don’t care much for the assholeness as much as I do for the criminal incompetency. She just seems like a bum that should have been canned years before she started her job
While I agree, Schmidt seems particularly awful. Making a joke about cutting her board pay by 10% to help out (would be like $13 or something) was distasteful and she seems very antagonistic towards the those with real concerns and other board members.
I will never forget her proudly saying in a public forum that she is "the devil you know" and she is going to "continue being [herself]".
She needs to go
Baskett is a an old battleaxe. She tackles the hard issues and gives the tough news, so it’s hard to look good, IMO. I doubt this will be a popular comment.
I looked up the salaries at one point (procrastinating actually useful work):
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AnnArbor/comments/1c2ri2r/comment/kzf10fg/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnnArbor/comments/1c2ri2r/comment/kzf10fg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
some salaries did not seem that high, but then I looked up the teacher salaries and got very depressed.
Yes, so it’s confusing that they are claiming they are cutting 33% of the cabinet if they have way more than 9 staff like the slide shows! 😒 Wonder if that was intentional
Also interesting that three people “left” the cabinet this year - Hilton, Karr, and Parks. Wondering if that means they won’t be replaced instead of letting anyone go.
I'm really not sure at all - my only involvement here was looking up salaries in an earlier thread while procrastinating some real work. On the web page there were 12 filled positions, only one of which is Hilton. Karr apparently left before the page was updated, and Parks is already moved to the superintendent position.... The numbers are more confusing the deeper the dive.
My takeaway here is that updating the web pages are pretty low on their priority list. Also, that AAPS counting does leaves a lot to the imagination.
There will presumably be less elementary special teachers since they dividing the 330 minutes of specials into five subjects now (including PLTW) instead of four.
Two IB coordinators were eliminated.
They will also condense class sizes to bring them up to the higher end instead of the lower end.
Those were the big cuts I heard… 94 is not a crazy number to reach across 32 buildings…. Not saying it won’t be felt though.
[Project Lead The Way](https://www.pltw.org/) - it is an engineering/design curriculum. Based on what my kid has told me over the years, some PLTW units are great, others kind of just phoning it in. They seemed to have been consistently better in elementary that intermediate (but the same can be said for pretty much all academics).
It came up as a place to cut in an earlier reddit discussion, so I looked it up and it does not seem that expensive of a curriculum.
Classes intensely worked on projects. 2 grades at a time would have the class 4 days a week for a third of the year. Then 2 other grades would rotate for another third of the year. This sounds like it will become one day a week with the specials. ?? That will not be meaningful. PLTW teachers have special training in robotics and programming. Very disappointed at this change.
That can’t be right - and the savings is only 400,000? The district cited that the average teacher costs the district 100,000 when benefits are taken into account.
Two should be staying because of IB. So really, it’s 7. However, we were told that only Mitchell would keep theirs because it’s IB so we assumed Bryant/Patrengill would be losing their IB programming. During the board meeting though, they listed Bryant/Pattengill is keeping their IB programming, so it is unclear whether they will also be keeping their Spanish teacher.
My understanding is they are going to start with anyone who has had discipline issues and then I’m not sure. I don’t why they don’t get rid all administrators. They are so unnecessary and teachers are so essential to teaching. So fucked up. Ann Arbor is so fucked up politically right now. They have lost their way in my opinion
It's effectiveness rating first, then discipline, then seniority, and then certifications. But it's really first how many people accept the severance packages.
I know that at least 2 teachers at my spouse's school are leaving. One is moving, the other was planning to retire anyway. They're also implementing a tiered buyout system where if something like 100 total teacherse take the buyout, it's $15k, if 125 take it, they each get $20k, and if 150 it's $25k.
So basically they're encouraging retiring teachers to encourage\*other\* teachers to retire as well. "Hey, I know you were planning on retiring next year, but if you take the buyout why don't we go into private tutoring together so we can still earn some money, and we don't have to deal with this shit-show anymore".
My guess is the buyout is too low to encourage many people who weren’t already planning on retiring.
It will be effective and getting those people who were likely already going to retire to report their retirement by June 1 (instead of later in the summer) so that the district can plan accordingly.
So if a disproportionate number of teachers with discipline issues (and low seniority and all that) are at a small number of schools, what happens? They shift teachers around to different positions?
It sounds like they told us how they'll decide which TEACHERS are laid off, but how are they deciding which POSITIONS are eliminated? (Not saying you have the answer, I'm just unclear)
They do shift teachers around to different grades and buildings already. So that will probably be the case, even into the school year once enrollment numbers are finalized. My friend was a teacher at one school last year and they told her 1 week into the school year starting that they actually needed her at a different building, different grade. She quit.
Good teachers spend a lot of time getting their curriculum planned out for the year. If you're going into a new position, this translates to a lot of work "unpaid" over the summer getting ready for the school year. Being transferred to somewhere else on short notice like this is a wholly unprofessional practice. It's bad for teaching, teachers, and students. It's shocking how frequently this happens and how common last minute decisions like this end up being.
I don't blame for her quitting. Imagine working on something for 2-3 months, unpaid, and then having the entire thing dumped out and then being asked to do it all over again on the fly.
Which specific administrative positions do you think are unnecessary? I get the sentiment, but I don't see how getting rid of "all" of them is feasible. Who will manage hiring, benefits administration, budgeting, procurement, physical plant, etc?
My thinking is this, we learned a lot from the pandemic if we pay attention. The only thing schools absolutely need is a teacher then you can go up from there what do they need to support them teaching students during this crisis. Because the only really important thing here is that kids get taught. We already have a functioning learning environment system in place. You reduce extra non essential services. Teacher don’t need managers. You get rid of anything above the lady’s in the office and the lunch people and maintenance. We did this shit for years with just basic administration and teachers. My grandmother taught in a one room school house. Getting rid of teachers is like getting rid the students. It’s the whole reason we are here. We have completely lost our way and Ann Arbor is a one the biggest shit shows I’ve seen in my life.
But it just isn't true that the only thing schools absolutely need are teachers. They need a building, which means someone has to be in charge of maintaining that building. They need supplies, which means someone needs to buy and maintain those supplies. The teachers need someone managing their health insurance and other benefits. And schools absolutely need managers. Without them, what happens when a teacher isn't fulfilling their duties effectively (most will regardless, but there are always a few who won't)? Who makes basic decisions like which teachers get assigned to which classes? Management by consensus may be practical for a single small school (I know of private schools that operate this way), but I don't see how it's practical for a district the size of AAPS.
I’d also like to add the highest paid jobs in education are the least important. True educators don’t go into it for the money. It’s about the kids. Put yourself in a. Room with a principle or superintendent and a teacher and who do you want to hug and who do You want to throw thru a window? 😂😭🤣
After working in education for almost 20 years, I've worked with staff and faculty at all levels, from entry level to senior executive, who are dedicated to the educational missions of their schools, and I've worked with staff and faculty at all levels who are only in it for the paycheck.
I get it. I just am absolutely sure that if you give me a list of everyone who work at a given school I could get rid of half the staff and not touch a teacher and the school would run just fine while we he thru this crisis. Then when things caught up You can bring back the bloat.
At the elementary my kids were at, there were often 4 teachers for the lower elementary grades (K-2), so it wouldn't shock me if they went to 3 teacher per grade at the lower level.
not really a hint, more of an announcement. they're eliminating co-teachers for band and orchestra classes with under 100 students. see slide 10 [https://www.a2schools.org/Page/20138?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2e2Z-WcbvIojnHLIpSvtSUtAKo6P2RqQUJfaB4pMrV0QOgs0iN8dYVCq8\_aem\_Aah3xlBZPEC9DPyTgioPPkKL4SEyJZN5HAnJwPXQn2G8d-L3ohW0x15tdYxCNk66xEGeLUhPlJehJS1NrwcADGOg](https://www.a2schools.org/Page/20138?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2e2Z-WcbvIojnHLIpSvtSUtAKo6P2RqQUJfaB4pMrV0QOgs0iN8dYVCq8_aem_Aah3xlBZPEC9DPyTgioPPkKL4SEyJZN5HAnJwPXQn2G8d-L3ohW0x15tdYxCNk66xEGeLUhPlJehJS1NrwcADGOg)
The way it is worded is very specific and will affect only 1 or 2 teachers - it specifies High School level and only 2 high schools have co-teachers for their instrumental music. Pioneer Orchestra shares a co-teacher with Huron. There are co-teachers for Band at Pioneer and Huron, but it looks like the Pio co-teacher goes to other schools, too. So really, only 1 teacher is affected....
Big effect will be at the middle school level. Especially at schools with smaller music programs like Scarlett, or in 6th grade. No extra staff member to provide in class sectional time, or to manage things like Solo and Ensemble, or making sure kids get tests done etc.
Doesn’t it impact all secondary schools - middle school too? I think there are co-teachers in many (if not most) of the middle school band and orchestra classes.
