Glendale’s Community Newspaper
Vol. 79 No. 23
Inside This Week
PUSD makes changes to administrative staff Glendale Star Managing Editor
NEWS ........... 4
T
he Peoria Unified School District recently made some changes to its administrative staff for the 2023-24 school year.
Lori Garcia
Garcia will serve as the district’s new executive director of exceptional student services. For the last two years, she has served as PUSD’s director of special education. Prior to this role, Garcia served PUSD as a special education coordinator and she previously held the role as interim director
SPORTS ....... 16
Josh Rojas wants to make his hometown proud
BY JOE McHUGH
T FEATURES ....24 24
OPINION ......................8 BUSINESS ...................12 SPORTS ..................... 16 CALENDAR................. 20 FEATURES.................. 22 RELIGION ................... 26 YOUTH ....................... 28 CLASSIFIEDS .............30
of special education. She also previously served in the roles of director for exceptional student services, director of teaching and learning, special services program coordinator and assistant principal in the Alhambra Elementary School District and the Union Elementary School District. Garcia has also served as an education program specialist for the Arizona Department of Education, district math coach, special education facilitator and interventionist and special education teacher across the state of Arizona. This new role will oversee special education, English language learners, federal pro-
grams, preschool and gifted education.
Karie Burns
Burns will serve as the new director of federal programs and joins PUSD from the Dysart Unified School District where she was a principal. She previously served as an assistant principal in Dysart Unified and was a turnaround coach at the Arizona Department of Education. Burns replaces Laurie Little who is retiring from PUSD after 22 years serving the district as a district-level administrator SEE PUSD PAGE 5
Glendale police to get new software analytics program Glendale Star Staff Writer
Babbo aims to hit a home run with day of giving
June 8, 2023
www.glendalestar.com
BY JORDAN ROGERS
Man arrested after killing 1, injuring 2
FREE SUBSCRIPTION
he Glendale Police Department is renewing its full-service software analytics agreement with Nighthawk. Cloud Inc. following the approval of City Council at its May 23 meeting. The agreement — that was passed on a 6-1 vote — approves $152,745.42 to be allocated to the renewal of service with the software company. “We are so blessed here in the city of Glendale to have a command staff chief level that supports our efforts and that are willing to put in the investment it does,” General Investigations Unit Lt. Scott Waite said. “Then in turn, to have a city council — to have our elected officials and city managers — understand and have that trust with
our chiefs that when they go to them and say, ‘Hey, these are the tools that we need. We know it’s an investment. We know that it takes money.’ For them to be like, ‘We believe in you, and we believe in this department. We believe in this community that we’re willing to invest back in.’” Nighthawk.Cloud’s services are used by the police department to evaluate data collected during police investigations. This includes avenues such as social media account downloads, cell phone extractions and call records. The software is then able to take in the data and sources to condense it into a report that investigators and prosecutors can use efficiently. “One of the ways I like to explain it to people is, we’ve all seen the crime dramas where
you go into the room, and there’s a picture of somebody up on the wall and how there’s strings attached to different pictures and people all over the place, and you’re like, ‘How does anybody comprehend this?’” Waite said. “What Nighthawk does is take that giant mess, and compile it in a simple, easy report so that now you can see that I am looking for subject A, and this is how they tie into this crime. “Nighthawk really does for us what would take us days, weeks and it can do it in a relatively short amount of time.” The Glendale Police Department first entered into the agreement with Nighthawk. Cloud last year by way of grant funds to purchase the license. The feedback has been
The latest breaking news and top local stories in Glendale!
SEE ANALYTICS PAGE 7