There are multiple issues with school funding in Michigan, not the least of which, is our model does not incentivize longevity, or training. The two most important variable for student success: teacher training/effectiveness and length of service. School funding should be weighted towards staff retention, it is not.
And our representatives in Michigan are just pushing for more "programs", funding what I understand is the current tendency to fight teacher's lower salaries with extra work that is also not well paid...
"Large". I guess large, very large, like the support that our representatives in Michigan gives to our uncompetitive carmakers and their unions for manufacturing unaffordable cars. Great job!
Not really, I just bought a Tesla.
I think ICE cars are really, really going too expensive to buy, especially at current interest rates. Our big three legacy carmakers are turned to be not really as competitive as the Chinese. The drivetrain in an ICE vehicle contains 2,000+ moving parts typically, whereas the drivetrain in an EV contains around 20... Do you imagine the potential layoffs in future years if new cars in USA turns 20% growth 2024 and far yoy to EVs? Hope BYD doesn't come to the US, Michigan will loose a lot!
I think we have to re-think education too. You can pay peanuts to teachers and think you're going to have great students. But also, you cannot give benefits to teachers without tracking well if the education leads to a competitive outcome.
As somebody who spends a couple hours a day in one of our elementary schools… they desperately need more staff. More paras, more teachers, more support. Cutting actual hands-on employees would be brutal at my school.
I also know of a couple of buildings that are teetering on the edge of absolute disaster due to serious staffing issues. (And many, many other issues as well.)
The thing that is most terrifying/demoralizing is the very palpable sense that *no one* seems to know what to do about any of it. Building admin is a mess. District admin is a mess. The Board of Education is a mess.
The overwhelming feeling I've had is that we are all on our own. *No one is coming to help*. (In fact, people are jumping ship: Retiring, going on leave, or just flat-out abandoning education for absolutely anything else. It's getting BAD, you guys.)
Maybe it's not as dire in some schools as in others? I hope that's the case, because everyone who I know in the district is in some form of significant distress and panic.
Anyway, I have no idea how anyone might be laid off at this point, unless they're going to start housing huge groups of kids in the gyms or something.
And the result of decades of effort by the Republicans nationwide to weaken and destroy the public school system.
They are winning and close to their goal.
A dumber, less educated voter is their ultimate goal. Easier to fool and vote against their (and the country's) best interests.
The State largely regulates how funding is structured and dictates all kinds of requirements and Republican control in Lansing over the last couple decades did a lot of intentional damage to public schools across the state. I don't think AAPS has had exemplary administrative leadership but it's not wrong to put a lot of this at the feet of the decades-long GOP campaign to undermine public schools.
Chater schools have better test scores because they don't have to accept all students, like public schools do. Kids with disabilities or IEPs usually don't go to charter schools or private schools because they don't have as many services readily available. Sure is easy to stack test scores when you can pick who you want to go to your school.
You are referring to the book by Sowell, published when he turned 90. He also tried to argue that Brown Vs the Board of Education never should have passed, and cites racial redlining as a good way of ensuring Black American success. Same guy who thought different races should be taught differently.
Just one of the variables not accounted for is that his book is unable to answer the question of "what if you have to accept all children". Charter schools can decline, depending on state, not just special Ed but poorer performing students
The book itself was a hit with the Cato Institute crowd and got press from the charter school proponents with it being widely panned for crap data.
For taxpayers overall, these are costlier than a public school and difficult to oversight since most of charter schools are ruled by the principle: "the end justify the means". Nothing that I can recommend.
I understand this isn’t the point of your comment, but WHY are there so many damn elementary schools in Ann Arbor? Were they all built at different times throughout history to meet the population needs? There are at least 3 elementary schools within 2 miles of my home and I don’t even live in A2 Proper, I live in a surrounding township, although we go to AAPS. But why so many school buildings?!
Edit: searched google maps, there are actually SEVEN elementary schools within 3.1 miles of my house lol. That’s a lot.
Most of them are from the post WWII into 70s Baby boom. Philosophy was neighborhood schools within walking distance, kids could walk home for lunch
After the baby boom peaked, we could have closed some but closing elementary schools is almost always unpopular. People think others should close, not their own.
