Sari Horwitz, Tucson Citizen High School Student Achievement Award recipient in 1975, holds the plaque inscribed with decades' worth of winners' names, including hers. BELOW LEFT: The guitar-playing 17-year-old Horwitz in a photograph accompanying a story announcing her winning the award. She said she was thinking about pursuing a career in political journalism. Boy, did she ever. BELOW RIGHT: She accepts the award from Citizen executives.

In 1957, when the Tucson Citizen set out to pick the top high school student in the city that year, the editors may have thought it was possible to choose just one teenager who was the very best.

What this project has proved through more than half a century is that local schools are filled with caring, intelligent, thoughtful young people who have been, and will continue to be, fabulous leaders and contributors to our world.

Many past winners have gone into law or medical professions. Some have taken jobs that help the underprivileged.

Sari Horwitz, the 1975 Student Achievement Award winner and an investigative reporter at The Washington Post, has won three Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent just last year. She was nominated for one this year, as well.

The nomination was for a 13-part series with another reporter on the murder of Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy. The series prompted Washington, D.C., police last fall to reopen the7-year-old case. In early March, they arrested a man the stories had focused on.

The top journalism prize last year went to the 11-member Washington Post team Horwitz was on that covered the Virginia Tech shootings, the deadliest campus massacre in U.S. history.

In 2002, she won a Pulitzer for a series uncovering the District of Columbia government’s role in the deaths of children placed in protective care. In 1999, her first Pulitzer, the Pulitzer board’s Gold Medal for public service, went to Horwitz and four colleagues at the Post for a five-part series on the high rate of police shootings in the District of Columbia.

Winning such big awards hasn’t kept her from remembering the one she received from the Citizen almost 34 years ago.

As a senior at Tucson High, it was the biggest award she had ever won.

In 1975 she was a teenager who had never been back East and was more than a little nervous to know that in a few months she would be on her way to Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia.

“The big award from my hometown newspaper and the front-page story about me sent me off with confidence,” she said.

Horwitz, who graduated from Bryn Mawr and then from Oxford, said she is sad to see the end of the Tucson Citizen, and the end of the Student Achievement Award.

“In these hard economic times, especially in the newspaper business, it’s wonderful to see that the hometown newspaper continued to give out these awards. It’s a big honor for the recipients and their families,” she said.

The Citizen used to give winners watches. For a brief time, it changed to gift certificates, and, in the last few years, $500 scholarships.

It rarely was easy to choose who would get that scholarship.

By the time we got to the handful of finalists who would come in for interviews, we were overwhelmed by the breadth of knowledge and experiences one young person could cram into four years of high school. In 2000, 2003 and 2005, the Citizen chose two winners each.

In just the last few years, we have had winners who have started organizations, been to Africa to teach children English, and had to flee a hostile homeland for speaking out against political injustice.

We expect that among our winners, we may have a future chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, and maybe even a president of Iraq.

Super families

Throughout the past 51 years, a handful of families have been great producers of students nominated for the award. Two pairs of siblings have won the award. And four times one family has had a winner (or winners) and a finalist.

Duoc Ngoc and Nga Thuy Duoug, both high school teachers in Vietnam, and their children fled that war-torn country and came to Tucson just before the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Daughters Thuy Ngoc and Thu Mai won in 1988 and 1990, respectively, and son Quang was a finalist in 1989.

T. Herman and Teddy K. Moore raised two winners, Julia in 1980 and Eric in 1984. Gabriela and Frank Konarski’s son John was one of two winners in 2000 and daughter Patricia was a finalist in 1998.

When we were interviewing Jessica (Miller) Hartley in 2007, 10 years after she won the award, her sister, Rebecca Miller was one of our finalists. Their parents are Dane and Mary Miller.

Another Vietnamese family, headed by Ho Cam Thai and Canh Thi Phan, had a daughter, Hong Anh, who won in 1996 and a son, Hai Anh, who was finalist in 1993.

Early on, before we named finalists, the Rev. John and Hazel Coatsworth had three children nominated: David in 1966, Wendy in 1972 and Cindy in 1977. David won the award.

Super schools

Catalina Magnet High has had the most winners, 11, from the second contest in 1958, won by Robert Kirk Young, to the 2004 winner, Mariana Gramajo-Sherman.

Tucson High had the second-most winners at seven: The first winner from THS was Emma Gee; its most recent winner was Katherine “Kata” Pettit in 2003.

Desert Christian High School, whose students rank extremely high in volunteerism, had two winners in the past three years: Carina Groves and Ali Rawaf.

The contest is the longest project the newspaper has had in its more than 138 years of publication.

In 1964, Jon Hoffman said he wanted to become a dentist. He did, practicing here for 31 years before retiring in 2005.

The award “made me feel very good about myself. I had worked very hard to earn it.” And 45 years later, “I still have the watch the Citizen gave me. It’s had a lot of wear, but I can still read the inscription.”

Some who didn’t win have lived up to the promise we saw in them as nominees. Hundreds of them, we’re sure. We’ve heard from a few.

Lauren Johnston Lowe, a 1998 nominee, guards children’s rights as a lawyer in the Child and Family Protective Service division of the state Attorney General’s Office.

Jack Gillum, a 2002 nominee, is database editor for USA TODAY, the nation’s largest newspaper, with a daily readership of more than 3.5 million.

We thank all the nominees through the years who showed us what teens really are like and how they planned to make our world better. We’re sad we cannot bring you many more years of examples.

