• State of the District 2024Dr. Curtis Finch at his desk

    The annual Deer Valley Unified School District (DVSUD) State of the District address is designed to mirror the governor’s State of the State for Arizona and the presidential State of the Union to keep you informed on the challenges, progress, growth, and accomplishments of DVUSD students and staff. These state and national civic addresses are designed to reflect upon what is going well, what areas need additional focus, and what the future may hold; this document is no different. January is a great window to look forward and reflect back as we finish up one school year and make plans for the next.

    DVUSD experienced another banner year of progress for implementing our Vision and Mission of the district – graduating life-long learners and providing #extraordinary educational opportunities for all students. Our physical district size - 34,000 students, 42 schools, and 4,200 employees, makes for a challenging combination in moving forward together. In the education world, slow is fast – deliberately calculated plans are better than quick and disorganized attempts at random initiatives. An African proverb says it best, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” Our current five-year Strategic Plan (www.dvusd.org/strategicplan) is used as the guide for our yearly district goals as DVUSD seeks to be the best K-12 unified public school district in the state of Arizona.

    The larger community correctly views DVUSD as a great place to work. After national back-to-back Forbes Best Midsize Employer awards and four years as the top Forbes public K-12 midsize school district employer in Arizona, we know our story, programs, and accolades are making an impact on students and our surrounding community. Educational research points to a happy and engaged employee as the most important factor in helping students succeed. Our national recognition as a Professional Learning Community (PLC) model district draws other districts from around Arizona and the United States to learn about our educational practices, policies, and programs. DVUSD is also one of a handful of Arizona school districts in Project Momentum, a collection of future-focused districts perfecting the next Arizona’s substantive educational programs and reforms.

    The positive results continue to pour in, highlighted by the largest number of “A-rated” schools in DVUSD’s history (26) and our highest percentage of A+ School of Excellence designations ever (52%). We continue to reach our annual goal of at least 50 state athletic team, individual, Career & Technical Education (CTE), future business professionals (DECA), and future Health Care Professionals (HOSA) state titles a year, and continue to add to the number of National Board Certified Teachers annually. Deer Valley Unified School District also has its very own, state approved, Teacher Prep Program with 70 teachers-in-training in the program.

    DVUSD is highly regarded in Arizona’s preschool through twelfth grade educational circles. We are known for our professional development, systems of structure, and relentless pursuit of educational excellence in every classroom.  These three ingredients propel us annually to the top of the Forbes list locally and nationally, consistently scoring well academically every year. Our employees love to work for DVUSD because of its singular focus on student excellence evidenced by their commitment to daily execution of our mission and vision.

    For review, our Core Values keep the district focused upon these objectives. DVUSD continues to “R.A.I.S.E. the Bar” of an #extraordinary education through our core values of Respect, Accountability, Integrity, Student-Driven, and Excellence. Respect refers to treating each other with dignity. Accountability points to fulfilling our commitments. Integrity describes honest and ethical behaviors while Student-Driven action puts students first in our decision making. Excellence is our method of operation and the results speak for itself.

    The Portrait of a Graduate and accompanying video series   (www.dvusd.org/portraitofagraduate) spells out the necessary “soft skills” needed for students to succeed in life. Soft skills are described as areas in which students can learn to effectively and cooperatively work and interact with others. The Portraits highlight DVUSD alumni who have become models for the five areas for students to seek to learn, such as a Community Contributor, an Effective Communicator, Intellectually Curious, a Problem Solver, and a person who can acquire a Sense of Self and Others. Educational institutions such as DVSUD value supportive systems, guiding principles, and core values that keep our organization focused on the importance of successful student learning.

    Today, the immediate effects of the 2020 world-wide pandemic are in the rearview mirror, but school districts across the nation continue to make up learning losses that impacted various groups of students differently. While DVUSD was one of the first Arizona districts to return to class with in-person learning, enrollment took a dip right away until students felt comfortable returning to class safely. Our enrollment rose in 2022, leveled out in 2023, and will rise again going forward as the integration of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and its feeder companies weave into our local economy. With the influx of this economic and residential growth in our school zone from these multiple large and small companies, large-scale builders, and state and city agency changes, the future of DVUSD’s growth will continue to be positive moving forward.

