Fate of DAMS draws large turnout at district office
Marc Buckhout ~ Managing Editor ~ 3/17/2010


Residents in the Cave Creek Unified School District came to the March 9 public meeting offering both suggestions and wielding criticism at the school board, which is considering the closure of Desert Arroyo Middle School for the second straight year.
Primarily as a result of the state’s budget woes the Cave Creek Unified School District has set into motion the process by which they could close DAMS for the 2010-2011 school year.
With the reality that they could be facing as much as a $2.3 million budget deficit for the coming year School Superintendent Debbie Burdick gave a presentation to the board and a full room worth of parents explaining why DAMS, is the most logical choice for closure.
Due to the age and needed maintenance associated with DAMS Burdick said closing the school, located at 33401 N. 56th St. in Scottsdale, could yield a potential savings of $634,311. That figure is more than closing other schools in the district. Burdick said the board has put a premium on keeping class sizes small when asking the district to examine budget saving options.
Burdick mentioned that the district’s challenges have been compounded by the fact that seven of the last nine budget initiatives brought to the voters seeking financial support for CCUSD have failed.
The vast majority of the 13 speakers that addressed the board were against the school closure citing reasons as broad as stripping the youth in the north part of the district of a sense of community, to reasons as specific as what one mother estimated would be a nearly three hour roundtrip daily bus commute, a figure the district placed as high as 2.5 hours to Sonoran Trails Middle School, which would be the district’s lone remaining middle school, at 5555 E. Pinnacle Vista in Phoenix.
“I understand your frustration with bond overrides and the financial challenges the district faces,” Charles Garrison, a parent in the district said. “I understand that our state legislature is putting you in the terrible position of having to cut programs or close schools. If the only solution to the crisis is to cut programs or close DAMS then cut programs. Allow parents to carry the ball for determining and providing our kids special programs that they need whether it’s all-day kindergarten, Spanish emersion or others. When the economy turns around we can reintroduce the most successful programs as we can afford them. We can’t reintroduce a program to a school that no longer exists.”
Sandy Creston, another parent in the district, was perhaps the most critical of the board. She suggested the district abandon the Cactus Shadows Prep Academy, set to open in the fall, which would serve high school students in the district.
“Why not ask parents to pay for full-day kindergarten, why not let your elitist academy go,” she asked. “The last time I looked only 12 candidates had signed up to go there. I’m beyond disgusted with this board’s inactivity in looking at all options. Do you really wonder why people don’t vote for you?”
The Academy, which was swiped at by a couple of speakers, is being added to quell the loss of students to charter schools according to information on the district website.
Eva Wendt said she would likely remove her 12-year-old daughter from the district if DAMS is closed, citing an unreasonable bus schedule that she said would have her daughter spending three hours on the bus each days.
Garrison said the district should focus on its core students rather than spread itself to thin.
“The current board is trying to be all things to all people,” he said. “Keep the students in the communities they belong to.”
Should the board choose to close DAMS, a decision that could come as early as May 18, advancing fifth grade students would remain at their elementary school for their sixth grade year, a departure from the district’s current setup in which middle school includes sixth, seventh and eighth grade.
The district explained that class sizes at Sonoran Trails would remain about 30 to 32 students, and condensing the middle school students to one campus could allow for more programs. The school would have 850 students and has the capacity for 1,165.
A second public hearing, giving resident an opportunity to address the board is set for 6 p.m. April 13 in the district’s Governing Board Room (33016 North 60th Street). The board’s ruling on the closure would then likely come on May 18, although Desert Arroyo parent Greg Smith asked that the meeting be pushed back until after results of the ballot measure asking for a 1-cent sales-tax increase that would funnel $700 million to public education are announced.
“Nothing will affect our district more than the sales-tax vote,” he said. “Delaying the vote will allow more time to discuss budget alternatives.”
Other money-saving options include laying off teachers, which would increase class sizes, as well as eliminating music, art, physical education, computer-lab coordinators, gifted and band teachers, a counselor and kindergarten aides in the elementary schools, laying off a high-school secretary and implementing furloughs and pay decreases. A worst-case scenario could see the school closed plus all those options.
Board member Dave Schaeffer said that giving the board more time is good, but he said any suggestion that the board hasn’t been thorough in its appraisal of the situation and the district’s options is inaccurate.
“We did an extensive amount of research when we went through this process a year ago and we’ve done it again this year,” he said. “We have very passionate parents in our district, but unfortunately we’ve got serious budget issues and things just aren’t balancing without some extreme measures.”
Schaeffer went on to explain that simply saving money in one area of the budget such as on bussing or food service doesn’t mean that the district would then be able to spend more on maintenance, explaining that money budgeted for certain measures isn’t transferable to other areas of need.
For information on Cave Creek Unified School District go to www.ccusd93.org.