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 available courses.

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.

“We did not have a remedial middle school class for all four subjects,” McElligott explained. “What we provided is a pass/fail review for middle school students at high school level in their weakest area, so they can get an appreciation for where they need to be for the ninth grade.”

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

Beyond teacher, McElligott said that he served as the only summer school class this year.

“All changes this year were to stop the red ink that historically summer school would accumulate,” he continued. “The goal was to be revenue neutral and that was achieved this year. It was a joint decision once I was hired to plan how to staff the summer school. When you do the math, it was obvious that, after paying teacher salaries, there was possibly enough to only pay my position funding the middle school and above. The lower grades required more strategic staffing for health, safety and general supervision.”

Fortunately, McElligott said the district’s summer school program was able to attract enough high and middle school student, as well as continue scholarships through EVIT and EPCOR, to support these efforts.

McElligott stressed that this was not so much a budget cut as it was an effort to stem the “red ink” that went unchecked for years.

“This is the first year the district took effective action with the intention of serving all the students with continued support while achieving a zero based budget.”

It doesn’t hurt that the Boys & Girls Club has been an excellent partner, according to McElligott.

“They’ve provided a great environment for kids,” he continued. “Since a number of these classes were held at the Four Peaks building, I think there was every possibility of giving teachers solid environments to support their students.”

McElligott said he was pleased with the number of students who took part in this year’s summer school program, including 84 credit students, which was a 10 percent boost from the previous year. With four core courses represented, McElligott said he is pushing to have language and CTE courses added if they gather enough interest in future years.

McElligott said he and his teacher had to work very hard this first year through the new set-up but, with more time to plan and organize, he is convinced FHUSD will be able to offer even more variety now that the “big decisions are made.”