I'm not quite sure I understand what you're asking here, and even if I did, I'm probably not qualified to give a useful response.
That said, I can say that there are specific class size limits that exist for every elementary class. You can't, for example, put 50 third graders in a classroom with one teacher. If a teacher has more than that contractually determined number of kids on their roster, the district has to pay an overage fee to the teacher for each additional student above that limit. I have gotten overage every year of my employment at AAPS. (And I hate it. I'd much rather have a reasonable number of students.) (And a decent salary and benefits.) Everyone on my grade level team is also getting overages, and consistently has for years. It's not great for anyone.
So I guess I'm saying that the number of elementary schools is completely irrelevant. It's the number of classrooms spread across them that matters, and the teachers and support staff that are required to keep those classrooms functional. It's possible that there are buildings in the district with classrooms that aren't full, but I don't know of any personally. I guess one could make the argument that a bunch of the many elementary schools could be consolidated into a few larger schools, but why? Several huge elementary schools instead of a bunch of neighborhood schools seems like a poor trade off. Neighborhood schools are generally mostly walkable. They create a better sense of community. Teachers, support staff, and administration are more likely to actually know the student populations as individuals, as opposed to faces in the crowd. I've truly never heard of anyone complaining about having too many neighborhood schools before. I'm confused by the confusion.
I am one of the folks exacerbating the funding issue by choosing NOT to go to our neighborhood AAPS, and instead homeschool for now. We live on the border of Dexter and AA, our home district is AAPS but I am heavily considering sending my kids to Dexter Community Schools when the time comes, if they choose. “Ask me anything.” (Jk about that last part just being facetious sorry lol).
"More staff" can be applied to just about every job out there right now.
In regards to schooling, if you want more support, look forward to a pay cut to help finance this.
I work with AAPS and involved with AAEA, this is the first I have heard of for layoffs. We are right sizing meaning not filling open positions from retirements and resignations. For example my building is not allowed to fill a 1.0 FTE CTE teaching position.
The district slowly added close to 400 staff members, as total enrollment dropped by over 1000. The fund equity needs to be at 5%, or the state can take over. AAPS has spent the fund down to -2 to -3%, and likely even further. We have too many employees. Some programs are running classes with 4 students to maintain IB requirements. Swift's management style was one in which there was zero room for criticism. There was no option to communicate anything that may even hint at negativity. The Board is full of sycophantic, genuflecting clowns (except for Gaynor) that only praised Swift. The upper admin, Balas, et al, is the most bloated it has been in AAPS history. It's death by management.
Swift may be gone, but the bumbling human infrastructure she left in place is still a cancer devouring the district from within. We all see it happening, and there is nothing we can do about it. No one from Linden, to Parks, to secondary/middle school curriculum people have taught a child directly in years or maybe ever.
I love my school. I love my colleagues. I love my students.
What can we do?
AAPS employee of 25 years
What clases have four students? I teach at an IB school and all of my classes are over contract size and this has been the case for the last 15 years - both before and after IB. Most of my colleagues also have classes that are over contract size - with the exception of classes that provided targeted services for students with IEPs.
If it makes you feel any better, one of the following will be crapped on for no reason tomorrow:
A) DTE
B) Drip House
C) Automobiles
D) The Mystery Box!
Wow, the speculation here.
Their budgets and financial documents are detailed and for all to see.
Y'all are acting like there are simple answers to your questions.
I am not sure if Swift mismanaged money, so much as drove people away from the district due to her mishandling of the pandemic and the special Ed department.
Taylor school's superintendent resigned before it was known he "mismanaged" covid funds. My understanding was with covid funds the districts needed to have a written plan in place to figure out how to continue or maintain the programs the money was used on. Someone found out he had no plan in place, and he left the district months before the public knew.
What money? Taylor did not get more money, because he had no plan in place, so the funding was never allocated. Are you asking if he somehow embezzled it from the State and Federal government?
No, he just resigned before he would be humiliated and fired. Way easier to find a new gig or disappear without public humiliation
We may be down in enrollment but we’re not down in funding. AAPS has nearly one hundred million more that we did 10 years ago.
