APS School Board candidates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chen seems sincere but has he done anything in APS literally at all?

He’s smart but no APS experience.

Clark is a no-brainer but picking your second choice there are no other strong options.

+1

[Anonymous]

Are there more candidate forums coming up?

[Anonymous]

Chen is my second choice after KC. No experience but he’s paying attention. Zuraya was vapid.

[Anonymous]

I’m voting for Larry Fishtahler only. I will only vote for people who have worked in the schools at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chen is my second choice after KC. No experience but he’s paying attention. Zuraya was vapid.

Is he though? He only started looking into things after he announced his campaign. Agree Zuraya has no substance at all, just a smooth talker relying on her Latina connections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chen is my second choice after KC. No experience but he’s paying attention. Zuraya was vapid.

Is he though? He only started looking into things after he announced his campaign. Agree Zuraya has no substance at all, just a smooth talker relying on her Latina connections.

Between chen, Zuraya, and Larry, I choose Chen for my second choice.

[Anonymous]

i may not even put down a second. We'll see.

[Anonymous]

ChenLing wrote: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 [e-mail].

What do you mean the board doesn't know why we spend more than other counties? Four-fifths of the budget is staff salaries and Arlington has lower class sizes and smaller schools than most other counties (i.e., more staff). You talk about special ed staffing above--this is all based on planning factors and the number of students in the school with IEPs. You're suggesting that each school be allocated different numbers of staff based on (something) instead of having a uniform staffing model? How would that work? Who determines how many staff are really needed at each school? And as for letting go the "youngest" teacher, you probably mean the teacher with the least tenure, which is how that works in every school district in the country. Not to mention that APS staff are offered positions elsewhere in the system if a position is eliminated at a specific school.

Maybe you should volunteer for some committees and learn some more about how school systems work before running for one of the five board seats--we don't need another board member who only started paying attention when their kids hit elementary school and is now going to learn on the job by asking questions that have already been asked and answered a thousand times. You might also learn about what a school board is responsible for versus the paid school administration, and why you don't get answers from the people you are asking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

ChenLing wrote: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 [e-mail].

What do you mean the board doesn't know why we spend more than other counties? Four-fifths of the budget is staff salaries and Arlington has lower class sizes and smaller schools than most other counties (i.e., more staff). You talk about special ed staffing above--this is all based on planning factors and the number of students in the school with IEPs. You're suggesting that each school be allocated different numbers of staff based on (something) instead of having a uniform staffing model? How would that work? Who determines how many staff are really needed at each school? And as for letting go the "youngest" teacher, you probably mean the teacher with the least tenure, which is how that works in every school district in the country. Not to mention that APS staff are offered positions elsewhere in the system if a position is eliminated at a specific school.

Maybe you should volunteer for some committees and learn some more about how school systems work before running for one of the five board seats--we don't need another board member who only started paying attention when their kids hit elementary school and is now going to learn on the job by asking questions that have already been asked and answered a thousand times. You might also learn about what a school board is responsible for versus the paid school administration, and why you don't get answers from the people you are asking.

+1000. Thank you. Sit down LC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

ChenLing wrote: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 [e-mail].

What do you mean the board doesn't know why we spend more than other counties? Four-fifths of the budget is staff salaries and Arlington has lower class sizes and smaller schools than most other counties (i.e., more staff). You talk about special ed staffing above--this is all based on planning factors and the number of students in the school with IEPs. You're suggesting that each school be allocated different numbers of staff based on (something) instead of having a uniform staffing model? How would that work? Who determines how many staff are really needed at each school? And as for letting go the "youngest" teacher, you probably mean the teacher with the least tenure, which is how that works in every school district in the country. Not to mention that APS staff are offered positions elsewhere in the system if a position is eliminated at a specific school.

