Scottsdale Unified School District is facing a difficult decision that’s sending ripples through our community: the potential closure and repurposing of two neighborhood schools. And the choice they’re seemingly leaning towards is the wrong one.
Scottsdale Unified is considering repurposing Pima Elementary and Echo Canyon K-8 School, citing low student enrollment as the primary reason. Both schools currently have fewer than 300 students enrolled. This isn’t just a Scottsdale problem: Valley-wide, districts are facing declining enrollment and rising operating costs, forcing administrators to make tough choices about resource allocation.
But they are taking the wrong approach to this. Instead of looking to compete, they are looking to capitulate. Instead of looking to improve, they are rewarding failure.
The schools under consideration serve distinct Scottsdale neighborhoods. Pima Elementary, located near Osborn and Granite Reef roads in south Scottsdale, has served the community since 1959 and was rebuilt shortly before the pandemic. Echo Canyon Elementary, near 62nd Street and Camelback Road, opened in 1990.
These are true neighborhood schools where generations of families have built connections and memories.
But they are looking at this the wrong way… this is more a story about competitiveness and potential opportunities for improvement. Let me explain…
You don’t have to be a parent to know that public schools have some competition now. With the ESA program and the often extremely permissive usage of taxpayer funds for charter and private schools, the traditional public school has to work a bit harder to keep students. Does moving them into already packed classrooms accomplish this, or will it push parents to put their students in the smaller classrooms and more attentive teachers of charter or private schools?
Leadership is choosing disruption and destroying community anchors over repurposing and reinvention. And this is after Pima received an $18 million rebuild just years ago.
SUSD could find a way to take advantage of those smaller class sizes. To level up the education that is provided to those students and more effectively compete against the alternatives. To provide a classic win-win.
Imagine an added arts focus for an amazing Echo Canyon campus. Or brilliant new interactive science labs for Pima. Imagine an engaging educational product…if you can do that, congratulations, you’re doing more than SUSD leadership can.
Scottsdale has built its reputation on quality education, but our state also has a reputation for reinvention and ingenuity. This might be the perfect opportunity to utilize those skills in a way that benefits everyone, but especially our public schools and their students. Instead we have leadership that has had years to figure out these issues and have failed us. And if they can’t think or create their way out of a paper bag, then we need to put in leaders who can.