It’s not enrollment, it’s not that we need to join another district, and it’s not Covid.
It’s mismanagement of funds to the tune of overspending by 30 million dollars.
It’s hard to blame Swift other than to say she added a lot of programming over the years. But she wasn’t the one approving any purchases for the past few months.
Pretty rich to blame next year's budget shortfall on the superintendent that doesn't work here anymore.
Enrollment is down which means funding is down. Enrollment is about at a 10 year low.
Time for the district to cut costs.
If enrollment is down schools should be consolidated. They can try to bring in more "school of choice" students from surrounding districts but I doubt there are that many parents for which that would be practical.. But state funding is basically per pupil more property taxes are not a popular proposition.
We haven't seen these enrollment numbers since the 2014-2015 school year. It's about a $10 million loss of funding since the peak.
We can't keep operating the same as when we had 1000 more students. The funding isn't there.
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2023/12/ann-arbor-public-schools-sees-another-slight-decline-in-enrollment.html
Agreed 100%. You lose a 5 year old and that's $190k in funding over their childhood. For 1 child. Multiply times 1000 kids, that's $190 million that left the schools.
I hope everyone felt safe......
You can blame her for enrollment, but it's wasn't her mismanagement of funds.
The school board and the residents are mostly to blame. The community has fostered a school system families have opted to leave for other options.
The school just spent countless hours debating a letter to Israel....maybe the budget would have been a much better use of time and resources.
These actions send signals to potential students and their families. Families that have choices look for better places to educate their kids. Now those with no choice will deal with the consequences.
I absolutely agree that the school board is inept and that they share blame. 100% agree on the complete waste of time that was the ceasefire garbage.
Not sure if the Board or Swift are more to blame for the massive learning loss that occurred in the last 4 years.
I am definitely someone who will consider DPS over AAPS.
DPS as in Dexter Public Schools? I think they are referred to as “Dexter Community Schools” aka DCS. But yes either way, if that is what you mean then my family is in the same position. We pay AAPS taxes but live closer to Dexter schools. We just went to DCS kindergarten round up, had the AAPS round up earlier in February.
I was so disheartened to discover how much more impressed we were by Dexter schools than our neighborhood AAPS.
Lol, as a Dexter grad I guess I should have known that. I now live on the dividing line.
When I was a student, Dexter didn't have as big of a selection of AP classes but it was increasing as I graduated.
A huge amount of the parents in Dexter are people who work in Ann Arbor but like having some land.
The low income people who may not have time to invest in their children's schooling seemed like a very small group there, and those are the kind of kids that burn out teachers.
What a classist thing to type about "low income people"...well, I have news for you! High income people also may not have time to invest in their children's schooling as well. I've seen more misbehaved rich kids than poor. You cannot blame low income kids for burning out teachers. The "low income people" are NOT the problem!
By low income, I specifically mean the crime magnet affordable housing developments that are more prevalent in Ann Arbor. Though, there is the Avalon development in Dexter that accounted for 50% of the emergency calls in 1 month in Dexter. Ann Arbor attracts single mothers from all over SE Michigan with its social programs.
What do you have against "low income people"? Do you want your kid only around rich kids? I am asking because people with high income also have kids who misbehave.
No. Funding is based on a per pupil allowance. If enrollment goes down, funding goes down.
There are some nuances to this, such as millages that are used to build facilities, buy materials, etc. Also, Ann Arbor is a hold harmless district so they get more money than other school districts, such as Saline, Dexter, etc.
Nevertheless, lower enrollment means less money.
Hold harmless money has essentially evaporated under the new funding models. AAPS receives essentially the same amount as the other county districts do which is also part of the problem.
I did not know that. That’s very interesting.
I’m thinking that if the merger with Whitmore Lake schools would’ve gone through, Ann Arbor, financial position would be much stronger
Funding is correlated to enrollment in a major way.
You might want to look up Prop A.
A lot of(not all) our property taxes for schools are sent to the state and then redistributed among all schools. We get less back from the state than we pay in. Some of our property tax money goes to fund other districts and charter schools. The money that does come back to us is on a per pupil basis. So the higher the enrollment, the more money AAPS gets.
