Scottsdale Unified retreat sets ‘school of choice’ aim, prioritizes enrollment, attendance and teacher retention

Scottsdale Unified School District trustees and staff used a full-day retreat to frame reversing a decade-long enrollment decline as the board's top priority and to identify near-term actions to test strategies intended to reverse the trend.

Lee Jenkins, the retreat facilitator and former superintendent who led the session, told the board: "I think what you want in here as a board, as a priority is to stop the loss of enrollment." Jenkins guided the board through a fishbone exercise that the group used to map aims, barriers and possible actions.

The board, which coalesced quickly around the aim of becoming "the school of choice for Scottsdale families," discussed several levers staff and trustees said they can influence directly: improving academic outcomes and attendance, strengthening teacher retention, piloting student feedback systems, and reviewing school rightsizing and capacity to concentrate resources at fuller sites.

Why it matters: Trustees said enrollment affects staffing, budgets and program stability. During the meeting staff and the facilitator gave several quantitative anchors: district staff cited that roughly 56% of Scottsdale's school-age children currently attend the district (down from about 70% a decade ago) and that district facilities could accommodate an estimated 27,000 students if run near capacity. Board members and staff also discussed cost estimates for enrollment decline: a rough district estimate placed the fiscal impact of a 200-student shortfall in the low millions of dollars and repeated that per-student revenue commonly falls in the $7,000—$10,000 range depending on grade and special program weights.

Key discussion points and proposed steps

- Paired campus listening visits: Board members agreed to schedule short, structured listening visits to school sites in pairs so trustees can hear staff and teacher perspectives directly and report back to the full board on common themes. The visits are to be structured, limited in scope and coordinated with the superintendent so they do not surprise site administrators.

- Student feedback pilots: Jenkins and several trustees recommended routine, simple student feedback ("plus-delta" or smile/neutral/frown formats for younger grades) so teachers receive monthly signals on classroom climate and learning continuity. Jenkins said classroom-level feedback can be "much more valuable" than occasional administrator observations.

- Attendance and parent engagement: Trustees flagged improving attendance as an actionable lever under district control, connecting steady attendance gains to better academic outcomes and budget stability.

- Rightsizing and capacity: Trustees discussed consolidating programming and concentrating offerings at fuller schools to create vibrant, better-resourced campuses that could attract families. An intern is scheduled to update building capacity data this summer; trustees asked staff to bring current capacity and utilization analysis to the board.

- Teacher retention: Board members said retaining teachers reduces hiring and training costs and improves program continuity. The group discussed examining workplace climate, retaliation concerns raised by some staff, and nonpunitive supports for educators.

What the board directed (nonbinding/direction)

- Staff to propose a protocol for paired board listening visits and a standard set of questions for those visits (direction, no formal vote recorded). - District to update building capacity figures (intern-led update this summer) and report back with implications for rightsizing (direction). - Staff to develop a short student-feedback pilot template for teachers to use twice yearly or monthly and report pilot design and resource needs (direction). - Board requested data on attendance recovery strategies and asked staff to compile examples and cost/impact models (direction).

What was not decided: The retreat produced strategic direction and pilot requests rather than formal board votes or policy changes. Trustees emphasized testing hypotheses rather than making immediate, large-scale structural changes.

Voices in the room

- Lee Jenkins, retreat facilitator and former superintendent, led the fishbone exercise and emphasized systems thinking: "If everybody's best ideas were put together, it wouldn't work as a system together." - Scott Menzel, superintendent, and other district staff provided operational context on capacity, funding formulas and district programs.

Next steps and public-facing context

Trustees said they will pilot the listening visits and student feedback tools, ask staff for a capacity update and receive follow-up reports before recommending any structural consolidation or budget changes. The board asked staff to return findings and proposed pilots so members can use work-study sessions to refine items before formal action.

The retreat framed the board's immediate work as iterative: trustees committed to testing hypotheses, measuring results, celebrating incremental gains (for example, small year-to-year enrollment percentage improvements) and adjusting course based on data.