Maybe you should volunteer for some committees and learn some more about how school systems work before running for one of the five board seats--we don't need another board member who only started paying attention when their kids hit elementary school and is now going to learn on the job by asking questions that have already been asked and answered a thousand times. You might also learn about what a school board is responsible for versus the paid school administration, and why you don't get answers from the people you are asking.

DP but at least he got interested enough when his kids when to school to want to be this involved and run.

The thing about committees and asking questions that have been answered - they tend to always fall back into - well that’s just the way things work. Nowadays there are many technology advancements across many sectors - and this should make people rethink the old answers.

And at the end of the day the SB isn’t doing much and really he just has to vote yes along with everyone else. So for me, what the heck- if he wants to give it a try - why not?

[ChenLing]

Anonymous wrote:Are there more candidate forums coming up?

Arlington Democrats may have a candidate forum during their next monthly meeting on 4/3 (it's planned but not yet announced).
The Arlington NAACP will host one on 4/15 from 7-9pm.
The Arlington Chamber of Commerce will host one on 4/23 from 3-4pm.
The CivFed and the League of Women Voters will host one on 4/24 from 6:30-8:30pm

That's all the ones I know of so far. 😅

I'll post information and links on my facebook page https://facebook.com/chen4arlington when I have them. I'll also post links to the forums afterwards.

[ChenLing]

Anonymous wrote:Chen seems sincere but has he done anything in APS literally at all?

(Reposting from the other similar thread: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/30/1185438.page. Please read my replies to various questions there.)

Hi. Honestly not a whole lot -- I've done the standard things that an involved and privileged parent has done -- I've joined my school's PTA, I've donated, I've volunteered in the classroom and as a chaperone.
Outside of APS proper, I teach ballroom dance at College Park, I coach my daughter's soccer team, I tutor undergraduate CS students, and I'm mentoring a couple of high school students (one in APS).

My wife and I moved to Arlington for the excellent schools. It wasn't something I thought I needed to worry about. I got involved because of the boundary change process. During public hearings I, along with others, asked questions for which we received responses but not real answers. At the time I didn't know whether they didn't want to give us the answer or if they didn't have the answer. So I started digging -- reading board docs, watching old board meetings, asked followup questions, etc., and it became obvious that they often didn't have the answer.

This kind of problem isn't unique to APS. I've seen this in many organizations where some things are done a certain way because of risk aversion, because it was the easy thing to do, or because "it's always been done that way". I have a lot of experience trying (successfully and unsuccessfully) to fix these underlying problems. I believe that this skill set -- active listening, problem solving, people coordination -- would be a useful one for the school board.

Since then I've been learning as much as I can -- talking with teachers, parents, principals, facilities folks, and (since declaring) every member of the current board except CDT.
I know I have a lot to learn still, but I'm a fast learner and public education is something I truly care about.

[ChenLing]

Anonymous wrote:
What do you mean the board doesn't know why we spend more than other counties?

This is something a current board member told me when I asked about it. I know that about half the gap is due to us paying debt service (from CIP school bonds) from our operating budget. For other school systems like Alexandria and Montgomery County the city/county handles CIP funds or the bond payments instead of the school system. The other half of the gap is harder to explain -- adjusted for student population we have similar class sizes, number of schools, student-teacher ratios, and transportation costs as our neighbors. Our teachers are more tenured on average (so higher on the step scale), but we pay them less, and it almost exactly evens out. We also have similar programs (option or magnet schools, extra curriculars, etc).

Anonymous wrote:
Four-fifths of the budget is staff salaries and Arlington has lower class sizes and smaller schools than most other counties (i.e., more staff).

Our school sizes are comparable. We do have slightly smaller class sizes (compared to say Fairfax), but similar to FCC and Manassas City. It doesn't account for the full difference.
Any real differences provides opportunities to increase efficiency. Even if we can reduce costs by 3%, it would more than close our budget deficit.