Citizen file photo

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Year: Recipient, School

1957: Emma Gee, Tucson High

1958: Robert Kirk Young, Catalina

1959: Russell Sidney Nielsen, Sunnyside

1960: Margaret Ann King, Salpointe Catholic

1961: John Moffatt, Catalina

1962: James R. Davis, Catalina

1963: Joel M. Vavich, Tucson High

1964: Jon A. Hoffman, Catalina

1965: Diana Lee Baum, Flowing Wells

1966: David R. Coatsworth, Pueblo

1967: Jennie Tom, Flowing Wells

1968: Douglas Barry Wilson, Rincon

1969: James Wood, Salpointe Catholic

1970: May Gin, Flowing Wells

1971: Carol Gilman, Catalina

1972: David Galligan, Catalina

1973: David W. Quinto, Canyon del Oro

1974: Douglas R. Linkhart, Palo Verde

1975: Sari Horwitz, Tucson High

1976: Mark Barker, Amphitheater

1977: Thomas R. Harrell, Tucson High

1978: Wayne E. Yehling, Tucson High

1979: Bari Weick, Tucson High

1980: Julia Elise Moore, Amphitheater

1981: Heidi Van Voris, Sabino

1982: Lynn Marcus, Catalina

1983: Daryl Clarke Johnson, Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind

1984: Eric J. Moore, Amphitheater

1985: Fong Sau Tom, Palo Verde

1986: Tinamarie Federico, Pueblo

1987: Flint Callaway, Sahuarita

1988: Thuy Ngoc Duong, Santa Rita

1989: Brad Alan Chvatal, Sahuaro

1990: Thu Mai Duong, Santa Rita

1991: Ross Crowley, Flowing Wells

1992: Shannon Clark, Catalina

1993: Wendelyn Julien, Amphitheater

1994: Francisco Manuel Hernandez, Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind

1995: Julie Martin, Desert View

1996: Hong Anh Thai, Catalina

1997: Jessica Miller, Flowing Wells

1998: Clair Donovan, Catalina

1999: Heather Ayn Davis, Immaculate Heart

2000: John Konarski, Desert View; Alia Gecobe Peera, Santa Rita

2001: Jennifer Musty, Salpointe Catholic

2002: Marcella Marie Acosta, Santa Rita

2003: Christopher Courneen, Pueblo High; Katherine “Kata” Pettit, Tucson High

2004: Mariana Gramajo-Sherman, Catalina

2005: Annalyn Rose Censky, Salpointe Catholic High; Kevin Joseph Lopez, Ha:Sañ Preparatory and Leadership School

2006: Carina Groves, Desert Christian High

2007: Amber Rose Horvath, St. Gregory College Preparatory School

2008: Ali Rawaf, Desert Christian High

Arizona’s decision to defer payments of $300 million to school districts expecting the money by Friday means the districts will have to take out loans to meet payrolls.

Tucson-area districts are worried about losing capital funds saved for new schools and other improvements. The loans, registered warrants, come from the county treasurer’s office and districts pay interest on them.

The budget deal, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer on Thursday, closes a $650 million budget deficit for the current fiscal year by taking $400 million from the school districts and universities and using $250 million in federal stimulus funding.

It pushes $100 million of state aid for universities and $300 million of state payments to school districts into next fiscal year.

Sunnyside was expecting $6.4 million Friday, spokeswoman Monique Soria said, “and now we won’t get it until next fiscal year.”

Another wrinkle: Districts that have saved money exceeding 4 percent of their maintenance and operations budgets, which is the state cap, will not get the money at all because the plan requires districts to pay back their share of the $300 million from the excess funds.

The Tucson Unified School District, which had expected $32 million Friday, doesn’t have carryover money the state can “sweep,” spokeswoman Chyrl Hill Lander said.

Neither does Marana Unified, said Chief Financial Officer Dan Contorno. Still, he’s worried, based on the wording of the legislation, that other funds may be at risk.

Marana has about $3 million in carry-forward funds in unrestricted and soft capital: money being saved for things like new schools, textbooks and replacing buses that break down.

“I think the Legislature intended to protect the 4 percent in M&O (maintenance and operation) plus any balances in unrestricted and soft capital, but that’s not the way it’s worded,” Contorno said.

Amphi’s Todd Jaeger, associate to the superintendent regarding legal counsel, had similar concerns.

“This could impact our programs and our schools that have wisely and appropriately accrued capital funds over time to enable them to make large purchases,” he said.

As for the University of Arizona, roughly $40 million in state aid will be held back until the fiscal year that begins July 1. Johnny Cruz, director of media relations, said UA will have to rely on cash reserves maintained by some of its self-sustaining operations such as the bookstore, residence halls and the Student Union.

Citizen Staff Writer Eric Sagara contributed to this article.

Two chief academic officers whose jobs were being eliminated in a reorganization at Tucson Unified School District were hired for next year as assistant superintendents.

Maggie Shafer will be assistant superintendent for elementaries; Jim Fish, assistant superintendent for middle schools.

The newly created jobs, which will pay between $95,000 and $120,000 annually with a possible $10,000 performance bonus, will include more responsibilities than chief academic officers had, said Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen.

The governing board on Tuesday night voted unanimously for these two appointments, and for three principals:

• Joe, Hermann, acting principal at Banks Elementary, 3200 S. Lead Flower, will become its permanent principal next year.

• Santa Rita High Assistant Principal Frank Armenta will be Cholla High Magnet principal;

• Paul De Weerdt, Pueblo Magnet High assistant principal will become Mansfeld Middle School principal.

In other action the board voted 4-0, with member Adelita Grijalva out of the room, to allow the possibility of a reduction in salaries if Legislative cuts are “substantially” more than the expected worst-case cut of $45 million for 2009-10.

Also, the board majority rejected by a 4-1 vote, a plan by member Bruce Burke to cut the 3.2-person governing board office staff by one full-time employee and one part-time one.