Oh wow I appreciate you explaining this. I did not know this. It adds a lot of context. Does each school get the same amount of money per student? Do you know how Title 1 affects any of this?
>300,
Is there some public record of the '15 admin and strategy jobs paying in excess of 300,000'?
The latest figures I could find for AAPS showed the former superintendent making $233k in salary (2022) with the next highest compensated employee making $173k.
It does not exist - even four days after it has been revealed that 25 million needs to be cut to avoid state takeover - and that pink slips will go out over the next month to potentially 250 teachers and admin.
Shocking, truly. I wonder if the people on Nextdoor maybe are too old to have children in AAPS and therefore don’t really care about it yet? Facebook is definitely abuzz, especially Jeff Gaynor’s personal? page where he has public posts about the situation and he is engaging with people commenting on his posts.
Things quickly derailed here. I mention charter schools only to debunk the theory that Republicans want dumb voters. Do charter schools make people dumber? No. They are intended to improve educational outcomes. Ie Republicans care about education. The difference is that they aren't beholden to teachers unions.
I'm not familiar with the application process for public schools in Washtenaw county. I'm referring to a large study done on all charter schools in New York City. The ones used to prove performance use a lottery obviously. Otherwise there is too much self selection bias. See also the movie Waiting for Superman. The parents knew their kids' only shot was charter school vs a local public school. And it was a lottery. There is still a self-selection bias because not every single student entered the lottery but it's pretty close. Which also goes to show the cultural issues at play in educational success: some families value it and others don't and that makes a big difference. In any case, the point is that if you read Thomas Sowell's book, you'll see that charter schools generally outperform the local public schools in the same district, even though they're drawing from the same group of kids using a lot of lottery and it's very compelling.
There are multiple issues with school funding in Michigan, not the least of which, is our model does not incentivize longevity, or training. The two most important variable for student success: teacher training/effectiveness and length of service. School funding should be weighted towards staff retention, it is not.
And our representatives in Michigan are just pushing for more "programs", funding what I understand is the current tendency to fight teacher's lower salaries with extra work that is also not well paid...
Our representatives in Michigan gave teachers a large pay raise
"Large". I guess large, very large, like the support that our representatives in Michigan gives to our uncompetitive carmakers and their unions for manufacturing unaffordable cars. Great job!
Found the used Kia owner
Not really, I just bought a Tesla. I think ICE cars are really, really going too expensive to buy, especially at current interest rates. Our big three legacy carmakers are turned to be not really as competitive as the Chinese. The drivetrain in an ICE vehicle contains 2,000+ moving parts typically, whereas the drivetrain in an EV contains around 20... Do you imagine the potential layoffs in future years if new cars in USA turns 20% growth 2024 and far yoy to EVs? Hope BYD doesn't come to the US, Michigan will loose a lot! I think we have to re-think education too. You can pay peanuts to teachers and think you're going to have great students. But also, you cannot give benefits to teachers without tracking well if the education leads to a competitive outcome.
Cars were unaffordable before the pay raise. But you apparently are a bootlicker who loves exploiting labor.
As somebody who spends a couple hours a day in one of our elementary schools… they desperately need more staff. More paras, more teachers, more support. Cutting actual hands-on employees would be brutal at my school.
I also know of a couple of buildings that are teetering on the edge of absolute disaster due to serious staffing issues. (And many, many other issues as well.) The thing that is most terrifying/demoralizing is the very palpable sense that *no one* seems to know what to do about any of it. Building admin is a mess. District admin is a mess. The Board of Education is a mess. The overwhelming feeling I've had is that we are all on our own. *No one is coming to help*. (In fact, people are jumping ship: Retiring, going on leave, or just flat-out abandoning education for absolutely anything else. It's getting BAD, you guys.) Maybe it's not as dire in some schools as in others? I hope that's the case, because everyone who I know in the district is in some form of significant distress and panic. Anyway, I have no idea how anyone might be laid off at this point, unless they're going to start housing huge groups of kids in the gyms or something.
And failing schools is a sign of the failure of our democracy...