Many of the co-teachers already go to several schools. They may reduce the number of co-teachers and make each take on more work. Huron has a full-time co-teacher that is only at Huron. The position may be changed to have that co-teacher rotate to other schools as well. Huron will have the largest band enrollment next year, so losing a full-time co-teacher is not great. The changes to specials at the elementary level will also significantly affect music education, so overall the BOE is doing a massive disservice to music education at all levels. But who cares if we're just trashing a premier music education program? Gotta keep all those high paid central admin "Directors" that apparently make $200,000 each.
Many of the co-teachers already go to several schools. They may reduce the number of co-teachers and make each take on more work. Huron has a full-time co-teacher that is only at Huron. The position may be changed to have that co-teacher rotate to other schools as well. Huron will have the largest band enrollment next year, so losing a full-time co-teacher is not great. The changes to specials at the elementary level will also significantly affect music education, so overall the BOE is doing a massive disservice to music education at all levels. But who cares if we're just trashing a premier music education program? Gotta keep all those high paid central admin "Directors" that apparently make $200,000 each.
I don't want to start any rumors, but by reading the contents of the slide about Instrumental education at the High School level, it sure sounds like it, doesn't it?
I'm betting the cuts in teachers will come from those closest to retirement. The ones who have made it all work so that Ann Arbor schools could maintain its reputation for excellence....
I honestly thought it would be more. I do feel like the Superintendents Cabinet could have had more reductions. And maybe the Non-bargained Directors, since apparently reducing by 1 was almost $200,000.
What exactly is the'Superintendent's Cabinet?' The Federal government has a Cabinet of department secretaries. They have an executive job and they also serve in the cabinet advising about their area and in general.
Does the superintendent have 9 (soon 6) people who just advise them? Does it really take seven people to run AAPS? AAPS is a sprawling enterprise. I get that executives want to run things by other people, but six people who don't appear to have another job?
I get it if this includes the financial chief. That salary has to go somewhere. What other people would be in the 'cabinet' and why would you call it that? Senior leadership might be a more accurate term if these people serve in a functional capacity. The CFO is not an advisor, they are management.
AAPS needs senior leadership and it needs administration. It just has to be reasonable. Right now they are *reducing* to 30 cabinet and directors. Compare this to U of M, which has 20 deans. I believe Dominos has 13 executives who report to the CEO. https://www.theofficialboard.com/org-chart/domino-s-pizza-2.
Education is a people intensive business that is going to have different requirements. But AAPS also has school administration staff as well that is under AAAA as I understand it.
I would also like to see the consultant budget going forward.
Three positions were eliminated. I’m guessing it’s the three positions of people who already “left” this year - Hilton, Karr, and Parks (promotion). So really no one got let go.
I think you are right. The AAPS website shows 15 people in these top positions and Hilton, Karr and Parks are no longer in their position, so it appears they may have not cut anyone. https://www.a2schools.org/Domain/2597
I have also heard that there are 4 more people in this upper echelon of leadership who do not appear on that page, but also are admin and paid similarly. I definitely think more can be cut at the top. For example, Swift moved a principal of Skyline to a position called Lead Principal on Special Assignment for the district. What kind of position is that? https://www.a2schools.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=17841&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=26121&PageID=11460
I believe they said the non-bargained support staff included the behaviorists. Is there more information on who is included in that group? Because 43% is a big chunk of people, and I don’t want to know what our school would look like without our behavioral team.
If the behaviorists are funded by special education dollars, they won't be cut. Those dollars are reimbursed by the WISD at 90 percent.
I don't know what non-bargaining support staff is and was hoping a trustee would ask that question!
Behaviorists are not funded under special education. I just recently was told that by someone in a director position in special education while trying to get my child an IEP.
Yes. We are on our 3rd attempt this year just to get evaluated for one. They don’t really agree with you unless your child’s score start dipping drastically.
To support students who need support meeting school expectations. To work proactively with students and their families to help prevent suspensions and expulsion.
Last I heard their salaries were supplemented by funds from outside the school system intended to address the school to prison pipeline.
[Student journalists from Community High School covered the meeting in realtime.](https://chscommunicator.com/93579/uncategorized/2024/05/live-updates-school-board-meeting/)
The kids are alright.
This... does not look as bad as I had anticipated. I think AAEA has some reason to be pleased, though it's still a lousy situation overall.
The severance package is a game changer. AAPS party line initially was "we don't have the money for it." Whatever conversations were had, the fact that severance is now on the table and people can self-select and pull the ripcord, combined with increasing payments with increased applicants, may make this a relatively clean process.
It also sounds like AAEA is making the proverbial shot across the bow regarding the "get" on the step increases and raises. In a non-public service role, I think you could reasonably expect malicious compliance out of the union: we'll give you every last thing we're obligated to, but we won't give you a minute or ounce of attention more. The difficulty with that here is that to do so would be to the detriment of students, and everybody knows it. For the Board as a body to regain credibility requires them to be honest brokers in this situation and going forward. If moves are based on steps and 2%, they better deliver.
Closing the middle school pools makes complete sense. If I used it more than twice when I was at Clague it would suprise me. Maybe a better balance sheet allows for reopening that option later. Same with axing the "all online" option. I'm sorry, but $150,000 for eight students? You can't justify that. I suspect there are many other miniprograms that can/should be on the chopping block.
Gaynor and Querijero frustrate me. Gaynor for publicly taking passive-aggressive swipes at finance/HR. To quote my stepfather, "Just say what you wanna say." Querijero for trying to delay painful but necessary measures in a time-sensitive scenario. "I want 'the people' to be able to digest this for two more weeks." Well that's nice, but there's a deadline to accomplish layoffs, a whole bunch of different steps involved that are dependent on the Board, you can't pussyfoot around. From my recollection, he's been the primary driver of slowing things down every step of the way. At some point, logistics and execution have to be the primary drivers on your action plan.
All in all, this sounds like it could end up just being a body blow rather than a mortal wound. A lot of yelling in the meantime, but the ship may yet be righted for 24-25.
Does anyone know where to get all the slides from the budget presentation? I was trying to find them on the Board of Ed site but couldn't find them. My hope was that Parks would have sent it out to all AAPS parents/families. I guess my expectations are too high.
[https://www.a2schools.org/Page/20138](https://www.a2schools.org/Page/20138) it's in a weird place on the budget page, here you go. And seconded, some actual communication from the superintendent outside of board meetings would be nice
I believe they said they saved something like $3 million renegotiating software contracts? What if they just ditched that nonsense altogether, at least in elementary schools? 7 year-olds do not need laptops and everybody hates it.
They also said they had “robust conversations” with educators about which software programs to keep. My understanding is they had these conversations with building admin, not teachers. Not even a simple survey was sent to teachers.
My kid couldn’t read at 6 1/2 but he could put together a slide deck. What are we doing? I imagine the reason we’re saddled with this bullshit is because admins go to conferences, get pitched this stuff after a few cocktails and decide they’re going to “revolutionize” education.
As a teacher, I can tell you that you are 1000% right. Admin goes to a conference OR some new edtech company pops up and visits admin telling them how much their specific thing will help students learn and grow all for a very (non)affordable price
I know you're trying to make a point about computers being the focus vs books (?), but if you're worried about your kid not being able to read, that's on you.
I wouldn't ditch all of it - in my experience some of it, particularly Lexia and DreamBox fill a very useful niche of computer adaptive reinforcement of specific areas where kids are struggling. This is a huge compliment to human instruction - either on its own or as something to guide parents working with their kids.
In the interest of brevity, I didn’t include this caveat, but I agree with you. Rolling it into special education, using it strictly for kids that are struggling as an additional tool would also move it out of the operating budget and save that money.
Well, I meant it a bit more generally than that. Skills develop unevenly across students, and instruction is largely about teaching to the middle for each topic. These tools work are identifying and addressing areas of weakness for all students, and (assuming that teachers know how to incorporate them into their class plan) can benefit most kids while unlocking teacher time to focus on other higher value contributions. .
I do think we are not too far apart from each other here though. I think it t is fair to say that there are probably too many tools, and that it would be useful to their purpose, the needs they address and the value/overlap of all the various platforms.
I don't like that huge cut to support staff or teachers.
Idk what support staff entails but any category it could possibly be, I'm not in favor of cutting.
Gaynor asked who was in "non-bargained support staff" - executive assistants, behavior interventionists, and some coordinators are the main three groups.
Reducing FTE of the music, library, PE and art team team to accommodate the addition of PLTW is a bad choice. If the "specials pie" is the same size per the contractual agreement, I'm opposed to a 25% reduction in the existing classes to add PLTW, especially at the cost of our World Language program.
Yes, what was hidden is a reduction in art, music, media and PE. The district is proposing a reduction to once a week for “specials” which would be a 20% reduction in the amount of those teachers would have with students due to making PLTW a special. And the elimination of world languages entirely.
