The Sedona-Oak Creek School District will host a Community and Family Engagement night on Tuesday, Oct. 3, at 5 p.m. at the school library following its regularly-scheduled Governing Board meeting at 4 p.m. at the Sedona Performing Arts Center. The CAFE event is aimed at building a more robust relationship between the district and the community of Sedona. 

“We have many resources within our public schools, and we have many resources outside of our public schools in our community,” SOCSD Superintendent Tom Swaninger said. “I think creating a platform where we can discuss how we can partner with each other for the benefit of all involved can only make our organizations and our community as a whole more healthy and vibrant.”

The district’s objectives for the event include matching potential volunteers with areas of interest such as tutoring or fundraising, providing voters with information about the district’s 15% maintenance and operations budget override proposal ahead of the election on Tuesday, Nov. 7, and discussing campus beautification.

The SOCSD budget override on the November ballot is a continuation of the previously-approved override; it will not further increase the previous tax raise. In the event that the override is rejected by voters, the current override will be phased out over two years, with a 33% reduction next year and a 67% reduction in 2025.

The last day to register to vote is Tuesday, Oct. 10. In-person voting will begin and ballots will be mailed on Wednesday, Oct. 11. The last day to request a ballot by mail is Friday, Oct. 27.

“The total 15% budget override amount for the first year of the proposed continuation is estimated to be $841,695 and would be funded in that year by an estimated $0.12 tax rate per $100 of net assessed valuation used for secondary property tax purposes, which is approximately equal to the current secondary tax rate for the existing budget override,” SOCSD stated on its website.

“Some of the pieces that we’re looking at [during the CAFE] are career pathways, career opportunities,” Swaninger said. “Trying to identify if there are community members that can be guest speakers, or be a career panel participant, maybe do mock interviews, establish internships.

“Another area that we could be looking at is staff [and] teacher appreciation. There’s a week towards the end of May that’s devoted to staff appreciation. If we want to put our efforts into that week, that’s fine. If we want to do things throughout the year, if the community has some ideas, and some willingness and capacity to do so, there will be places for them to sign up for that.”

SOCSD will also be looking for volunteers to assist with small projects around the campuses, such as painting doorways during Love Our Schools, another upcoming event, on Saturday Nov. 4.

“[Love Our Schools is] going to really depend upon what our needs are on campus but also what our input from the community is,” Swaninger said. “But it’s an opportunity for volunteers to come together and work together. I’m hoping that we’ll have interested volunteers … spending a little bit of time together as a community for a project on that day.”

Some recent maintenance issues addressed in SOCSD include the Scorpion Booster Club contribution of $8,493 for repairs to the baseball field at SRRHS and the district has also paid “for a much needed stadium clean up.”

Additionally, the district has started the process for service provider contracts for janitorial and grounds staff ahead of the retirement of long-serving staff.

“[The Community CAFE is] for discussion where we can put some plans in place,” Swaninger said. “I found that there are a lot of people in our community that want to help, that want to volunteer, that want to better our schools in any way. But there’s no real established pathway to do so. I also know there are some students that could be interested in partnerships with people in the community, such as internships and other aspects in that regard … The CAFE is an opportunity for us to all come together as well as an opportunity to network.”

For more information on the override, visit YavapaiVotes.gov.