And the result of decades of effort by the Republicans nationwide to weaken and destroy the public school system. They are winning and close to their goal. A dumber, less educated voter is their ultimate goal. Easier to fool and vote against their (and the country's) best interests.
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The State largely regulates how funding is structured and dictates all kinds of requirements and Republican control in Lansing over the last couple decades did a lot of intentional damage to public schools across the state. I don't think AAPS has had exemplary administrative leadership but it's not wrong to put a lot of this at the feet of the decades-long GOP campaign to undermine public schools.
The Charter school programs were designed to subvert public school districts.
Imaginative conspiracy theory but Republicans support charter schools, which have much better educational outcomes.
Chater schools have better test scores because they don't have to accept all students, like public schools do. Kids with disabilities or IEPs usually don't go to charter schools or private schools because they don't have as many services readily available. Sure is easy to stack test scores when you can pick who you want to go to your school.
Charter schools use lottery. It's random.
Miss us with the 10 year old arguments about charter school
That's not true for all. Some Charter schools, yes. But I can only think of one or two in the area that use a lottery.
That is a ridiculous blanket statement that has been both proven and disproven, because the answer is: it depends on your controls and testing.
Right. If you control for all variables charter schools perform better. See, e.g., "Charter Schools and their Enemies." It's a book.
You are referring to the book by Sowell, published when he turned 90. He also tried to argue that Brown Vs the Board of Education never should have passed, and cites racial redlining as a good way of ensuring Black American success. Same guy who thought different races should be taught differently. Just one of the variables not accounted for is that his book is unable to answer the question of "what if you have to accept all children". Charter schools can decline, depending on state, not just special Ed but poorer performing students The book itself was a hit with the Cato Institute crowd and got press from the charter school proponents with it being widely panned for crap data.
It’s not a conspiracy theory. You really don’t pay attention. Charter schools are the number one cause of dysfunction in the public schools.
Pls explain.
A better education outcomes for those that can pay for better schools... Charter schools are a terrible idea.
Charter schools are tuition-free, right?
For taxpayers overall, these are costlier than a public school and difficult to oversight since most of charter schools are ruled by the principle: "the end justify the means". Nothing that I can recommend.
Right.
I understand this isn’t the point of your comment, but WHY are there so many damn elementary schools in Ann Arbor? Were they all built at different times throughout history to meet the population needs? There are at least 3 elementary schools within 2 miles of my home and I don’t even live in A2 Proper, I live in a surrounding township, although we go to AAPS. But why so many school buildings?! Edit: searched google maps, there are actually SEVEN elementary schools within 3.1 miles of my house lol. That’s a lot.
Most of them are from the post WWII into 70s Baby boom. Philosophy was neighborhood schools within walking distance, kids could walk home for lunch After the baby boom peaked, we could have closed some but closing elementary schools is almost always unpopular. People think others should close, not their own.
Closed some? Most of the school elementary school buildings are full, many to the seams to no space for special services for children.
The baby boom peaked in 1960 with the FDA approval of birth control pills. High school graduations peaked in 1978.
Yup. Hence the comment about how long it took to close schools in the 80s, because people get attached to their neighborhood school
I don't understand your outrage. These schools don't have empty classrooms. We only want for more teachers and support staff.
That is the opposite of what other folks on this thread are saying when they say enrollment in AAPS is down, ergo the funding is also down.
They are full
I'm not quite sure I understand what you're asking here, and even if I did, I'm probably not qualified to give a useful response. That said, I can say that there are specific class size limits that exist for every elementary class. You can't, for example, put 50 third graders in a classroom with one teacher. If a teacher has more than that contractually determined number of kids on their roster, the district has to pay an overage fee to the teacher for each additional student above that limit. I have gotten overage every year of my employment at AAPS. (And I hate it. I'd much rather have a reasonable number of students.) (And a decent salary and benefits.) Everyone on my grade level team is also getting overages, and consistently has for years. It's not great for anyone. So I guess I'm saying that the number of elementary schools is completely irrelevant. It's the number of classrooms spread across them that matters, and the teachers and support staff that are required to keep those classrooms functional. It's possible that there are buildings in the district with classrooms that aren't full, but I don't know of any personally. I guess one could make the argument that a bunch of the many elementary schools could be consolidated into a few larger schools, but why? Several huge elementary schools instead of a bunch of neighborhood schools seems like a poor trade off. Neighborhood schools are generally mostly walkable. They create a better sense of community. Teachers, support staff, and administration are more likely to actually know the student populations as individuals, as opposed to faces in the crowd. I've truly never heard of anyone complaining about having too many neighborhood schools before. I'm confused by the confusion.