Trimming that office also was a recommendation of auditors the board hire last year.

Burke, who said he wasn’t “making this decision lightly,” said the cuts would bring the board staff in line with comparable staffs in Arizona and across the nation and would save the district $75,000,.

But member Miguel Cuevas said the board should go along with a 12.8 percent cut for $33,000 proposed by the district director of staff services. That cut is being done by decreasing overtime and supplies and discontinuing dues to the National School Boards Association. “I think Mr. Burke is incorrect and missing the bus completely,” Cuevas said. “It’s the employees that make this district.”

But Burke said the board should “set an example” and make the staff cuts plus the reduction in overtime, supplies and dues. “We’d save $100,000.”

Board President Judy Burns said comparison’s can’t be made between TUSD’s board staff and others because TUSD’s takes on more responsibilities. “We’ve already given up one full-timer,” she said. “Our staff archives everything that happens here. No other district does that.”

Clerk Mark Stegeman said the board office also works collaboratively with union groups. He said Burke’s plan “contains merit, but is premature.”

Teri Melendez, principal at Borton Primary Magnet and Holladay Intermediate Magnet, will be at Borton four days a week. The fifth day she'll be at Holladay, where an assistant principal will be in charge most of the time, said Chief Academic Officer Maggie Shafer.

Two schools in Tucson Unified School District will go without principals next year, opting for less costly assistant principals so they will have more money for things like school supplies and staff members.

Those decisions, at Holladay Intermediate Magnet and Richey Elementary, and hundreds more on cutting expenses were included in reports by school site councils in the last several weeks and turned into TUSD last month.

Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen had authorized schools this spring to make the cuts instead of having central administration do it. Site councils consist of parents and staff.

Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the documents tell a bare-bones story for next year if potential cuts of up to 18 percent are realized. Schools had to turn in two plans – one for cuts of 10 percent, another for 18 percent. They should find out which level is needed in June.

The no-principal plan was one of many in which school communities tried to creatively deal with expected legislative cuts to TUSD’s budget of $20 million to $45 million for fiscal 2009-10, which starts July 1.

Spending for campus monitors dwindles or disappears at many high schools. So does funding for fine arts.

Reports from Utterback Middle Magnet School of the Arts, Hohokam Middle School and Booth-Fickett Math/Science Magnet appear to keep spending for supplies and some staff relatively the same at both the 10 percent and 18 percent levels, but have the number of teachers decrease.

Alice Vail Middle School’s biggest cut is in supplies. It’s allotting itself nearly $17,829 in main office and attendance office supplies under the 10 percent cut scenario, but only $1,114 if the cuts are at 18 percent. Teaching supply allocations there go from $11,143 at 10 percent to $6,686 at 18 percent.

At other middle and elementary schools, counselors, librarians and monitors are too costly to keep. But they kept their principals.

Richey and Holladay this year already have only half-time principals. Richey shares Ruben Diaz with Carrillo Magnet; Holladay shares Teri Melendez with Borton Primary Magnet.

But the schools chose to let Diaz be full time at Carrillo next year. Melendez will be at Borton four days a week. The fifth day she’ll be at Holladay, where an assistant principal will be in charge most of the time, said Chief Academic Officer Maggie Shafer.

Shafer said she has faith in the plans. At Richey the assistant principal will “continue the positive momentum created this year by Diaz . . . and at Holladay, the assistant principal will continue to make the school a more robust magnet.”

Other dual-principal schools took the opportunity for self-determination to change their circumstances.

Davis Bilingual Magnet Elementary and Roskruge, both an elementary and bilingual middle school, which shared a principal this year, will each have a full-time principal next year. Roskruge will lose an assistant principal.

Manzo and Rogers elementaries will go from a half-time to full-time principals next year. Bloom Elementary will go from a half-time principal to one four days a week, as will Sewell Elementary.

Marshall Elementary, at 18 percent cuts, will opt for a two-thirds-time principal.

Another Chief Academic Officer, Ross Sheard, said he worries there will be fewer chances to offer advanced classes next year and fewer people to supervise students – and employees.

Said Tucson Education Association President Steve Courter: There could be some real implications, especially for schools that don’t get any federal funding. “And still we are not hearing anything positive from the governor or the Legislature.”

Six from Tucson High Magnet

Ebaa Al-Obeidi

Margaret Wilch, a science teacher at Tucson High Magnet School, has reason to be especially proud this week.

Six out of nine area students going to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair are hers.

They, along with three others, make up the largest entourage ever from here to go to the fair, the world’s largest precollege science contest. Each year more than 1,500 high school students from more than 50 countries exhibit their independent research and compete for nearly $4 million in scholarships and prizes. Doctoral-level scientists are judges.

“These kids are phenomenal. They really are our future for science and engineering in Pima County,” said Kathleen A. Bethel, director of the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair. “I think they’re all going to do great.”

Wilch agreed. “It’s amazing when you give a person an opportunity, what they’ll do. They’re incredibly dedicated and spend lots of time on their projects.”

She is accompanying her students to the fair, which started Sunday and runs through Friday in Reno, Nev.

“She’s just incredible,” Bethel said of Wilch. “Year after year she has at least one student going to Intel, and often they win.”

This is the 11th straight year that Wilch has had international competitors. And seven have come home with awards. Wilch’s students and their projects are:

• Angela Schlegel: “The identification of enzymes used in Salvia divinorum to produce salvinorin A”

• Mahwish Khalid: “The effect of male size of cytoplasmic incompatibility in the parasitic wasp Encarsia pergandiella”

• Negin Nematollahi: “Factors affecting bone strength during development in peri-pubertal girls”

• Michael Wallace: “Artificial selection for polystyrene degradation in bacterial communities”

• The team of Emily Derks and Alice Glasser: “A comparison of the effects of added urban stresses on native and non-native soil microbial communities.”

