CHANDLER TEACHER'S INNOVATION REWARDED
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From Uptown to Downtown, covering Chandler like the sun.
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
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NEWS ................................ 6 COVID robs Chandler High student of her parents.
BUSINESS .................... 26
Chandler company launches foundation
SPORTS ........................ 28
One of the team at Chandler High. NEWS ....................................... 3
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SPORTS..................................28 GET OUT .............................. 30
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DECEMBER 13, 2020
Chandler school superintendent to retire in June BY KEVIN REAGAN Arizonan Staff Writer
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handler Unified School District Superintendent Camille Casteel will retire at the end of this school year, marking an end to a 50-year career in public education. Casteel, one of the district’s longest-serving superintendents, announced last week in a letter to families, ““While this is one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make, after 50 years in CUSD, I feel the time is right.” Having started her teaching career at Erie Elementary in 1971, Casteel amassed
Camille Casteel
decades of experience working in various schools across Chandler and gradually climbed up the administrative ranks until she reached the district’s top job in 1996. Her retirement comes in the middle of a tumultuous school year that has presented a slew of challenges that Casteel and her fellow superintendents and Chandler colleagues have never had to face before as a result of the pandemic. Casteel predicted the district should begin to recover from the stress of those challenges over the next few months as COVID-19 vaccines become more widely avail-
see CASTEEL page 22
Kyrene's new chief ready for the COVID-19 Challenge BY PAUL MARYNIAK Arizonan Executive Editor
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wo master’s degrees and 26 years in education never prepared Laura Toenjes for what she’s gone through the last nine months. Pandemics will do that to anyone. And when she takes over as Kyrene School District’s new superintendent Jan. 1, she’ll need the on-the-job training she’s been getting since March as the architect of the district’s COVID-19 mitigation strategies. That’s because along with all the other tasks and duties awaiting anyone in her position – like building new relationships in the community, including with the newest two of her five bosses – the pandemic is handing Toenjes a host of challenges that most of her predecessors in the job probably could never have imagined. Those challenges include the pandemic’s deepening impact on district finances, continuing Kyrene’s successful ability to withstand the virus’ withering effect on staff
Laura Toenjes has been assistant superintendent of Kyrene School District since 2016 and will take over the top job Jan. 1. (Courtesy of
Kyrene School District)
retention and – most important of all – ensuring a quality education for more than 16,700 children who may or may not see the inside of a classroom again in 2020-21. Toenjes is bracing for a wild ride after the Governing Board Nov. 24 unanimously approved a 30-month contract and officially named her to replace Superintendent Dr. Jan Vesely, who is retiring at the end of the month. Toenjes is determined to approach those challenges with a lemonade-from-lemons philosophy. “I am very much trying to look for the opportunities or the positive in what’s happening to us at the moment,” she said, though she readily admits the pandemic has tested her fortitude on that score. “I’m not going to lie,” she told AFN in an interview. “It’s been hard. It’s been exhausting.” Looking back on the spring break that, because of COVID-19, never ended until Kyrene’s “rolling return” to classrooms began
see KYRENE page 3