APS budget cuts - no MS sports or extracurriculars

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Do you think academic support can be improved, the achievement gap addressed, and quality instruction - including small class sizes - can happen without additional employees? There's a new CDEIO position that everyone insists APS has. He needs staff to do his job. One teacher specialist added to the gifted services office - someone who might help APS actually properly serve gifted students. Math coaches - real people providing direct academic support to students.

Everybody seems to complain that APS is overloaded with central office personnel. I disagree. APS operates, generally speaking, with a skeleton crew for the size and quality of our school system.
I don't even know what an "equity audit" for curriculum even means; so I might be with you there. But if it's just reviewing curriculum for inclusive and honest content, I don't think that requires additional staff; so what's the harm?

PP must work at Syphax. Schools do not need a bunch of additional GT and math coaches to lord over the teachers. They need these people to get out of the teachers' way and give them more time to plan.

Seriously? Do you think poor teachers will improve without additional support from the county? I'm not opposed to keeping middle school activities. But the most important part of APS is the educational support. People have been complaining for years about academics, and that's gotten worse with the pandemic. Duran should be praised for trying to hire additional staff to improve in academic areas.

By the way, I should have pointed out that I'm a NP who does not work at Syphax.

[Anonymous]

The planning staff should go— you notice that they had to add 6 buses to support the boundaries they drew just six months ago! That means not a single bus was eliminated at the new school at key (innovation) and they had to add six buses to support Reed. They’ve been saying for years that Reed is a one hundred percent walkable school. They zoned bus riders who could have gone to asfs to key to avoid optics of driving them past a school, and then zoned walkers to key to asfs (where they need a bus) because there wasn’t room for them at key anymore.
They make bad decisions anc these are on going costs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The planning staff should go— you notice that they had to add 6 buses to support the boundaries they drew just six months ago! That means not a single bus was eliminated at the new school at key (innovation) and they had to add six buses to support Reed. They’ve been saying for years that Reed is a one hundred percent walkable school. They zoned bus riders who could have gone to asfs to key to avoid optics of driving them past a school, and then zoned walkers to key to asfs (where they need a bus) because there wasn’t room for them at key anymore.
They make bad decisions anc these are on going costs

I agree with this. The person above who seems to think we need to add more staff to Central Office to fix it is crazy. Step 1 for Duran is to do a talent assessment and clean out the staff who aren't effective and replace them with better talent. After that, then he can decide if he needs to add more bodies-- and he should make a much more compelling case to the School Board than what is in that budget document.

The planning office is a great example of where we have a lot of people who are totally ineffective. That office has 12 full-time employees, and yet every time we do a boundary change, parents find data errors on the face of nearly every spreadsheet. The planning office does sloppy work, and there is no quality control. Throwing more bodies into that office isn't going to do anything until you pull out the bad apples.

Most of the Central Office staff that are being added in the budget are nice-to-haves and not must-haves. For example, an APS outdoor classroom coordinator in Central Office? Do we really want to prioritize a new position like that over middle school extracurricular activities?

[Anonymous]

Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

Before that they should get rid of ATS and immersion which inequitably give people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The planning staff should go— you notice that they had to add 6 buses to support the boundaries they drew just six months ago! That means not a single bus was eliminated at the new school at key (innovation) and they had to add six buses to support Reed. They’ve been saying for years that Reed is a one hundred percent walkable school. They zoned bus riders who could have gone to asfs to key to avoid optics of driving them past a school, and then zoned walkers to key to asfs (where they need a bus) because there wasn’t room for them at key anymore.
They make bad decisions anc these are on going costs

The bad decision was not putting an elementary school at the Heights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The planning staff should go— you notice that they had to add 6 buses to support the boundaries they drew just six months ago! That means not a single bus was eliminated at the new school at key (innovation) and they had to add six buses to support Reed. They’ve been saying for years that Reed is a one hundred percent walkable school. They zoned bus riders who could have gone to asfs to key to avoid optics of driving them past a school, and then zoned walkers to key to asfs (where they need a bus) because there wasn’t room for them at key anymore.
They make bad decisions anc these are on going costs

Reed is 80-90% walkable. However, they drew such crappy boundaries b/c of whining that the buses will be needed and the school will be over capacity with no playground until 2023.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

How would it save money? Right now it has the regular complement of staff at the same staffing ratios as other schools so its operating budget is no different than a "regular" program. And where would you put the hundreds of kids being sent back to their home middle and high schools? The only potential savings is buses since it is countywide, and they don't purchase any buses for it, they just run 6 buses for two extra routes each day, plus three sports buses go to the comprehensive high schools at the end of the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

Before that they should get rid of ATS and immersion which inequitably give people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend.