The other competitors are:

• Ebaa Al-Obeidi, from Canyon del Oro High: “Sonoran Solar Solution”

• Martin Lopez and Mario Valdez, from Rio Rico High: “Terminal Ballistics of Household Structures”

Wilch said her earlier education has molded how she prepares her students for success.

She specifically recalls two science teachers: Gary Benesh at George Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and David Lyon, Ph.D. at Cornell (Iowa) College.

In Lyon’s class, Wilch published a scientific paper as an undergraduate, a rarity.

“And I don’t ever remember having a textbook in Mr. Benesh’s class. I remember going out into the field, going to the zoo. He had us reading Scientific America magazine.”

Her students are getting a similar education. She has University of Arizona professionals as mentor to her students, who are actually doing research in UA science labs. And she has a UA graduate student working in her classroom, thanks to a National Science Foundation grant.

In addition to the nine competitors at internationals, four students, who also had first-place wins in either the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair in Tucson or the first-ever Arizona State Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix earlier this year, will attend as observers.

“For observers, we look for kids who have a long-term commitment and who we think will learn what it takes to get to the next level,” Bethel said. “We’ve had a lot of observers who’ve come back and done well at regionals and internationals.”

CDO’s Al-Obeidi was an observer last year, Bethel said.

This year’s observers and their projects are:

• Ostin Zarse and Joshua Sloane, from Sonoran Science Academy: “Upping the Power: Can reflective materials be cost effective while increasing the output of photovoltaic cells?”

• Stanley Palase, also from Sonoran Science Academy: “Metabolic Comparison of Carbohydrates”

• Anna Guarino, from Salpointe Catholic High: “Microbial Contamination of Pens”

Emily Derks (left) and Alice Glasser compared the effects of added urban stresses on native and non-native soil microbial communities.

Angela Schlegel

None of Tucson Unified School District’s tenured librarians or counselors will be laid off next year.

An e-mail went out Wednesday to all 75 librarians and 141 counselors who in early April received a notice of a possible reduction in force.

The notification by Interim Chief Human Resources Officer Nancy Woll said, “I understand, however, that there is still a lot of uncertainty regarding placements for next year.”

Because of budget shortfalls, some schools have opted to do without counselors and/or librarians next school year.

“All of us in Human Resources understand how difficult this is and we will be working closely with those of you who have been displaced for the next school year to bring you that certainty about your placement as soon as possible,” Woll said.

Sunnyside mariachi director Cuco Del Cid directs practice for students (from left) Dulce Lopez, Gabriela Valenzuela and Genesis Mora Delhoyo.

Sunnyside High School’s Noche de las Estrellas, an annual event for nearly two decades, almost fell dim – and silent – this year.

“With the economy the way it is, we talked about not having it,” said Cuco Del Cid, the mariachi director at the school. “But the students from mariachi groups from schools all over town who perform here said, ‘That’s impossible. We wait for this all year.’”

So the 18th annual two-day event, which celebrates mariachi music and traditional Mexican folklórico dance, will go on.

It begins Friday with a pageant and talent contest from 6 to 9 p.m. in the auditorium at Sunnyside High, 1725 E. Bilby Road.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, “Plaza Garibaldi” will feature performances by student mariachi and dance groups from elementary, middle and high schools around the city and from Mexico.

Admission is free. There will be carnival games and booths with traditional food and drink

The Noche de las Estrellas concert will be held from 6 to 10:30 p.m. Saturday in the auditorium. Admission is $10. The headliners are Folklorico Tapatío; Sunnyside High’s mariachi, Los Diablitos; and Desert View High’s Mariachi del Desierto. They will perform along with Sunnyside Assistant Superintendent Jeannie Favela, a former professional singer. The groups and Favela recently recorded the CD “Una Familia.”

Del Cid said the event is “a lot of work, a lot of work, but we enjoy it very much and it helps teach many kids the most traditional Mexican music.”

Del Cid, a professional mariachi for years in Mexico City with Mariachi los Camperos, has taught at Sunnyside for 16 years.

He loves preparing students for performances and for their future.

College is of utmost importance to Del Cid. “Of course, I tell my kids to go to college.

“When I came to work here, I told the principal I would do it on one condition – that we teach them the music, the instruments, but we don’t want just mariachis.

“I want them to become lawyers, doctors, pharmacists and other professionals who also know how to be mariachi musicians.

“They can and should still play in groups or play as a hobby when they grow up, but be a doctor for a living.”

Proceeds from the event go to college scholarships for the district performers.

Fourth-grader gets early birthday party Saturday

Arthur Paz

Family and friends of Arthur Paz gave him an early birthday party Saturday.

The 10-year-old, who had battled cancer since he was an infant, wasn’t going to make it to his 11th birthday.

In fact, “Baby Arthur” as his loved ones call him, died in his mother’s arms a day later.

While Arthur’s last days were filled with pain and he was in and out of consciousness, there was joy for him as well, his mother, Tammy Robles, said.

One of his teachers at Santa Clara Elementary, where he was a fourth-grader, videotaped his classmates saying they missed him and wanted him to come back.

“He really enjoyed that,” his mom said.

He came home for the last time from the hospital on Thursday.

The following day was the annual Cinco de Mayo festival at Santa Clara, where Arthur loved being part of the folklorico group.

His fellow members danced without him, dedicating their performance to their friend. The school parent-teacher organization is donating about $1,600 from food sales at the event to his family to help cover funeral costs, but members know it won’t be nearly enough.

