Special Education Resources

The New York Times has had a series of articles related to how parents can access necessary special education resources for children who need them.

What to Do if You Suspect Learning Disability
Excerpt: If your child is having difficulty in school, don’t delay in arranging a meeting with your child’s teacher and the school principal. At this meeting, explain your concerns about your child’s uneven academic performance. ...If the school seems to be dragging its feet, make a written request to the school’s director of special education saying that you would like a comprehensive assessment. And provide reasonable evidence to support your request.

Resources for Parents of Students with Learning Disabilities
Excerpt: A directory of the [state parent information] centers is on the Technical Assistance Alliance for Parent Centers’ Web site. The staff at these federally financed programs can help parents navigate the entire special ed process. More specifics of the law are at wrightslaw.com.

Nudging Schools to Help Students with Learning Disabilities
Excerpt: More than 6 percent of school-age children — almost three million students — are receiving special education services because of learning disabilities, according to the Learning Disabilities Association of America. The cost of such special services can easily total thousands of dollars a year per child. But the Learning Disabilities Association suggests that when learning disabilities are left untreated, the overall cost to society may be far higher.

Privatization, Take II: The Bids Are In

Well, AAPS has received the transportation and custodial privatization bids. You can read a summary of the board discussion on annarbor.com here. Surprise, surprise--rather than having the board talk about what they think of the bids (or about privatization in general) in public, which is what Susan Baskett wanted to do (thank you, Susan!) the board president wants to do that in closed session.

Also no surprise--the savings basically come from the fact that, although wages and benefits were supposed to be comparable, there would be no retirement funds for those staff.

Steve Norton from Michigan Parents for Schools (MIPFS) writes very cogently in the comments of the annarbor.com article:

Not quite spelled out in the story is the fact that, while the base bids were required to offer current employees the same pay and "comparable" medical benefits, the district has not completed a review to see if the health benefits are truly "comparable." The presentation on custodial and maintenance privatization made it clear that bidders were including benefits packages that had a huge range of costs - these can't all be comparable. The bidders' costs minus benefits were quite similar. Unfortunately, the current AAPS costs were not broken out into benefits vs. other costs, so it was hard to compare the bids to our current costs.

I, too, hear a lot of anger at unions - and also some unfortunate disdain for custodians and bus drivers, the blue collar workers in our district. Remember that our kids are not encapsulated in classrooms, and that the educational experience has to be put together by a large team, which is not limited to teachers.

Moreover, unions are not the main problem here. Nearly all the savings in the base bids comes from moving these employees out of the state retirement system (MPSERS). Mandatory contributions to that system currently stand at 17%, and are set to climb. These are the district's costs; employees must also contribute.

MPSERS is administered by the state under rules set by the state legislature....
Employees who are not close enough to "buy" enough years to vest in the system will lose everything if privatized. MPSERS benefits are not portable if you leave public school employment. (Emphases added.)

So, there you have it. I don't think I could have said it better myself.
Except for the why: WHY does anyone think it is ok to take away retirement benefits from some of the lowest-paid staff in the district? I don't think that is okay.
Michigan Parents for Schools can be found at mipfs.org, and is an organization for parents concerned about the future of our public schools and working for a better way to fund education.
 
One more thing: did you know that you can write to the entire Board of Education, in one fell swoop, by sending an email to boe@aaps.k12.mi.us? (When I did this, I only heard back from one board member--the secretary--who assured me that everyone else is reading my email--I have no confirmation of that, but I sure hope he is correct!)

Looking for Best Practice Models: Michigan Parks Planning

It shouldn't surprise anyone that our state parks are facing many of the same challenges as our state schools--limited funding, concerns about infrastructure--at the same time that they are, in fact, some of our greatest assets (as are our kids). After all, If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.

Ron Olson, the person currently in charge of Michigan state parks (whom I mention by name because he was formerly in charge of Ann Arbor's parks), Michigan state parks staff, and the Citizen's Committee for State Parks, together decided to examine funding models from other states and identify the best models. They did. They actually found a model that a) appears to be more stable, b) would keep funding separate from the general fund, c) was voluntary, and d) had bipartisan support. 

You would think that would make it a slam dunk, but no. It got tangled up in the idea that the state needs a comprehensive budget solution. Instead, the state parks, and all of us who live in the state, are left Waiting for Godot.

In any case: kudos to the state parks staff and volunteers who did the legwork. When people ask me, what should we tell the state government we want done around funding schools, my partial answer is: let's do exactly what the state parks people did. Let's start by looking at funding models and education outcomes in other states. Let's find the best practices. I think, but I'm not sure, that they will be found in the mid-Atlantic or northeast states (that is where the best outcomes can be found). And I could be surprised. Guess where the parks model came from?

Montana.

Trimesters: Can We End the Experiment Now?

With a child at Skyline, I've now had nearly two years "trying out" the trimester system. I also have experience with block scheduling (the way Community High does it, which is essentially a semester system with every class three times a week) and with a traditional schedule (7 classes a day, every day). In Ann Arbor, currently, Skyline has a trimester system; Pioneer and Huron have a traditional semester schedule; and Community High has a semester-long block schedule.

