Inside Tucson Business

Now that voters have approved a Joint Technological Education District (JTED) for Pima County, it’s up to each of the 11 public districts’ school boards to appoint a person to be a member of the new governing board.

The appointed 11-member board will serve for two years starting in January. Among the board’s responsibilities will be establishing the initial framework for how the new district will function and to hire a superintendent. The board will also be responsible for establishing a plan for electing a permanent JTED board, which voters will do in November 2008. School board members are not paid positions in Arizona.

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The JTED is a cooperative effort among the local school districts to provide state-of-the-art career and technical education programs to high school students. Voters in each district overwhelmingly approved the proposal, Proposition 400 on the Nov. 7 ballot. Starting July 1, the JTED will be funded through a property tax of 5 cents per $100 assessed valuation, which works out to be $5 per $100,000 of a home’s assessed value.

To qualify as a JTED board member, a person must have been a resident of the participating district for at least a year and not be an employee or married to an employee of a public school district in the county or already be serving on a school board. The deadline to apply is Dec. 1. Each school board will decide how it will select its representative but must do so before the end of December.

The 11 participating school districts are: Ajo, Amphitheater, Catalina Foothills, Flowing Wells, Indian Oasis, Marana, Sahuarita, Sunnyside, Tanque Verde, Tucson Unified and Vail. Anyone interested in applying should contact their school district’s administrative office.