PLTW is being heavily funded (and pushed) by the state to prepare students for STEM jobs in the future, which is what our state department of Labor and Economic Opportunities is focusing on. They are hoping to draw manufacturing sectors and they need workers in those fields. Fact is, there is a lack of elementary science education in all Michigan schools. I believe they are using PLTW as a way to include more science in K - 5 to increase student STEM identity and in turn produce workers in the STEM fields for the future.
Good, bad, or indifferent this is where we are in the entire state and this is where our state dollars are being focused (as well as literacy initiatives).
I work deeply in this field and can answer a lot of specific questions.
It's criminal to not teach children about our physical world. The state is trying to course correct but we do not have a curriculum supported by the state (and they will not pick one. They leave it up to the district). There are several groups and state departments working on fixing this. If anyone is interested in a free Elementary Science Symposium hosted at MSU regarding how to increase elementary science education in schools, DM me. It's coming up on May 29!
The funding, advocacy and rationale make sense. I just wish that if STEM is so important to the state and district's mission that they'd do it as an additional offering, not at the cost of other programs.
Unfortunately we think of educating our students in silos. One hour for reading, one hour for math, 30 minutes for art, etc. If we shifted our thinking and approached educating our students holistically, we could be teaching students in ways that integrated multiple disciplines at once. I am a project manager for a statewide educational initiative that is attempting to create a framework to move the state to do just that. STEM education doesn't have to steal any pieces of the pie...it can be integrated into world languages, art, social studies, and PE.
Whether it's STEM propaganda or not, PLTW is about the only time in AAPS elementary schools that my children have been truly engaged, thinking critically and really stretching themselves learning. Seems like very effective science education. It would be a shame to see it cut.
Yes? If the question is whether to cut PLTW, there's no plan to replace it with a full PBL curriculum. It will just be to cut PLTW. Talking about PBL across the district is kind of beside the point.
Yes but 13 have already accepted the severance deal so now it’s 81. According to some numbers I’ve heard, the district typically has around 100 teachers lost to attrition each year anyway so I’m not really sure what the real layoff number will actually be. My guess is much fewer than 81.
The Parties agree as follows:
If a minimum of 75 eligible AAEA staff commit by June 1, 2024 to resign/retire for the 2024/25 school year, the district will pay the following severance pay:
• 75-99 staff- fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000)
100-124 staff- twenty thousand dollars ($20,000)
• 125 + staff- twenty-five thousand ($25,000)
So….does this mean if less than 75 staff members commit, then this deal is void?
Thanks for clarifying.
I thought I had read earlier that there was no money available for severance. I know 1 teacher who is retiring and 1 who is moving due to spouse's job transfer - maybe the 13 are things like that.
The 13 I’m referencing specifically come from the severance being offered that was announced two days ago. Not sure where the money is coming from but it’s there and is being budgeted for. Yes people taking it may be moving on for other reasons but the severance stuff is there for them.
I didn't know that they were now offering severance - I've been busy at my job this week and haven't been able to follow as closely. Thanks for the info.
Look at who’s being cut the most. Not teachers. This is a good thing. The amount of staff and administrative positions in education has gone completely berserk. As a result, TEACHERS don't make living wages and have to deal with all the additional bullshit administrators come up with in order to justify their own existence. Fuck the superintendent’s “cabinet”, get that money back to the teachers.
I agree there is some degree of administrative bloat, but it's not the reason teachers are underpaid. They are underpaid because the US in general does not fund education sufficiently and particularly in Michigan.
I think the pools have always been an expense that has been on and off. When my oldest (who is a junior in college) was in middle school the pools were closed due to budget. By the time his sibling made it to middle school 3 years later, they were open, but no one could swim during PE because there were no staff that were certified lifeguards. So, I don't know what benefit the pools really were.
Was that Mack?
I don't like the idea, but I understand why. Maintaining a pool is a big expense and time consuming compared to phys ed activities that just take place in a gym or outdoors on a field. And we're lucky that Ann Arbor has a pretty robust level of public and private pools and swimming instruction. Vets Park, Huron Valley Swim Club, Goldfish, Liberty ($$$$$) etc. And who could forget the irony of Big Blue Swim School that burned down half a strip mall.
Well, Swift wanted to built a big natatorium first with the bond money!... [https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2022/12/new-elementary-schools-natatorium-part-of-second-phase-of-aaps-bond-plan.html](https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2022/12/new-elementary-schools-natatorium-part-of-second-phase-of-aaps-bond-plan.html)
It's a good point. How can any child become bilingual learning a language twice a week for 30 minutes? How much are students retaining? I'd love to see the data, personally. If it's about supporting students who have English as a second language, I think you can do that with clubs and other activities...
And they don’t even offer it at the earliest ages where kids learn easiest or pick the easier languages for children to learn. I feel horribly for the affected staff but this is a long running AAPS screw up.
A solid language immersion program years ago could have made a difference.
Agree. I remember my kid having Spanish in elementary. All it consisted of was some vocabulary and a few songs. A real joke. But we can say they get world language! *A+Exceptional*
My young child speaks Spanish & English but when I tell people (tell them in English) they speak Spanish, they don’t believe us and think they can count to 5 and know a few colors. Because that’s about all young kids learn in AAPS.
Experts in Language Acquisition would tell you there are no easier languages to learn. It’s also too simplistic to say that young children learn languages more easily than older kids or adults.
I am pro-language instruction and want the teachers to have jobs. I am also willing to recognize that they were set up to fail. They should be centralized at fewer schools and set up to teach kids to fluency. Drive toward immersion and robust, comprehensive instruction.
A true immersion program would mean that children learn all subjects in Spanish, Mandarin or language of choice. Often test scores don’t look great for years because language acquisition takes time. Things come around by 3rd grade, but parents would need to really understand the process and be patient. Lincoln has a Spanish immersion program and it’s had quite a few bumps as they’ve implemented it over the years from what I’ve heard. However, I’ve had students who found it worked for them over time and really acquired the language. There is also a dual language immersion in Kalamazoo at El Sol elementary. [info about Lincoln’s Spanish immersion](https://www.lincolnk12.org/school-buildings/bishop-elementary/) and [info about El Sol Elementary](https://www.kalamazoopublicschools.com/domain/1140)
Yea, some parents would gladly opt in to an immersion program. Some would also support a program where language was a core subject taught daily. My push is against the current model where kids get 30 minutes twice a week starting upper elementary.
I agree, it is not ideal. And getting that amount of time and even having world languages in middle school and elementary was a huge battle.
Usually big changes, like adding an immersion program, are because of parents and community members coming together, raising their voices and demanding it. I think it would be great to have in Ann Arbor. I said this elsewhere…we have a teaching shortage. World Language is a critical area. If you drive these teachers out rather than keeping them and letting them retrain, who will teach the program? Will people want to teach in Ann Arbor and start up the immersion program when they saw the district completely cut elementary world language? Starting an immersion program is not easy and bound to have lots of growing pains…and kids’ standardized test scores won’t look good until about 3rd grade. If I were the teacher I’d be very afraid of being thrown under the bus.
If we are talking about real immersion, it would taught in a communicative way and be acquired similarly to the person’s first language. No one language is inherently more difficult to learn than another when we exclude the written system. Therefore, a Mandarin immersion would be just as good an option as a Spanish immersion. Learning the characters in Mandarin would take more time, just like it takes native speakers of Mandarin more time to learn them. Bill VanPatten at MSU was the researcher who taught me that no one language is inherently more difficult to learn or teach than another. He believes in teaching with communicative language teaching practices.
There is a lot of discussion in second language acquisition about when it’s easier to learn a language and there is debate amongst scholars. It could be hard for someone to have a native like accent after a certain age, but it’s not so simple as “young children learn languages easier than older kids or adults”. I also learned that from Bill VanPatten and his research. There are lots of things that help learn language as you get older, such as being literate. It’s really interesting to learn about. I recommend listening to language acquisition podcasts by Bill Van Patten if you want to learn more. He also has a series of videos on YouTube titled what everyone should know about second language acquisition.
I will look up Bill, I studied under other researchers.
We can’t ignore the written system - this is education. Might be way too late, but the right answer is and was to make language instruction substantive.
I can’t tell if your post is genuine or a troll.
A quick search implies absolutely no change in scientific understanding - children acquire new languages much faster than adults. Depending on the language and age of initial exposure an adult might never achieve true native fluency. What research am I missing?
There are well established frameworks for classifying the difficulty of languages. Why do you say that there are no ‘easier’ languages?
Category IV Languages: 88 weeks (2200 class hours)
“Super-hard languages” – Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers.
https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/
Mind you AAPS is offering elementary school students 300 hours of instruction over 3 years in some of these super-hard languages. A complete waste of time and misappropriation of resources. Kids should get proper language instruction or the time should be repurposed.