It seems to me that we sometimes have a herd mentality in education. And so it goes in Washtenaw County, where a majority of high schools have switched over to the trimester--pushed, primarily, by the algebra problem and new state standards I describe here. (The state standards, by the way, are also proof of that herd mentality, as is high-stakes testing.)

So, I've tried the trimester, and here are its good points:
*There are only five classes in any day, so there is less homework due each day. [This is even better in an alternate-day block scheduling program, however, with homework only due every other day.]
*The length of the class is slightly longer, making it slightly more likely that teachers will use interactive teaching methods. [Some do, some don't.]
*If you don't like a class, it will be over in just a few short weeks.
*The schedule could be organized (at Skyline it is for science, but no other subjects) so that you essentially cover three years of a subject in two years.

Down sides:
*For languages, and for math if you are in a two-trimester level, you could go 8 months between levels. Yes, that's right--you could finish two trimesters of Spanish 1 in the middle of March, and not start Spanish 2 until the end of November the next year.
*The classes are slightly longer, but not all that much longer for project-based learning.
*Some subjects may move too quickly--for instance, AP classes are often set up with two trimesters of the class, and then a third trimester for review--which therefore takes up additional electives. So in fact, the same AP class that at Pioneer would take up 2 classes, ends up taking 3 at Skyline.
*It seems relatively likely that a student can end up with 5 academic classes in any given trimester, and no non-academic electives (i.e. art, personal fitness).
*Fitting in classes that really should go year-round--like orchestra--take up extra elective space. This is actually a disincentive to these classes. My child is not the only one who declined to sign up for band because it would take up three elective periods.
*It seems to me that it makes scheduling slightly more difficult, and it makes it slightly less likely that you won't have the same teacher for the next class in the sequence. (Of course, if you didn't like the teacher, that could be a good thing.)
*In the AAPS system, it makes it really difficult for students to dual enroll at Community High School because the hours do not match, and the terms do not match.

At the budget forum, I asked if the trimester system cost more (it seems like, with 15 classes available vs. 14 at the other schools, it should)--and the staff person at my table didn't know the answer. I still don't know the answer.

In any case, even if it doesn't cost more, it seems that if the schools had matching schedules, it would be possible to do more integrated/dual enrollment (once the schools are at their planned sizes). For instance, if a student wanted to take Chinese, and it is only offered at Skyline, maybe a Pioneer student could "dual enroll" and take afternoon classes at Skyline. Perhaps the only time for dual enrollment "switches" would be at lunchtime.

My first choice would be for all of the schools to be on the same block schedule that Community has. My second choice would be for all of the schools to be on a traditional semester system.
Can we end the experiment?

Trimesters and Algebra

New state standards have pushed many districts into a trimester system. (The majority of Washtenaw County districts have switched over. In Ann Arbor, only Skyline has switched.) A key section of the new standards focuses on ensuring that all kids have more math.
According to the new curriculum law:

Students must complete at least Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, or an integrated sequence of this course content that consists of 3 credits, and an additional mathematics credit, such as Trigonometry, Statistics, Pre-calculus, Calculus, Applied Math, Accounting, Business Math, or a retake of Algebra II. Each pupil must successfully complete at least 1 mathematics course during his or her final year of high school enrollment. (Emphasis added.)

Math, you might say, is frequently privileged in schools. It is the driving force in Ann Arbor in middle school scheduling (your math class often determines most of your other classes). Want to see the achievement gap in action? See who is placed in which math classes in eighth grade.

And now it is the driving force in high school as well. Since math is often the subject that students have trouble with, one idea was that you could teach a standard year of math in two trimesters, and if a student was having trouble, they could repeat a class in a third trimester. And--since with trimesters there are 15 classes in the year (3 trimesters x 5 classes) instead of 14 with the semester system (2x7), this wouldn't disadvantage kids who were having trouble with math. At the same time, kids who didn't have trouble with math would get an extra elective. Prior to these standards, many (many!) kids did not take Algebra II.

At least at Skyline, that experiment has been less than successful. So many kids were having difficulty learning the math in two trimesters, in the school's second year they changed the "standard" math option to a three trimester option.

Today in my inbox, I got a link from Education Week that says that the Algebra-For-All Push Is Yielding Poor Results.

This is really a very interesting article, with a summary of a lot of different research studies, and I encourage you to read it (you might need to register at the site).  Some of the salient points:
*Misclassification of kids matters (who goes in which class)
*When you eliminate tracking, the top students don't learn as much
*However, the bottom students seem to learn more
*Simply taking algebra doesn't seem to affect the likelihood of attending college (and that is a very complicated issue--I'm sure there are lots of confounding factors there).

Side note: Is college the desired outcome here? Or learning math?

Obviously, learning math is important, but it's often not clear why, as I discuss here.
It's not just about math, though. I think we also need to ask whether the trimester system works.

It Makes Me Appreciate James Hawkins

The times they are a'changing. Last year, Ypsilanti Public Schools Superintendent James Hawkins retired (for the second time), and now there are thunderstorms brewing.