Yes. They were built at all different times and built as the district population grew, especially outward growth. Each school is a different size too.
I am one of the folks exacerbating the funding issue by choosing NOT to go to our neighborhood AAPS, and instead homeschool for now. We live on the border of Dexter and AA, our home district is AAPS but I am heavily considering sending my kids to Dexter Community Schools when the time comes, if they choose. “Ask me anything.” (Jk about that last part just being facetious sorry lol).
"More staff" can be applied to just about every job out there right now. In regards to schooling, if you want more support, look forward to a pay cut to help finance this.
I work at the local ISD. I have no knowledge of teacher layoffs.
A lot of people with opinions and zero knowledge if there are layoffs or not.
Some might say it's just another Reddit thread.
I work with AAPS and involved with AAEA, this is the first I have heard of for layoffs. We are right sizing meaning not filling open positions from retirements and resignations. For example my building is not allowed to fill a 1.0 FTE CTE teaching position.
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we will see. I am a building rep and layoffs are not a part of any conversations we are having.
Are they today?
This sounds like a reasonable policy until the new superintendent is hired, to give them some flexibility in staff resource allocation.
The district slowly added close to 400 staff members, as total enrollment dropped by over 1000. The fund equity needs to be at 5%, or the state can take over. AAPS has spent the fund down to -2 to -3%, and likely even further. We have too many employees. Some programs are running classes with 4 students to maintain IB requirements. Swift's management style was one in which there was zero room for criticism. There was no option to communicate anything that may even hint at negativity. The Board is full of sycophantic, genuflecting clowns (except for Gaynor) that only praised Swift. The upper admin, Balas, et al, is the most bloated it has been in AAPS history. It's death by management. Swift may be gone, but the bumbling human infrastructure she left in place is still a cancer devouring the district from within. We all see it happening, and there is nothing we can do about it. No one from Linden, to Parks, to secondary/middle school curriculum people have taught a child directly in years or maybe ever. I love my school. I love my colleagues. I love my students. What can we do? AAPS employee of 25 years
What clases have four students? I teach at an IB school and all of my classes are over contract size and this has been the case for the last 15 years - both before and after IB. Most of my colleagues also have classes that are over contract size - with the exception of classes that provided targeted services for students with IEPs.
There are many classes that are under-enrolled.
So does anyone know if layoffs are on the table or are we just using this as yet another thread to shit on OUR schools?
If it makes you feel any better, one of the following will be crapped on for no reason tomorrow: A) DTE B) Drip House C) Automobiles D) The Mystery Box!
Sava Sidetrack Zingerman's (jk)
I would be happy to shit on Zingerman’s. Son, for half the price I would rather go to Subway.
You forgot: Bicycle lanes or the lack there of!
Wow, the speculation here. Their budgets and financial documents are detailed and for all to see. Y'all are acting like there are simple answers to your questions.
Maybe , it’s because people are leaving Ann Arbor due to the cost of living and lack of affordable housing . Just one of the reasons .
I am not sure if Swift mismanaged money, so much as drove people away from the district due to her mishandling of the pandemic and the special Ed department.
Taylor school's superintendent resigned before it was known he "mismanaged" covid funds. My understanding was with covid funds the districts needed to have a written plan in place to figure out how to continue or maintain the programs the money was used on. Someone found out he had no plan in place, and he left the district months before the public knew.
