The Higley Unified School District #60 is a school district in Arizona, with its headquarters in unincorporated Maricopa County, near Gilbert.[1] The school district operates schools in Gilbert and Queen Creek, Arizona. It is one of Arizona's fastest growing school districts, with modest continued growth despite the downturn in the economy at the end of the 2000s.
Contents |
The Higley district was incorporated in 1909 with a territory far larger than its current size, but most of the land was transferred to other Valley school districts over the years. For instance, the Queen Creek Unified School District was carved out of the Higley district in 1947.[2] Higley Elementary School was the only school in the district for the next 53 years. The district's high school students went to Gilbert Public Schools' high schools. As the Valley expanded, Larry Likes, then-superintendent of the district, brought it through an era of suburbia swallowing the local farmland. It was not long before the growth of the 1990s and 2000s caught up to the district's 24-square-mile (62 km2) service area. In 1999, the district legally unified; in 2000, it opened Coronado Elementary School, its first new school in decades; in 2001, Higley High School opened its doors; six years later, further growth induced the opening of Williams Field High School. In the spring of 2008, Higley became the first district in Arizona to receive K-12 accreditation by the AdvancED/North Central Accreditation Team. Graduating Higley seniors were offered $2.7 million in academic and athletic scholarships.[3]
In early 2011, for the first time, Higley grew to larger than 10,000 students as a school district.[4]
The district is considering opening middle schools to better prepare 7th and 8th grade students for high school and to alleviate projected capacity issues at its elementary schools. The school sites could also be built as K-8 schools.[5]