APS budget is unacceptable

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03/12/2024 14:10

Subject: APS budget is unacceptable

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Anonymous wrote:Cutting the aquatics field trip will save almost no money. APS barely funds field trips. Mostly to planetarium, outdoor lab and pools. PTAs fundraise for Jamestown and the like.

Kids like pool week. No sense in cutting it. And APS is not going to fund something better.

Careful. I'm sure people would like to eliminate the Planetarium trips, too. Don't remind them!

How much does APS spend on the planetarium?

The planetarium nonprofit “The Friends” took over a lot of the spending during a previous round of budget cuts. There are many things APS used to fund that are now funded through donations and by volunteers. I guess it’s a trend all over the country. The expectations for government services are just much lower than in the olden days.

are you kidding? in the olden days, my school system sure as h*ll did not have its own auditorium or private forest.

IMO, the planetarium, the outdoor forest, and sending kids to TJHSST are the 3 things that stand out for APS. Both the planetarium and outdoor lab are unique to APS and EVERY student has access. TJHSST, I've gone back and forth on; but I've settled on it being a good thing. Maybe some costs can be reduced/recovered with scaled transportation fees or maybe Arlington TJ parents can expand carpooling; but participating in the program does not cost more per pupil than APS spends and provides a very unique opportunity that APS cannot provide.

Therefore, IMO, these 3 aspects of APS are worth the relatively minimal investments. The real luxury items are all the option programs and iPads for every student through 8th grade. These are the first things that should be looked at the very instant step one - eliminating the fluff at Syphax, eliminating all the paid vacation for Syphax employees, and reducing the Superintendent's benefit package (does that position still get a provided car???) - is done. Then get the County serious about coordinating ART routes and get all 6th - 12th graders off yellow school buses.

I agree with you that every kid doesn’t need an iPad, but I have never understood why people think option programs are so expensive. It’s not like kids in option programs would all move to private. APS would still have to pay for teachers, principals and buy textbooks etc if the schools became neighborhood schools.

1. Additional transportation. yes, many would be on buses anyway, but to the same schools and not buses collecting students from across the county.
2. Can't just hire any old teacher or re-allocate teachers from other schools. You need bilingual/Spanish-speaking teachers for immersion; Montessori requires specialized training; etc.
3. Montessori also requires more teachers - an additional teacher in every classroom.
4. Paying extra for additional/different materials and curriculum.
5. IB programs/schools require a fee to the IB Organization to be recognized as an IB school.
6. IB teachers also require specialized training.
7. Running multiple options is a collective expense.

Eliminating option programs isn't going to save huge amounts of money that people like to think it will.

1. Additional transportation. yes, many would be on buses anyway, but to the same schools and not buses collecting students from across the county.- So the difference is a little mileage and a little driver time. Not a lot of savings there. The busses to our neighborhood school are pretty full already.
2. Can't just hire any old teacher or re-allocate teachers from other schools. You need bilingual/Spanish-speaking teachers for immersion; Montessori requires specialized training; etc.- I can't speak to APS specifically, but IME schools generally seek bilingual teachers based on the population they are teaching. So if there is a large Spanish speaking population at a neighborhood school that school still tries to recruit bilingual teachers even though it isn't an immersion program. Besides, it is only a 5%-20% pay difference according to this website. https://www.ibo.org/become-an-ib-school/fees-and-services/fees-for-authorized-schools/ Again, not huge dollar amounts.
3. Montessori also requires more teachers - an additional teacher in every classroom.- I can't speak to Montessori as I have no experience with the program.
4. Paying extra for additional/different materials and curriculum.- Is there a significant difference in the cost of different curriculum? IME most major curriculum developers have moved to offering curriculum in multiple languages because there are so many ELL in this country AND also the increasing popularity of immersion programs. Is the cost of a textbook at ATS really that different from the cost of a textbook at Campbell vs. a neighborhood school?
5. IB programs/schools require a fee to the IB Organization to be recognized as an IB school.- $12K per year per school, according to this website. https://www.ibo.org/become-an-ib-school/fees-and-services/fees-for-authorized-schools/
6. IB teachers also require specialized training.- Wouldn't the teacher need the training before being hired by APS? So not an APS cost. Even if APS paid for the training, the cost is $618/credit hour.
7. Running multiple options is a collective expense.- I'm not sure what this means.

It means all the seemingly minor costs add up and eliminating those costs is one drop in the big bucket of cuts that isn't going to be filled with one big cut in one area.