Anonymous wrote:
You talk about special ed staffing above--this is all based on planning factors and the number of students in the school with IEPs. You're suggesting that each school be allocated different numbers of staff based on (something) instead of having a uniform staffing model? How would that work? Who determines how many staff are really needed at each school? And as for letting go the "youngest" teacher, you probably mean the teacher with the least tenure, which is how that works in every school district in the country. Not to mention that APS staff are offered positions elsewhere in the system if a position is eliminated at a specific school.

Maybe you should volunteer for some committees and learn some more about how school systems work before running for one of the five board seats--we don't need another board member who only started paying attention when their kids hit elementary school and is now going to learn on the job by asking questions that have already been asked and answered a thousand times. You might also learn about what a school board is responsible for versus the paid school administration, and why you don't get answers from the people you are asking.

I understand your concern -- I know I have a lot to learn. On the other hand, I was an English Language learner who relied on in-school free meals, and my current level of success was due in large part to the amazing teachers I had in my public school education. I care deeply about the success of our public school system. And yes my kids are young, but that means that I am invested in this for the long term.

I think I bring a unique set of skills to the school board (technology, data) that they are currently lacking. I also appreciate that I'm in a privileged position to be able to serve on a school board in the first place. It's not something I do lightly or for vanity.

[Anonymous]

Mathematically, the 20 percent of the budget that is not salaries (as you note, a lot is debt service) can’t produce enough “efficiency” to close that 3 percent gap—we have to pay the electric bills and buy supplies each year. So you can’t reduce costs 3 percent without cutting staff, which means increasing class sizes or eliminating/reducing certain types of school-based positions.

So what are you thinking in terms of cuts?

[Anonymous]

ChenLing wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What do you mean the board doesn't know why we spend more than other counties?

This is something a current board member told me when I asked about it. I know that about half the gap is due to us paying debt service (from CIP school bonds) from our operating budget. For other school systems like Alexandria and Montgomery County the city/county handles CIP funds or the bond payments instead of the school system. The other half of the gap is harder to explain -- adjusted for student population we have similar class sizes, number of schools, student-teacher ratios, and transportation costs as our neighbors. Our teachers are more tenured on average (so higher on the step scale), but we pay them less, and it almost exactly evens out. We also have similar programs (option or magnet schools, extra curriculars, etc).

Anonymous wrote:
Four-fifths of the budget is staff salaries and Arlington has lower class sizes and smaller schools than most other counties (i.e., more staff).

Our school sizes are comparable. We do have slightly smaller class sizes (compared to say Fairfax), but similar to FCC and Manassas City. It doesn't account for the full difference.
Any real differences provides opportunities to increase efficiency. Even if we can reduce costs by 3%, it would more than close our budget deficit.

Anonymous wrote:
You talk about special ed staffing above--this is all based on planning factors and the number of students in the school with IEPs. You're suggesting that each school be allocated different numbers of staff based on (something) instead of having a uniform staffing model? How would that work? Who determines how many staff are really needed at each school? And as for letting go the "youngest" teacher, you probably mean the teacher with the least tenure, which is how that works in every school district in the country. Not to mention that APS staff are offered positions elsewhere in the system if a position is eliminated at a specific school.

Maybe you should volunteer for some committees and learn some more about how school systems work before running for one of the five board seats--we don't need another board member who only started paying attention when their kids hit elementary school and is now going to learn on the job by asking questions that have already been asked and answered a thousand times. You might also learn about what a school board is responsible for versus the paid school administration, and why you don't get answers from the people you are asking.

I understand your concern -- I know I have a lot to learn. On the other hand, I was an English Language learner who relied on in-school free meals, and my current level of success was due in large part to the amazing teachers I had in my public school education. I care deeply about the success of our public school system. And yes my kids are young, but that means that I am invested in this for the long term.

I think I bring a unique set of skills to the school board (technology, data) that they are currently lacking. I also appreciate that I'm in a privileged position to be able to serve on a school board in the first place. It's not something I do lightly or for vanity.

We get that you care but how exactly does that qualify you to oversee my kid's school district when it's clear I know far more about it than you do?