Superintendent Hawkins had a lot of experience with the district, and while I'm sure nobody would say he was perfect, he did manage to facilitate the closing of two schools without a whole lot of fuss, and he did get a great deal of cooperation from the staff.

This year, YPSD has a new superintendent, Dedrick Martin, who got a big increase in salary compared to the last superintendent. This, I should point out, is not his fault. The school board negotiated his salary. Nonetheless, it doesn't sit well with teachers who have been asked to take pay cuts, and while the district is considering closing two more schools--along with a major reorganization of the schools.

It's not like I get a vote or anything, but if they do reorganize grades, I think they are likely to lose more families than they would if they can manage not to reorganize grades. The reorganization, though, I think is largely a way to reduce teachers.

YPSD-related people (students, staff, parents, district residents), you can take the district survey here. [I didn't take the survey, but I did look at it, and the choices are depressing--would you rather increase class size by x, or cut all non-mandated transporation? Etcetera.]

Read also these updates:

AnnArbor.com reports this description of school closing options.
Opposition to the school closings is increasing. Read about Save Ypsi Schools here.
And WEMU reports on the trouble brewing between the district and the teachers union.
Did I mention that Dedrick Martin is completely new to the district? And that the assistant superintendent, who was a finalist for the superintendent job, is interviewing for other positions?

Oy.

Count Day, Round Two

As soon as I heard that today was supposed to be Count Day, I knew that all of the county schools would close. How could they risk kids not making it into school because of snow when the stakes are so high?

So: Thinking out loud here...There are a lot of problems with being so reliant on per-pupil funding, but it seems that a few modifications in the weighting of count day could make a difference for schools, particularly as far as planning goes. For instance, what if the per-pupil funding was an average of the last three years' counts.

So, if a district had 1000 students in year 1, 950 students in year 2, they would be able to do the math and whether their per-pupil count in year 3 was 900 students or 1000 students, it wouldn't make that much difference. Even though some districts might lose slightly if their numbers went up, the majority of districts in the state are losing kids every year. And stability leads to better planning. I certainly see a lot of panic and poor planning on the part of school districts in the county, but I'm not primarily blaming them--school starts in September, and in January (the January after the September, not before the September) they get a final per-pupil funding number. How can districts plan that way?

Bo

Based on the title, you might think this post is about Bo Schembechler, former University of Michigan football coach.
Sorry, no. This post is about Bo, an ancient language from India's Andaman Islands. Unfortunately, the last native speaker of Bo just died recently. (If you click on the link and scroll down, you can listen to a recording of Boa Sr speaking the language Bo.) You can read more about endangered languages here and here.
My grandparents, who grew up in Europe and immigrated to the United States, spoke at least four or five languages. Living where they did, where the land changed hands between countries fairly frequently, and where different ethnic groups lived close to each other, that was a necessity. Here in the U.S., there is a tendency to see people as geniuses if they even speak one language other than English fairly well.
The main Ann Arbor high schools teach three Romance languages: Spanish, French, and Latin; and one Germanic language, German (plus English, which is also a Germanic language). And at Skyline now they are teaching Chinese. I have felt it is too little. Why isn't the rest of the world represented?
I just got a glimpse of the Skyline class scheduling options for next year. All of the AAPS high schools are now offering the possibility of taking online classes in Math (algebra, geometry) and English (ninth grade and tenth grade English).
So here is what I don't understand. If we are offering online classes for subjects where we already have perfectly good local teachers, why on earth can't we offer online classes for languages where we don't already have local teachers? Why can't we offer Arabic, Japanese, Hindu, and even Ojibway on line? Isn't that the point of this kind of technology?

The Long Winter

I read on a different blog (one complaining about the winter in Baltimore, ha ha--they think they are having a long winter?) that Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday was February 7th. Laura Ingalls Wilder has a special place in my heart. Little House in the Big Woods was the first "really long" book that I read growing up. I was seven. I read it for three days straight, and when I finished I was very proud of myself.

I really wanted to meet Laura (the author), and I used think, well she died in 1957, and I was born in the 1960s, so if she had lived just a little bit longer, or I had been born a little bit earlier, we might have overlapped! Close--but no cigar. (Laura Ingalls Wilder actually lived just past her 90th birthday.)

We think of these books as memoir/autobiography, but in reality they are fiction. Which is to say that, although the bones of the story are likely true, they were likely embellished. Which is perhaps a good thing, when it comes to the book The Long Winter.  I've lived in South Dakota in the winter, and I am quite sure that the winter she writes about was long! (And they didn't have central heat, either.) But my friend pointed out to me a couple of years ago that (despite the fun depicted in the cover illustration) The Long Winter is essentially a tale of near-starvation. I went back to the story and re-read it, and when read that way, it is breathtakingly scary.

Update: I just took a look at the Wikipedia entry for The Long Winter (should have done that first!) and it says:

The Long Winter runs from the fall of 1880 to the spring of 1881; a season of such frequent blizzards that it went down in history as "The Snow Winter"^[1]. Accurate details in Wilder's novel include the names of the townspeople (with only minor exceptions), the length of the winter, the Chicago and North Western Railway closing down business until the Spring thaw, the near-starvation of the townspeople, the severe cold, the terrible danger of getting caught in a blizzard, and the courage of Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland, who ventured out on the open prairie in search of a cache of wheat that no one was even sure existed.

