Deer Valley enrollment tops 36,000
School district still looking to fill teacher vacancies
by Brian DiTullio

DVUSD – Enrollment numbers are up in the Deer Valley Unified School District. In fact, those numbers are higher than anticipated.

At the Aug. 14 district governing board meeting, Jim Migliorino, director of fiscal services, said second‑day enrollment showed 36,653 students, 150 more than were counted on day one.

DVUSD Superintendent Dr. Virginia McElyea related that, overall, there has been a 3.2 percent increase in enrollment from last year–more than expected.

“We projected a 2.8 percent increase, but those numbers will change,” she said. “That’s good news, but we have to figure out where we’re going to put them.”

While no new facilities were opened this year, the district has implemented full‑day kindergarten.

Migliorino clarified that student head counts are done every day for the first two weeks of school and will become more reliable by the end of that period.

“The data for the first few days isn’t really that good,” Migliorino told The Desert Advocate. “It takes about two weeks before the data is reliable.”

Governing Board President Michael Gregoire stated the increase in enrollment tells him the district needs more teachers.

Chuck Hoover, director of human resources, said he has estimated an additional 12 teachers will need to be hired if the numbers stay the same. However, he also informed board members the district still needs to fill 35 vacant teaching positions authorized prior to the beginning of the current school year.

Hoover explained the district had 329 vacant positions, of which 294 had been filled as of Aug. 13, the first day of school.

Gregoire said the vacancies are not “acceptable” and that he already is getting angry e‑mails from parents claiming some classrooms are overcrowded.

The board president asked Hoover how the new salary schedule, adopted in June, had helped the hiring process. Hoover replied it helped immensely and that hiring became much easier after the starting salary was adjusted upward.

The board had approved an increase in starting salary to $34,500, as well as a salary compression adjustment for teachers hired in the last few years.

As for the first few days of full‑day kindergarten, Dr. Kent Davis, director of support services, invited the board to participate in moving kindergarten kids in and out of the lunchroom, comparing the job to “herding cats.”

“It’s a unique experience,” Davis said, indicating it took about a half‑hour to move the kindergartners in and out, compared to “about five minutes” for sixth‑graders.