During last week’s meeting of the Winslow Unified School District’s Governing Board, the board heard a presentation by Vada Begay, supervisor of the Winslow Residential Hall, who told the board the dormitory currently houses 90 students, 37 boys and 53 girls from 14 different communities. “The furthest is Many Farms,” Begay said, adding that the dorm also runs transportation there on Fridays and Sundays. The facility has 130 rooms available and all its residents are Native American.
The dorm sends students home every weekend throughout the school year, running four bus routes on Fridays and Sundays to the Hopi villages, Ganado, the Chinle area, Window Rock and communities toward Flagstaff and Anthem. The kitchen stays open late on Sunday nights, Begay said, “till 9 p.m., till the last student arrives.”
Begay pointed to a sharp improvement in the program’s transportation funding, which is based on documenting mileage for daily pickups and drop-offs. “When I first started, we were receiving only $22,000 a year,” she said. “But as I became the supervisor, I increased that to $90,000 by counting every single mile.” Count week, the enrollment period that determines the program’s per-student funding, runs from Sept. 13 through Oct. 2.
Asked by Board Vice President Isabel Britton about tutoring hours, Begay described a mandatory power hour from 4 to 5 p.m., a mandatory study hall from 6 to 7 p.m., for students who are struggling in school and a new peer tutoring program open to students with a 3.5 GPA or higher. She also credited Winslow Junior High School’s new Flex program and its principal, Travis Dooley, saying, “We had all of our students pass, and at the end of the school year, 11 of our students held honor roll.”
In other business, the board adopted Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA) policy advisories 1047 through 1064. Superintendent Debbie Martinez walked the board through the package, which brings district policy in line with recent legislative changes, including updates to the Arizona Open Meeting Law, rules on weapon detection systems, and documentation requirements for food and beverage purchases made with public money. The advisories also raise the district’s purchase threshold from $10,000 to $15,000, require dyslexia to be reported on a student’s IEP, and provide that third grade students cannot be promoted if they do not demonstrate sufficient reading skills.
Another change allows the world language requirement to be satisfied with a Native American language course. A group of entirely new policies covers admissions for resident, non-resident, transfer and homeless students and students in foster care, along with procedures for requests by patriotic youth groups to address students and a requirement to notify Department of Child Safety caseworkers of records requests.
The board then took up the ASBA 2027 political agenda, voting to approve it and to direct the district’s delegate, Britton, to represent the board’s position at the association’s delegate assembly. Britton, preparing for her first assembly, asked colleagues who had served before, board members Josephine Montoya and Todd Wilcox, how they came to understand the positions without consulting an attorney. Montoya, who previously served on the association’s legislative committee, explained that the committee gathers “the top 10 issues that concern education” from across member districts, with a final set of top priorities presented to legislators and the association’s lobbyists.
The board also approved a new job description for the reading specialist at Jefferson Elementary School. Administrators said the position already exists and the document changes nothing about the work being done. “They were looped under just a teacher job description, but we wanted to be a little more specific in the sense if we ever hired another one, that they would know exactly what their job entails,” Superintendent Martinez said. Wilcox asked whether operating without a specific job description had created any audit exposure and staff assured him it had not.
The board’s next regular meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 16.
During the meeting, the board also:
* Approved past meeting minutes and the ratification list.
* Accepted donations from the following: Little Colorado Medical Center, $3,980; Bojo’s Grill and Sports Club, $184.95; and Winslow Women’s Club, three copies of Heroes of 1776.
* Approved the following new hires: Shyanne Vargas, substitute; Sarah Breeze, custodian, Francisca Salaza and Emmalisha Addakai as paraprofessionals. Also Alyssa Howeth as assistant spirtline coach and Zachary DeSpain as assistant swim coach.
* Approved Jason Stradling for extra pay for Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology and extra pay for Daniel Tafoya as a mentor teacher stipend.
*Approved the following fundraisers: WHS First Priority, birthday and greeting grams; WHS FFA, agriculture shop sales; WHS Social Committee, old yearbook sales, staff pantry, and jeans week; WHS Art Club, afterschool snacks and miscellaneous items; WHS Baseball Club, ETeam sponsor and headwear; WHS Cross Country, shirt/sweatshirt sales and money dolly; WHS Volleyball Club, concessions and serve-a-thon; WHS FBLA, dunk tank; WHS Popcorn Club, popcorn and pickles; WHS Anime Club, ice cream sales, chip sales, and glow products; WJHS High Needs Class, popcorn; WJHS Office, Diamondbacks ticket sales; WJHS Honor Society, pickle/water sales, dance concessions and sports concessions; and WJHS Student Council, dance concessions, sports concessionss and after school snack cart.
