By Dr. Curtis Finch, Superintendent of the Deer Valley Unified School District (DVUSD)

Doesn’t “Sunny DVUSD” sound like a radio station call-sign? I would not mind listening to a radio station with that name. Every year for the past 23 years as a public school superintendent, I have written a State of the District report card to inform the community, students, and district staff members of the past year’s progress and what the forecast looks like for the next year. The idea probably came from listening to years of politicians give their State of the State and State of the Nation addresses, usually causing me to react to the misinformation on the educational state of the public school district I worked at that year. It became clear to me public school superintendents are responsible to supply the correct information to their own communities. The State of District 2022 is designed to inform the Deer Valley Unified School District (DVUSD) community of our path.

The short version of the State of DVUSD message on calendar year 2021, in meteorological terms, mirrored the actual weather patterns we had in northern Maricopa County in 2021. DVUSD had many sunny days, but there were several storms scattered throughout, with some big downpours late in the calendar year. The community, parents, businesses, students, and staff worked together to navigate all these storms, but the forecast for 2022 is bright. If you would like to read the entire State of DVUSD 2022, you can find it at dvusd.org/stateofdistrict.

If you do not have time to read the entire document, the following paragraphs are the “Cliff Notes” version. (I highly encourage you though to read the document in full.)

State of DVUSD 2022 Highlights
DVUSD students and staff won a large share of awards again in 2021, which can be viewed at dvusd.org/extraordinary. Deer Valley Unified School District also became a model Professional Learning Community (PLC) District, one of eleven large districts in the entire world. DVUSD worked with Governor Ducey to help fund the Friday PLC teacher-collaboration days through Project Momentum. These two initiatives were the secret sauce to our continued academic excellence.

Much of 2021 was focused on interventions for students, both academically and socially, as students came back to full time, in-person education in 2021. Interventions continued to improve student academic, social, and emotional states and performance.

The year 2022 is looking even brighter! The growth in our area will continue to accelerate and push DVUSD to continue to adapt to the needs of the community. The DVUSD staff and students have learned to adapt quite well the past two years, so we look forward to whatever comes next. We will be ready!

Dr. Finch can be reached at [email protected].