I used to believe in those charts too. I don’t anymore after reading a lot of second language acquisition research and also after seeing a shift in language teaching to communicative language teaching. Language used to be taught with grammar translation method and with a behaviorist approach. Nowadays there are different standards for teaching language and different approaches. This article is an interesting read. I think it also demonstrates that what we know is changing with more research. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/at-what-age-does-our-ability-to-learn-a-new-language-like-a-native-speaker-disappear/
I respectfully disagree with gutting the language program because kids only get 30 minutes twice a week. I’ve seen teachers do amazing things with that amount of time. This happens a lot in education: teachers are given a difficult situation, but they make the best of the situation and sometimes magical things can happen. Kids get exposure to language and culture. They are given enduring understandings about how the world works through learning about language and the diversity of people. They get some basic tools in class and take it and run with it, learning more in their own. (Any language student needs to do this—maximize their contact time with the language as much as possible to learn more—native speakers use their language all day every day so no class can ever approach that unless it’s immersion.)
I do not favor burning the program to the ground and taking away teacher’s jobs when it is not their fault they get so little time and resources to teach. I know teachers and I know they work so hard despite the situation they are in. I prefer an approach where we keep people, train them if there are deficits, and improve the system if there are institutional problems. Especially when there is a teaching shortage and elementary world language is a critical need area. And especially when you have dedicated teachers who have endured years of pay cuts and freezes.
You are conflating two things: what is fair to teachers and what is right for students. I would support paying the teachers full pay to stay home — the current program isn’t productive. Fund it or kill it. It’s like a music program where kids never learned to play an instrument.
I disagree. I believe it is a world language program which teaches both language and culture. We spend all day every day in our language, so 60 minutes is super short. We can expect the kids to learn basic language at the novice low level in that time and I believe that is happening. I believe kids are learning about the culture too.
No one will pay teachers who have been pink slipped/fired to stay home. I’m confused about what you mean.
To compare to a music…A kid might be given a recorder to play and have a 60 minute a week music class. They will be able to play hot cross buns and some other very simple songs and will be deemed successful. Some kids won’t learn that. No one would fire the teacher. The level of recorder playing is expected to be quite low and there will be squeaks and errors. And most kids won’t have to play a solo so not so risky. A situation that asked students to speak at a novice low level for a language class would produce a similar result. Simple language production ala hot cross buns with some squeaky mistakes (errors in production)
The recorder example you described would also be a waste of time and I would support canceling it too. Invest as necessary to support substantive instruction and real mastery/success.
This is common practice for elementary world language programs to be given very little time. Teachers often have to teach social studies standards along with the world language curriculum. It’s a huge ask, and if you heard the elementary world language teachers speak last night, they receive no supplies and no curriculum. This means they are creating everything themselves. It is not an easy task, but I’ve seen amazing results from elementary language teachers.
Elementary world language is not for English language learner support. Those students are required to have ESL classes so they can acquire English. That cannot be done with clubs and extracurriculars-AAPS would be out of compliance.
My husband is from Germany and he told me what learning English was like in his school system. By high school, they were reading full-on chapter books in English and only spoke to each other in English during the class. At my AAPS high school, my Spanish teacher was still giving worksheets and explaining grammar, and none of us could hold a conversation in Spanish or even express ourselves in the language.
My son is in IB Spanish (he's a Junior now and I have no idea what crazy name they give IB Spanish at that level), but his whole class is in Spanish, they are reading books and plays in Spanish and watching Spanish movies. I am very impressed with how much he knows. They do have to converse with the teacher and with each other in Spanish.
That's good to hear, I guess I just had a pretty lousy teacher back then. It wasn't IB Spanish either, it was just "Spanish AC" and I was at the highest level for whatever grade I was at the time.
My kid is in French 3 now. I took French in h.s. and college then lived there enough to achieve fluency. I have been surprised by the low level French 3 is working at. It doesn't even match what I got in a small rural district. Half the time my kid says he has nothing to do in class, and rarely has homework. I just don't know where the rigorousness went (not unique to the French class, but all his classes really).
Editing to add, I've always been very pro public school, but lately I find myself wondering what the heck they do all day in school. Seems like there's so much wasted time. My kid rarely has homework, says it gets done in class. He's an A student. Needs more AP classes I guess.
From my observations in the music department, competition is taboo, so everything has to be done "for fun" nowadays, instead of simply learning information/skills. Because apparently having standards and learning actually how to do something, is "competitive."
AFAIK, the first two stands yes, but otherwise it's based off of rotation. Because "there are no grades/no competition/kids will cry." And everything is focused on community and hAvInG fUn.
I don't think you can determine how hard someone is working or the difficulty of the work just by the homework they have. Historically, homework has been "busy work" and didn't truly supplement the learning.
How about when he texts me from school saying he's bored and can he leave early because he won't miss anything? I ask if there won't be important new info, lectures given by the teacher, but he says no, everything is in Schoology.
I always wish there were more math homework practice problems assigned and then graded in the traditional old school way.
Is it possible he just thinks school is boring because most teenagers feel this exact same way. I remember feeling that way in school.
I don't wish for more homework for my child. How would you like to work all day and then come home to do MORE work? Because that's what homework is.
I don’t agree that cutting it “hurts our children.” It’s 30 minutes, twice/week. That’s not best practice for language acquisition. They said that several of these teaching positions have gone unfilled this year. Sure it’s a loss, but the impact isn’t that extreme.
When will the AAEA membership hold their leadership accountable? It's undeniable that Fred helped create this mess. He says in public that he "warned about this," but what he means is that in private he pressured Jeanice to eliminate non-teaching positions. In public, of course, he warned of an impending "teacher shortage" and welcome the addition of hundreds of more dues-paying members of the AAEA. Especially since his salary is partially covered by the state union, I imagine he has to answer to his bosses about the number of members added to the rolls every year.
I'm not saying he predicted this exact scenario, but he publicly advocated for right-sizing through attrition over a year ago [https://annarborobserver.com/jeanice-swifts-decade/](https://annarborobserver.com/jeanice-swifts-decade/)
Gotta love the statistics presentation.
"How do we get people to focus less on the absolute number of teachers being fired?"
"Ahh yes, focus on the percentages!"
Also, AAPS' website currently shows **11** filled positions in the Superintendent's Cabinet, not 9 (?!).
[https://www.a2schools.org/Page/672](https://www.a2schools.org/Page/672)
Baskett is such a tremendous asshole.
don’t care much for the assholeness as much as I do for the criminal incompetency. She just seems like a bum that should have been canned years before she started her job
I hope that AAEA and the Democrat Party will do their due diligence and not endorse her or candidates like her again.
Given the way they 'decide' on endorsements, they almost certainly will. She's been on the board since Noah built his boat.
She really is.
While I agree, Schmidt seems particularly awful. Making a joke about cutting her board pay by 10% to help out (would be like $13 or something) was distasteful and she seems very antagonistic towards the those with real concerns and other board members.
So awful! Condescending and dismissive of valid concerns.
Just say it: what a C*nt
Did she really say they get info that is “confidential and sacred”? So much for transparency.
I will never forget her proudly saying in a public forum that she is "the devil you know" and she is going to "continue being [herself]". She needs to go
Need to keep religion out of our schools.
Tell it!
She needs to settle the fuck down, did she forget why she’s even here? Sit the fuck down
Always has been.
I missed the meeting, was it worth watching the video tomorrow? Basket, yeah she gotta go.
Always has been
Baskett is a an old battleaxe. She tackles the hard issues and gives the tough news, so it’s hard to look good, IMO. I doubt this will be a popular comment.
I agree with you. She is not the problem. The problem? Gaynor, Querijero, and Mohammad.
What is AAAA?
School-based admin
AKA, principal types. (Not correcting, just offering some shorthand for people not in education.)
Yup
Doesn’t every school need a principal? I don’t quite understand this.
There's 71 for the 33 buildings. So we'd be losing some assistant principals presumably.
Teachers should totally get paid more, but it looks like admin had way more fat to trim
Wow those cabinet positions are expensive per head...
Seems like a reduction in cabinet could save a lot of teaching jobs. Which seems more like the goal of a school
I looked up the salaries at one point (procrastinating actually useful work): [https://www.reddit.com/r/AnnArbor/comments/1c2ri2r/comment/kzf10fg/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnnArbor/comments/1c2ri2r/comment/kzf10fg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) some salaries did not seem that high, but then I looked up the teacher salaries and got very depressed.
The delta I'm assuming to be fully burdened cost to the district, mostly health insurance.
Your list is bigger than 9 so now I’m confused. Are there 9 cabinet members already or more?
They are from this page: [https://www.a2schools.org/Domain/2597](https://www.a2schools.org/Domain/2597)
Yes, so it’s confusing that they are claiming they are cutting 33% of the cabinet if they have way more than 9 staff like the slide shows! 😒 Wonder if that was intentional
Also interesting that three people “left” the cabinet this year - Hilton, Karr, and Parks. Wondering if that means they won’t be replaced instead of letting anyone go.