The fictionalized material includes the "Indian warning" in an early chapter and the nonstop procession of blizzards lasting on average three days each, with only two to two-and-a-half days between them from late October until early April. 

Commentary by District--Including the WISD!

Listed in order of school district

Ann Arbor
Adam Hollier, AAPS school board member (the one who tried to withdraw, got elected anyway, so therefore decided to serve) has now decided to step down. I guess his first instincts were the best ones.  You can apply to be on the AAPS school board. There were a lot of good candidates when Simone Lightfoot was chosen just a couple of months ago. Perhaps some of them will apply? It's an interesting question to me--why do we get more candidates for a nominations process where you (as candidate) can't control the outcome, than we did for the school board elections, where presumably you can influence some votes? Do you think it's the process, or just the timing of this set of nominations? The deadline for applications is February 19th at 4 p.m.
The first round of Space Available In-District Transfer Applications (could we possibly pick a more understandable name????) runs February 1-26. Basically, say that you live in one part of the AAPS district and you decide you would prefer to be at another school, if it is on the list, you can apply and if space is available, you can switch schools. There are lots of reasons people choose to switch, including the fact that some of the child care programs have better space than others, and some of the schools have different atmospheres. The good news: ten elementary schools have space at all levels, and three more have space at one grade; and four out of five of the regular middle schools are on the list. The bad news: no high schools are on the list, there is a different application process for Ann Arbor Open, and yes, you need to live in the Ann Arbor School District. (Oh, yes--and the Ann Arbor Open, Community High School, and Skyline High School application processes are all going on now. Community and Skyline deadlines are this Friday, February 12th. The Ann Arbor Open deadline is sometime in March.)
Updated 2/8/10 at 10:00 a.m.: There is an excellent summary of the AAPS board meeting, including Adam Hollier's resignation and extensive public commentary, in the Ann Arbor Chronicle today.

Chelsea
A school board filing deadline is February 9th. And there was good news at the last board meeting for non-union employees. From the Chelsea Standard:

Board member Steve Olsen motioned to rescind the wage and insurance reduction imposed on non-union employees for now, given that the original decision was made based upon the expectation of a second and third cut in state funding for this school year. Killips said that as a matter of integrity, he would contact the district’s Transportation Department as well, since it had voluntarily taken a reduction in pay.

Dexter
Et tu, Brute? Dexter High School and Creekside Middle School are getting security cameras. Really? I didn't think they were necessary for Pioneer, and I certainly don't think they are necessary in Dexter. It's the kind of expense (all the security upgrades together are nearly half-a-million dollars) that makes me less willing to support school millages. It also highlights the stupidity of a system where we have money for construction and things, but no money for people. Education should be all about people.

Dexter is also having a budget meeting Monday February 8th, and studying its transportation setup and having a series of meetings this coming week about it. Read all about it here.

Lincoln
Aaaahhh, Lincoln. Lincoln Schools have taken a lot of flak for paying to be called one of the top schools in Michigan.  I understand why. They're not one of the top schools in Michigan by any measure (nor are they one of the bottom), so why make that up? On the other hand--they paid $25,000 for an ad, and if they pull in an additional 5-10 students because they get noticed, they will have made up their money. What you see in action here is the law of unintended consequences. Base school revenues solely on per-pupil counts, and you get some unfortunate decisions. This decision was not stupid if your primary goal is increasing per-pupil counts; but it looks kind of desperate. Well, that's because they are desperate.

Manchester
Manchester schools did very well in the Spring 2009 Michigan Merit Exams. Is small beautiful?

Milan
I've got nothing--is no news good news?
 

Saline
It's nice to see the front page article on the Saline web site be devoted to early intervention services in Saline. In the Superintendent's blog, Scot Graden recently wrote a post, If communication is key, who are the key communicators? Given the changing way that news gets shared, and the fact that people don't necessarily live and work in the same town anymore, it's an interesting post. BURIED in the comments is this nugget, though. (Scot Graden writing in response to a question.)

The next steps in dealing with the budget deficit for this year involve wage and benefit concessions from our administrative staff. Unfortunately, we will be recommending mid-year staff reductions as well. Both will occur at the next Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, February 9th. (Emphasis added.)

Well, as far as I'm concerned, that should have been front and center. That's what we mean when we ask for transparency.

Washtenaw ISD
Oh, and while Dexter is having transportation meetings, and Ann Arbor is busy considering privatization, the WISD is planning on consolidating transportation--lock, stock, and barrel--by the fall. Hmmm. What does that mean for all the various unions and districts? I could see it saving money in a few areas--primarily in bus maintenance. Or is it just another union-busting move? The WISD has done well with consolidating some services, but those have not involved nearly as many permanent employees. And will individual districts want to give up their buses? A lot of the sketchiness of this is due to the fact that WISD, while technically public, doesn't seem to want to be too public about anything. You won't find this on their web site. And you also won't find the different school district superintendents talking much about this publicly, even though they should be. So many thanks to David Jesse from annarbor.com for breaking this story.


