APS School Board candidates?
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Anonymous
She has not been involved. Clarke will be the first choice of APS parents. zuraya clearly looking for the AC/DC machine to carry her water. |
Anonymous
Clark will be amazing. I wish we had two of her. The other three don't seem qualified or invested. While I think the Hispanic population deserves representation, I really dislike the arrogance of sailing in without any involvement in APS. Yes I'm talking about Zuraya. It's just like CDT and we all know how that turned out. |
Anonymous
+1 to this. |
Anonymous
Another +1. The APS guy is invested and knows the system but he’s 78 years old. It’s his 3rd time running. |
Anonymous
| Anyone would be better than Miranda Turner. I'd vote for anyone who isn't her. My kids were home too but I thought her behavior was despicable. Yes, I spoke at SB meeting too during that time. I do look forward to seeing if she can make good on all her promises. She held everyone else up to a really high standard. Hope she can meet it. Excited about all the candidates. It'll be nice that there is an actual race this time. |
Anonymous
It would be amazing if the Hispanic community put forward a candidate whose qualifications were more than just speaking Spanish. At least Zuraya has kids in APS. I suppose that’s a Step up from CDT, but not much. |
Anonymous
| Isn't it too late to join the Democratic caucus. Those are our four candidates? I know the $25K is nothing to sneeze at, but wish we had at least three better ones. |
Anonymous
Way better options than the last election. |
Anonymous
Montgomery County still has a virtual program. |
Anonymous
Go check out the thread on rating the current board members. |
Anonymous
School board isn't just a year. |
Anonymous
| I believe PP is referencing the advisory committee roles, not the SB |
ChenLing
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Hello everyone -- Chen Ling here.
For the person who asked, here is the link to the candidate forum hosted by APE and moderated by Jo DeVoe from ArlNow: https://vimeo.com/923302481?share=copy I have an engineering/science/data background, with a focus on bringing visibility and understandability to complex data systems. I think that is a skill the current school board is sorely lacking. For example, APS pays about 20% more per student than our neighboring locales, and *no one on the board knows why*. You can read the report from their Budget Advisory Council for the last several years where they call this out. We pay our teachers less -- we're on average 5th out of 8 in the area. What they have done instead is to make small cuts uniformly across all of the schools, to the point where many schools are on a tipping point. I spoke with one principal who is losing yet another special ed teacher spot, after losing multiple teacher and staff positions in the last few years. Because of the rules, they have to get rid of their youngest teacher, who is apparently amazing. Right now they can barely provide enough special ed services to meet the needs of at need students in their school. They were down one at the beginning of the year, and the classroom teachers were not able to manage the classes because those students became too disruptive. With that extra special ed teacher, they were able to provide help for those kids and now everyone in those classes can focus on learning. What the current board has been doing has not been enough. When you ask them questions you get a response, but often not a real answer, especially on the why. When I encountered this, I wondered whether they didn't want to give an answer or if they didn't know the answer, and it quickly because obvious that they didn't know the answer. This is why I'm running. Like many of you, my wife and I moved to Arlington for the great schools and the great community. But our schools are in trouble, and what the board is currently doing is not enough. I think my unique skills will help provide clarity to the decision making process, and I will not stop asking questions or pushing until we start providing real answers. I think the current members of the school board care about the teachers and students. I think the other people running care as well, but caring is not enough -- you have to have a plan. I will do something different. I may fail, but it will not be for lack of trying. Thank you if you've gotten to the end. 
I'd be happy to respond to any questions. You can see more about me and my platforms at: https://chen4arlington.org, or send me an email at chen@chen4arlington.org. |
Anonymous
| The budget is posted. Have you taken a look at it? |
ChenLing
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Yes, along with those of Alexandria, Fairfax, and Montgomery County MD. One major part of why we pay more is that we pay school bonds (from the Capital Improvement Plans) out of operating expenses. This went from $55.7 million in 2023 to $64.9 million in 2024, and budgeted to be $67.3 million in FY 2025. That is basically the statutory maximum. That does account for about half the overage compared to others -- Alexandria and Montgomery County's debts are handled by their counties, and Fairfax's debt payments amount to about $3.3 million for FY 2025. However the other 10% is hard to account for. Compared to those 3 districts we have similar class sizes, similar number of schools per capita, similar student-teacher ratios (if you take into account all student facing positions). I think our teachers are more tenured (have been here longer) so are higher on the pay scale, but because we pay them less compared to our neighbors it almost exactly evens out. It may just be too many positions at Syphax, but the budget really obfuscates that. For context, now that the State has passed a high education budget, APS' FY 2025 budget is only about $20 million in the red. Last year we spent ~$40+ million of our reserves. Our reserves are down to $6 million now. And this is with more cuts to almost every school that has already been cut to the bone. |