As opposed to the neighborhood boundary system that inequitably gives people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend lets wealthy people pay $1.5 million for a tiny 1940s colonial on a street that lets them attend a 95% white elementary with high test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

How would it save money? Right now it has the regular complement of staff at the same staffing ratios as other schools so its operating budget is no different than a "regular" program. And where would you put the hundreds of kids being sent back to their home middle and high schools? The only potential savings is buses since it is countywide, and they don't purchase any buses for it, they just run 6 buses for two extra routes each day, plus three sports buses go to the comprehensive high schools at the end of the day.

It can become a neighborhood school, therefore eliminating the need for buses.

Also, are HB’s staffing ratios similar to the other overcrowded high schools?

Let’s get rid of ALL option schools. All of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

Before that they should get rid of ATS and immersion which inequitably give people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend.

As opposed to the neighborhood boundary system that inequitably gives people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend lets wealthy people pay $1.5 million for a tiny 1940s colonial on a street that lets them attend a 95% white elementary with high test scores.

You don’t get to dictate housing costs and who gets to buy them. That’s not how this works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

How would it save money? Right now it has the regular complement of staff at the same staffing ratios as other schools so its operating budget is no different than a "regular" program. And where would you put the hundreds of kids being sent back to their home middle and high schools? The only potential savings is buses since it is countywide, and they don't purchase any buses for it, they just run 6 buses for two extra routes each day, plus three sports buses go to the comprehensive high schools at the end of the day.

It can become a neighborhood school, therefore eliminating the need for buses.

Also, are HB’s staffing ratios similar to the other overcrowded high schools?

Let’s get rid of ALL option schools. All of them.

uh, yeah

only Montessori gets away with having extra staff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

Before that they should get rid of ATS and immersion which inequitably give people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend.

As opposed to the neighborhood boundary system that inequitably gives people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend lets wealthy people pay $1.5 million for a tiny 1940s colonial on a street that lets them attend a 95% white elementary with high test scores.

You don’t get to dictate housing costs and who gets to buy them. That’s not how this works.

I'm not dictating anything, I'm just pointing out that its ridiculous to make an equity argument about choice schools, or complain at all about choice schools, when half the people in Arlington just buy their way into whichever school they want and then fight like hell about boundaries or any changes to the neighborhood school system

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

How would it save money? Right now it has the regular complement of staff at the same staffing ratios as other schools so its operating budget is no different than a "regular" program. And where would you put the hundreds of kids being sent back to their home middle and high schools? The only potential savings is buses since it is countywide, and they don't purchase any buses for it, they just run 6 buses for two extra routes each day, plus three sports buses go to the comprehensive high schools at the end of the day.

It can become a neighborhood school, therefore eliminating the need for buses.

Also, are HB’s staffing ratios similar to the other overcrowded high schools?

Let’s get rid of ALL option schools. All of them.

Still, it eliminates the need for buses. Montessori getting extra staff is crazy. Get rid of all option schools! If someone wants a niche school, they can go private.

uh, yeah

only Montessori gets away with having extra staff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably some $$ to be saved by getting rid of H-B and converting it to a regular school.

Before that they should get rid of ATS and immersion which inequitably give people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend.

As opposed to the neighborhood boundary system that inequitably gives people an escape from neighborhood schools they don’t want to attend lets wealthy people pay $1.5 million for a tiny 1940s colonial on a street that lets them attend a 95% white elementary with high test scores.

You don’t get to dictate housing costs and who gets to buy them. That’s not how this works.

I'm not dictating anything, I'm just pointing out that its ridiculous to make an equity argument about choice schools, or complain at all about choice schools, when half the people in Arlington just buy their way into whichever school they want and then fight like hell about boundaries or any changes to the neighborhood school system

That’s the way the world works, sweetie. Not just Arlington. People are willing to pay more for good public school system. Why do you think that tiny colonial is worth so much?