Whitmore Lake
Whitmore Lake School Board is also meeting on Monday, February 8th. Kudos to Whitmore Lake for posting, on the front page of their web site, their Regular Meeting Board Book. Scroll down to find it just after the agenda for the board meeting. It looks to me like it contains the background materials that the board gets. (Correct me if I am wrong.)


Willow Run
Willow Run still has a long way to go, but they have started updating their web site. And there is a College Goal Sunday event  on Sunday, February 14, where families can get help with college financial aid forms. 

Ypsilanti
Ypsilanti is considering closing two schools (again--they closed a couple a few years ago).  And Ypsilanti parents are organizing against that idea. In the comments on Annarbor.com a while ago, Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools pointed out that the savings from closing a school can by wiped out by the kids that leave the district for other schools. In Ypsilanti, kids could go to Lincoln, Willow Run, South Lyon, Whitmore Lake, or Van Buren schools (not to mention many charters). So if closing a school saves a district $250,000, that savings could be eroded if just 35 or 40 students leave the district (which seems totally plausible). In tic tac toe, we call that a cat's game.

DESPAIR

A social worker friend of mine who works with low-income families wrote recently on Facebook,
Today was a bad day. There is so much despair out there. I think I need a new career.

Another social worker commented to her,
I know what you mean. This is the worst I've seen it in 30 years. 

And a friend who is a principal of a school in southeastern Michigan, a school with a high number of children living in poverty, told me,
The economic stresses on these families are unbelievable. Their instability in housing and jobs keeps them moving all the time. We enroll new kids in the school, and have kids leave the school, every week because of the instability.
And if a school has 30% turnover from the beginning to the end of the year, is it fair to measure kids' progress the way that we do in a school with 5% turnover?

When I was teaching, I remember kids coming up to me and saying, "There is too much chaos in my house (housing issues, immigration fears, lack of employment, etc.) and I just can't do my homework." For some kids, just making it to school is the miracle.

I know a lot of people are worried about those families. We think less often about the front-line workers--by which I mean, in this case, social workers and school staff--who confront increasing need and decreasing resources. I worry about the front-line staff. It is really hard to hear the public discussions around education and social services, to hear that teachers or social workers "get paid too much," to have pay and benefits rolled back, and not to acknowledge that it is hard to be the social worker or teacher working with the kids or families who need so much more, who deserve so much more, and who don't get what they need.

Sure, in our area there is a surfeit of teachers and social workers--so maybe they are replaceable, but is it a good thing to set up a system where teachers and social workers get burned out because there is so much need for their services and so little value placed upon them?

My friend was writing about the despair among her clients, but what I hear from her is the despair that things will get better. We alone cannot control the economy (of course, we can each do our small part), but when we value the work of front-line staff, we can improve their feelings about their work.

Googlewashing?

Over at Electric Educator (linked to on the right), blogger and teacher John Sowash had a post recently about the advantages of using iGoogle to replace school planners.

It makes me feel queasy.

Full disclosure: Blogspot (the platform for this blog) is Google-owned and yes, I have a gmail account. Sharing documents on googledocs can make life easy. I "google" questions several times a day. Google creates a lot of wonderful products.

But. Google is also a huge corporation, trading today at $531 per share.

I have no problem with individuals using Google, but that seems different to me from having teachers require students to put their work into systems that are owned by a huge, for-profit corporation. Are we in danger of Googlewashing?

What do you think? What are the benefits? What are the issues? If we had to pay for it, what would it be worth?

Let's Talk About Food And Health

David Jesse's recent article at annarbor.com about a Mitchell Elementary School program to provide weekend "food backpacks," made me think it is time to say something more about food, and health.
Different schools and school districts have different feelings about how much they should help provide a safety net for students. Some schools have stepped up to the plate--for instance, Bryant/Pattengill in Ann Arbor runs a clothes closet, and the Ypsilanti Public Schools run one for the whole district. Other schools have been reluctant to jump into providing services, because the need is so great, and they don't want to be seen as a giant social service agency.

On the other hand--kids who are hungry, cold, or sick don't do very well in school. I think that those schools that try to support students' other needs are doing the right things. But remember, knowledge is power, and a lot of people who are eligible for programs don't know they are eligible. So here are a few resources. Please share them!

1. Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program (which includes breakfast): you can register for this at any time during the school year. If, for instance, you had work at the beginning of the year and wouldn't qualify, you might find that you qualify now. Ask for an application at the front office of the school your child attends. Some schools use this as a way to identify kids who qualify for other benefits/scholarships. (I've written about school lunch here.)

2. The Food Stamp application is now online. This is new, and it is great news. Spread the word. A lot of people are surprised to find out that they qualify. If you want an estimate as to whether your family will qualify, here is the link to a food stamp calculator. And here is the link to the application.

3. Similarly, you can now enroll your kids in the MIChild/Healthy Kids program with an online application. (Women 19-44 can be enrolled in the Plan First family planning program through the same application.)

