School Safety Grant

August 8, 2023

Dear Tolleson Elementary School District Families and Community,

Thank you to our entire education community for a great start to the 2023–2024 school year! I am so grateful to see our treasures, teachers, and staff in our schools! Please be sure to share with family, neighbors, and friends that our schools are open and ready to enroll children from within and beyond our school district boundaries.

As we share with you often, the overall well-being and safety of our treasures is our top priority. As we work hard to provide a safe, comfortable learning environment for all, I am pleased to share with you that we have been awarded a three-year school safety grant from Arizona Department of Education. The grants are awarded to support, promote, and enhance safe and effective learning environments for all students by supporting the costs of placing school resource officers, school counselors, and school social workers on school campuses.

We are grateful to have two counselors at each school (one paid out of the safety grant and the other one paid through a maintenance and operations override) on each of our campuses and a district-wide social worker to support our students and families. We have been awarded two safety resource officers to be shared across our four schools. A safety resource officer will be assigned by City of Tolleson for both Arizona Desert and Porfirio H. Gonzales Elementary Schools, and we are working with City of Phoenix on alternative support for Desert Oasis and Sheely Farms Elementary Schools due to the shortage of officers.

I am grateful to both City of Tolleson and Phoenix for their support and responsiveness, as well as our entire community. You do an outstanding job of alerting our school officials when you see or hear of any potential concerns to our community. It allows us to work effectively with officials to determine the credibility of any potential threats and do everything possible to keep our education community a safe place to learn and work. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Dr. Lupita Hightower
Treasure Hunter and Superintendent
Tolleson Elementary School District