It also has set up a fund where donations can be sent: Santa Clara PTO (for Arthur Paz), 6910 S. Santa Clara Ave.; Tucson, AZ 85756. For more information, call Sylvia Tautimer at 545-3791.

Viewing will be from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday at Carrillo’s Tucson Mortuary, 204 S. Stone Ave. A funeral Mass will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at Santa Monica Catholic Church, 212 W. Medina Road.

Arthur’s mother said he was mostly asleep Saturday when relatives and friends brought him presents, which his 8-year-old sister, Anisia, opened for him.

They weren’t sure he was aware of what was going on.

But early the next day, when he was awake, his mom and sister asked him if he remembered the presents and he acknowledged that he did.

“He was a wonderful, very courageous, little boy, said his great aunt, Patricia Paz – Tía Pat. “Although his whole life he was back and forth to hospital and doing chemo, he was a very happy little boy.”

His mom said she could see he had little time on Sunday, but he was fighting to stay alive.

“It was hard, but I said, ‘OK baby, I give you all my permission that you can go with God. It’s OK and everybody is going to be fine because when you get to heaven you’re going to be our little angel up there.’ ”

4 cases confirmed on Nation; classes to resume May 12

Eleven schools on the Tohono O’odham Nation are closed Tuesday through May 11 because of four confirmed cases of the swine flu.

The action came half a day before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its recommendation on closing schools. The new recommendation, based on a lower severity of the flu, is to keep schools open.

On Monday, the Indian Oasis-Baboquivari Unified School District board voted to close all its schools. All other tribal, private and Bureau of Indian Education schools and the Tohono O’odham Community College followed suit, officials said in a news release.

Classes are scheduled to resume May 12.

Despite the CDC reversal Tuesday, Indian Oasis-Baboquivari district and Bureau of Indian Education schools will remain closed, said Andrew Lorrentine, deputy director of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s Health and Human Services Department.

He said officials from the other schools are meeting to review the new recommendation.

The schools are San Simon School (K-8), Santa Rosa Boarding and Day School (K-8) and Tohono O’odham High School from the BIE; Ha:san Middle School and Ha:san Preparatory and Leadership School; the district’s Indian Oasis Primary School, Indian Oasis Intermediate School and Baboquivari Middle/High School; and San Xavier Mission School, Southwest Living Word Academy and the Tohono O’odham Community College.

None of those who contracted the H1N1 virus was hospitalized, the release read, and all are recovering.

Meanwhile, 10 schools in Nogales remain closed until Monday as a precautionary measure after one elementary school student tested positive for swine flu.

One Marana Unified School District student and one in Tucson Unified also came down with swine flu, but those districts opted to keep schools open.

Most students showed up for classes on Monday at Tortolita Middle School in Marana, but about 175 students, or 40 percent, at Safford Engineering/Technology Magnet Middle School in TUSD did not. On Tuesday, absences at Safford were reported at 150.

On the Tohono O’odham Nation, school closures were “precautionary” and no other cases have been confirmed, the release read.

The Indian Health Service set up a call center to answer health-related questions: 877-606-9301.

Even with the five days off, the elementary and high schools will have enough days to meet the state’s requirement of 180, officials said. The district’s middle school will have to make up four hours and will do so by adding 20 minutes a day for 12 school days.

Students’ eco-friendly model of a futuristic school complex wins $2,000 national prize

Imago Dei Middle School students (from left) Monique Andrade, 13, Sergio Acosta, 12, Riley Breedlove, 12, and Anthony Barcelo, 12, won an award in the School of the Future Design Competition.

It is a school of 38 students, all from low-income families.

Yet students from this Tucson powerhouse, Imago Dei Middle School, traveled to Washington, D.C., last week and came home with a $2,000 national first-place award in the School of the Future Design Competition.

Imago Dei’s project of a school complex incorporated solar energy, shade sails, water harvesting and greenhouses for urban agriculture. There also was a community resource center to bring the neighborhood into the school community.

“We made ‘we believe’ statements in terms of social justice and sustainability and made designs out of what we believe,” said Linda Cato, the visual arts specialist in charge of the team.

She said every student at the Episcopalian school at 639 N. Sixth Ave. participated. The four who presented the project were seventh-grader Monique Andrade, 13, and sixth-graders Sergio Acosta, Anthony Barcelo and Riley Breedlove, all 12.

It was the first time Monique and Sergio had ever been on a plane. Anthony had flown once before – to the same national competition last year, when the school took third place. “Last year we talked a lot about good stuff, but this year we decided we had to show it in the model,” he said.

One feature of the eight-months-long project was hybrid adobe, a judge’s favorite. “The sixth-graders made them out of paper pulp, mud, clay, plant fiber, glass and a little bit of cement,” Riley said.

Monique said recycled denim was used for insulation and recycled plastic water bottle formed into panels for doors. Even the use of slides, a merry-go-round and swings on the playground supplies energy to the solar panels, Sergio said.

“When we went to the competition, we saw that some of the other projects were a lot bigger than ours, and we thought they might win,” Monique said. “But we had decided we didn’t need to design something big. We wanted it to be sustainable.”

Throughout the year the students walked to the University of Arizona to visit with architecture students, who gave them some pointers. They also were mentored by architects from the firm ABA Architects.

Now, all three boys want to become architects, setting their sights on UA, Virginia Tech and Massachusetts Institute of Technology But not Monique. She wants to go to Harvard Law.

The Rev. Anne Sawyer, head of school, said the ambitions are spawned by success. “The ability of our students to win academic competitions on a national level demonstrates the incredible potential of all children when they’re put in a position to succeed.”

