Chandler growth spawns schools
Board updated on three proposals

from The Arizona Republic, October 1, 2004
Doug Carroll

Chandler's dizzying growth will slow down eventually, but that time is several more schools away.

At Wednesday's study session of the Chandler Unified School District governing board, district administrators updated the board on a "traditional" elementary school and junior high scheduled to open next year and a high school expected to open in 2007.

Only one so far has a name - and that one doesn't even have a surrounding neighborhood yet.

Chandler Traditional Academy, Freedom Campus, is to open next July in a Shamrock Estates development bounded by Higley, Greenfield, Ocotillo and Chandler Heights roads. Construction of homes won't begin until early 2005.

"Right now, it's just dirt," said Jeanette Polvani, the district's associate superintendent for new construction.

CTA-Freedom will be the district's second traditional elementary school since 2002. Such schools, a direct response to the charter school movement, have become popular with parents for their advanced math and phonics-based reading programs and their requirement of school uniforms.

In the regular meeting that followed the study session, the board approved $4.9 million from 2002 bond funds for the construction of CTA-Freedom, to be built by Phoenix-based Modular Technology and styled similar to CTA-Liberty, the district's first traditional school.

Freedom will be designed for 700 students and 29 classrooms - approximately the same as Liberty after an eight-classroom addition was made before the current school year.

Susan Eissinger, the district's associate superintendent for elementary education, said the district will consider opening even more of these schools.

Growth - and its prediction and management - remains a big deal in Chandler. The district, served by only one high school until 1998, soon will have four high schools and five junior highs.

"You keep thinking, 'What are we doing out here in the middle of nowhere?' Then, all of a sudden, it's not," said Mike Desper, the district's director of secondary education, who is in the process of drawing the boundaries for the fifth junior high, at Higley Road and Santan Boulevard.

District spokesman Terry Locke remembers when Weinberg Elementary, in southeastern Chandler, was considered "the country school" in a district that spans 80 square miles.

"Now we have several (schools) out that way," Locke said.

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