Approved Curriculum
Valley Academy for Career and Technology Education: Digital photography, law enforcement and sports medicine to take place at Sedona Red Rock High School. The Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board unanimously approved accepting course credit from the main VACTE campus in Cottonwood for eight new programs.
West Sedona School: Bridges to Mathematics pilot program, which Principal Alisa Steig said has already shown student improvement.
Sedona Red Rock Junior High School: Principal Heather Isom proposed a digital science curriculum for the middle school.

The Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board unanimously approved its final budget revision for Fiscal Year 2026, which included an extra $412,022 in maintenance and operations and $360,841 in capital that it didn’t originally project when the budget was approved in July.

Most of the extra funding comes from a difference in Average Daily Membership, district Finance Director Stacy Saravo said during the board meeting Tuesday, May 12.

Arizona funds its schools per student, not what each district projects its student count, which can fluctuate throughout the year. This means at the beginning of the year, when the budget is approved, the districts don’t know the exact numbers and therefore don’t know exactly what funding they’ll get from the state.

Tuesday’s final revision of the budget depicts the ADM of the district at the end of the academic year.

“When we proposed the budget in July 2025, we projected an ADM loss of 28.34 students,” Saravo said. “The enrollment performed better than forecasted, and the actual ADM loss for this school year was 9.30.”

The rest of the revision included about $100,000 in miscellaneous extra funding, including a one-time District Additional Assistance of $20,153, a state aide supplement of $53,141 and a onetime Free/Reduced Lunch supplement of $32,650.

Saravo said the long-term trends can still lead to future financial challenges, but this year’s budget overall putsthe district in a better-thananticipated place.

“We are in the contract phase of the Big Park [Community School] sale — that has not been finalized yet,” Saravo said. “I expect that within the week that we’ll have an executed contract for review for [Superintendent] Dr. [Tom] Swaninger’s signature, and then I’ll just remind that there’s a 60-day closing period, so I do not expect those funds to be available to the district until Fiscal Year ’27.”

The next preliminary budget will likely be presented in June, with its anticipated adoption in July.

Volunteer Recognition

During the meeting — the last one taking place during the academic year — district staff passed around certificates of appreciation with notes written by students.

Retirees from the district were also recognized, who will be featured in a future NEWS story.

“The adults who partner with us at West Sedona [School] have donated countless hours this year to reach the students to help them learn their letters and sounds, to help them learn to add subtract with regrouping or complete long division math problems,” WSS Principal Alisa Steig said. “They’ve helped supervise before and after school. They’ve accompanied students on field trips and organized resources and materials. They’ve organized events for families to attend and raise money to fund various programs and support teachers with generous material donations.”

Sedona Red Rock High School Principal Heather Isom — who will be leaving to become principal of Cactus Shadows High School in Cave Creek — said she wanted to highlight specific groups’ efforts, including the Rotary clubs of Sedona Village and Red Rocks, the booster club and the site councils.

“They put their effort,” Swaninger said, “into growing the education system of serving our students to the best of their ability. So I just want to say thank you from me … for everything you do for our kids.”