Imago Dei pupils win top design honor

A close-up of part of the design for an innovative, eco-friendly school building.

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik

A group of local, state and federal politicians demanded an apology from Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for statements regarding schools checking the citizenship of students.

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva was among the politicians – all Democrats – to sign a letter criticizing Dupnik’s statements.

“It is wrong to force teachers and school administrators to become immigration officers,” the letter said.

Dupnik, a Democrat, said at a news conference last week that 40 percent of the students in the Sunnyside Unified School District were in the country illegally and that the South, Southwest and West sides had high crime rates linked to illegal immigration.

“These false charges are inflammatory and prejudicial,” the letter stated. “Your comments only further divide our community and debase a large part of the population.

“The Pima County electorate trusted you to protect and serve our community, not to humiliate and instill fear,” the letter said. “Every child is entitled to an education regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation and status.”

Dupnik called last week’s conference to clarify comments he made during a hearing on border violence held by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month.

Dupnik, who could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon, stressed last week that his statements were his opinion only. He said he knew they would be “divisive.”

He suggested that a Supreme Court ruling that forbid schools from checking the citizenship of students should be challenged, saying that it would heighten border security if the ruling was overturned.

Adelita Grijalva, a Tucson Unified School District board member, said, “I think the comments he made were simply wrong, inflammatory and egregious.

“We talk about (Maricopa County) Sheriff Joe Arpaio and say that we’re happy we don’t have a sheriff like that,” she said. “If this is the way (Sheriff Dupnik) felt, I wish he would have made those statements a year ago when he was running for re-election, and then we could have decided if that’s the type of person we wanted for sheriff.”

Grijalva said she was eager to hear Dupnik’s response because she thought his statements were “really out of character from (the) whole time he has been sheriff. I’m still unclear what the motive was.”

When he said Sunnyside had about 40 percent illegal immigrants, “how would he even know that? Sunnyside doesn’t know because it doesn’t ask.”

Eva Dong, a Sunnyside Unified School District board member for more than 10 years, said she signed the letter because she was shocked and disappointed with Dupnik’s comments.

She said she didn’t like Dupnik putting Sunnyside into a position of law enforcement against immigrants, which, she added, is against the law.

“And I’d like to know the ‘credible’ source he has that said that 40 percent of Sunnyside students are illegal immigrants,” she said.

“The large majority of our community is not involved in crime. I was in shock when I heard the things he said. That he would lump us into a category of high crime is not right,” she said.

“We’ve worked hard this year to try to remove those images. We have businesses and the university working with us to be successful,” Dong said. “You work at it and work at it and work at it, and bang, someone comes and shoots you down. It’s just very hurtful.”

Dong, who works at the Pima County Juvenile Court Center in the CAPE program, which educates children incarcerated there, also took offense at Dupnik equating illegal immigrants with crime.

Even at the center, “the majority of kids there are not illegal immigrants,” she said. “They are very, very few.”

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva

———

Elected officials who signed the letter to Sheriff Clarence Dupnik

Richard Elías, chairman of the Board of Supervisors

Regina Romero, Tucson Ward 1 Councilwoman

Adelita Grijalva, board member of the Tucson Unified School District

Eva Dong, board member for the Sunnyside Unified School District

State Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson

State Rep. Matt Heinz, D-Tucson

State Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Tucson

State Sen. Jorge Luis Garcia, D-Tucson

State Rep. Olivia Cajero Bedford, D-Tucson

State Rep. Phil Lopes, D-Tucson

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.

By Mary Bustamante, Eric Sagara

Fear larger classes, loss of enthusiastic teachers

Reynolds Elementary teacher Christopher Rodarte, dressed up for a school spirit day, gathers his third-grade class after lunch. Rodarte, who is finishing his third year of teaching, was one of 560 TUSD teachers to receive pink slips in March.

The cry is the same everywhere: “Save Our Teachers, Save Our Schools.”

Reductions in force at Tucson schools could mean as many as 640 fewer teachers in area classrooms next year, creating pleas from parents and educators petrified about oversized classes.

“I have no idea what next year is going to be like,” said Heather Martin, a worried parent of two children at Reynolds Elementary who is also a teaching assistant in a first-grade class. “Both of my kids’ teachers got RIF’d. My kids are devastated. We’re losing so many really hardworking people.”

Many of the teachers who received pink slips in March are young, bringing a youthful enthusiasm and upgraded knowledge of technology needed for educating 21st-century students.

State law required that teachers be informed by April 15 if districts were not certain they would be able to rehire instructors for the next school year..

Districts are hopeful they can rehire many first- to third-year teachers who got pink slips, but it may be June before it is known how much money will come from the state, which is trying to balance a budget $3 billion in the red.

Parents speaking out

Meanwhile, the potential cuts are so severe that parental grass-roots groups are forming.

“We’ve seen parents groups rise up like we’ve never seen before,” said Superintendent Calvin Baker of Vail Unified School District.

Rallies are nearly weekly. Letter-writing campaigns to the governor and state legislators are in full swing.

Protesters are trying to lobby legislators to bring back the equalization tax – a property tax that could generate $250 million for education. It was suspended in 2006, but was supposed to resume this year. However, legislators – not wanting to increase taxes – are balking about restarting it.

PTAs and school site councils are mobilizing parents.

At Reynolds, 7450 E. Stella Road in Tucson Unified School District, the walls are lined with third-graders’ letters to Gov. Jan Brewer. Scores of other students across Tucson also are writing letters.

Students from Howenstine High, 555 S. Tucson Blvd., have picketed outside the Governor’s Office downtown and met with her representatives here.

Recently, the Reynolds PTA brought all the staff onto a stage and had employees walk off, one at a time, showing the 200 parents gathered what the staff would like next year with 10 percent and then 18 percent cuts.

