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District reports most schools exited improvement; Four Peaks elevated to comprehensive support for students with disabilities
Summary
District staff said four of five schools exited federal school‑improvement monitoring but Four Peaks was moved into comprehensive School Improvement for students with disabilities; the district outlined targeted supports, virtual specialist meetings and state site visits to help the school exit the designation.
Apache Junction Unified District staff told the governing board that districtwide interventions have reduced the number of schools under federal school‑improvement monitoring, but that Four Peaks has been elevated to comprehensive School Improvement focused on students with disabilities.
Miss Verna reviewed the federal categories (TSI, ATSI, CSI) and said four of five schools have exited school‑improvement status; Four Peaks’ score fell just below the threshold used to determine CSI and was elevated. “They did phenomenal growth — it just wasn’t quite enough,” Verna said, noting the school’s score relative to the bottom‑5% threshold.
Board members and staff described the district’s plan for the campus, including trainer‑of‑trainer professional development, classroom materials, two state site visits and quarterly virtual meetings with specialists. The district said Peralta Trail reduced chronic absenteeism among students with disabilities by about 23 percentage points compared with the prior year.
Dr Papalardo said the district established new feeder opportunities and instructional supports aimed at sustaining gains across grade levels and emphasized that state monitoring is intended to provide extra supports to help schools exit improvement status.
Board members asked for clarification on how absenteeism and subgroup calculations are performed and how many consecutive years trigger targeted interventions; staff said they will provide follow‑up detail to the board.
No formal vote was taken; staff said action steps and progress reports will continue to return to the board as monitoring proceeds.
