With less than a few weeks to go before school starts back up on Tuesday, Aug. 2, Camp Verde Unified School District has been working on new strategies and upgrades for the year ahead.
The Camp Verde Journal discussed some of those upgrades with CVUSD Superintendent Steve Hicks.
Hicks said one of the district’s upgrades is increased security.
“Our Camp Verde Marshal’s Office has committed three resource officers to serve our school district for this upcoming school year,” he said. “The present plan is to have one officer housed at each main site. Also, the Marshal’s office will be doing disaster preparedness training on our facilities. A result of that is we hope to receive recommendations of how we can upgrade security on our campuses.”
Additionally, Hicks said the school board has been meeting regularly with the Yavapai-Apache Nation Tribal Council, “in an effort to improve relationships and better understand how we can serve our Native American students.”
At a recent meeting, “several initiatives to help with parental involvement and practical steps to better understand our unique cultures were discussed,” although Hicks did not specify details of the initiatives.
Other district initiatives were reviewed, including continuous improvement initiatives, which Hicks described as providing the board with an “overview of the process covered in the prior year.”
“We discussed some important data relative to that process, and at our next board meeting will look at some of the adjustments to be made going forward.”
The board also approved a signing bonus and retention stipend for hard to fill positions for the upcoming school year.
“Hard to fill positions were designated for special education teachers and bus drivers,” Hicks said.
Grow Your Own Teacher
Recently, the district launched a program called “Grow Your Own Teacher,” which essentially hires teachers who are still in the process of obtaining educational requirements; the school assists the teachers by funding their education.
So far, Hicks said the district has “a good number of staff taking advantage of the program.”
“The donations supporting this program have been very much appreciated,” he said. “Having teachers who understand our community and are committed long-term is crucial.”
Lastly, Hicks said the district is still focused on helping children who fell behind during distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We will continue to do what we can to combat the effects of the missed learning opportunities due to the past couple years, but the consequences of falling behind for so many students will affect us for a long time to come,” he said.