“You could have heard a pin drop,” said Principal Janet Jordan. “I thing they turned a corner and instead of saying, ‘This is the way it is,’ parents said, ‘This is what we can do.’ They empowered themselves and got excited about effecting change.”

“They sat down at computers in the library to write letters to the governor. They sent postcards to state legislators. They took empty boxes with supply lists to their workplaces to ask for donations of pencils and Kleenex,” she said.

Reynolds would lose five of its 16 teachers. Christopher Rodarte would be one of them.

His third-grade students walked into class last week to find him in a big fuzzy wig and a psychedelic T-shirt. It was “Hippy Day” at school, and Rodarte goes all out.

He also is the teacher who has a tarantula in a terrarium. It is nameless now. Students are writing essays about what to call it. The most well-written essay will win.

Turtles, fire-belly toads and fish also share the classroom, all gathered by the energetic and enthusiastic Rodarte. It is that enthusiasm that Jordan, and principals across the city, are worried about losing.

Many pink-slipped teachers are young. Some are older people who have changed professions and have brought fresh ideas to teaching.

Rodarte said he may have to go back to being a waiter at Janos restaurant here. As a server, he’d make three times as much per hour, but his heart is in teaching.

Wanted: Mix of experience

Almost all the teachers have melded themselves into school communities that do not want to see them go.

“It takes a mix of different-experience-level teachers to really make a school successful,” said Steve Courter, president of the Tucson Education Association, the teachers union at TUSD.

“Some of these newer teachers have technological skills that some of the more experience teachers may not have,” he said. “We’d all lose if we didn’t get most of those people back.”

TUSD, the second-largest district in Arizona, has reduced teacher rolls by 560 for next school year. Its superintendent, Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, said she didn’t want to, but had to because of the state law.

At Cholla High Magnet, 2001 W. Starr Pass Blvd., students just beginning the International Baccalaureate program – the first at any local public high school – worry whether it will continue. Several of the teachers specially trained for IB were pink-slipped.

The numbers of layoffs at other districts are substantially smaller than at TUSD. Some districts cut no teachers at all.

• At Marana Unified, where 30 teachers are to be cut for next school year, spokeswoman Tamara Crawley said the district saved full-day kindergarten and other student programs.

The community said it wanted full-day kindergarten and the programs during forums in March, she said.

But with the reduction in teaching staff, the district will have to increase class size. Marana has historically had smaller class sizes, so this is a big adjustment for the district and community, Crawley said.

• Thirteen teachers received pink slips at Catalina Foothills Unified School District. Five are certain to be rehired, however, because of resignations or increases in enrollment for next year, said Associate Superintendent Terry Downey.

But some class sizes will increase, she said. “We were at a 21-1 (students-to-teacher) ratio in high school English, but there is a proposal to increase that to save expenses.”

• The $30 million budget at Flowing Wells Unified – where 40 teachers were told they may not have jobs next year – may be cut by $3 million, according to Superintendent Nic Clement.

“We know we’re going to have attrition,” he said, “so that should save some jobs.” In previous years, all cuts were done through attrition or retirements.

“And we hope the budget the state came out with in January isn’t what it will finally be and we’ll be able to rehire more teachers,” Clement said. “But we worry some will be looking for other jobs. We are working with each of them individually, but we can’t make false promises.

“The last thing we want to do is lose someone we’ve invested in, who has bonded with kids. There’s a reason we hired the teachers we do and to lose them is counter to our culture, to what’s good for kids.”

He said research shows the well-trained teacher makes the most difference in student performance. The more connected the teacher is to the school, the higher the achievement.

Alternatives to dismissals

Sunnyside Unified’s governing board didn’t lay off anyone for next year, saying it would rather implement furloughs, if necessary.

And in Sahuarita Unified, a possible reduction in salaries, not a reduction in force, is being considered. “We are putting a contingency into our contracts that says, if necessary, we might reduce everyone’s pay up to 5 percent,” Assistant Superintendent Manny Valenzuela said.

At two far East Side school districts, superintendents also balked at laying off teachers.

Tanque Verde Unified cut no teachers, but Superintendent Tom Rogers cut his own salary by $15,000 for 2009, from $105,000 to $90,000. One administrator, a curriculum director, was laid off.

And at Vail, Superintendent Baker chose not to plan based on the worst-case scenario.

That means if the worst does happen, Vail, by law, will have to rehire all its teachers because it didn’t give them notice.

Baker said Vail would just have to deal with it, but he doesn’t think it will happen. He said there are points in Vail’s favor.

• “We are growing, so instead of hiring new staff for those new students, we’re moving teachers to them. We’re eating our growth.”

• “We had some reserves,” a luxury, he acknowledged, that most school districts with declining enrollments don’t have.

• “We chose to take a risk. Our legislators are telling us they’re working very hard to be reasonable about funding education – and there will be some stimulus money.”

The risk is one Baker is willing to take.

“We’re not preparing for the absolute worst case because we want our teachers to be sitting around talking about what they can do for kids, not talking about who has a job or not.”

Reynolds’ principal wishes TUSD had that option. Still, she is glad district human resources officials said they would try to get rehired people back to the same schools. But no one knows how that will work.

Ann-Eve Pedersen, a founder of Tucson Unified Schools Supporters, is trying to get more people mobilized. “Parents are the majority demographic in this state – and we vote,” she said. “Elected officials must listen to us. . . . I think everyone’s efforts are making a difference, but we need to keep up the pressure on legislators and the Governor’s Office.”

Reynolds Elementary teacher Christopher Rodarte (middle) works in the school's garden with students. District officials worry that laying off so many newer teachers may diminish the enthusiasm that many of them bring into the schools.

