Our Budget Priorities
Now is the time for APS to include your priorities in the budget for the coming school year.
These are OUR priorities for the ‘23-’24SY budget:
Increase Investment to Address Learning Loss and Achievement Gap
Increase Staffing to Address Our Students’ Mental Health Needs
Maintain Competitive Teacher Compensation
Reduce Class Sizes
Freeze Syphax Growth
Address Two-Tier Leave Policy
Slow Down Growth of Investments in Instructional Technology
Strengthen the Independence of APS’ Auditor
Find Additional Sources of Savings
Why? Keep Reading.
Priority 1: Increase Investment to Address Learning Loss and Achievement Gap
We continue to call on APS to act more boldly to address the significant academic and mental health needs of our students. For the last two years, we have repeatedly sounded this alarm. Last year we asked APS to commit 1.5% of its budget ($10.5 million) to learning loss, a percentage similar to what Fairfax County invested. Now, APS staff and advisory committees are likewise advocating for APS to do more.
We support proposals from the Math Advisory Committee and Math staff to fund 34 full-time equivalent (FTE) Mathematics Interventionists and 7.5 FTE Mathematics Coaches (41.5 FTE total). APS presently has only six math interventionists working at ten different schools - three middle schools and seven elementary schools.
Likewise, we strongly recommend that APS adopt a high-dosage tutoring program, similar to the $7 million program recently announced by DC Public Schools,
and expand the APS summer school program to serve more students over a longer duration, as recommended by the US Department of Education, as well as provide incentive payments for summer school teachers again.
Why This Matters:
Simply put, the opportunity to address the impacts of a once-in-a-generation crisis is narrowing. And as shared in a recent newsletter, APS’ learning loss is uneven across its schools. The student progress dashboard shows that schools in our wealthiest neighborhoods demonstrate less learning loss than our schools with the highest free/reduced lunch eligibility. For example, at one school alone, there are 253 students who require math intervention, which represents 95% of all students assessed at that school.
Increasing interventionists allows APS to target those students and schools that need more support - helping with learning loss and closing the achievement gap. Likewise, community organizations like ASPIRE, which runs after-school programs at South Arlington schools, have also sounded the alarm. Their mid-year report indicates that in 2022, 85% of students in their programs tested two or more grade levels behind in reading. That’s an increase from the 2018-2019 school year when 49% tested one grade level behind in reading.
Public schools around the nation are responding to this like the crisis that it is. APS must do the same.
Budget Quick-Take:
The proposed budget adds only four interventionists.
It provides $2 million in Summer School incentive pay.
It also provides $1 million in targeted resources that could be used for a variety of services, including tutoring, professional learning and community engagement.
$600,000 is allocated to continue the virtual tutoring program (i.e. Paper), though initial data showed limited usage after its initial rollout.
We hope the Board asks APS to explain why it believes it can address learning loss with less investment than neighboring districts and less than the amount APS previously requested from the State for this purpose. We also urge the Board to ask why there are not additional explicit resources for those students who are behind grade level in reading (identified in last year’s budget question 23-69) or include any recommendations noted in last spring’s ELA monitoring report. Those recommendations came after the current budget had already been adopted and Superintendent Durán indicated that those significant budgetary investments would need to wait for the next budget adoption.
Priority 2: Increase Staffing to Address Our Students’ Mental Health Needs
Last year, we advocated for APS to retain two FTEs for both counselors and social workers. Those positions would otherwise have been reduced in the Superintendent’s Request. APS planning factors currently allow for one school psychologist and one social worker per 775 students systemwide. National recommendations from professional organizations recommend lower ratios, but APS generally has better staffing ratios than many districts (e.g., the national student-to-counselor ratio is 408:1 versus the APS ratio of 325:1; the national student-to-Psychologist ratio is 1,127:1 versus approximately 775:1 systemwide for APS.) Reducing these ratios would be an ongoing cost, but the need among our students is particularly acute in the aftermath of the pandemic. Research (here, here and here) reflects that effective counselors not only support mental health, but also academic achievement, graduation, and post-secondary enrollment.
Fairfax County Public Schools recently received a 5-year $13.5 million grant from the US Department of Education to increase its staffing for school counselors, psychologists and social workers; APS should likewise seek out similar grant opportunities. We urge APS to prioritize reducing planning factor ratios or otherwise increasing staffing during this critical time for our students.
Why This Matters:
The mental health needs among our students is particularly acute in the aftermath of the pandemic, consistent with recent findings from the CDC. Its report indicates that the mental health crisis among young people is both worsening, “alarming” and that “our young people are in crisis.”
Budget Quick-Take:
APS included funding for ten new counselors (one for each middle and high school) and two substance abuse counselors.
The initial presentation on the budget indicated that “intervention counselors” are a new role, and we are interested in learning more about the difference between these new positions and other counseling roles in our middle and high schools in the upcoming work sessions.
Priority 3: Maintain Competitive Teacher Compensation
After last year’s compensation adjustment, WABE now reports that Arlington has the highest average teacher pay among local districts, and that Arlington is second in the region in terms of pay to first-year masters and middle masters. However, in terms of the max salary, we are fifth in pay for teachers starting with bachelor’s degrees. That is much improved, but APS must also keep up with its neighboring districts, including Fairfax (which is increasing pay with a step plus 3% COLA), Prince William (which is increasing pay with a step plus 2% COLA), and Loudoun (which is increasing pay by 5-7% through COLA and steps).