4. The Regional Alliance for Healthy Schools has clinics in several local schools, including schools in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Willow Run. Check them out here.

5. Pregnant women and kids up to age 5 can be served by WIC (Women, Infants, and Children)--and that can help stretch the overall food budget. WIC also has some satellite clinics, which is helpful for people living on the edges of the county.

The Rest of the Story: AAPS Budget, Part II

I think I addressed the largest chunk of the budget with my recent post on personnel costs and my post on revenue enhancements, including a look at whether we can increase Medicaid reimbursement. Here are a few other thoughts.

1. Efficiencies--Some of the reductions--for instance, finding efficiencies in ESL teaching and other "split" positions--seem like they should have been done long ago, if they are feasible. (Which makes me a little suspicious. Are they?)

2. Transportation--I've written about my opposition to privatization. There is no reason at all to balance the budget on the backs of the lowest-paid staff in the district. But there were three other transportation issues raised in the budget forums:

• We should not eliminate Kindergarten midday bussing. That sure would make it hard for working parents to send their kids to district schools, unless they replaced it with full-day kindergarten (which I think probably costs more than the savings). When my oldest started kindergarten, I was considering a private school with a full-day kindergarten, and if I had started him there, and if I was satisfied. . . I doubt the public schools would have seen me for several years.  [At the forum, I was asked by my group's facilitator, "Well where did your kids go then, at midday, if you were working?" Answer: to their preschool, where my second child was enrolled all day.]
• We should be working with AATA. For my high school-aged kids, the walk to the AATA bus route is not any further for us than the walk to the AAPS bus stop, and it doesn't take any longer to get to school. I think many routes could be eliminated for high school students, if we can make it easy. UM students just show their student IDs. Can't high school students do the same thing? Then we would only need to bus those kids who are not reached by AATA.
• I question expanding the walk zone to two miles. It may come to this, but I'm not a big fan of my daughter walking two miles in the dark in a Michigan winter. I don't want my kids to have to drive to school. I don't want to encourage the culture of driving everywhere, and in any case, cars are expensive.

3. Reducing high school noon hour staff. This seems impractical, if Pioneer and Huron are closing their campuses at lunch time, even to upper class students. 

4. Reducing substitute expenses--can we do more? I understand this refers to changing the scheduling of professional meetings that take teachers out of classes, and that might be fine. In addition, though, I recently read a study that assessed teacher absenteeism. I have no idea if it is high or low in Ann Arbor, but probably that should be assessed--and if it is high, maybe there is a way to make it lower. I have also wondered if it would be less expensive to assign a building substitute in each elementary school building (and more in the middle/high schools).

5. Reducing administrators--can we do more? It is convenient for the district that Maggie Jewett and Michael White are both leaving high school principal positions, and it makes it easy to propose reducing one class principal at Huron and Pioneer. For mid-year reductions, it makes sense to stop there. But for next year, I believe that we could get by with 1 principal and 2 assistant principals at each high school. Before Skyline was established, there were 5 at each high school (or 10 total). Rather than saying that we now need 4 at each high school (for a total of 12), why not say that we can get by with 9? I'll bet that it can even be done by attrition. And is it possible that some of the higher-level departments can be consolidated, thus allowing us to eliminate some management positions?

6. The high school cops. Susan Baskett raised this issue as a question at the budget forum I attended. Do we need them? I will add my confusion about them: What are they there for? What do they do? Can we do it for less? I don't know the entire costs, but I do often see an empty police car, just sitting there, even late at night, at Skyline, and it seems like a waste to me.

Education and Prosperity

Very interesting charts from the Free Press editorial page, regarding how the links between education and prosperity are much stronger than the links between prosperity and taxes. Found here.

Bits and More Bits

A new private high school, for high-functioning autistic students, is opening up. It's "faith-based." Based on the name, Veritas Christi, I would say it's Christian.

The East-Cross blog is reporting some truly alarming potential state budget cuts for the coming fiscal year. And we thought this year was bad.

The Saline High School principal reports, on Twitter, that the school honored 251 students with straight As at a recent event. Apparently, that is 13.6% of the student body. I know that I was in the top 10% of my high school graduating class, and I didn't have all As. Proof of grade inflation. Yet I'm not necessarily opposed.

I've written about early childhood education, and now--this just in: Washtenaw County Head Start is beginning the enrollment process for the 2010-2011 school year with Early Bird Registration, Wednesday, February 17 from 9 am-4 pm at the Head Start Grantee office located at 1661 Leforge Road in Ypsilanti. This is for families living in the Ypsilanti or Lincoln school districts, and for families living in Washtenaw County that are working full time or who are full time students.  Families must bring a copy of the child’s Birth Certificate, Proof of Income, and Proof of Residence.  If the child has a current physical and dental exam, families should bring those as well. Families will be served on a first come first serve basis.  For more information call 484-7119.  

David Jesse (along with some others) has been doing some extensive reporting on the Ann Arbor schools budget, and a limited amount of reporting on some of the other schools. The reporting is good; it is annoying that it is not easy to find all of the articles. Some--but not all--of them are under School Spending Report.