The Tucson Unified School District board moved forward Tuesday with plans to dismiss Catalina Magnet High Principal Linda Patterson.

By a 3-0 vote, with members Adelita Grijalva not in the room and Miguel Cuevas recusing himself, the board approved a statement of charges and notice of intent to dismiss Patterson.

Patterson, principal of the school for nearly two years and on personal leave since March 27, has consistently refused to comment to media on the situation.

The statement of charges says that about $30,000 in student funds were stolen under her watch. It says Patterson had reassigned an assistant principal formerly responsible for such funds, taking that responsibility herself.

But during the investigation “and for months after,” she failed to inform her supervisor that the assistant principal, unnamed in the statement, was not responsible for the supervision of school finance personnel at the time of the theft . . . and “did not even work on the date of the theft.”

It goes on to say that by the omission, she “permitted supervisors to believe the assistant principal had failed in his supervisory duties . . . and she attempted to issue discipline to him . . . by placing two letters of reprimand in his school personnel file without his knowledge.”

The statement also says Patterson failed to properly supervise the Aviation Flight Program, “leading to its temporary grounding.” It also says she “held several meetings with her staff and faculty requesting that they speak to governing board members on her behalf to save her job. Employees complained they felt pressured to support her.”

Patterson’s conduct violated staff ethics and conduct policies and leadership principles, according to the document, which is notice that the board intends to dismiss her 30 days after it is served.

Patterson, who makes more than $90,000, is on administrative leave with pay pending the expiration of the 30 days.

Canyon del Oro High School's nationally honored Academic Decathlon team. FROM LEFT: Ellie Strasser, Dylan Ousley, Ben Ferell, Melinda Fraser, Taylor Cleland, Jordan Kurker-Mraz, Jennifer Wendel, Marie Clymer, coach Chris Yetman and Rush Moore.

What do you do if you’ve just come back from placing fourth in the nation at the Academic Decathlon competition?

You think about what you’re going to do next year.

That’s the plan for the Canyon del Oro High School team, which placed third in the large school division and fourth overall at the contest in Memphis, Tenn., late last week, scoring 47,972.3 points out of a possible 60,000. The team was 91.7 points from earning third place overall, said coach Chris Yetman.

Next year’s topic, the French Revolution, is an exciting one, Yetman said, “and several people have already started reading the official novel, ‘Tale of Two Cities.’ We’re planning summer study sessions, too.”

This is the second time the CDO team has represented Arizona at the nationals. In 2006, the team placed fifth.

CDO’s team members are Taylor Cleland, Marie Clymer, Ben Ferell, Melinda Fraser, Jordan Kurker-Mraz, Dylan Ousley, Rush Moore, Ellie Strasser and Jennifer Wendel.

Some of the members also took individual awards:

• Kurker-Mraz, gold medals in art and essay; silver in social science and Super Quiz; and bronze in the 10-event overall.

• Ferell got a gold in math and bronze in 10-event overall, literature and art.

• Wendel, a gold in interview.

• Cleland, a silver in social science and bronze in art and math.

• Fraser, a silver in art.

• Moore, a silver in social science.

Kurker-Mraz also received a $3,000 scholarship for top essay and a $500 scholarship for his bronze in the 10-event. The 10-event award is for highest combined totals in all the contest categories.

Ferell received a $500 scholarship for highest score on the team, beating Cleland by 2.3 points out of 10,000, Yetman said, and a $500 scholarship for the bronze medal he won in the 10-event.

Clymer, a senior, was a freshman the first time the team went to the nationals. “I didn’t think we could ever outdo that team, but I was wrong. Our improved placement at nationals achieved what I’d been hoping for since that year.

“The general opinion of other decathletes before nationals was that we would place fifth or sixth, so being able to exceed their expectations by a substantial point margin was very gratifying.”

Kurker-Mraz, who will be on next year’s team, said he’d be thrilled to match this year’s performance. Next year, “I look forward to being less confused at the beginning of the year, and being cognizant, or rather less shocked about the volume of time and effort that must be put in to be successful and competitive.”

Yetman is proud of his team’s high finish in an event “the caliber of the teams is extremely impressive.”

“More importantly, they’re all very friendly and there is an excellent camaraderie among them,” he said. “Several other coaches commented about how nice and friendly my kids were. I’m very proud of them for that.

“There are many teams who come to nationals only to compete, but I emphasized to my kids the best part was the chance to meet students from other states.”

What could be a final step in getting Tucson Unified School District released from a three-decades-old desegregation court order was approved by the board Tuesday.

The TUSD Post-Unitary Status Plan was authorized for submission to U.S. District Judge David Bury by a 4-1 vote, with clerk of the board Mark Stegeman saying he had questions about the plan that should be addressed, “although overall I like it very much.”

Highlights of the plan include:

• The development of “first- choice” schools to encourage voluntary movement of children.

• Transportation, previously not offered when parents elected to send their children to other schools, would be offered.

• The hiring of a recruiter to search for more highly qualified “teachers of color.”

• The development of strategies so there will be equal opportunities for all children to get into advanced classes and programs such as Gifted and Talented Education (GATE), Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate.

• The development of plans to eliminate disparities in suspensions, which historically involve high percentages of minorities.

Stegeman, explaining why he voted against the plan, said he hadn’t gotten responses from the staff on what could become “perverse incentives” to treat students unfairly. He said schools could end up driving students in majority populations away in an effort to try to attract others.

Member Adelita Grijalva, whose father, now U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, was part of the plaintiffs’ group calling for desegregation and later was on the board as it was begun, said she was proud the plan was going forward.