middle school campuses like in recent years, FHUSD’s offerings were instead consolidated to just FHHS, where academic options and a handful of athletics courses made up this year’s roster of classes.

Despite making tough cuts in order to make the program less costly, summer school head Dr. Paul McElligott said that FHUSD was able to make virtually all offerings from middle school up identical to previous years with one exception.

The big change this year came in the form of the partnership with the local Boys & Girls Club.

McElligott said that all enrichment classes, as well as courses for sixth grade and below, were transferred to the Boys & Girls Club.

FHUSD marketing

Over the summer, FHUSD Superintendent Dr. Patrick Sweeney explained that the district would be doubling down on its image and marketing in the coming school year.

With the goal being to attract and maintain quality teachers and additional students, the fall has been a busy time in those regards.

For starters, local students partnered with Brokers Alliance and others willing to volunteer their time and resources in order to create a series of marketing videos showing off FHUSD and the town of Fountain Hills.

Mailers were created and sent out to neighboring communities, the district’s website received a complete overhaul and even the district’s logo was redesigned from the ground up.

EVIT

Making this year’s top 10 story list for Fountain Hills, the local school district has entered into a partnership with the East Valley Institute of Technology in order to open a campus here in Fountain Hills.

EVIT will be utilizing the former Four Peaks Elementary School building to host classes, which will be open to students in Fountain Hills and other districts.

Currently, EVIT is pinning down which courses would be the best fit for a local campus. In 2017, work will begin on retrofitting the building in order to accommodate those courses. The current plan is to open the local EVIT campus at the beginning of the 2017/18 academic year.

Audit

According to Fountain Hills Unified School District Assistant Superintendent of Business Operations, Dr. Robert Allen, a lot of housecleaning has been done concerning the district’s finances and reporting in 2016 and, following the most recent annual audit, there’s still more work to do.

When Allen first came on-board with FHUSD, one of his main goals was to get the local school district’s finances back on track. Part of that process was discussed during the Aug. 24 School Board meeting, where Allen provided a report on the annual audit, this one focused on 2014-15.

As Allen has pointed out in the past, finances and reporting weren’t in the best shape from previous years, leaving him to balance the books and make sure everything is up to date and accurate.

Speaking to this most recent audit, Allen said that he was reconciling issues dating back as far as 2006.

A total of 16 findings were reported in regards to the audit, which available in full at fhusd.org.

New courses

This spring has been huge for new course approvals at FHUSD.

Back in September, the Governing Board approved an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with Paradise Valley School District for the purchase of curriculum geared at online education for courses ranging from English to various math and science classes. Now approved, FHUSD has ownership of the courses, which can now be fine-tuned to match the needs of local students.

Additional courses were approved in November, including an AP Capstone course for the high school, a Theater course that partners FHHS with the Fountain Hills Theater, as well as an AVID course and AzMERIT Math classes to fill in the gaps.

Top school

Fountain Hills High School was named one of the top 50 public high schools in the state, a ranking determined by the 2015 SAT results.

Announced by the Phoenix Business Journal, Fountain Hills High School is listed as the 48th highest ranked school in Arizona with an average SAT score of 1551.

As the original report indicates, high SAT scores are one of the basis for determining college readiness at a high school, showing that Fountain Hills students are well prepared for life after FHHS, whether that be moving on to continue their education or move into the work force.

For these rankings, 547 public and charter high schools from around the state were taken into consideration.

Board members

With no other challengers stepping forward, Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board incumbents Dr. C.T. Wright and Jill Reed are set to continue their service within the local district for another four years.

Both Wright and Reed’s terms on the School Board expired at the end of 2016. They have both been sworn in for their new four-year terms beginning in Jan. 1, 2017

Athletic fees

In order for Fountain Hills Unified School District’s athletics programs to remain self-sustaining, Athletic Director Mike Briguglio is proposing an increase to sports fees starting with the 2017-18 school year.

The potential of raising fees was discussed during the Nov. 9 School Board meeting, with Briguglio giving attendees a look at his discoveries so far. Briguglio said the goal of fees for athletics is to pay current coaching stipends and their 20 percent of benefits. The local athletics programs have managed to make ends meet over the past several years but, according to Briguglio, the figures are no longer adding up.

Athletics are no longer included under the umbrella of M&O, leaving these funds to be raised through fees, ticket sales, tax credit donations and fundraising.

Briguglio explained that the goal has always been to keep athletics alive and well in Fountain Hills, while giving every student an opportunity to play and properly reimbursing the coaches who run the programs.

At minimum, Briguglio said fees need to shift from $150 to $225 at the high school and to $175 at the middle school. A final proposal is expected sometime in the spring semester.

The plan is to provide a final proposal sometime during the spring semester.

Band soars

The Fighting Flock of Falcon Fury, better known to most as the Fountain Hills High School marching band, recently capped off its season with a collection of major performances, as well as an “Excellent” rating at state and a stroll down the road as part of the Phoenix Veterans Day Parade.

It was a big year for the FHHS crew, with their 2016 marching program known as “Welcome to the Jungle.”

While that performance entertained local visitors to the home football games, the Falcons also took to the field with their spirited show at the U of A Band Day, NAU Band Day and state competition hosted out of Hamilton High School.

While Fountain Hills High School is considered a smaller campus, its marching band is on par with what is typically seen in a 4A or 5A program. Since these types of competitions are based on band size rather than school size, the Falcons once again went toe-to-toe with programs two divisions higher than their school size. Despite that fact, the Falcons earned a Caption award for the show’s visuals, as well as another rating of Excellent.