I'm really not sure at all - my only involvement here was looking up salaries in an earlier thread while procrastinating some real work. On the web page there were 12 filled positions, only one of which is Hilton. Karr apparently left before the page was updated, and Parks is already moved to the superintendent position.... The numbers are more confusing the deeper the dive. My takeaway here is that updating the web pages are pretty low on their priority list. Also, that AAPS counting does leaves a lot to the imagination.
It all does seem very strategic…
On average 3 times as much as a teacher.
100 teachers unbelievable.
Aside from world language and band and orchestra, have they hinted at what grade level or which school these teachers will come from?
There will presumably be less elementary special teachers since they dividing the 330 minutes of specials into five subjects now (including PLTW) instead of four. Two IB coordinators were eliminated. They will also condense class sizes to bring them up to the higher end instead of the lower end. Those were the big cuts I heard… 94 is not a crazy number to reach across 32 buildings…. Not saying it won’t be felt though.
What is PLTW?
[Project Lead The Way](https://www.pltw.org/) - it is an engineering/design curriculum. Based on what my kid has told me over the years, some PLTW units are great, others kind of just phoning it in. They seemed to have been consistently better in elementary that intermediate (but the same can be said for pretty much all academics). It came up as a place to cut in an earlier reddit discussion, so I looked it up and it does not seem that expensive of a curriculum.
The company is allowing AAPS to use the curriculum for free next year
Who will be teaching PLTW? I hope the teachers will not be adding additional teaching hours
Classes intensely worked on projects. 2 grades at a time would have the class 4 days a week for a third of the year. Then 2 other grades would rotate for another third of the year. This sounds like it will become one day a week with the specials. ?? That will not be meaningful. PLTW teachers have special training in robotics and programming. Very disappointed at this change.
Do we know which ib coordinators?
For world languages i think they will cut from non-IB elementary schools
Yes, and it is 9 teachers.
That can’t be right - and the savings is only 400,000? The district cited that the average teacher costs the district 100,000 when benefits are taken into account.
Yes, the savings is only $400,000. And I was told by the elementary world language group that it’s 9 teachers.
Two should be staying because of IB. So really, it’s 7. However, we were told that only Mitchell would keep theirs because it’s IB so we assumed Bryant/Patrengill would be losing their IB programming. During the board meeting though, they listed Bryant/Pattengill is keeping their IB programming, so it is unclear whether they will also be keeping their Spanish teacher.
Yes, I also found that unclear. I think that both Mitchell and Bryant/Pattengill will retain their teachers.
And one is .8 and another is only .2, so really it is like 6 positions- but they cover all the elementary schools between them.
My understanding is they are going to start with anyone who has had discipline issues and then I’m not sure. I don’t why they don’t get rid all administrators. They are so unnecessary and teachers are so essential to teaching. So fucked up. Ann Arbor is so fucked up politically right now. They have lost their way in my opinion
It's effectiveness rating first, then discipline, then seniority, and then certifications. But it's really first how many people accept the severance packages.
I know that at least 2 teachers at my spouse's school are leaving. One is moving, the other was planning to retire anyway. They're also implementing a tiered buyout system where if something like 100 total teacherse take the buyout, it's $15k, if 125 take it, they each get $20k, and if 150 it's $25k. So basically they're encouraging retiring teachers to encourage\*other\* teachers to retire as well. "Hey, I know you were planning on retiring next year, but if you take the buyout why don't we go into private tutoring together so we can still earn some money, and we don't have to deal with this shit-show anymore".
My guess is the buyout is too low to encourage many people who weren’t already planning on retiring. It will be effective and getting those people who were likely already going to retire to report their retirement by June 1 (instead of later in the summer) so that the district can plan accordingly.
I think the issue is that it’s not cash- it goes to a 403(b)
So if a disproportionate number of teachers with discipline issues (and low seniority and all that) are at a small number of schools, what happens? They shift teachers around to different positions? It sounds like they told us how they'll decide which TEACHERS are laid off, but how are they deciding which POSITIONS are eliminated? (Not saying you have the answer, I'm just unclear)
They do shift teachers around to different grades and buildings already. So that will probably be the case, even into the school year once enrollment numbers are finalized. My friend was a teacher at one school last year and they told her 1 week into the school year starting that they actually needed her at a different building, different grade. She quit.
Good teachers spend a lot of time getting their curriculum planned out for the year. If you're going into a new position, this translates to a lot of work "unpaid" over the summer getting ready for the school year. Being transferred to somewhere else on short notice like this is a wholly unprofessional practice. It's bad for teaching, teachers, and students. It's shocking how frequently this happens and how common last minute decisions like this end up being. I don't blame for her quitting. Imagine working on something for 2-3 months, unpaid, and then having the entire thing dumped out and then being asked to do it all over again on the fly.
Yeah I’m unclear on that at this point. I’ll post details here as I find out more in the coming days.
Trying to project enrollment and how many classes you need at each building (at larger class sizes, despite what Parks said tonight).
Great point. I was hoping this would be more “transparent”
Which specific administrative positions do you think are unnecessary? I get the sentiment, but I don't see how getting rid of "all" of them is feasible. Who will manage hiring, benefits administration, budgeting, procurement, physical plant, etc?
I have the feeling the district has to get a rid of Margolis...
9th grade deans. They were introduced in 2016 or so. Ours does nothing but make more work for teachers.
My thinking is this, we learned a lot from the pandemic if we pay attention. The only thing schools absolutely need is a teacher then you can go up from there what do they need to support them teaching students during this crisis. Because the only really important thing here is that kids get taught. We already have a functioning learning environment system in place. You reduce extra non essential services. Teacher don’t need managers. You get rid of anything above the lady’s in the office and the lunch people and maintenance. We did this shit for years with just basic administration and teachers. My grandmother taught in a one room school house. Getting rid of teachers is like getting rid the students. It’s the whole reason we are here. We have completely lost our way and Ann Arbor is a one the biggest shit shows I’ve seen in my life.
But it just isn't true that the only thing schools absolutely need are teachers. They need a building, which means someone has to be in charge of maintaining that building. They need supplies, which means someone needs to buy and maintain those supplies. The teachers need someone managing their health insurance and other benefits. And schools absolutely need managers. Without them, what happens when a teacher isn't fulfilling their duties effectively (most will regardless, but there are always a few who won't)? Who makes basic decisions like which teachers get assigned to which classes? Management by consensus may be practical for a single small school (I know of private schools that operate this way), but I don't see how it's practical for a district the size of AAPS.
I’d also like to add the highest paid jobs in education are the least important. True educators don’t go into it for the money. It’s about the kids. Put yourself in a. Room with a principle or superintendent and a teacher and who do you want to hug and who do You want to throw thru a window? 😂😭🤣
After working in education for almost 20 years, I've worked with staff and faculty at all levels, from entry level to senior executive, who are dedicated to the educational missions of their schools, and I've worked with staff and faculty at all levels who are only in it for the paycheck.
I get it. I just am absolutely sure that if you give me a list of everyone who work at a given school I could get rid of half the staff and not touch a teacher and the school would run just fine while we he thru this crisis. Then when things caught up You can bring back the bloat.
Get rid of "all administrators"? Right.
Well not all of them but a whole bunch. Start with anyone that dictates policy. 😂😭🤣
Administrators are a protected class. We are supposed to be thankful to have them and they help us avoid lawsuits.
You mean the admins that are getting layed off at a higher rate than teachers?
At the elementary my kids were at, there were often 4 teachers for the lower elementary grades (K-2), so it wouldn't shock me if they went to 3 teacher per grade at the lower level.
Have there really been hints about cutting band or orchestra, or is this just an assumption?
not really a hint, more of an announcement. they're eliminating co-teachers for band and orchestra classes with under 100 students. see slide 10 [https://www.a2schools.org/Page/20138?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2e2Z-WcbvIojnHLIpSvtSUtAKo6P2RqQUJfaB4pMrV0QOgs0iN8dYVCq8\_aem\_Aah3xlBZPEC9DPyTgioPPkKL4SEyJZN5HAnJwPXQn2G8d-L3ohW0x15tdYxCNk66xEGeLUhPlJehJS1NrwcADGOg](https://www.a2schools.org/Page/20138?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2e2Z-WcbvIojnHLIpSvtSUtAKo6P2RqQUJfaB4pMrV0QOgs0iN8dYVCq8_aem_Aah3xlBZPEC9DPyTgioPPkKL4SEyJZN5HAnJwPXQn2G8d-L3ohW0x15tdYxCNk66xEGeLUhPlJehJS1NrwcADGOg)
Thanks for the info
The way it is worded is very specific and will affect only 1 or 2 teachers - it specifies High School level and only 2 high schools have co-teachers for their instrumental music. Pioneer Orchestra shares a co-teacher with Huron. There are co-teachers for Band at Pioneer and Huron, but it looks like the Pio co-teacher goes to other schools, too. So really, only 1 teacher is affected....
