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REMEMBERING 9/11
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
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empe Union officials are studying the possibility of creating a gifted program in Ahwatukee, possibly at Mountain Pointe High School, partly as a strategy to combat enrollment decline and attract new students to the district. The mission to study the matter and make recommendations by the end of the year, is a directive the school board on August 21 gave Superintendent Kevin Mendivil as one of the performance goals he must meet for any future salary incentives — although he himself had suggest-
ed to members that they include that benchmark. “By December 2019, the superintendent will report to the board, in a public meeting, a recommendation from a study and analysis for the viability of a second gifted academy within the TUHSD system,” the board declared in a unanimously passed resolution. “Creating a gifted academy for students in the southern region of the district, including Ahwatukee, will provide families a viable comprehensive public high school option in this specialized programming,” it further stated,
see GIFTED page 10
BAD WEEKEND
A New Beginning Can Start Now!
to AFN)
Ahwatukee couple feared among dive boat victims
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The five members of Ahwatukee Daisy Troop 3869 – from left, Luna Contreras, Fiona Willey, Sammie Camarano, Leah Wheeler and Emme Bemmerl – may only be 6 years old, but they’re already learning how to give back to the community. They’ve launched a month-long project you can read about on page 6. (Misty Cisneros-Contreras/Special
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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@AhwatukeeFN
TU studying a gifted Daisies with heart program for Ahwatukee BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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@AhwatukeeFN |
Longtime Ahwatukee residents Patricia Beitzinger and Neal Baltz, shown here on a diving trip to Bonaire in the Caribbean in 2011, are feared to be among the 34 passengers who perished in a dive boat that caught fire early Monday off the California coast. (Special to AFN)
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wo long-time Ahwatukee residents are feared to have been on the ill-fated dive boat that caught on fire and sank Monday off the coast of Santa Cruz island, killing at least 25 people and possibly as many as 34. Neal Baltz and Patricia Beitzinger were privately confirmed to have been passengers on the boat, although as of Tuesday morning their names were not among the confirmed dead. “I called the Coast Guard and they didn’t have a manifest yet,”
said Scott Ryan. He and his wife are long-time friends of Mr. Baltz and Ms. Beitzinger. “We have been told they were on that boat,” Ryan said, adding he and his wife had been trying to call them repeatedly from Monday evening to no avail. He said the Coast Guard representative “sounded pretty shaken” when they spoke on Monday night. Neither Mr. Baltz not Ms. Beitzinger were among the deceased who have been officially identified, Ryan added. Mr. Baltz and Ms. Beitzinger
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