Cedar Unified School District is located in Keams Canyon, Arizona on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Our rural location, 150 miles northeast of Flagstaff, is populated by a community that is committed to its students and helping them achieve their potential.

As educators and staff dedicated to strong academic, vocational, and athletic achievements, we are continually striving to raise the bar to assure that each of our students achieves their goals. We hope you'll use our district and school Web sites to learn more about what we have to offer our students, our community, and our staff.

Dear Parents/Guardians and Community:

March Madness is in the air! This ends our basketball season for this year, and we need to begin to get other madness out of the community. There is a rumor (which gets out of hand) that White Cone High School and/or Jeddito Public school is going to close. That rumor is not true! 

What is true, is that White Cone High School is going to be under a School Improvement Grant for the next year, and if all goes well, then we will continue funding for the next couple of years. Let me give you some more information of what we are expecting:

Our school has been identified by ADE as “In School Improvement.” We are identified as a school in Tier 1 due to being in the state's persistently lowest 5% for the following reasons:

• Academic achievement, in terms, of proficiency, of the State’s reading and mathematics assessments combined.
• Lack of progress on the State’s assessments over a number of years.
• Graduation rate below 60% over a number of years.

There are four models that the Cedar Unified School District’s Governing Board will need to select from, and they are:

1. Closure Model: Close the school and enroll students in another public school within the district.
2. Restart Model: The restart model is one in which an LEA (Local Educational Agency) converts the school and reopens it under a Charter Management Organization (CMO) or Education Management Organization (EMO) that has been selected though a rigorous review process.
3. Turnaround Model: In the turnaround model, all staff will have to be screened, and no more than 50% would be rehired; the other staff would be new. Incentives for turning around the school would be built into the model. More professional development, use of data will be continuous; governance will be given to the principal.
4. Transformation Model: Identify and reward staff who are increasing student outcomes and being accountable. Also support those who are identified, and then remove those who are not. Very similar to the turnaround model. 

The bottom line is: In spite of all the many strategies used to turn around low performance… Nothing Changes Unless Teaching and Learning Changes… and Leadership/Teamwork is the key!!!

We are speaking about:

• Student Leadership
• Parent Leadership
• Teacher Leadership
• Community Leadership
• Administration Leadership
• School Board Leadership

All working together to make the school improvements and offer a quality educational program for our students.

The end of the third quarter is marked for March 11, 2010.  We have only 9 ½ weeks before the end of the school year.  A short break is on March 12th-15th. If you have not met with your student’s teacher about his or her grades, promotion, graduation, and/or retention, you need to find out now how he or she is doing in class. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Damon R. Clarke, Ed. D.
Superintendent

• “The people who influence you are the people who believe in you.”
    -- Henry Drummond