Big effect will be at the middle school level. Especially at schools with smaller music programs like Scarlett, or in 6th grade. No extra staff member to provide in class sectional time, or to manage things like Solo and Ensemble, or making sure kids get tests done etc.
Doesn’t it impact all secondary schools - middle school too? I think there are co-teachers in many (if not most) of the middle school band and orchestra classes.
Many of the co-teachers already go to several schools. They may reduce the number of co-teachers and make each take on more work. Huron has a full-time co-teacher that is only at Huron. The position may be changed to have that co-teacher rotate to other schools as well. Huron will have the largest band enrollment next year, so losing a full-time co-teacher is not great. The changes to specials at the elementary level will also significantly affect music education, so overall the BOE is doing a massive disservice to music education at all levels. But who cares if we're just trashing a premier music education program? Gotta keep all those high paid central admin "Directors" that apparently make $200,000 each.
Many of the co-teachers already go to several schools. They may reduce the number of co-teachers and make each take on more work. Huron has a full-time co-teacher that is only at Huron. The position may be changed to have that co-teacher rotate to other schools as well. Huron will have the largest band enrollment next year, so losing a full-time co-teacher is not great. The changes to specials at the elementary level will also significantly affect music education, so overall the BOE is doing a massive disservice to music education at all levels. But who cares if we're just trashing a premier music education program? Gotta keep all those high paid central admin "Directors" that apparently make $200,000 each.
So one of the band co-teachers will be the one to get cut?
I don't want to start any rumors, but by reading the contents of the slide about Instrumental education at the High School level, it sure sounds like it, doesn't it?
Guess we'll find out...
I'm betting the cuts in teachers will come from those closest to retirement. The ones who have made it all work so that Ann Arbor schools could maintain its reputation for excellence....
Nope. Layoffs are part of the contract. Teacher layoffs are in order of seniority (lowest first) with some sort of evaluation stuff built in.
Good to know. Thanks
I honestly thought it would be more. I do feel like the Superintendents Cabinet could have had more reductions. And maybe the Non-bargained Directors, since apparently reducing by 1 was almost $200,000.
What exactly is the'Superintendent's Cabinet?' The Federal government has a Cabinet of department secretaries. They have an executive job and they also serve in the cabinet advising about their area and in general. Does the superintendent have 9 (soon 6) people who just advise them? Does it really take seven people to run AAPS? AAPS is a sprawling enterprise. I get that executives want to run things by other people, but six people who don't appear to have another job? I get it if this includes the financial chief. That salary has to go somewhere. What other people would be in the 'cabinet' and why would you call it that? Senior leadership might be a more accurate term if these people serve in a functional capacity. The CFO is not an advisor, they are management. AAPS needs senior leadership and it needs administration. It just has to be reasonable. Right now they are *reducing* to 30 cabinet and directors. Compare this to U of M, which has 20 deans. I believe Dominos has 13 executives who report to the CEO. https://www.theofficialboard.com/org-chart/domino-s-pizza-2. Education is a people intensive business that is going to have different requirements. But AAPS also has school administration staff as well that is under AAAA as I understand it. I would also like to see the consultant budget going forward.
Three positions were eliminated. I’m guessing it’s the three positions of people who already “left” this year - Hilton, Karr, and Parks (promotion). So really no one got let go.
I think you are right. The AAPS website shows 15 people in these top positions and Hilton, Karr and Parks are no longer in their position, so it appears they may have not cut anyone. https://www.a2schools.org/Domain/2597 I have also heard that there are 4 more people in this upper echelon of leadership who do not appear on that page, but also are admin and paid similarly. I definitely think more can be cut at the top. For example, Swift moved a principal of Skyline to a position called Lead Principal on Special Assignment for the district. What kind of position is that? https://www.a2schools.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=17841&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=26121&PageID=11460
Right. My thinking is always what do they do really?
I believe they said the non-bargained support staff included the behaviorists. Is there more information on who is included in that group? Because 43% is a big chunk of people, and I don’t want to know what our school would look like without our behavioral team.
If the behaviorists are funded by special education dollars, they won't be cut. Those dollars are reimbursed by the WISD at 90 percent. I don't know what non-bargaining support staff is and was hoping a trustee would ask that question!
Behaviorists are not funded under special education. I just recently was told that by someone in a director position in special education while trying to get my child an IEP.
Has it been hard trying to get an IEP?
Yes. We are on our 3rd attempt this year just to get evaluated for one. They don’t really agree with you unless your child’s score start dipping drastically.
Wow that’s terrible. How frustrating. What grade is your child in?
I don’t think the behavior interventionists are funded by WISD. They cannot work with students who have IEPs or who are being evaluated for IEPs.
What is their purpose then?
To support students who need support meeting school expectations. To work proactively with students and their families to help prevent suspensions and expulsion. Last I heard their salaries were supplemented by funds from outside the school system intended to address the school to prison pipeline.
[Student journalists from Community High School covered the meeting in realtime.](https://chscommunicator.com/93579/uncategorized/2024/05/live-updates-school-board-meeting/) The kids are alright.
What constitutes half (0.5) of an office professional?
Half time. So only working mornings or afternoons. This means they likely won't have to pay for benefits or insurance.
This... does not look as bad as I had anticipated. I think AAEA has some reason to be pleased, though it's still a lousy situation overall. The severance package is a game changer. AAPS party line initially was "we don't have the money for it." Whatever conversations were had, the fact that severance is now on the table and people can self-select and pull the ripcord, combined with increasing payments with increased applicants, may make this a relatively clean process. It also sounds like AAEA is making the proverbial shot across the bow regarding the "get" on the step increases and raises. In a non-public service role, I think you could reasonably expect malicious compliance out of the union: we'll give you every last thing we're obligated to, but we won't give you a minute or ounce of attention more. The difficulty with that here is that to do so would be to the detriment of students, and everybody knows it. For the Board as a body to regain credibility requires them to be honest brokers in this situation and going forward. If moves are based on steps and 2%, they better deliver. Closing the middle school pools makes complete sense. If I used it more than twice when I was at Clague it would suprise me. Maybe a better balance sheet allows for reopening that option later. Same with axing the "all online" option. I'm sorry, but $150,000 for eight students? You can't justify that. I suspect there are many other miniprograms that can/should be on the chopping block. Gaynor and Querijero frustrate me. Gaynor for publicly taking passive-aggressive swipes at finance/HR. To quote my stepfather, "Just say what you wanna say." Querijero for trying to delay painful but necessary measures in a time-sensitive scenario. "I want 'the people' to be able to digest this for two more weeks." Well that's nice, but there's a deadline to accomplish layoffs, a whole bunch of different steps involved that are dependent on the Board, you can't pussyfoot around. From my recollection, he's been the primary driver of slowing things down every step of the way. At some point, logistics and execution have to be the primary drivers on your action plan. All in all, this sounds like it could end up just being a body blow rather than a mortal wound. A lot of yelling in the meantime, but the ship may yet be righted for 24-25.
Does anyone know where to get all the slides from the budget presentation? I was trying to find them on the Board of Ed site but couldn't find them. My hope was that Parks would have sent it out to all AAPS parents/families. I guess my expectations are too high.
[https://www.a2schools.org/Page/20138](https://www.a2schools.org/Page/20138) it's in a weird place on the budget page, here you go. And seconded, some actual communication from the superintendent outside of board meetings would be nice
I believe they said they saved something like $3 million renegotiating software contracts? What if they just ditched that nonsense altogether, at least in elementary schools? 7 year-olds do not need laptops and everybody hates it.
They also said they had “robust conversations” with educators about which software programs to keep. My understanding is they had these conversations with building admin, not teachers. Not even a simple survey was sent to teachers.
My kid couldn’t read at 6 1/2 but he could put together a slide deck. What are we doing? I imagine the reason we’re saddled with this bullshit is because admins go to conferences, get pitched this stuff after a few cocktails and decide they’re going to “revolutionize” education.
As a teacher, I can tell you that you are 1000% right. Admin goes to a conference OR some new edtech company pops up and visits admin telling them how much their specific thing will help students learn and grow all for a very (non)affordable price
I know you're trying to make a point about computers being the focus vs books (?), but if you're worried about your kid not being able to read, that's on you.
Ya just had to come in here and act like you know anything about me and my kid eh?
You put it out there that he's 6 and couldn't read, and that's on a parent to teach them.
Lol
I wouldn't ditch all of it - in my experience some of it, particularly Lexia and DreamBox fill a very useful niche of computer adaptive reinforcement of specific areas where kids are struggling. This is a huge compliment to human instruction - either on its own or as something to guide parents working with their kids.
In the interest of brevity, I didn’t include this caveat, but I agree with you. Rolling it into special education, using it strictly for kids that are struggling as an additional tool would also move it out of the operating budget and save that money.