Noting the passing of: 

J.D. Salinger--Yes, I had to read Catcher in the Rye in middle school. I didn't like it. I tried again when one of my kids had to read it, and I still didn't like it. It seemed very male, and I really didn't like that he spelled crummy, crumby. Many years later, that still bugs me. 

Mary Daly--I was introduced to her writing in college, and it was hard! Beyond God the Father and Gyn/Ecology have hugely influenced feminist and environm

ental thought, and they were eye-opening for me. Talk about being a boundary-pusher! She was one. Howard Zinn--OK, I confess that I never made it all the way through A People's History of the United States, but I was happy to meet a teacher who used it in her social studies class. He had a lot of good ideas, and shared them in an accessible way. And until I read his obituary I didn't know he was a playwright, too. (That is the nice thing about obituaries. You find out interesting things about people.)

I have added the blog Foster Parenting Adventures to the blogroll on the right. The author is a school psychologist in an urban school district, and she recently became a foster parent, which is something I've thought about doing. I'd start reading with the first post.

If Personnel Costs Are 7/10 Of The Total...

If personnel costs are 7/10 of the total, what part can containing those costs play in a solution? 


Education is obviously a very personnel-intensive field. Our kids need teachers. And teachers' aides. And bus drivers. Custodians. Secretaries. Principals. Coaches. Translators. Occupational, physical, and speech therapists. And I don't think I've named them all.

So--if we need to cut, obviously personnel cost containment needs to be part of the solution. I think that the Ann Arbor schools should set a target for pay rollbacks, and work toward that with the unions. That seemed to work for Washtenaw County. Furthermore, if the overall target is 4% (a number I am making up), then perhaps that should not be distributed evenly. Flat rollbacks, just like flat taxes, are regressive. Put another way, 4% of the pay of someone who makes $25,000 is likely to be felt a lot more deeply than 4% of the pay of someone who makes $60,000. And, 4% of $60,000 is $2400 while 4% of $25,000 is only $1000. So perhaps people at the top should take 4.5% cuts and people at the bottom only 3% cuts. And it could be that health benefits should be included in these cost changes--certainly they are part of the overall package. [And by the way--I've already written about why I oppose privatization of bus and custodial services, but note that those bus drivers and custodians are definitely on the bottom end. Bus drivers' pay goes from $13-$19/hour, bus monitors from $10-$14, and custodians from $9-$18.]

Second--the district should institute an official hiring freeze. Even if it is a "soft" hiring freeze, and is somewhat easy to get around, it would require every permanent position to be justified. I think there might be a way to hire fewer teachers. Sometimes, teachers with one certification have the credentials to teach a different class...

Third--I would like to know what the short-term benefits of an early retirement package might be. Even if--down the road, say in 5-7 years--there wouldn't be savings, it would be good to know if there would be short-term savings. That could give us some time to change state school funding policies.

Fourth--Vacant positions that are still in the budget affect the budget, if not cash position. Eliminate those vacant positions (frequently they are in "hold vacant" status), and we eliminate the budgeted costs.

Fifth--Administrative personnel savings:
1. Is it possible to consolidate departments at the assistant superintendent level and eliminate an assistant superintendent?
2. Go to a 3-principal setup at the three big high schools: one primary principal, and an upper-class principal and a lower-class principal. We do not need 3 assistant principals at each school anymore. In two years, the schools will only have 1600 students in each school--it's possible that even 2 principals in each school would be enough.

Sixth--Personnel questions to think about:
1. An Education Week article recently pointed out that at some schools, roles that used to be extra-curricular have become classes. Returning them to extra-curricular activities can save money because you don't have to pay a teacher's time, but rather extra-curricular support (which is less expensive).  That reminded me that when I was in high school, Yearbook and Model U.N. were not classes. They were after-school activities. Would making these programs extra-curricular save money?
2. Does the trimester system cost more? I've tried it now for two years, and on balance I don't like it, but I'm asking if it costs more. Kids take 15 classes a year, versus 14 per year at the other schools, so it seems like it should.

Seventh--It's not exactly personnel (at least, it is not ours directly, though we pay), but:
Could we reduce or eliminate the police officers at each school? Even cutting their time by 1/3 (so we had the equivalent of when we had two high schools) seems like it might be worth it to me.

What I'm Reading

A favorite professor in graduate school advised my class to "read widely," advice I try to take. He also advised us to keep a journal, which is something I don't do (yet).

What I've been reading recently:
The Klipfish Code by Mary Casanova: An upper-elementary adventure book, focused on the resistance of the Norwegian people against the Nazis during WWII. I actually stayed up late reading it.
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely: Dan Ariely is a regular commentator on NPR's Marketplace. He writes about behavioral economics--why, for instance, is the idea of "free" merchandise so compelling, even when an overall discount might save us more? Teachers and students should all read the chapter about procrastination.
Tee Time in Berzerkistan by Doonesbury: Honestly, Doonesbury seems even more prescient when you read the cartoons looking back in time.

Also, I've been reading several mysteries--I'm enjoying a series set in Maine by Sarah Graves--as well as the fabulous monthly "newsmagazine," Funny Times.

