Scottsdale Unified School District No Dream Too Big . . . No Challenge Too Great

The Governing Board voted 5-0 to change the Freedom of Information (FOI) Public Records policy that would allow the district to impose a charge for the cost of copies made in response to requests for public records. The cost for copies is now 20 cents per page copied, including pages that are copied twice to protect redacted materials. The district will look to see whether it can waive the charge for school-related organizations.

Although Board policy KDB-R gives the district administration the ability to charge for photocopies made in response to public records requests, a previous Board provided direction that SUSD would not collect those fees. The public records request form, on the SUSD Web site, indicates that we charge for those copies, but we have not collected those fees in several years.

Arizona law allows school districts to charge only for the cost of the copies, but not the time a staff member spends finding and copying those records. This charge would not become an income center, but would serve to offset costs.

Please note that sometimes the number of copies can often exceed the number of pages delivered in response to a records request, including pages that must be redacted under state law and must be copied twice to maintain security of the redacted information.

In other action, the Board:

• Accepted funds from the Arizona K-12 Center in the amount of $43,200. The grant will be used to provide training to teachers and staff of Aztec Elementary School on Integrated Thematic Instruction (ITI). The goals and objectives of the program, as written into the grant are: formally train all staff in the ITI model of teaching, develop and implement formal mentoring programs, improve teacher retention by 8 percent over a three-year period, increase parental satisfaction with teacher performance, establish a teacher self-evaluation program on six key skills (influence, initiative, assertiveness, team orientation, sensitivity and use of lifeskills and lifelong guides in classroom and with peers) and improve student performance as measured by students’ portfolios three times per year.
   
• Approved the award of RFP #5088, Individual Education Plan Management System to Computer Automation Systems, Inc. for an amount not to exceed $125,758 for the 2004-2005 fiscal year. This system will support the collection of data needed to optimize its delivery of Special Education services to all eligible students.
   
• Accepted gifts valued at $146,948. The gifts were received from Coronado Yearbook, Arcadia PTO, Cherokee APT, Cheyenne PTO, Cochise APT, Desert Canyon Elementary School PTO, Desert Mountain PTO, Friends of ANLC, Hohokam PTA, Hopi PTA, Kiva PTO, Desert Mountain Parents, Arcadia Pride, C.H.A.P.T.S., Coronado Foundation for the Future, American Express PAC Match, Framin Works, Julia Hardwick, Honeywell Hometown Solutions, Piper Jaffray, Wal-Mart Foundation and Jerry Weinsheink.

The next Governing Board meeting, a work/study meeting, is scheduled for 7 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 21, at the Education Center.

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