Reply to APS Duran School Performance Email - Is Long Branch a Failing School?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't know whether that curriculum is any good, but you also need to consider APS' budget timeline and process.  APS generally adopts a new curriculum every 5-7 years, or at least they are supposed to.  Sometimes they don't because of budget restraints.

Virginia adopted new standards in 2023, affecting curriculum for 2024-25.  Virginia did this without regard for when and whether individual school districts already had purchased curriculum going beyond that school year.

There are plenty of things I think APS can and should do differently, but it helps nobody to blame APS for things beyond their control, like the standards set by Virginia state government and whether any curriculum available (let alone a good curriculum) aligns with those standards.

Contact the APS math department and the school board.  Ask when APS is due for a new math curriculum.  If it isn't soon, ask why not given the new VA standards.  Ask what APS has done to align with VA standards.  Ask what APS needs to get a better curriculum.  is it for the board to prioritize this in the budget?  Is it for parents to contact APS?  Ask how you can contribute to the process of finding an excellent math curriculum.  [/quote]
The Envision curriculum pre-dates 2023.  I've been recycling those workbooks for years now.  That's not an excuse.  And we pay an APS employee at Syphax to be responsible for the APS math curriculum and they have done *nothing* to fix this issue for years now.  They need to lose their job ASAP for incompetence.

Lots of states have specific standards and curriculum companies are used to having to make versions to meet those standards.  If APS is too small to get a company to work with them, they could team up with a larger district(s) to get it done.  Or we could do our own mapping of a curriculum to VA standards.  This isn't an unsolvable problem. APS is just choosing not to solve it. Total incompetence.[/quote]

Yes, Envision predates 2023 because APS purchased it before 2023.  APS buys curriculum on multi-year contracts.  Can you imagine the chaos if they bought (and required teachers to use) a new curriculum each year?  So here is the timeline. APS buys curriculum.  State changes math standards.  APS still has the old curriculum.  Do you see the problem?  The current APS math supervisor has only been in his position for 1-2 years. I'd say he inherited this mess.  His predecessor was great too.  She tried for years to get APS to adopt a new (and better curriculum).  It has been so long since APS had adopted a curriculum that it was in violation of its own policy for how often it adopts a new curriculum.  Budget constraints was always the reason given why APS couldn't act sooner, it wasn't for lack of trying by math educators and the math supervisor.  Duran arrived in APS only in the last few years, so he can't be blamed for what was a preexisting problem.  I really think you need to contact the school board.  Tell them you care about math and that APS needs a better curriculum.

Another thing the previous math supervisor tried to get was math coaches in each elementary school.  Some school principals paid for them out of their own budgets.  Some higher need schools got them via central office funding as part of a pilot program (the results were phenomenal by the way). The request got thrown out because people said it was just Syphax bloat.  I don't blame parents entirely for this because it is hard to tell what is in the APS budget and what it actually all means.  But it was a really good idea.

Bottom line, if you care about math, contact the school board.  It is great to talk to your own school's teachers and principal too, but the funding decisions about curriculum and more math staff are being made higher than that, and good ideas have died due to resource constraints.

No, I don't work for APS.  I just care a lot about math education and wish it got even 20% of the attention literacy does.  Literacy is important too, but math is equally important IMO.[/quote]Duran has been superintendent since May 7, 2020.  That's far longer than 1-2 years.  It's inexcusable he's choosing to do nothing about the lack of a quality math curriculum.  You keep making excuses that don't hold up. He absolutely could speak out about a problem, request funding and propose making changes if he wanted to do so.  But instead he sent a gaslighting email to the whole district saying that scores were dropping and he was not going to make any changes.  That's a choice and one that should cost him his job.  [/quote]

He added positions to help with math then the stupid APEs said the positions were central office bloat. How is that duran's fault? He tried. [/quote]

Adding a handful of math coaches doesn’t make up for a shtty math curriculum that goes unused every year. But you know that already.[/quote]

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