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This Week
NEWS .................................. 4
Crowded ballot offers many choices.
REAL ESTATE ................19
Sellers market shows no sign of ending.
COMMUNITY............. 25
Chandler couple take aim at stupidity. NEWS ....................................... 3 REAL ESTATE ......................... 19 COMMUNITY .......................25 BUSINESS ............................. 30 OPINION ...............................32 SPORTS................................. 34 CLASSIFIEDS .........................35
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October 18, 2020
Special ed families feel ‘disregarded’ by CUSD BY KEVIN REAGAN Arizonan Staff Writer
J
ane Andersen was willing to give Chandler Uni�ied School District a pass when the pandemic �irst started back in March. She understood why schools had to close and had low expectations for how her 14-year-old son, Mattie, was going to be educated for the rest of the school year. Mattie is blind, mentally impaired and requires special help to accommodate his cerebral palsy. So, Andersen knew online learning probably wasn’t going to work. He is one of more than 4,600 special education students in the district who require individualized education plans. As Andersen’s other children �inished out their school year doing assignments virtu-
Jane Andersen is frustrated with what she considers the lack of adequate attention CUSD has paid to educating her son Mattie, who is Blind and mentally impaired. (Courtesy of Jane Andersen)
ally, Mattie had to try and complete activities sent home by his teachers. “That fourth quarter was hard for all kids,” Andersen said. “But for my son.... online learning was really a joke. I mean it wasn’t even challenging. It was silly.” One assignment asked Mattie to practice good etiquette while attending a movie theater – an activity Mattie normally wouldn’t do even if a global pandemic had not shut down every cinema in Arizona. “No learning really occurred there,” Andersen said about her son’s assignments. Then the next school year started
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CUSD will move Erie students to new school BY KEVIN REAGAN Arizonan Staff Writer
C
handler Unified officials have decided to relocate Arizona College PrepErie’s 800 students to a new high school under construction near Gilbert and Ocotillo roads in Gilbert. The Governing Board voted unanimously on Oct. 14 to move Erie’s campus to a bigger facility designed to accommodate up to 2,000 students. The board additionally approved adjusting some of enrollment boundaries for other high schools in order to balance
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out enrollment numbers at all six campuses. Students currently attending the district’s other high schools – not including Erie – won’t be impacted by the boundary changes because the adjustments will only start to apply with the class of 2025. The new high school, which is set to open in July, has been under construction for the last year and is intended to help relieve some of the overcrowding seen at the district’s other schools. The board was presented with a number of options for how it might redraw the district’s boundary lines to account for
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the new campus and ultimately picked a plan that moves Erie students from their current campus near Dobson Road and Chandler Boulevard. Assistant Superintendent Craig Gilbert said this option was recommended by the district’s administrators because it allows for more students to experience Erie’s model of instruction. “This has been a very successful school and I think bringing this success to many students in our district is a viable option,” Gilbert said.
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