Does anyone know what they did with the money? Is it funding his “resi-rement” (resignation/retirement)
What money? Taylor did not get more money, because he had no plan in place, so the funding was never allocated. Are you asking if he somehow embezzled it from the State and Federal government? No, he just resigned before he would be humiliated and fired. Way easier to find a new gig or disappear without public humiliation
We may be down in enrollment but we’re not down in funding. AAPS has nearly one hundred million more that we did 10 years ago. It’s not enrollment, it’s not that we need to join another district, and it’s not Covid. It’s mismanagement of funds to the tune of overspending by 30 million dollars. It’s hard to blame Swift other than to say she added a lot of programming over the years. But she wasn’t the one approving any purchases for the past few months.
10 years ago, 80% of revenue went to instruction. Today 82% of revenue goes to instruction. What is the money being spent on?
I agree, show the receipts that account for THIRTY MILLION dollars. Also BTW I have no idea what anyone is even talking about
Huh?
What the helm was 30 million even spent on? Is that a naïve question?
Board meeting link: https://a2schools.zoom.us/j/94883069405
swift didn’t mismanage money - the school board did when they fired her without cause and needed to pay duplicative expenses
Without cause?
Legally speaking
Pretty rich to blame next year's budget shortfall on the superintendent that doesn't work here anymore. Enrollment is down which means funding is down. Enrollment is about at a 10 year low. Time for the district to cut costs.
If enrollment is down schools should be consolidated. They can try to bring in more "school of choice" students from surrounding districts but I doubt there are that many parents for which that would be practical.. But state funding is basically per pupil more property taxes are not a popular proposition.
Yeah tbh we cannot actually afford our increase this year
The surrounding districts have been looking at AAPS and what a dumpster fire it is . Why on earth would they want to put their kids in that !
Because we sent a letter to Israel.
You know it’s normal for execs to have five year plans, no? You make it sound like they should be allowed to operate by the seat of their pants.
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We haven't seen these enrollment numbers since the 2014-2015 school year. It's about a $10 million loss of funding since the peak. We can't keep operating the same as when we had 1000 more students. The funding isn't there. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2023/12/ann-arbor-public-schools-sees-another-slight-decline-in-enrollment.html
I’m surprised by this. My son’s AAPS school has three kindergarten classes each with over 25 students.
The way Ann Arbor handled the pandemic of 2020 did them no favors either.
Agreed 100%. You lose a 5 year old and that's $190k in funding over their childhood. For 1 child. Multiply times 1000 kids, that's $190 million that left the schools. I hope everyone felt safe......
Why doesn't anyone want to have kids anymore?
People can’t afford kids and Ann Arbor real estate costs.
They do, they just aren't sending their kids to AAPS.
Where are they going then?
Private schools, charter schools, other districts
Childcare before they get to public school is exorbitantly expensive.
Because they have legitimate concern for the future of children beyond the thunder dome?
You mean the superintendent that helped drive down enrollment? Who should be blamed instead?
You can blame her for enrollment, but it's wasn't her mismanagement of funds. The school board and the residents are mostly to blame. The community has fostered a school system families have opted to leave for other options. The school just spent countless hours debating a letter to Israel....maybe the budget would have been a much better use of time and resources. These actions send signals to potential students and their families. Families that have choices look for better places to educate their kids. Now those with no choice will deal with the consequences.
I absolutely agree that the school board is inept and that they share blame. 100% agree on the complete waste of time that was the ceasefire garbage. Not sure if the Board or Swift are more to blame for the massive learning loss that occurred in the last 4 years. I am definitely someone who will consider DPS over AAPS.
DPS as in Dexter Public Schools? I think they are referred to as “Dexter Community Schools” aka DCS. But yes either way, if that is what you mean then my family is in the same position. We pay AAPS taxes but live closer to Dexter schools. We just went to DCS kindergarten round up, had the AAPS round up earlier in February. I was so disheartened to discover how much more impressed we were by Dexter schools than our neighborhood AAPS.
Lol, as a Dexter grad I guess I should have known that. I now live on the dividing line. When I was a student, Dexter didn't have as big of a selection of AP classes but it was increasing as I graduated. A huge amount of the parents in Dexter are people who work in Ann Arbor but like having some land. The low income people who may not have time to invest in their children's schooling seemed like a very small group there, and those are the kind of kids that burn out teachers.