    The potential growth of our area as one of the fastest growing counties in the country made for an interesting November 2023. For the first time in over a decade, DVUSD lost a Bond issue request to prepare for growth on the west side of the I-17 freeway. The Override also lost for the first time since 1991, another unwelcome surprise. DVUSD found itself the victim of organized anti-public school education groups. Since DVUSD is one of the premiere K-12 public school districts in Arizona, the negative vote didn’t make sense. The low voter participation, coupled with the organized attack of misinformation, made for the perfect storm for a nonrenewal of both initiatives that were not tax increases to the community, but a continuation of the same tax rates. We anticipate another organized effort of misinformation with the probability of the same proposals being on the ballot in November 2024.

    The Bond issue in 2023 was intended for safety, security, technology maintenance, and building maintenance/upgrades in our 41 brick-n-mortar schools, and for future student growth in the next decade. The Bond also was designed to support our bus and white-fleet transportation and energy conservation for our district. The Override, in place for over thirty years, pays for 8% of all 4,000 employee salaries (teachers, staff, and administration), free all-day Kindergarten (including transportation), the maintenance of lower class-size ratios, and support of extra/co-curricular opportunities such as the arts, chorus, band, theater, dance, physical education, and athletics. The Override also requested support for specialized programs for students such as language immersion, gifted services, Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC), Fine Arts and the International Baccalaureate programs, and support services such as counseling, nursing, literacy, and instructional technology.

    If the November 2024 Override doesn’t pass, DVUSD will be required to cut $11 million a year for the following three years to phase out the Override support. The areas that were voted in 1991 (mentioned in this paragraph – i.e. staff salaries, free all-day Kindergarten, class sizes, student supports, etc.) will be the items that will be removed out of the budget over those three years. The total cost for the Override proposal is just over $20 a month for the average assessed value home in the DVUSD boundaries and the Bond taxation rate is calculated for just over $15 a month. Both the Override and Bond are continuations of the current tax rates applied to the DVUSD community. The plan is to put both measures before the Governing Board in early 2024 to put on the presidential ballot in November.

    The current national and state economic and political environments provide another set of variables DVUSD must work with to accomplish our goals. Pockets of anti-public school powers continue to sew misinformation about schools in Arizona, and specifically DVUSD. It is imperative that our parents and community receive the proper information concerning our district via social, visual, and print media, including the new “SupeScoop” podcast, especially so in this crowded November 2024 presidential election cycle.

    The Arizona legislature successfully pushed through more voucher options against a majority of the voter preferences, twice. The Empowerment Scholarship (ESA) program expansion turned out to be a transfer of wealth to the wealthy as 75% of the new ESA receivers were already in private schools. The ESA expansion is going to bankrupt the Arizona economy, already pushing a billion dollars in cost, with limited transparency or accountability for those public tax dollars. The future political fate of the two main parties will hinge on ESA decisions this election cycle as it did in the last election cycle in 2022.

    The pace of future progress within the DVUSD machine will be directly tied to the decision of the community and parents to pass or reject the Bond and Override in November of 2024. Look to our neighbors such as Cave Creek, Fountain Hills, and Peoria when Bonds and Overrides fail for decades; these school districts all have something in common, slow atrophy in enrollment, building decay, school program closures, and the non-retention of quality staff. In the end, students suffer when public education is starved of financial support such as the inability to adequately train the next workforce, property values decline, and crime increases. The state of Arizona is 49th in the nation for economic support for public schools. Local Bond and Override ballot measures provide an opportunity for community members, local businesses, and parents to provide local economic support that the state legislature and the governor’s office are not supplying; November of 2024 will be a crossroads in the push to support DVUSD public schools and children. Here is a list of items that will be on the 2024 Bond and Override should the DVUSD Governing Board decide to move forward with the community request (www.dvusd.org/electionitems).

    Current economic and political winds indicate the potential for positive change in Arizona for the better. The forecast for Deer Valley Unified School District is “optimistic” since DVUSD continues to maintain a long history of local support as we get ready to celebrate our 90th birthday. Our birth in New River in 1934 began the journey of one of the best K-12 public school districts in the state of Arizona. Little did our future community know that all of the cactus and sand between the New River community and Bell Road would one day be a budding suburb of houses, businesses, and future economic development that would change the state of Arizona, and DVUSD, forever. We are at the future epi-center of the northern Maricopa County developmental explosion. The current state of our public school district is positive and we need to continue to build our momentum on into the future. With your help, we can continue our journey of #extraordinary, together.

    Curt Finch, PhD

    Superintendent
    Deer Valley Unified School District

    Download a copy of the 2024 DVUSD State of the District