Peoria Unified School District

Doug Ducey’s Education Advisor has no Business Dictating Health Care Guidance to School Districts

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Governor Doug Ducey’s office has stepped in it again. This time it is over the COVID quarantine policies both the Peoria and Catalina Foothills school districts have formulated with regards to children who have not received the Coronavirus vaccination. Each district, per existing statewide and county health guidelines, wants unvaccinated children to quarantine for ten … Read more

When is a charter school a bad idea?

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Hint: the answer is not,  “never.” It is a bad idea, according to education blogger Peter Green, “when charters disrupt and displace [district] public schools.” I would add that often, these district schools are the hubs of their communities so charters contribute to disrupting these communities as well.

Case in point is a new charter school (Legacy Traditional School) being built in Glendale, Arizona. Scheduled to open in time for the 2016/17 school year, the new campus will serve 1,200 K-8 students at the northeast corner of 67th Avenue and Thunderbird Road. Sounds good, right? Problem is, this school is being built within the boundaries of the Peoria Unified School District, within two miles of 10 of their “A” or “B” rated elementary schools (50 percent of PUSD’s schools are rated “A”, another 25 percent are rated “B.)  When PUSD has the capacity to serve the 1,200 students Legacy hopes to eventually attract, why is this school necessary, or even in the best interest of this community?

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