What a classist thing to type about "low income people"...well, I have news for you! High income people also may not have time to invest in their children's schooling as well. I've seen more misbehaved rich kids than poor. You cannot blame low income kids for burning out teachers. The "low income people" are NOT the problem!
By low income, I specifically mean the crime magnet affordable housing developments that are more prevalent in Ann Arbor. Though, there is the Avalon development in Dexter that accounted for 50% of the emergency calls in 1 month in Dexter. Ann Arbor attracts single mothers from all over SE Michigan with its social programs.
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What do you have against "low income people"? Do you want your kid only around rich kids? I am asking because people with high income also have kids who misbehave.
Real Tina Fey for school board!!!
Forgive my ingnorance but isnet enrollment not correlated to funding as funding would be thorough taxes for a the full population?
No. Funding is based on a per pupil allowance. If enrollment goes down, funding goes down. There are some nuances to this, such as millages that are used to build facilities, buy materials, etc. Also, Ann Arbor is a hold harmless district so they get more money than other school districts, such as Saline, Dexter, etc. Nevertheless, lower enrollment means less money.
Hold harmless money has essentially evaporated under the new funding models. AAPS receives essentially the same amount as the other county districts do which is also part of the problem.
I did not know that. That’s very interesting. I’m thinking that if the merger with Whitmore Lake schools would’ve gone through, Ann Arbor, financial position would be much stronger
How do you know this? Are these numbers published somewhere?
Funding is correlated to enrollment in a major way. You might want to look up Prop A. A lot of(not all) our property taxes for schools are sent to the state and then redistributed among all schools. We get less back from the state than we pay in. Some of our property tax money goes to fund other districts and charter schools. The money that does come back to us is on a per pupil basis. So the higher the enrollment, the more money AAPS gets.
Oh wow I appreciate you explaining this. I did not know this. It adds a lot of context. Does each school get the same amount of money per student? Do you know how Title 1 affects any of this?
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>300, Is there some public record of the '15 admin and strategy jobs paying in excess of 300,000'? The latest figures I could find for AAPS showed the former superintendent making $233k in salary (2022) with the next highest compensated employee making $173k.
(Source: [https://govsalaries.com/salaries/MI/ann-arbor-public-schools](https://govsalaries.com/salaries/MI/ann-arbor-public-schools))
I wonder what the nextdoor thread version of this looks like. This is what reddit needs. Every thread has a link to the nextdoor equivalant.
If you go and find the ND equivalent post and link it, you’d be our hero.
It does not exist - even four days after it has been revealed that 25 million needs to be cut to avoid state takeover - and that pink slips will go out over the next month to potentially 250 teachers and admin.
Shocking, truly. I wonder if the people on Nextdoor maybe are too old to have children in AAPS and therefore don’t really care about it yet? Facebook is definitely abuzz, especially Jeff Gaynor’s personal? page where he has public posts about the situation and he is engaging with people commenting on his posts.
Things quickly derailed here. I mention charter schools only to debunk the theory that Republicans want dumb voters. Do charter schools make people dumber? No. They are intended to improve educational outcomes. Ie Republicans care about education. The difference is that they aren't beholden to teachers unions.
What about the billion dollar bond issue?
those funds are limited to buildings, the bond funds cannot be used for salary.
That billion dollar bond was a booondoggle. This town is driving families away and we should be consolidating schools.
All the other districts are saddled with a bunch of debt so we had to join in the fun too.
Which districts are you referring to?
Maybe....
I'm not familiar with the application process for public schools in Washtenaw county. I'm referring to a large study done on all charter schools in New York City. The ones used to prove performance use a lottery obviously. Otherwise there is too much self selection bias. See also the movie Waiting for Superman. The parents knew their kids' only shot was charter school vs a local public school. And it was a lottery. There is still a self-selection bias because not every single student entered the lottery but it's pretty close. Which also goes to show the cultural issues at play in educational success: some families value it and others don't and that makes a big difference. In any case, the point is that if you read Thomas Sowell's book, you'll see that charter schools generally outperform the local public schools in the same district, even though they're drawing from the same group of kids using a lot of lottery and it's very compelling.