School voucher interest low / P. 8
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An edition of the East Valley Tribune
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Sunday, September 4, 2022
School district seeks millions to handle growth
INSIDE
BY MARK MORAN Tribune Staff Writer
NEWS................... 15 QC baseball coach Mikel Moreno takes one for the team.
Q
ueen Creek can’t build schools fast enough. In a scramble to keep up with the breakneck pace of growth, QCUSD is seeking money from the state to help build 2 new K-6 schools, ready for students in 2027 and 2028. Student enrollment has ballooned 148%
Legacy school stays tight-lipped on campus gun
BUSINESS............ 19 QC lawyer Scott Roney aims to help businesses.
in the past decade. The district has added a new school in each of the last five years. There are two more on the horizon, and there is no slowdown in sight. The student population is projected to grow by another third in the next 5 years. Nine of 14 of the district’s schools will be near or over capacity by the 2023–2024 school year. Queen Creek needs classrooms for the
kids who are already here and those about to arrive, and they are arriving almost overnight. “Next time you pass cleared land and you see that sign for an incoming subdivision you can think to yourself ‘there’s a hundred families,’” district spokeswoman Jessica Bautista said. “There is an elementary school’s worth of children.”
Lest we forget
see SCHOOL page 3
BY MARK MORAN Tribune Staff Writer
SPORTS................ 22 Casteel football Coach Bobby Newcome prepares for a big battle
COMMUNITY.........................17 BUSINESS...............................19 OPINION..................................20 SPORTS....................................22 GET OUT..................................23 CLASSIFIEDS.........................26
S
chool officials and Town police remain tight lipped about any forthcoming disciplinary action against a fourth grader who brought a weapon onto the campus of Legacy Traditional School in Queen Creek Aug. 24 as Principal Megan Alvarado remains on administrative leave. “I hope you will understand that there is a pending investigation at the police level and the school is conducting its own review,” said Legacy spokesman
see GUN page 6
Scores of organizations across the East Valley, including in Queen Creek, are using this week to remember the thousands of civilians and first responders who perished in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks while a special memorial will be erected all next weekend for the Tempe Healing Field. As you’ll read on pages 10-14, it’s all part of a major local effort to remember the dead – and the unifying effect the tragedy had on our nation. (Special to the Tribune)
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