This week, the Paradise Valley Unified School District took a significant step toward resolving the issue of how to deal with declining enrollment in its schools. PVUSD schools is just one of the first of many expected across the state due to parents’ growing embrace of school choice.
On December 5, PVUSD’s School Closure and Boundary Review Committee issued its report and held a hearing regarding its recommendations, which included the closing of four schools and the boundary realignment necessitated by those school closings.
On December 7, the PVUSD Governing Board agreed to pursue the matter further by seeking stakeholder input regarding the following recommendations:
Potential School Closures
- Hidden Hills Elementary School
- Sunset Canyon Elementary School
- Desert Springs Preparatory Elementary
- Vista Verde Middle School
Potential School Reboundary
- Reboundary Desert Trails Elementary School east of 56th St. to Pinnacle Peak Preparatory (north of “Deer Valley”) and Grayhawk Elementary School (south of “Deer Valley”)
- Reboundary Sonoran Sky Elementary School triangle west of Scottsdale Rd. to North Ranch Elementary School
Potential Elementary Schools Receiving Students
- Larkspur (Hidden Hills)
- Desert Cove (southwest portion of Larkspur)
- Eagle Ridge (Sunset Canyon)
- Pinnacle Peak Preparatory (Desert Trails)
- Grayhawk (Desert Trails)
- Liberty (Desert Springs)
- North Ranch (Desert Springs and Sonoran Sky triangle west of Scottsdale Rd.)
Potential Middle Schools Receiving Students
- Greenway (Vista Verde south of Loop 101 and west of 32nd St.)
- Sunrise (Vista Verde north of Bell Rd. and east of 32nd St. and Greenway north of Greenway Rd. and east of 32nd St.)
- Shea (Greenway south of Greenway Rd. and west of 40th St.)
The entire contents of the Committee’s report may be read, and the hearing may be viewed by clicking HERE.
Opposition to this decision was swift, as indicated by these comments on Twitter(X):
From Beth Lewis, Director of AZ Save Our Schools
“PVUSD is only down 3% enrollment (800 kids), but 9% of schools may be forced to close. The massive drain of universal vouchers is the final straw for underfunded AZ schools. The human impact cannot be overstated.”
From Trevor Nelson, longtime progressive public school activist:
“After decades of AZ Republican defunding through not keeping funding tracking with inflation they have finally figured out the real final solution Just give taxpayers money to the rich to offset private school tuition to bolster the donation class.”
Others indicated that moving forward with this process is imperative in order to exercise good economic sense, even though it may be painful, especially to those directly involved:
From Tom Horne, Superintendent of Public Instruction:
“When I was on the PV school board, we closed schools. It was politically damaging, because parents are attached to their schools even though in our case, the students would be going to a better one. But it is the only financially responsible thing one can do. I regret it is a violation of one’s fiduciary duty to operate inefficient schools when you can consolidate, make them efficient, and have more money for teacher salaries. But be ready for emotional testimony from parents of students in the schools to be closed, about how much they want to save their schools. Once the students have had some education in their new school, the parents will calm down.”
From Lynne Weaver, longtime political activist and observer of educational issues:
“Ten years ago, PVUSD had 33,000 students. Since then, the district’s enrollment declined by a full 20% to 27,000. Birth rates and average age of the population in the district along with school choice options indicate this downward trend will continue. The district needs to right-size the number of schools to match student enrollment.
The buildings should be leased or preferably sold. District enrollment will not increase in the foreseeable future. With the expansion of ESAs and interest in school choice, there should be ready buyers from the private sector.”
Paradise Valley Governing Board member Sandra Christensen, a staunch advocate for transparency, questioned her District’s decision to leave the public out of the process employed to recommend the public school closures.
Christensen applauded the District’s School Closure Committee’s work, but argued that its work should have been open to the public:
Does the district need to close schools? It is highly likely as we have declining enrollment and many underutilized properties.
I will say that this committee did a very thorough job on their analysis, however I would have liked to have more information on how the closures and redistricting recommendations were decided. My concern stems primarily from the manner in which the district handled the process. The school closure committee has been meeting for over 8 months in closed door meetings that neither board members nor members of the community could attend or get updates on potential closures.
This committee should have been formed as a board committee, not a closed superintendent committee that did not follow open meeting law. Superintendent committees should be administrative in nature only, I take issue with committees that are closed and secretive in nature, especially if they will be presenting their recommendations to the board for a vote. The teachers, students, parents feel betrayed by the district because PVUSD maybe closing schools prior to the start of the 2024-25 school year and failed to get community input during this process. These town halls, while important, will not likely change the outcome of the board vote in February since they will be held after the committee recommendations were presented to the board.
While I believe that committees are a great tool to help school district governing boards help decide important matters, these should be governing board committees, selected by the board and they should follow open meeting law rules.
Stakeholders and the general public will have opportunities to obtain information and express opinions before the PVUSD makes a final decision.
Regional Public Forums will be held as follows:
| Date | Time | Location |
| January 9, 2024 | 6:00 p.m. | Sunset Canyon Elementary School |
| January 10, 2024 | 6:00 p.m. | Desert Trails Elementary School |
| January 16, 2024 | 6:00 p.m. | Vista Verde Middle School |
| January 17, 2024 | 6:00 p.m. | Hidden Hills Elementary School |
| January 18, 2024 | 6:00 p.m. | Desert Springs Preparatory |
These public forums are not meetings of the Governing Board. However, feedback collected at these forums will be provided to Paradise Valley Unified School District Governing Board members. Board members will be present at the District Public Hearing and Community Forum, which will be held as follows:
Location: Paradise Valley High School
3950 E. Bell Rd., Phoenix, AZ 85032
Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Time: 6:00 p.m.
It is likely that a final decision will be made by the Governing Board at their meeting on February 8.