Finalists for Chandler Unified superintendent emphasize safety, fiscal stewardship and partnerships

Three finalists to lead Chandler Unified School District spoke to parents, staff and community members at a public forum, each emphasizing student safety, fiscal stewardship and stronger community partnerships while offering different emphases on how to protect programs amid falling enrollment. John Bash, a representative of the national search firm Hazard Young Attea & Associates, organized the event and said the district’s governing board will review public input collected during the forums before making a selection.

Lana Berry, introduced by the moderator as a finalist and the district’s chief financial officer, told the audience that her first months would focus on listening to the governing board, staff and community and on assessing academic data. “We need to make sure we’re good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Berry said, calling financial stewardship one of her five pillars for the first year. She highlighted the district’s bond investments in school entry security and fencing and noted the district’s strong bond rating as a buffer while enrollment declines. Berry described a plan to use data and attrition to ‘right size’ staffing over several years while protecting high‑priority programs.

Candidate Ebi Davila Haggigat said her priorities are sustaining academic excellence, maintaining fiscal responsibility and fostering a culture in which people feel “seen and heard.” Haggigat said she would first assess counseling and social‑work capacity and pursue nonprofit partnerships that can bring group supports into schools at lower cost. On safety, she pointed to locked classroom doors and sign‑in procedures observed during school visits and endorsed ongoing ALICE training for staff.

Dr. Anna Battle, deputy superintendent in the Roosevelt Elementary School District, framed her remarks around workforce development for teachers and students and transparent use of public funds. “Every student must learn at high levels,” Battle said, and added that community trust depends on clear return‑on‑investment for capital spending; she referenced a recent $271,000,000 bond and said the public needs to see how those dollars are spent.

All three candidates stressed the value of career and technical education, internships and business partnerships as ways to keep students connected and to attract families to district schools. Each candidate described multiple partnerships already serving Chandler students—scholarship programs, a district care center providing medical and dental services, and a recently awarded $5,000,000 STEM grant cited by one candidate—and urged proactive outreach to both large employers and smaller community organizations to expand internships and externships.

On student behavior and bullying, the finalists proposed a mix of prevention and response: consistent staff training, clearer definitions of bullying versus isolated incidents, and communication and accountability measures for parents and staff. On mental health, candidates emphasized expanding counseling capacity, creating calm or wellness spaces that do not stigmatize students, and using community partners to deliver services without substantially reducing instructional time.

The forum closed with a reminder that the district’s online input tool will remain open through the evening. The governing board will review the collected feedback from this and two other community forums, along with school tours and panel interviews, before advancing a finalist to contract talks.