By: Katrina Rodriguez and Morgan Weeg — OwlFeed

Follow us on Twitter @OwlFeed_Katrina and @journalistmorgs

Maxine T. Hill, newly elected president of the Agua Fria Union High School District School Board, sat down with OwlFeed on a morning in late August at Agua Fria High School and we were honored to have her.

Hill is a native of Detroit, Mich., who has a background in finance and spent three years in accounting. She comes from a family of seven, so when she went to college, it was a big deal. She was hired at a college to teach business for four years where she found her love for teaching.

“I love teaching, it’s a gift, a passion,” Hill said.

Hill has very high expectations for our district. Across all the schools in the district, she wants to see a 90 percent graduation rate. She said she will contribute to this goal by being a conscientious board member: doing site visits, talking to legislators, asking what the schools need and sending out resources to the schools.

Also, Hill would like students to plan to either go to college or join a Career and Technical Education program within a year of graduating  high school. “Students should be focused on school,” Hill said, “and they should know what they want to accomplish.”

Something that Hill seemed very passionate about was that students that graduate should all be employable. Whether they decide to go to college or not, the students should walk out of high school with all the skills they need for the real world. To make this all happen, not only will she be involved, but she would also like to see the parents start getting more involved.

The great thing about Hill is that she puts so much time and effort into the district, and gets no income from it. The school board president position is an unpaid position.

“Growing up people would support me in things I needed,” Hill said, “and they said I didn’t owe them anything, they wanted me to pass it forward.” She is passing it forward by volunteering her time to help the district. Hill said she does all this because she has a “passion for education.”

Hill mentioned a fifth school that will be added to the district in the future, which is being referred to right now as High School Five. In this new high school, there is talk about an innovation center which would allow all high schools in the district to collaborate with each other. This innovation center is going to be interdisciplinary and focused on career readiness. “The innovation center was actually [an idea] community input,”  Hill said.

As an experienced leader who is passionate about education, there is no doubt that Hill is the right person for this job.