Welcome Back...

to Dr. Joe Yomtoob, who is working as a consultant in the Willow Run School District. Dr. Yomtoob has always cared about Willow Run, giving WRCS kids scholarships even after he left the district, and I hope he can make a positive difference.

And here is a shout out to the WRCS school board, for finally trying to move forward.

Revenue Side

It is, in fact, more pleasant to talk about how AAPS can increase its revenue stream than to talk about how it can cut. So here are a few places that I would look.

1. Pay to Play for athletics: This has already been proposed by the district, and I don't have a problem with it, IF there is a way for students who are income-eligible to get the fees waived. Annarbor.com had a little chart of what other districts do. I liked the way that Plymouth-Canton has fees set up, with a larger fee for the first sport, and a smaller fee for additional sports.
What I would add: I would add a smaller fee for middle school sports. The seasons are much shorter, but perhaps a fee along the lines of $30/first season and $20/additional seasons would be reasonable.
I would also add fees for other extra-curricular activities, in particular theater and music activities.

2. Grant Opportunities: Currently the district does not have a grant-writer. In a district the size of Ann Arbor's, I think this is a mistake. Although one district official told me that AAPS "couldn't" hire a grant writer without funding from an outside source, I have two reactions to that. First, that yes AAPS could--if the administration wanted to, they could reassign staff to 100% grant writing. Alternatively, they could ask the Educational Foundation, or the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, for two years worth of funding to get that going. This will not affect this year's budget--even successful grants take a while to come to fruition. Investing in a grant writer is an investment in the future.

3. Facility Rental: I'm not convinced that the district has fully exploited the opportunities for facility rental to outside groups. I would like to encourage the district to get a group together to tweak both the pricing and the way that facility rental is promoted. That group needs to include potential end users and people with marketing/business acumen, as well as school facilities people.

4. Medicaid Reimbursement: Some of the district's special education expenses are Medicaid billable. Currently, that billing brings in about $1 million each year, and is largely handled by social workers. I believe that this is an area where the school district needs to be absolutely sure it is maximizing its billing, and if the billing is spread out, it is likely that it has not been maximized. I don't have local statistics, but a study in New York State of 8 districts found that they were only being reimbursed for about 1/3 of the Medicaid monies that they should be reimbursed for. In the study, some of the reasons that the districts did not get reimbursed included: a) not checking students' Medicaid status regularly (so they would be kicked off Medicaid, and not get back on even though they were still eligible, and the districts would not know); b) waiting too long to send in the claims; and c) not appealing claims that were denied, even if they believed that denial was in error. In those districts, the estimate was that they could triple their reimbursement level! The Medicaid claims submission process should be reviewed from the point of service onward, even if the increase would add $100,000 and not $2 million to the AAPS budget. (And this is true for every district in the county.)

5a. I feel ambivalent about one area: Schools of Choice. 
On the one hand, I have felt for a long time that AAPS should have schools of choice. On the other hand, coming into this now, feels a little like we are robbing Peter (the other school districts) to pay Paul (our school district) and I don't feel very good about that. I also wonder whether opening schools of choice to Stone (which I don't think works as a school) and Clemente (which does work, but is our most expensive school) makes any sense at all. Will that entice high school students? Stone was a school of choice before, and I don't think it really got that many people choosing to go there. We would definitely have school of choice applications for Pioneer, Huron, and Skyline.
On the elementary school level, I have found that generally, people who are unhappy with schools are often unhappy after a couple of years, so opening to schools of choice only in grades K/1 does not make sense to me. If we are going to have schools of choice, let's open up a certain number of spots in every grade, K-12.
If we are going to open to schools of choice.

5b. I have another idea for Schools of Choice/Recruitment
There is a whole other part of me that says, we should not be recruiting from other school districts. We should be recruiting from the people who live in our district and are choosing to send their kids to other schools. That also maximizes the amount of money we get (since our per-pupil rates are higher than the surrounding districts, kids from within the district bring in more money than kids from without the district.) My friend told me that in some of our elementary school districts, 1/4 of the students go to other schools.
What will reverse that trend? I think that magnets can do that. Anyone who goes to the Community, Skyline, or Ann Arbor Open orientations can see that magnets get people interested. And they don't have to be more expensive. As a school district, we need to get those families to see AAPS as a viable choice because they offer what the families want (for instance--K-8 school, intensive language, Montessori practice). Here are some of my ideas (just a taste) that directly target individuals who are choosing other schools. [This is not a budget proposal for this year, but some of these things could be implemented fairly quickly, certainly within two years.]

Elementary/Middle:
Another K-8 school, on the east side.
A Montessori school (could be combined with a K-8 school).
A language immersion program. (Start with a K-1 Spanish or Arabic or Chinese or Japanese program, and increase from there. Could be combined with a K-8 school.)

High School:
Magnets at all three large high schools. We already have 4 of them at Skyline.
For Huron: Orchestral Music magnet and Foreign Language magnet and/or Science magnet.
For Pioneer: Theater magnet and Voice magnet and/or Sports Management magnet.