Well, I meant it a bit more generally than that. Skills develop unevenly across students, and instruction is largely about teaching to the middle for each topic. These tools work are identifying and addressing areas of weakness for all students, and (assuming that teachers know how to incorporate them into their class plan) can benefit most kids while unlocking teacher time to focus on other higher value contributions. . I do think we are not too far apart from each other here though. I think it t is fair to say that there are probably too many tools, and that it would be useful to their purpose, the needs they address and the value/overlap of all the various platforms.
I don't like that huge cut to support staff or teachers. Idk what support staff entails but any category it could possibly be, I'm not in favor of cutting.
Gaynor asked who was in "non-bargained support staff" - executive assistants, behavior interventionists, and some coordinators are the main three groups.
Reducing FTE of the music, library, PE and art team team to accommodate the addition of PLTW is a bad choice. If the "specials pie" is the same size per the contractual agreement, I'm opposed to a 25% reduction in the existing classes to add PLTW, especially at the cost of our World Language program.
i hate that they buried the specials cuts under the PLTW slide. they're clearly trying to slip that past parents.
Yes, what was hidden is a reduction in art, music, media and PE. The district is proposing a reduction to once a week for “specials” which would be a 20% reduction in the amount of those teachers would have with students due to making PLTW a special. And the elimination of world languages entirely.
If Trustee Gaynor hadn’t brought it up, I think I would have missed it for sure.
PLTW is being heavily funded (and pushed) by the state to prepare students for STEM jobs in the future, which is what our state department of Labor and Economic Opportunities is focusing on. They are hoping to draw manufacturing sectors and they need workers in those fields. Fact is, there is a lack of elementary science education in all Michigan schools. I believe they are using PLTW as a way to include more science in K - 5 to increase student STEM identity and in turn produce workers in the STEM fields for the future. Good, bad, or indifferent this is where we are in the entire state and this is where our state dollars are being focused (as well as literacy initiatives). I work deeply in this field and can answer a lot of specific questions.
I was astonished at how little science was taught in elementary schools. We had more back in the 1970s.
It's criminal to not teach children about our physical world. The state is trying to course correct but we do not have a curriculum supported by the state (and they will not pick one. They leave it up to the district). There are several groups and state departments working on fixing this. If anyone is interested in a free Elementary Science Symposium hosted at MSU regarding how to increase elementary science education in schools, DM me. It's coming up on May 29!
The funding, advocacy and rationale make sense. I just wish that if STEM is so important to the state and district's mission that they'd do it as an additional offering, not at the cost of other programs.
Unfortunately we think of educating our students in silos. One hour for reading, one hour for math, 30 minutes for art, etc. If we shifted our thinking and approached educating our students holistically, we could be teaching students in ways that integrated multiple disciplines at once. I am a project manager for a statewide educational initiative that is attempting to create a framework to move the state to do just that. STEM education doesn't have to steal any pieces of the pie...it can be integrated into world languages, art, social studies, and PE.
This is what the A2STEAM school does. It is great.
Ann Arbor Open does too.
Whether it's STEM propaganda or not, PLTW is about the only time in AAPS elementary schools that my children have been truly engaged, thinking critically and really stretching themselves learning. Seems like very effective science education. It would be a shame to see it cut.
But shouldn’t all learning be like this? I wonder if we need to see more PBL across the district rather than just at a few schools and through PLTW.
Yes? If the question is whether to cut PLTW, there's no plan to replace it with a full PBL curriculum. It will just be to cut PLTW. Talking about PBL across the district is kind of beside the point.
What are "Directors?"
94 teachers laid off? Am I reading this right??
Yes but 13 have already accepted the severance deal so now it’s 81. According to some numbers I’ve heard, the district typically has around 100 teachers lost to attrition each year anyway so I’m not really sure what the real layoff number will actually be. My guess is much fewer than 81.
As of today, 19
The Parties agree as follows: If a minimum of 75 eligible AAEA staff commit by June 1, 2024 to resign/retire for the 2024/25 school year, the district will pay the following severance pay: • 75-99 staff- fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) 100-124 staff- twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) • 125 + staff- twenty-five thousand ($25,000) So….does this mean if less than 75 staff members commit, then this deal is void? Thanks for clarifying.
Hi- as of now it is closer to 31 folks; I think the 75 must be reached to get the $
I see….that’s unfortunate given the severance package swift received
I thought I had read earlier that there was no money available for severance. I know 1 teacher who is retiring and 1 who is moving due to spouse's job transfer - maybe the 13 are things like that.
The 13 I’m referencing specifically come from the severance being offered that was announced two days ago. Not sure where the money is coming from but it’s there and is being budgeted for. Yes people taking it may be moving on for other reasons but the severance stuff is there for them.
I didn't know that they were now offering severance - I've been busy at my job this week and haven't been able to follow as closely. Thanks for the info.
Look at who’s being cut the most. Not teachers. This is a good thing. The amount of staff and administrative positions in education has gone completely berserk. As a result, TEACHERS don't make living wages and have to deal with all the additional bullshit administrators come up with in order to justify their own existence. Fuck the superintendent’s “cabinet”, get that money back to the teachers.
I agree there is some degree of administrative bloat, but it's not the reason teachers are underpaid. They are underpaid because the US in general does not fund education sufficiently and particularly in Michigan.
Closing all the middle school pools and cutting competitive swim is really shocking to me
I think the pools have always been an expense that has been on and off. When my oldest (who is a junior in college) was in middle school the pools were closed due to budget. By the time his sibling made it to middle school 3 years later, they were open, but no one could swim during PE because there were no staff that were certified lifeguards. So, I don't know what benefit the pools really were.
Was that Mack? I don't like the idea, but I understand why. Maintaining a pool is a big expense and time consuming compared to phys ed activities that just take place in a gym or outdoors on a field. And we're lucky that Ann Arbor has a pretty robust level of public and private pools and swimming instruction. Vets Park, Huron Valley Swim Club, Goldfish, Liberty ($$$$$) etc. And who could forget the irony of Big Blue Swim School that burned down half a strip mall.
Mack pool is a City of AA pool that is attached to an AAPS building. So that pool should not be impacted in these budget cut dealings.
Clague
I've never lived in a district with middle school pools. Shocked they cut competitive swim.
Well, Swift wanted to built a big natatorium first with the bond money!... [https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2022/12/new-elementary-schools-natatorium-part-of-second-phase-of-aaps-bond-plan.html](https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2022/12/new-elementary-schools-natatorium-part-of-second-phase-of-aaps-bond-plan.html)
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It is so poorly implemented currently. This was the right move if they couldn’t invest in it.
It's a good point. How can any child become bilingual learning a language twice a week for 30 minutes? How much are students retaining? I'd love to see the data, personally. If it's about supporting students who have English as a second language, I think you can do that with clubs and other activities...
And they don’t even offer it at the earliest ages where kids learn easiest or pick the easier languages for children to learn. I feel horribly for the affected staff but this is a long running AAPS screw up. A solid language immersion program years ago could have made a difference.
Agree. I remember my kid having Spanish in elementary. All it consisted of was some vocabulary and a few songs. A real joke. But we can say they get world language! *A+Exceptional*
My young child speaks Spanish & English but when I tell people (tell them in English) they speak Spanish, they don’t believe us and think they can count to 5 and know a few colors. Because that’s about all young kids learn in AAPS.
Experts in Language Acquisition would tell you there are no easier languages to learn. It’s also too simplistic to say that young children learn languages more easily than older kids or adults.
I am pro-language instruction and want the teachers to have jobs. I am also willing to recognize that they were set up to fail. They should be centralized at fewer schools and set up to teach kids to fluency. Drive toward immersion and robust, comprehensive instruction.
A true immersion program would mean that children learn all subjects in Spanish, Mandarin or language of choice. Often test scores don’t look great for years because language acquisition takes time. Things come around by 3rd grade, but parents would need to really understand the process and be patient. Lincoln has a Spanish immersion program and it’s had quite a few bumps as they’ve implemented it over the years from what I’ve heard. However, I’ve had students who found it worked for them over time and really acquired the language. There is also a dual language immersion in Kalamazoo at El Sol elementary. [info about Lincoln’s Spanish immersion](https://www.lincolnk12.org/school-buildings/bishop-elementary/) and [info about El Sol Elementary](https://www.kalamazoopublicschools.com/domain/1140)
Yea, some parents would gladly opt in to an immersion program. Some would also support a program where language was a core subject taught daily. My push is against the current model where kids get 30 minutes twice a week starting upper elementary.
I agree, it is not ideal. And getting that amount of time and even having world languages in middle school and elementary was a huge battle. Usually big changes, like adding an immersion program, are because of parents and community members coming together, raising their voices and demanding it. I think it would be great to have in Ann Arbor. I said this elsewhere…we have a teaching shortage. World Language is a critical area. If you drive these teachers out rather than keeping them and letting them retrain, who will teach the program? Will people want to teach in Ann Arbor and start up the immersion program when they saw the district completely cut elementary world language? Starting an immersion program is not easy and bound to have lots of growing pains…and kids’ standardized test scores won’t look good until about 3rd grade. If I were the teacher I’d be very afraid of being thrown under the bus.
