Proponents of school district unification have backed off a bit from promoting costs savings and pushed better coordination of curriculum as motivation for dealing with the state’s fragmented school districts.

The tactic appears to be working as H2028, which establishes a school district redistricting commission, received a do-pass recommendation on March 3 from the House Education Committee.

Penny Kotterman, Arizona Education Association president, set the tone of the hearing saying unification would help teachers align curriculum “providing a platform and structure that does not exist in the current system.”

Ms. Kotterman spoke of her experience as a Tempe Elementary District teacher and the frustrations she had trying to resolve curriculum differences between her district and the Tempe Union High School District so students could move from one to the other.

“We have to pay attention to kids from the time they are in kindergarten all the way to high school,” said Ms. Kotterman. “You make that incredibly difficult with the current structure.”

She said unification has been a high priority of AEA members for years.

H2028, which was sponsored by Rep. Linda Gary, R-10, chairman of the House Education Committee, establishes a 13-member commission to design a school district unification plan.

Voters Could Weigh In

If the plan is not specifically rejected by the Legislature by July 2006, voters in affected districts will determine if their districts will become unified.

H2028 calls for a unification and consolidation plan, but at the beginning of the hearing, Ms. Gray said the bill was a unification plan. “I believe a system should be K-12.”

Her bill had originally called for districts ranging from 6,000 to 30,000 students, but she said she dropped the size recommendation because it might have resulted in students being bussed for long distances.

The committee vote was 8-4 along party lines with Democrats opposing it for a variety of reasons.

Rep. Ben Miranda, D-16, said the plan would cause a great deal of disruption. Mr. Miranda, who is also a member of the Roosevelt Elementary School District Board, said he was concerned the commission would not consider what he called natural alignments of districts.

He said he felt the Roosevelt district would fit better with districts south of the Salt River. “I’m not sure [the plan] will be structured in that fashion,” he said.

Rep. Ted Downing, R-28, complained that the measure would hurt property values by shuffling school boundaries.

Schools Chief Touts Greater Efficiency

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne touched on the lower costs.

“Unification results in greater efficiency, as a result of economies of scale,” he said. “Unified districts should have low administrative costs per student, leaving more money to spend in the classroom. This was the result of a recent study by the Arizona auditor general, which found, in general, that larger districts had lower administrative costs per pupil.”

Mr. Horne said he had recently met with superintendents from small and rural districts. He said one superintendent complained that his district is only able to pay teachers a starting salary of $24,000 and cannot attract highly qualified teachers.

“There are only 300 students in that district, and that illustrates why unification is so important,” he said.

However, Mr. Horne also stressed the effect on curriculum.

“In addition to greater efficiency and use of taxpayer dollars, unification has academic benefits,” he said. “That is because it allows a district to have the same scope and sequence of curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade. This avoids having students enter high school with inconsistent backgrounds from different elementary districts.”

Janice Palmer, of the Arizona School Boards Association, was the only speaker in opposition. She said there were many more issues than costs and curriculum to consider. She pointed out that San Manuel and Oracle have been exploring a merger, but cannot resolve a huge disparity in property tax rates.

She also pointed out that Arizona is below the national average on administrative costs.

Marty Shultz, a Pinnacle West Capital Corp. vice president who has been an advocate of unification said, “In my view, student achievement in Arizona will be enhanced by creating optimum size school districts, kindergarten through the senior year in high school, K-12.”

He also said the plan would protect local control.

“The final decision on unification will be determined in an election of all qualified voters within the boundaries of the new unified school district,” he said.—