Fatal crash renews call for texting ban PAGE 11
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS................................ 14 Gilbert Council may mull scooter ban.
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Gilbert Cares honors MLK Day. PAGE 17
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Gilbert school boundary changes rile parents BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
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antos Porter said he moved his family to Gilbert’s Val Vista Lakes community specifically so his children could attend Highland High School. His son is a freshman at the high school and his two daughters, a seventh-grader and an eighth-grader at Highland Junior High, were expected to follow. “It’s the best place for my kids,” Porter said. “It’s the best school.” But under Gilbert Public Schools’ proposed boundary changes, Porter’s children would
end up going to Gilbert High School instead. And junior high students from that community would no longer attend Highland Junior High School but Greenfield Junior High. The proposal doesn’t sit well with Val Vista Lakes parents, who have submitted a petition protesting the change to the Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board. Val Vista Lakes parent Wendy Zamora said 550 people from her community signed the petition. “This is not an easy decision, it’s not one we take lightly,” said Reed Carr, who was voted board president by his peers in last week’s study session. “We realize we are disrupting lives.”
The board is scheduled to vote on the boundary changes at a public hearing Jan. 23 after taking public comments. If adopted, the changes would go into effect next school year. The school district is the larger of the two public school systems in Gilbert with over 30,000 students and 40 campuses. The district for the last eight to nine years has seen its student headcount drop due to factors such as aging neighborhoods, charter schools and open enrollment, according to Jason Martin, GPS elementary school executive director.
see BOUNDARIES page 10
Gilbert group a beacon for domestic violence victims BUSINESS......................20 3D Mini Golf opens in Gilbert.
GET OUT........................ 28 Limelight Theater presents 'Willy Wonka'
COMMUNITY.................. 17 BUSINESS......................20 OPINION........................ 23 SPORTS.......................... 24 GETOUT......................... 28 CLASSIFIED....................31
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
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work because he was angry she didn’t make him dinner. Still, the now 40-year-old mom of three young children stayed. The breaking point for Lisa came when her husband physically attacked her one day. “He shoved me into the wall and pinned me after chasing me around the house,” she said. “People ask, ‘why did you stay so long?’ You just don’t know what your line is until you know it happens. It was a horrible day but gratifying it happened because it pushed me to do what I needed to do.” Helping Lisa as she left her marriage was Winged Hope Family Advocacy Foundation, a Gilbert nonprofit that focuses on preventing and healing family violence. Winged Hope received the Service Coordination Award in 2018 from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office in recognition of its (Special to GSN) work after it was nominated by Gilbert ProsJessica Nicely, CEO of Gilert-based Winged Hope, helps children and ecutor’s Office Victim Services Unit.
isa described the abuse in her 15-year marriage as a slow drip that crept up on her. “It was very much a controlled situation that kind of slowly builds upon itself,” said the Gilbert resident, whose last name is not being used to protect her identity. “At the end, probably the last three to four years it was the most intense where I wasn’t able to really go anywhere. There were times he took my purse, keys, phone and computer and everything so I could not go to work that day.” There was also the time when he locked her out of the house in the middle of the night during an argument, the time he threw a computer across the room and broke the television and the time he chased her down the driveway and flung spouses victimized by domestic violence. Her group's work has won soda at her car windshield when she tried the admiration of the town prosecutor's office. to go to a hip-hop concert with girls from
see WINGED page 3