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AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS www.ahwatukee.com
MEDICAL ORDEAL
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
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Chaos looms as Ahwatukee teachers ponder strike
AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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ith public school teachers pondering a strike vote this week and planning to hold peaceful “walk-ins” again today, April 18, Ahwatukee students and their parents may yet see the waning school year end in chaos. Gov. Doug Ducey on April 12 rolled out his plan to raise teacher salaries by 20 percent over the next three years – but leaders of the statewide #RedforEd movement called his response inadequate as they began polling teachers across the state on a possible strike. Ducey rolled out his plan a day after teachers, administrators, parents and even some students – clad in the now-signature red T-shirts of the #RedforEd movement – gathered in front of most Ahwatukee public schools before class began, waving signs and chanting while passing motorists blared horns in apparent support. More than 400 Kyrene teachers repeated that peaceful demonstration after class at the district headquarters in Tempe, eventually manning all four corners of Kyrene and Warner roads to voice their demands. Those demands extend well beyond a 20 percent raise – which still keeps Arizona teachers’ salaries below the national average.
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They include wage increases for cafeteria workers, bus drivers and other classified staff; decreased class size; the restoration of overall state funding for schools to 2008 levels; no further state tax reductions until per-pupil spending reaches the national average and other demands.
Ducey’s plan initially seemed an effort to neutralize a threat of stronger action made April 10 by Noah Karvelis of Arizona Educators United – which has been leading Red for Ed along with the Arizona Education See
PROTEST on page 12
‘Non-winter’ won’t leave us high and dry BY GARY NELSON AFN Contributor
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(Kimberly Carrilo/AFN Staff Photographer)
Nearly 500 teachers in the Kyrene School District rallied after class at the district’s Tempe headquarters at Warner and Kyrene Roads, repeating their demands for more state support and higher pay.
f you’re wondering where the winter of 2017-18 went, you’re not alone. The period from November through March will go down as one of the warmest and driest winters in Ahwatukee and East Valley history – and, by one important measure, the most parched ever.
Ahwatukee!
That measure is the amount of water flowing from northern and eastern Arizona into the Salt and Verde rivers to fill our bathtubs and swimming pools. Typically in late March, as the high country thaws, the two rivers are healthy torrents tumbling toward the Valley. But on March 26, their combined flow was only 6 percent of normal. “It looks like this year could very well set
the all-time low record,” said Charlie Ester, manager of surface water resources for Tempe-based Salt River Project. “2002 was the all-time low, and we’ll probably come in under that.” Ester said that’s a product of extremely low rain and snowfall across SRP’s watershed. A normal winter produces about 10 inches of precipitation across the region, Ester said. See
DROUGHT on page 8
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