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Special Supplement to The Glendale Star and Peoria Times
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CAREER & EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES
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COMMERCIAL METALS ................ 4 State-of-the-art steelmaking facility coming to Mesa
GLENDALE COMMUNITY COLLEGE............... 10 Successful job searches require thought and planning
ROBERT L. DUFFY HIGH SCHOOL ..... 12 Hidden gem for student learning welcomes leader Jaime Tejada
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SUMMER 2022
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AESD prepares teachers with GEARS leadership event BY SCIANNA GARCIA
West Valley View Staff Writer
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n an effort to ensure success throughout the upcoming school year, Avondale Elementary School District brought teachers together for its seventh year of the Growing Educators, Achieving Results with Students (GEARS) event this summer. Over the seven-year course of GEARS, AESD has seen student achievement rise and other tangible benefits emerge. “Every child in Avondale deserves to grow as a thinker, problem solver, and communicate the pursuit of reach without limits. It’s our collective responsibility to make sure that happens. Working through GEARS is bringing groups of educators together to change the conversation definitively, and the outcomes are very real,” Superintendent Dr. Betsy Hargrove said. In the spring of 2015, school leaders from the Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia presented Gov. Doug Ducey with a proposal outlining a school transformation pilot program called Project Momentum. The aim of this effort was to provide a comprehensive school-improvement model designed to assist students, teachers and staff members in meeting the goal of increasing student achievement. The model focused on improvements to instructional quality that have proven to advance student learning at a rate needed to offset challenging factors such as the strong correlation between free and reduced lunch percentage and student outcomes on standardized tests.
Through hosting GEARS, Avondale Elementary School District has seen student achievement rise and other tangible benefits emerge. (AESD/Submitted)
Beginning in the 2015-16 school year, Ducey entered into a public-private partnership with the Challenge Foundation and Avondale Elementary School District (AESD) to implement Project Momentum. AESD was selected because the school district showed evidence of being on the right track for initial implementation with a preexisting school improvement planning model that complemented the tenets of Project Momentum. In addition, Avondale showed an engaged student population, caring community and a district/ school leadership committed to the concept of continuous improvement.
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Ducey invested $575,000, which supported teacher leadership grants for select members at each school, principal and assistant principal stipends, substitute coverage to allow for teachers to commit to training, and early start training stipends. Hargrove, along with her school leaders and instructional staff, engaged with the Project Momentum implementation team to collaboratively develop a strategic plan for improvement. The Avondale teachers and staff members formed a guiding coalition to help
GEARS...continued on page 2 Midwestern University Tomorrow’s Healthcare Team
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