Stories indexed with the term ‘Ann Arbor Public School District’

The Ann Arbor Public School (AAPS) board has ratified agreements with the Ann Arbor Education Association (AAEA), which represents the district’s teachers, office professionals and paraeducators. The agreements will save $3.4 million for the district. The vote came at the board’s March 27, 2013 meeting.

The tentative memorandum of agreements state that they were made in response to the financial challenges the AAPS is facing, due to a lack of funding for public education.

The AAEA for teachers has agreed to a 3% salary reduction for the 2013-2014 school year. All teachers will continue to move up the salary schedule.

The AAEA for office professionals has agreed that in lieu of a percentage cut on the salary schedule, they will take six furlough days … [Full Story]

AAPS Community Budget Forum (May 14, 2012): The Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) school board continues to solicit community input, as trustees plan for the approval of the district’s fiscal year 2012-13 budget by June 30. The district is facing a $17.8 million deficit, and is considering cuts to teaching staff, busing, music camp supports, and high school programming, among other areas.

Attendance at the second community budget forum held Monday at Huron high school was lighter than at the first one, held a week earlier. Still, almost 40 community members and about a dozen staff members participated.

The two main themes that came out of the second forum were: (1) a desire to keep the cuts away from the classrooms (i.e. not cutting teaching staff or increasing class sizes); and (2) a concern that the cuts as proposed would disproportionately affect the most educationally vulnerable segments of the district’s population. Many participants also expressed concern that the timing of the proposed budget reductions would not allow for transition planning this late in the year, and that the district was not being sufficiently forthcoming with detailed budget information.

Trustees Glenn Nelson, Irene Patalan, and Christine Stead attended the May 14 budget forum. The board will hold a discussion on the budget during their next committee of the whole meeting to be held on Wednesday, May 16 beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Balas administration building’s main conference room. [Full Story]

Editor’s note: Because the Dec. 14 meeting of the AAPS board of trustees did not adjourn until after 2 a.m., The Chronicle divided the report into two parts. The first part of the report was published before the holidays and focused only on board deliberations on contracts for top administrators: “Two Top AAPS Administrators Get Raises.”

Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education meeting (Dec. 14, 2011) Part 2: AAPS board of education trustees approved a contract with D.M. Burr, a Flint company, for heating, cooling, and ventilation services. Many local union members attended the meeting and spoke in opposition of the bid award to a non-local, non-unionized company.

At the opening of the Dec. 14, 2011 board meeting, board president Deb Mexicotte requested a moment of silence to acknowledge the recent loss of two students. Mariel Almendras, a second grader at Dicken, died of complications related to a rare ovarian cancer. Lucina Partis, an 11th grader at Skyline, died of accidental drowning in a bathtub in her home.

The final board meeting of 2011 also saw debate on a new state mandate to change board election dates to November in even-numbered years.

The board also discussed a number of first briefing items, and held discussion on minor resolutions. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Schools budget forum (November 10, 2011): About 60 people joined AAPS superintendent Patricia Green, deputy superintendent of operations Robert Allen and the rest of the AAPS top administrators at a budget forum last Thursday evening.

The forum served two distinct purposes: (1) to educate the public on school funding issues, including its specific challenges for crafting next year’s (2012-13) budget; and (2) to solicit ideas from the public on how the district can reduce its budget by $14 million.

The current fiscal year’s approved budget is $183.62 million.

The district typically schedules budget forums in the spring, but this year wants to involve the community earlier than that.

A second forum will take place Monday, Nov. 14 at 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria annex at Pioneer High School.

At Thursday’s event, Allen said that the district is projecting a $14 million deficit for the 2012-13 school year. Over the past five years, the district has made a cumulative total of nearly $50 million in cuts. [Full Story]