Tuesday, 21 May 2002
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/20521FLOWINGWELLS.html

Jim Davis / Staff
Every month, billboards like the one behind governing board President Gerald Long, left, teachers Alberto Urquidez and Maria Frontain, and Superintendent John Pedicone recognize students and an adult volunteer, a support staff member and a teacher.

Flowing Wells: Smallest district is a big success

By Colleen Sparks

ARIZONA DAILY STAR [PICTURE]

I know every single teacher on campus. I think it's very unusual for a school district to have that close relationship with their students.

Superintendent of the year. Teacher of the year. School board awards. A+ schools. Volunteer awards.

Flowing Wells School District has gotten them all. This school year.

But award recipients and others connected with the smallest school district in the Tucson metropolitan area agree that no single person or group of award winners makes Flowing Wells the success story it is.

Ask and you will hear, over and over again, that commitment, cooperation and community - of administrators, teachers, parents, students and neighborhood residents - make the Flowing Wells district work.

"It's not just a school district," graduating senior Tiffany Manzo said. "It's more of a community. It sounds so cliché, but it really is."

"The schools are the center of the community," said Kevin Daily, president of the Flowing Wells Neighborhood Association and Community Coalition and a member of the district's governing board.

"The school district binds us together."

Like most districts, Flowing Wells still struggles to improve its students' performance on the AIMS test.

And the state reported last week that the district's high school dropout rate - at 8.5 percent - was second-highest of the Tucson metropolitan area's five largest districts last year.

But standardized test scores and dropout rates are not the only measures of a good school. Superintendent John Pedicone says the state A+ awards the district's schools have won are evidence of the quality of Flowing Wells' education.

The 13-square-mile district along Interstate 10 is landlocked, bordered by the larger Amphitheater, Marana and Tucson districts. About 52 percent of its families live at poverty level, Pedicone said. The district is a mix of mobile-home parks, older and newer homes, and commercial and industrial businesses. The racially and ethnically diverse residents range from retirees to young families with children.

Recognizing the needs of its community, the district started the first family resource center in Pima County in the early 1990s, district Assistant Superintendent Renate Krompasky said. The centers, which now serve four elementary schools and the junior high, provide clothing, food and furniture to low-income students and their families, Krompasky said.

Pedicone spearheaded the Flowing Wells Neighborhood Association and Community Coalition, a group of district residents who meet monthly to address quality-of-life issues, personal safety and ways to utilize governmental resources to benefit the neighborhood, association President Daily said.

School and government officials, and agencies that help community residents, recently formed the Laguna Neighborhood Initiative to find ways to deal with the presence of drugs and gang activity around Laguna Elementary School, Principal John Black said.

"I've always characterized the district as the little engine that could," said Robert Hendricks, assistant dean of the University of Arizona College of Education, who was Flowing Wells' superintendent from 1983 to 1996. One of the district's six elementary schools is named for him.

"There's not a lot of wealth. Folks work very hard in supporting education."

Parent Michelle Nogami, 48, said that when she moved to Tucson from Indiana in 1990, she read a booklet that described the district as very "community-oriented" and "parent-based."

"It's definitely the best district in town," Nogami said. "Parents definitely feel they want to be here."

Two of her children have graduated from the district schools and attend Northern Arizona University. She has a son in high school, a daughter in junior high and a daughter in elementary school.

Parent Cheryl Davis, 50, said her family moved to the Flowing Wells district from the Tucson Unified School District so her son, Ryan, now a senior, could attend school there.

"The first time we went to an open house, it was very friendly and open," Davis said. "It was a whole different atmosphere."

About 1,000 of the district's nearly 6,000 students at eight traditional and two alternative schools come from other districts, Pedicone said.

Pedicone, who was named All Arizona Superintendent this year by the Arizona School Administrators Association, is in his fourth year as superintendent.

"We consider Dr. Pedicone one of our really outstanding superintendents in Arizona, if not the entire country," said Harold Porter, the association's executive director.

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Flowing Wells High School teacher Alberto Urquidez, 29, recipient of the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award, said he "couldn't get over how professional everything was" when he first came to the district.

"You could tell that the district was dedicated to training teachers and retaining them," Urquidez said.

The district recruits teachers from across Arizona, California and New Mexico, Pedicone said.

Susie Heintz, district staff development coordinator, has been training new teachers for 18 years. After providing four days of training, Heintz visits new teachers in their classrooms and coaches them. Mentors at the new teachers' schools also assist them during their first two years on the job.

Flowing Wells Education Association President Jay Stanforth, a Hendricks Elementary School fourth-grade teacher, said he has received much more support from fellow teachers and administrators during his 18 years in Flowing Wells than he did in other districts, where he felt isolated.

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Maria Frontain, 39, a special education teacher at Flowing Wells High School who was named Arizona Teacher of the Year, appreciates the continuous support from administrators. She includes Pedicone, who knows most of her students by name, and high school Principal Karyn Blair, who recently went swimming with Frontain's students.

"I feel like I'm spoiled," Frontain said. "I'm almost embarrassed to tell people how wonderful the support is."

Graduating senior Joshua Allen, 17, said he loves the high school because he had opportunities to participate in a number of activities, including cheerleading, track, band, wrestling, a break-dancing club and the African-American Culture Club.

"All those teachers are friendly," Allen said. "Everybody pushed me to do my best."

He has earned a track scholarship at Pima Community College, which he will attend this fall.

Pedicone said the high school's dropout rate is not actually as high as the state reported last week. The district counted as dropouts in its report to the state 117 students who pre-registered but never registered for school, he said.

Still, the high school has a program in which freshmen at risk of dropping out do community service and get extra attention from counselors and teachers. Next year, the high school will participate in a Jobs for Arizona Graduates program, in which at-risk seniors will learn study skills, leadership skills and how to apply for jobs.

As for the AIMS test, 76 percent of last year's 10th-graders passed the reading portion, 37 percent passed the writing portion and 33 percent passed the math section. The results exceeded state averages and equaled or exceeded the previous year's results.

The district plans to continue providing tutoring, study tables, summer school and other programs to help students improve their AIMS scores.

IF YOU GO:

* Flowing Wells High School will hold its commencement ceremony for graduating seniors at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday on the football field at the school, 3725 N. Flowing Wells Road. This year, 370 seniors will graduate. For more information, call the school at 690-2399.

The AIMS math test for eighth-graders is still very difficult, Krompasky said.

The Flowing Wells School District does better on the math portion of the Stanford 9 than on the AIMS math test, she said. Last year, ninth-graders scored in the 60th percentile on Stanford 9 math, according to the state.

Test scores are just one of the criteria the Arizona Educational Foundation uses to select A+ schools. Schools are also heavily scrutinized for their curriculum, school programs and professional development, said Bobbie O'Boyle, the foundation's executive director.

A committee of 11 judges, including mostly educators and some corporate representatives, reviews the applications; and some judges visit the finalist schools, where they interview teachers, parents, students and staff, O'Boyle said.

"Schools are selected as winners for their ability to meet the needs of their entire student population," she said. "That's a tough job. You need to get a team together of people who believe you are an A+ school."

And that is what Flowing Wells has, Pedicone says.

"The biggest reason why this district is the way it is (is) we always put children first," he said. "We don't have the highest test scores in the state, (but) we're really meeting the needs of kids."

* Contact Colleen Sparks at 434-4076 or at csparks@azstarnet.com.

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