Meeting with the Principal and Vice Principal of AHS-AJ Malis and Glenda Arrfa

 

Principal and Vice Principal of AHS-AJ Malis and Glenda Arrfa

Our meeting with these two young and energetic educators was informative and inspiring. We knew that Covid was a big challenge for the high school, but the school has been very innovative in handling the challenges of a multi-lingual, shifting student population in a pandemic environment. The movement of students in and out of the high school programs averages 40-50% over the course of the year. A large proportion of these students are part of a refugee population.

 

2021: Projected 2020-21 AHS enrollment was 1350 students. Reopening of school in person at the end of March 2021 resulted in 1000 students returning.

 

Although in person school has reopened, the high school still offers students who want to study remotely, the opportunity to do that through Zoom classes.

 

Amphi Academy is a third program that runs in parallel with the in-person school and online program. The content is provided by a company called Engenuity. This program is for students who have trouble working during regular school hours either because of behavioral issues or job challenges. It is self-paced and monitored so both the students and the instructors know how well they are achieving their goals. Students do their work anytime in a 24 hour period.

 

A new program called RISE-with funding from the recently passed Covid relief bill is offering catch up programs for students in the morning, evenings and on the weekend.

 

Challenges: Communication, family engagement and family stability are the biggest challenges facing families and school administrators at AHS today.

 

There are between 26 and 32 spoken languages on campus at any given time. Transportation to school events is a challenge and the cultural expectation for parent involvement is not a model parents from these different cultures know or understand. In most cases they can’t support their students in their desire to attend college as they have no experience themselves. There are a large number of first generation college students coming from the Amphi population.

 

Economic challenges are a huge issue for the parents who are ‘living in the now’ often moving their families from apartment to apartment to take advantage of ‘free first month rent’ offers. Family stability is a big challenge with students moving between different family members and living arrangements. The well know Tucson nonprofit-Youth on Their Own-originated at AHS to help provide for students without a stable home base.

 

We were assured in our meeting that any and all grants to the school would make a big difference to AHS students. For example, a student with a first year scholarship to Pima Community College would need to live at home and might require transportation to the college. A grant to cover transportation to college could make all the difference to that student. A $1000 grant would allow that student to ride the bus everyday to classes for a year.

 

Amphitheater High School is a school we can all be proud we attended. Current students who overcome challenges and complete their high school years at AHS are a group of young people to be admired and one the Class of 1966 can proudly support with our Memorial grant program as they take their next steps beyond high school.