Holiday gift card ideas
Region’s super bounce venue
PAGE 18
PAGE 26
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS................................3 Town buying abandoned Gilbert school for $6.8
COMMUNITY......... 13 Higley Unified teacher cooks up lessons.
SPORTS...................... 24
Starting quarterback Gerardo Saenz on his own career COMMUNITY........................................13 BUSINESS............................................. 18 SPORTS..................................................24 GETOUT.................................................26 CLASSIFIEDS.......................................32
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Sunday, December 12, 2021
Higley raises Monday, Friday pay for subs BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
H
igley Unified School District is raising pay for short-term substitute teachers who will work Mondays and Fri-
days. The Governing Board last Wednesday approved upping the daily pay to $145 from $125 for those two days every week. “Just as we’re struggling in many areas with our labor shortage, we’re struggling
in this area in terms of sub pools, too,” said Mum Martens, Human Resources director. “We continue to have shortages. Pre-COVID, our fill rates were in the 90 percentile and currently our fill rates average in the 60 to 70 percentile and our hardest fill days are Mondays and Fridays.” HUSD and districts throughout the country are wrestling with a shortage of substitute teachers. Martens said she has heard of other school districts having success finding
Accelerated-learn pilot coming to GPS
substitutes by offering higher pay for their hard-to-fill days. Kyrene School District in November hiked its substitute pay to $175 to $205 a day, depending on the prior experience of the subs and whether they sign on for long periods of time. And, a school district in the East Valley is now giving a $1,000 incentive for subs who work 60 days a year, according to Martens.
Early visit
see HUSD SUBS page 6
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
G
ilbert Public Schools is launching a pilot accelerated- learning program at five K-6 campuses next year as it competes for students from other districts. Currently the gifted and accelerated programs are combined at the elementary level and under the proposal, they will separate. District staff currently is working to define what a gifted student means. “We need kids to go to college and get those skills for the future jobs that will be available,” Governing Board member Jill Humpherys said at the Dec. 7 work study. “It’s a huge concern that we’re not getting enough kids prepared at that level and to do that I think this is a great opportunity.” The pilot campuses are Highland Park, Meridian, Playa del Rey,
see GPS page 8
Giselle Diez got a hug from Santa, played by Officer Tom O’Brien, as the Gilbert Police Department hosted a photos-with-Santa event as the department conducted its annual Blue Line of Love Holiday Drive,. (David Minton/GSN Staff Photographert)
The latest breaking news and top local stories in Gilbert!
www.GilbertSunNews.com .com
JUST A CLICK AWAY
