New Budget Cutting AART positions

[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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny how the 2020 report was definitely supposed to be followed. That report recommended 1.0 AART at every ES and MS.

Guess we can throw that report out the window now.

As I understand it, each Principal is allowed to determine how to spend the staff budget. Some Principals choose to have a 1/2-time AART so that they can afford another specialist 1/2 time, like an art teacher or music teacher or reading specialist.

This is not a correct understanding.

—a principal

[Anonymous]

Our local AAP center school had an absolutely amazing AART! She challenged the kids wonderfully even in Grade 2 and patiently sat with us and explained the process to us well. The AAP package the school put together was top notch too… Some AARTs are worth it.. The doing away with AART and then the MS after school program will slowly chip away at the FCPS brand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our local AAP center school had an absolutely amazing AART! She challenged the kids wonderfully even in Grade 2 and patiently sat with us and explained the process to us well. The AAP package the school put together was top notch too… Some AARTs are worth it.. The doing away with AART and then the MS after school program will slowly chip away at the FCPS brand.

Yes and she could have still done all that as a part-time employee. Our school's AART only spends about 25% of her time doing advanced academics-related work. PP is the right, the rest is admin, sometimes she services on local screening committees, etc., she mostly fills in where she is needed.

[Anonymous]

Our elementary had a useless AART.

[Anonymous]

Another parent here who was really frustrated with the AART. She was unhelpful, and had a weird view of advanced academics that centered mechanical inventions. I put together my kid's packet (I know the rules have changed, but at the time I could) and it was fine.

That said, I would want the money to go to other in-school activities, which it probably won't.