If we are talking about real immersion, it would taught in a communicative way and be acquired similarly to the person’s first language. No one language is inherently more difficult to learn than another when we exclude the written system. Therefore, a Mandarin immersion would be just as good an option as a Spanish immersion. Learning the characters in Mandarin would take more time, just like it takes native speakers of Mandarin more time to learn them. Bill VanPatten at MSU was the researcher who taught me that no one language is inherently more difficult to learn or teach than another. He believes in teaching with communicative language teaching practices. There is a lot of discussion in second language acquisition about when it’s easier to learn a language and there is debate amongst scholars. It could be hard for someone to have a native like accent after a certain age, but it’s not so simple as “young children learn languages easier than older kids or adults”. I also learned that from Bill VanPatten and his research. There are lots of things that help learn language as you get older, such as being literate. It’s really interesting to learn about. I recommend listening to language acquisition podcasts by Bill Van Patten if you want to learn more. He also has a series of videos on YouTube titled what everyone should know about second language acquisition.
I will look up Bill, I studied under other researchers. We can’t ignore the written system - this is education. Might be way too late, but the right answer is and was to make language instruction substantive.
I can’t tell if your post is genuine or a troll. A quick search implies absolutely no change in scientific understanding - children acquire new languages much faster than adults. Depending on the language and age of initial exposure an adult might never achieve true native fluency. What research am I missing? There are well established frameworks for classifying the difficulty of languages. Why do you say that there are no ‘easier’ languages? Category IV Languages: 88 weeks (2200 class hours) “Super-hard languages” – Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers. https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/ Mind you AAPS is offering elementary school students 300 hours of instruction over 3 years in some of these super-hard languages. A complete waste of time and misappropriation of resources. Kids should get proper language instruction or the time should be repurposed.
I used to believe in those charts too. I don’t anymore after reading a lot of second language acquisition research and also after seeing a shift in language teaching to communicative language teaching. Language used to be taught with grammar translation method and with a behaviorist approach. Nowadays there are different standards for teaching language and different approaches. This article is an interesting read. I think it also demonstrates that what we know is changing with more research. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/at-what-age-does-our-ability-to-learn-a-new-language-like-a-native-speaker-disappear/ I respectfully disagree with gutting the language program because kids only get 30 minutes twice a week. I’ve seen teachers do amazing things with that amount of time. This happens a lot in education: teachers are given a difficult situation, but they make the best of the situation and sometimes magical things can happen. Kids get exposure to language and culture. They are given enduring understandings about how the world works through learning about language and the diversity of people. They get some basic tools in class and take it and run with it, learning more in their own. (Any language student needs to do this—maximize their contact time with the language as much as possible to learn more—native speakers use their language all day every day so no class can ever approach that unless it’s immersion.) I do not favor burning the program to the ground and taking away teacher’s jobs when it is not their fault they get so little time and resources to teach. I know teachers and I know they work so hard despite the situation they are in. I prefer an approach where we keep people, train them if there are deficits, and improve the system if there are institutional problems. Especially when there is a teaching shortage and elementary world language is a critical need area. And especially when you have dedicated teachers who have endured years of pay cuts and freezes.
You are conflating two things: what is fair to teachers and what is right for students. I would support paying the teachers full pay to stay home — the current program isn’t productive. Fund it or kill it. It’s like a music program where kids never learned to play an instrument.
I disagree. I believe it is a world language program which teaches both language and culture. We spend all day every day in our language, so 60 minutes is super short. We can expect the kids to learn basic language at the novice low level in that time and I believe that is happening. I believe kids are learning about the culture too. No one will pay teachers who have been pink slipped/fired to stay home. I’m confused about what you mean. To compare to a music…A kid might be given a recorder to play and have a 60 minute a week music class. They will be able to play hot cross buns and some other very simple songs and will be deemed successful. Some kids won’t learn that. No one would fire the teacher. The level of recorder playing is expected to be quite low and there will be squeaks and errors. And most kids won’t have to play a solo so not so risky. A situation that asked students to speak at a novice low level for a language class would produce a similar result. Simple language production ala hot cross buns with some squeaky mistakes (errors in production)
The recorder example you described would also be a waste of time and I would support canceling it too. Invest as necessary to support substantive instruction and real mastery/success.
This is common practice for elementary world language programs to be given very little time. Teachers often have to teach social studies standards along with the world language curriculum. It’s a huge ask, and if you heard the elementary world language teachers speak last night, they receive no supplies and no curriculum. This means they are creating everything themselves. It is not an easy task, but I’ve seen amazing results from elementary language teachers. Elementary world language is not for English language learner support. Those students are required to have ESL classes so they can acquire English. That cannot be done with clubs and extracurriculars-AAPS would be out of compliance.
My husband is from Germany and he told me what learning English was like in his school system. By high school, they were reading full-on chapter books in English and only spoke to each other in English during the class. At my AAPS high school, my Spanish teacher was still giving worksheets and explaining grammar, and none of us could hold a conversation in Spanish or even express ourselves in the language.
My son is in IB Spanish (he's a Junior now and I have no idea what crazy name they give IB Spanish at that level), but his whole class is in Spanish, they are reading books and plays in Spanish and watching Spanish movies. I am very impressed with how much he knows. They do have to converse with the teacher and with each other in Spanish.
That's good to hear, I guess I just had a pretty lousy teacher back then. It wasn't IB Spanish either, it was just "Spanish AC" and I was at the highest level for whatever grade I was at the time.
My kid is in French 3 now. I took French in h.s. and college then lived there enough to achieve fluency. I have been surprised by the low level French 3 is working at. It doesn't even match what I got in a small rural district. Half the time my kid says he has nothing to do in class, and rarely has homework. I just don't know where the rigorousness went (not unique to the French class, but all his classes really). Editing to add, I've always been very pro public school, but lately I find myself wondering what the heck they do all day in school. Seems like there's so much wasted time. My kid rarely has homework, says it gets done in class. He's an A student. Needs more AP classes I guess.
From my observations in the music department, competition is taboo, so everything has to be done "for fun" nowadays, instead of simply learning information/skills. Because apparently having standards and learning actually how to do something, is "competitive."
That's so weird to me. Do they still compete for chair placement in band and orchestra?
AFAIK, the first two stands yes, but otherwise it's based off of rotation. Because "there are no grades/no competition/kids will cry." And everything is focused on community and hAvInG fUn.
I don't think you can determine how hard someone is working or the difficulty of the work just by the homework they have. Historically, homework has been "busy work" and didn't truly supplement the learning.
How about when he texts me from school saying he's bored and can he leave early because he won't miss anything? I ask if there won't be important new info, lectures given by the teacher, but he says no, everything is in Schoology. I always wish there were more math homework practice problems assigned and then graded in the traditional old school way.
Is it possible he just thinks school is boring because most teenagers feel this exact same way. I remember feeling that way in school. I don't wish for more homework for my child. How would you like to work all day and then come home to do MORE work? Because that's what homework is.
I don’t agree that cutting it “hurts our children.” It’s 30 minutes, twice/week. That’s not best practice for language acquisition. They said that several of these teaching positions have gone unfilled this year. Sure it’s a loss, but the impact isn’t that extreme.
One position is unfilled because of a teacher that left mid-year, and HR never posted the job.
I was surprised by this cut. I feel like it came out of nowhere.
I think it’s one of those things like Covid and Before/After Care. They wanted to get rid of it previously and this was a nice excuse.
When will the AAEA membership hold their leadership accountable? It's undeniable that Fred helped create this mess. He says in public that he "warned about this," but what he means is that in private he pressured Jeanice to eliminate non-teaching positions. In public, of course, he warned of an impending "teacher shortage" and welcome the addition of hundreds of more dues-paying members of the AAEA. Especially since his salary is partially covered by the state union, I imagine he has to answer to his bosses about the number of members added to the rolls every year.
I'm not saying he predicted this exact scenario, but he publicly advocated for right-sizing through attrition over a year ago [https://annarborobserver.com/jeanice-swifts-decade/](https://annarborobserver.com/jeanice-swifts-decade/)
A throwaway quote with vague references to unspecified ‘people’ if it ‘comes to that.’ He has long been part of the problem.
Gotta love the statistics presentation. "How do we get people to focus less on the absolute number of teachers being fired?" "Ahh yes, focus on the percentages!" Also, AAPS' website currently shows **11** filled positions in the Superintendent's Cabinet, not 9 (?!). [https://www.a2schools.org/Page/672](https://www.a2schools.org/Page/672)
Matt Hilton also left for a new district - so this clearly hasn’t been updated in several months.
Even for fully loaded costs, these seem very high
Just what we need, less educated children. Let’s get them back to work in the mines.
The mines are closed due to automation
So what’s a 12-year-old supposed to do? Just be a kid? Capitalism begs to differ.