Van Dyck: Questioning the actions of Apache Junction school board

There are things going on at the Apache Junction school board that you should be aware of. What I am going to say here relates to the Apache Junction High School in particular.

We are all aware of the extreme difficulty that Arizona schools faced during the COVID school shutdown — creating an online educational system from scratch, teachers working to learn online teaching methods, motivating students to attend the online courses, ensuring that all students had internet access, and continuing to provide necessary social services to the student body, such as the lunch program (which for some students were, and are, a vital part of their daily diet).

During the COVID on-campus shutdown, Apache Junction High School Principal Chris Lineberry, AJUSD Superintendent of Schools Heather Wallace and the teachers at the high school — as with all AJ schools — worked feverishly to put together an online teaching system. Under the guidance of these two administrators, AJHS developed an online system that became the model for other schools in Arizona. There were constant inquiries from school districts throughout the state wanting to know how AJHS was doing it.

In addition, Lineberry and Wallace established a system to provide students with continued food service. You must understand the importance of this. There are many students in the AJ school system who rely on school-provided meals as their primary source of food. A shocking and sad circumstance that Lineberry and Wallace were not going to leave unaddressed.

The Apache Junction High School has also been deeply affected by another issue. Some of you may not know that the Arizona Department of Education has a school grading system ranking Arizona schools from A to F. In past years the high school had dropped to a D grade rating. That put it perilously close to an F rating where the state could come in and take control of the school’s administration.

Once more, Principal Lineberry and Superintendent Wallace to the rescue; the ratings had been consistently dropping in the five years prior to Superintendent Wallace. These two administrators provided guidance and motivation to the teaching staff. But they also listened to the teachers who are on the front line. Their willingness to consider and implement good ideas from teachers was not only effective but also raised morale. Lineberry was the primary force that raised the high school from that D grade rating to its current B rating.

Enter the Apache Junction school board. After all of the extremely hard work by Lineberry, Wallace and the dedicated teachers at the high school, the school board has caused Principal Lineberry to find other employment, fired Superintendent Wallace and demeaned the hard work of the high school’s teachers. They simply fired Wallace with some proceedings conducted in secrecy and told the teachers that they should each call all of their students and apologize for low benchmark Scores. A scoring system that, while watching the school board discussion on YouTube, they obviously do not understand. Benchmark Scores are not a system that necessarily shows a successful outcome with a 100% score. And Apache Junction High School did well on the scores.

In the end, the school board has destroyed morale among the teachers at the high school. And they have done it at a time when many of them have yet to accept and sign their contracts for next year. The teachers thought the world of Lineberry and Wallace. Losing those two highly regarded professionals and the board’s complete lack of appreciation for the teacher’s hard work with long hours, oversized classes (the school is experiencing a teacher shortage) and increasing student discipline problems (how many times a day are you called obscene names?) is heart breaking to the teachers. The school board’s actions have brought some teachers to tears and, I understand, many are considering going elsewhere next year.

No one can see any reason for this other than the gross incompetence of some school board members. The AJ schools, and the high school in particular, have been increasing school scores, student scores and graduation rates during the tenures of both Principal Lineberry and Superintendent Wallace. The education of the school district’s children had been consistently improving under the guidance of these two people.

Fifteen years ago, AJUSD reduced the pay of all of its teachers. Today those longtime teachers are now being paid less than newly hired teachers.

The board said they were going to bring this problem into a meeting for resolution. Needless to say, there were a lot of AJ’s most experienced teachers watching that board meeting in February 2023 on YouTube. It was simply incredulous; a large portion of that meeting was consumed by a presentation and discussion of Arizona water resources. Something having absolutely nothing to do with schools other than the one minute it took to discuss the planned increase in water usage as it applies to population growth and schools.

The discussion of how to rectify the teacher pay disparity was brought up as the very last issue. And then it was tabled by a school board that truly looked confused and bewildered.

Can you imagine the disappointment of those very experienced, longtime teachers that stayed in the AJUSD out of loyalty to their community? Teachers that could have gone to other districts and made around $10,000 a year more than they were being paid by AJ. Teachers that are making less money than newly hired, less experienced teachers. It was a slap in the face by the Apache Junction school board. Would you work for them? Many of their contracts for next year are still unsigned.

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.