Comments on: AAPS Hears from Community: Keep Clemente

By: schoolsmuse

schoolsmuse — Fri, 04 May 2012 03:23:04 +0000

A few thoughts:
1. On transportation:
As Jill notes, Ann Arbor Open has had the lottery for at least 15 years. (I didn’t stand in line for my oldest son’s enrollment, and I doubt that I would have.) If I didn’t live in the walk zone (I do), and there were no busing, I might have to choose a different school as both my spouse and I work full-time.

2. When it comes to busing, I also don’t think it’s fair to treat K-8 students the same as high school students, no matter which school they go to. There’s no way I would put a 2nd or 3d grader on a public bus alone, but that’s a different situation for a 9th grader. It seems the dividing line should be age, not schools of choice. For example, in the case of Community busing in the middle of the day, it is potentially possible to take public buses from downtown to Huron, Pioneer, and Skyline, although I understand the timing doesn’t always work out.

3. I’d like to see what the savings are from each piece of that transportation puzzle. Given the discussion in the article about the WISD reporting, I wonder if it is possible to accurately predict the savings? I mean, on the one hand I would think that it must be, or they wouldn’t project those savings, right? But I don’t see them anywhere, which also makes me think maybe they don’t have them broken out. And next year, Willow Run and Ypsilanti won’t be using the WISD for busing, right? Which means it will be just Ann Arbor. Will that change the numbers?

Ann Arbor Tech and Roberto Clemente:
1. It’s not clear to me if the proposal is to run both programs in the same building, merge the programs, or close one of the programs. Does the savings include reducing one principal? Or does the entire savings come from closing the building, and reducing a principal or staff would save even more?

Teacher layoffs:
1. I’m not advocating for these (at all)–but just in terms of accuracy, it’s my understanding that although last year’s budget specified cutting 65 teaching positions, in reality something like 50-ish positions were actually cut.

By: Maria Huffman

Maria Huffman — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:02:21 +0000

Correction, there are plans being developed to present legislation that would have autism services covered by Medicaid, but that is not a done deal at this point.

By: Jennifer Coffman

Jennifer Coffman — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:02:59 +0000

Thank you, Jill, for the clarification. :)

By: Jill Zimmerman

Jill Zimmerman — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:06:54 +0000

Thank you,Jennifer Coffman, for a thorough account of a very long meeting. I would like to make a point of clarification. Trustee Andy Thomas recalls seeing parents camping out to register their children at Ann Arbor Open. Thomas uses this anecdote to support his thesis that because of their “extreme dedication and determination…these parents would figure out how to organize carpools to get their kids to school.” I would like to remind Trustee Thomas that a lottery system has been in place at Ann Arbor Open, and no parent has had to camp out, for at least 15 years. The population Ann Arbor Open serves is not the same as it was then, and our vulnerable students are more vulnerable than they were then.
Nevertheless, Ann Arbor Open parents understand that the AAPS district faces a serious budget crisis, and we want to be part of the solution. We have asked the district exactly how much busing to Ann Arbor Open costs, in the hope that with this information we could suggest informed alternatives to the proposed cuts. We are still waiting on this information from the district.

By: a2person

a2person — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:56:26 +0000

Fred, your use of the word “boutique” is inflammatory. And I would argue just the opposite. The more the district offers creative and innovative options, the better we compete with charters and private schools. Imagine an elementary district with choices that include language immersion in Spanish and Arabic. I have no doubt we’d recover costs as we gain enrollment, and stop bleeding kids from the district as well.

The approach of cutting innovative and successful programs to increase cookie-cutter approaches with increasing class sizes is exactly wrong.

The funding of our schools from Lansing is a disaster, and it needs to be fixed. Even more so, the funding of teacher pensions, which can ONLY be fixed by Lansing, needs to be addressed. I have no idea why the so-called fiscal conservatives in our state government are not addressing this, unless they actually do want to decimate public education.

By: Fred Zimmerman

Fred Zimmerman — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:06:04 +0000

I know this is going to irritate a lot of people, but I think we do need to think about how many special-purpose or “boutique” schools Ann Arbor requires going forward. Arguably, the default should be 0.