Doesn't matter if there's a difference in costs for different curriculums - the point is having to pay for MORE curriculums (curricula).
Teachers, even IF they were specially trained before being hired by APS so they can teach IB, AP, whatever, still have to keep up with that specialized training -- in addition to the regular "trainings" and professional development APS requires.
ATS is the lowest-hanging-fruit example of why option programs need to be looked at and possibly eliminated or streamlined. Its curriculum is not any different than a neighborhood school and its expectations and discipline and whatever else can be incorporated into every neighborhood school "program."
Is it best to run two immersion schools funneling into one middle school and one even smaller high school program - or make one immersion K-8 or K-12 program - or only elementary immersion - or no immersion - or????

And only 5-20% pay difference for the bilingual teachers: multiplied by how many teachers? and an additional 5-20% for 80% of the total APS budget.

Immersion teachers are on the same payscale as other teachers

Immersion schools also consolidate English learners so it's more efficient for APS to offer services and make sure they meet English benchmarks (while still helping them keep up in math and science, which are delivered in Spanish). The program is really structured to support Spanish-speaking kids and their families. It allows parents with limited English to support their kids and be involved in their education in a way that they couldn't at many other APS elementary schools, where most communications are only in English and most staff/teachers only speak English. It would be such a shame to cut a program that actually and actively supports diversity and inclusion, especially while continuing to pay for lots of DEI staff at Syphax who do far less.

At least 10 other elementary schools have the same or higher percentage of English Language Learners. The overall percentage of elementary language learners is 29.1% for the entire county. Claremont and Key are not consolidating English learners, they are basically skating along at the county average. Cool story though.

English Learner Percentages 23-24 from demographics dashboard:

Claremont 33.33%
Key 32.64%
Abingdon 40.9%
ATS 37.76%
Barcroft 46.53%
Barrett 50.38%
Campbell 37.5%
Carlin Spring 69.58%
Drew 38.64%
Hoffman Boston 49.34%
Long Branch 33.41%
Randolph 60.70%

So you're saying that Key doesn't consolidate English learners amongst N Arlington schools?

Not PP.
Um, you said "immersion schools consolidate" them. You don't get to narrow your argument because you didn't like the refuting data. If you now want to argue for segregated schools in the name of "efficiency in service delivery," go ahead. Be sure to justify Claremont and not just Key as an immersion school needed to consolidate ELs in south Arlington. And do keep in mind that Key and Claremont enrollment is not determined by north/south geography.

Um, Key and Claremont both have geographic regions. Key is basically N Arlington.

http://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2023/04/b-Map_Immersion_Elementary_2022_23.pdf

We're going deep on a tangent at this point compared to the topic at hand - the budget.

That said, we're here now!

Even with Key the argument that it consolidates EL's doesn't hold water. That makes it sound like the Spanish speakers are being pulled evenly from all of the schools where they would otherwise be outliers. The truth is they are pulled almost entirely from a handful of schools in the Key boundary - namely Barrett, Long Branch, ASFS, and Innovation - that have high concentrations of ELs. Barrett, Long Branch, and Innovation still have ELs at the county average or higher after the immersion kids transfer out. ASFS is significantly below the county average, but still at 19%.

All of this is irrelevant to the budget and I am not advocating to close the Immersion schools. I'm just tired of certain Key parents who pretend like they are most special and diverse snowflakes in all the county when the data shows they are decidedly average in all diversity measures.

You're doing an awful lot of hand waving without addressing that immersion supports English learners.

So do all the other schools on that list above.

They teach math and science in Spanish so English learners don't fall behind?

I don’t understand the “support ELL argument.” If this is true, that these programs support English learners, why is one specific group of ELL getting this special government funded benefit? Aren’t there other ELLs, who speak other first languages, also deserving of support. I know native Spanish is probably the biggest group in the county, but aren’t there other groups with a critical mass at this point - now in 2024? Why don’t they get this type of support? At least FFX has multiple language programs.

And I say this as a believer in bilingual education and global education. But this idea that these programs should be kept as is because they support one small group of ELLs doesn’t work. Couldn’t that money then be better spent by distributing it across schools and hiring more ESOL teachers and aides?

The reason that there is this level of support for Spanish-speaking ELLs, is 1) critical mass, and 2) the fact that Spanish-speaking ELLs tend to perform more poorly than other ELLs. I was an ELL kid, but not Spanish-speaking. We did not get the supports that even back in my day were available for Spanish ELLs. Was difficult in the short-term, but likely was better for me and my family long-term, as we really had to learn English (and quickly!). I do not think I would have been as successful if I had classes taught to me in my native language.