New Budget Cutting AART positions

[Anonymous]

My school has the AART on the master schedule. All classes see her every two weeks. So this will greatly change the specials schedule.

[Anonymous]

Oh come on, lady, what exactly do you think the AARTs do? They are definitely not doing advanced academics all day long. At our school, the AART is just an admin person who fills in as needed the vast majority of the time.

[Anonymous]

You only want an AART because you think she's the one helping your kid get into AAP. Such BS, so incredibly selfish of AAP mamas. This is a good cut - there is not enough work for schools to have a full time AART. Parttime is more than enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you care about advanced academics, I urge you to get engaged in the budget process NOW. Last night, Dr. Reid’s new proposed budget included cutting almost all full-time AARTs at elementary schools. That means that all of you who have kids in local full-time services (aka Local Level 4) will be significantly impacted. You cannot effectively run these programs with a half-time AART.

It’s time to speak up. Contact your school board members and sign up for public discussion next week. This is moving fast.

This is not accurate. The AART does not teach LLIV classes. LLIV classes have dedicated teachers. LII and LIII pullouts are either expansions of existing work by the teacher or the occasional AART pullout, but in my experience at TWO different elementary schools, the AART is more of an administrative position and not an instruction position. My kids only saw the AART at the beginning of the year when she was doing the dumb "Jacob's ladder" or "X + Y = z" lessons to gather materials for AAP applications. That doesn't require a full-time person, who the rest of the year is just pushing paperwork and helping in the office with testing, etc.

I'm so curious what OP thinks the AART does that warrants a full-time position. Please educate us, LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't find their position to be value add. I am fine with this cut.

So who is putting together your kid's packet?

That doesn't require a full-time person. Plus, it is usually a committee of people doing the packets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our AART was amazing. 2nd grade pull-outs were interesting, process for applying to full time AAP was well run and comprehensive, additional support was well-done.

And she managed all this only being in the building Monday - Wednesday.

EXACTLY!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reid talks about it in link of Board meeting about 3:29 in. Title 1 schools to retain aart employee, rest go .5

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8k-HIczG0Ww

Does title 1 have more kids getting AART services or they get funding from elsewhere?

It's in the name, Title I gets more funding than other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly get rid of AAP and start challenging our kids in school. We are missing out on opportunities to teach our children when we focus on the bottom 10%. Raise the bar for everyone

Well, in practice, one overburdened teacher cannot cater to the bottom 10% and also the top 10% effectively. The end result will be that kids who need extra challenge, will most probably be ignored or left to figure out things by themselves, while all energy will be bringing the other kids up to speed. This is such a disservice to everyone!

Frankly, AAP in its current form is not very effective either - especially with Benchmark for LA and new Math basal coming, I often wonder if there is enough challenge or differentiation for AAP kids.

Unsurprisingly those with the means will do some combination of:

- leave for private
- supplement extensively with tutors and academic enrichment or even just parent supplementation

And everyone else will suffer. As already happens.

No-one is leaving for private school because their ES' elementary is going from a full-time to a part-time AART, LOL!! Remember the AARTs is NOT the AAP teacher, it's a different position.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Threads on massive overstaffing at Gatehouse are too numerous to count on DCUM. Gatehouse is the place where failed principals go to retain their high salaries in do-nothing positions.

Overstaffing by “administrators” is what drives FCPS budget crisis:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1245093.page

But somehow, Reid has decided cuts need to be made to: AAP and SACC ?

Seriously Michelle??

This happens every election year, the Republican trolls come on here and try to get parents riled up about the state of education in FFX County. If you go back to 2020, posts like this is how they convinced a lot of mothers to vote for Glenn Youngkin. So many troll posts every election year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't find their position to be value add. I am fine with this cut.

So who is putting together your kid's packet?

Plenty of schools have part time AARTs and they put together packets without issues. I would guess that this impacts very few schools and is not much of a cost savings.

All elementary schools are staffed for 1.0 AART, so any school with a part time AART has two of them. There are several schools with two 0.5 AARTs.

This is not the case at our school. We have 1, part time AART.

This is false. All schools have 1.0 AART. Some schools may have 2 people each serving as 0.5 each, but every elementary school has 1.0 funding.

[Anonymous]

So, she puts together one packet for you in 7 years. The job is inefficient and useless. No creativity. Pp is correct enough with the lame Jacob’s ladder. Creativity and critical thinking are not being served by this lady. What a waste of money. This is a good purge. Maybe Reid is starting to take action after observing the ineffectiveness of FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't find their position to be value add. I am fine with this cut.

So who is putting together your kid's packet?

Me.

[Anonymous]

Parents can do their own packages

[Anonymous]

Our AART is horrible. Only the actual AAP teachers are teaching the students in our school. The current AART seems to try to keep kids out of AAP. She actually told me that she thinks too many high SES students get into AAP and that she’s happy the cutoff scores are now higher than 99th percentile for our school. Our old AART was much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Threads on massive overstaffing at Gatehouse are too numerous to count on DCUM. Gatehouse is the place where failed principals go to retain their high salaries in do-nothing positions.

Overstaffing by “administrators” is what drives FCPS budget crisis:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1245093.page

But somehow, Reid has decided cuts need to be made to: AAP and SACC ?

Seriously Michelle??

This happens every election year, the Republican trolls come on here and try to get parents riled up about the state of education in FFX County. If you go back to 2020, posts like this is how they convinced a lot of mothers to vote for Glenn Youngkin. So many troll posts every election year.

The democratic board of supervisors is angry at how FCPS approached its budget. Read their budget markup - the language about the schools is extremely strong as were the comments by the supervisors. This has nothing to do with Republican dirty tricks in an election year. It has to do with a fairly widespread feeling of no confidence in Reid and the school board.