Why This Matters:
The supply and quality of our teachers is one of the most important factors to APS’ ability to deliver educational excellence. Prior to last year’s adjustment, APS was becoming less competitive locally. Given the relatively higher costs of living in Arlington, APS may need to do even more to remain competitive.
Budget Quick-Take:
APS is proposing a 3% COLA plus step increase, which APS estimates will provide a 5.2% average pay increase.
In addition to asking whether that compensation will make us competitive, we encourage the Board to ask APS about the non-compensation actions it is taking to retain our best teachers.
Priority 4: Reduce Class Sizes
According to WABE, APS continues to have larger class sizes in elementary than our peers by 1.5 students on average, an issue that has been raised to the Board in public comment. Strangely, APS has not yet produced its annual report detailing class sizes by school this year. We also note that the English Language Arts Advisory Committee has advocated for an increase in writing instruction, something that will likely require smaller class sizes within some secondary classes.
We are asking APS to reduce elementary class size planning factors by at least two.
Why This Matters:
Research reflects that smaller class sizes, particularly in the earliest grades, is a key factor to improving student performance. For a public school with the highest cost per student in the region, there is no reason why our class sizes should be higher than average.
Budget Quick-Take:
There is no adjustment for class size planning factors.
We suggest the Board ask about cuts in other parts of the budget that could offset the cost of reducing elementary class size planning factors by two (which previous budget analyses suggest might cost $2.5M),
and that the Board ask what changes are needed at the secondary level to support increased writing instruction.
Priority 5: Freeze Syphax Growth
According to WABE, APS has a greater percentage of non-school based personnel than the average of its peers.
By our calculations, the headcount at APS’ “Departments” has grown by 48% between 2015 and 2022, while school-based FTEs increased only 16.4% and students increased only 8.9%.
Not all of that “Department” growth is Syphax management - much of that headcount growth from 2015 to 2022 includes transportation, special education, and student services.
But the headcount of administrators in several categories has also grown faster than the student population, including the Superintendent and Chief of Staff’s office (over 100%), the HR department (over 70%), and other administrative functions.
Why This Matters:
Growth in administrators not only takes away (at least 1-for-1) the number of student-facing positions APS can afford, but often leads to increased burdens being placed on teachers (something about which the community has heard at school board meetings, and which may be leading to teacher burn-out). Further, positions added to Syphax are rarely reversed, while APS often achieves budget savings by increasing class sizes and reducing teaching staff.
Budget Quick-Take:
By our count, there are around 48 FTEs added to “Departments.” Many of these are school-based, including math interventionists, counselors, school safety officers and interpreters. But, over a quarter (at least 13 positions) are non-school based positions, including several specialists, coordinators, and executive directors.
Are these requests filling an intermediate need or a permanent one? Can the need otherwise be met by reassigning duties among existing staff?
Priority 6: Address Two-Tier Leave Policy
Dr. Durán changed the leave policy for 12-month employees in an “All-staff” email in November 2021. Pursuant to this change, 12-month APS employees now have 31 paid holidays this school year (e.g. federal holidays, winter break, spring break and religious observances) in addition to their accrued leave (consistent with standards for most public employees, APS’s 12 month staff receive 14 annual days and accrue an additional day of leave per year of service). However, 10-month employees, predominantly teachers, are not paid for these days off. As a result of this change in 2021, 12-month employees will receive 31 paid holidays this school year, while in 2020 they received 13, on par with other public employees. Again, 10-month employees in APS are not paid for any of those 31 holidays.
Why It Matters:
We are concerned that this policy change is adversely impacting staff morale, along with APS’ official duties around onboarding staff (particularly substitute teachers), enrolling new students mid-year, and impeding responsiveness to emails and other communication. Further, this change has an ongoing and calculable budgetary cost. For example, when APS added 10 days of paid parental leave in 2016, it was estimated to cost $500,000 - those benefits were later reversed in 2018 to help balance the budget. While this action did not require school board approval because these are “non-student days,” according to Dr. Durán’s email, we note that one of the School Board’s priorities is to “systematically review departmental organizational structures and practices to identify potential savings to APS.”
We request that our school board members ask questions about the cost of this policy, how it impacts employees’ use of accrued leave (which can be cashed out at retirement), its impact on APS operations and morale since 10-month employees do not receive the same benefit. We also request that APS transparently addresses the cost of this policy change, along with the unintended consequences of an inherently unfair 2-tier system in which 12-month employees (e.g. Syphax, Principals, Administrative Assistants) are paid for these days, but 10-month employees--predominantly teachers--are not.
Budget Quick-Take:
The budget has not addressed this leave policy; however, where the budget both proposes a number of new 12-month positions and proposes to reclassify certain 10-month contracts to 12-month contracts, the ongoing budgetary and non-budgetary impacts of this change must be addressed.
Priority 7: Slow Down Growth of Investments in Instructional Technology
One of our priorities this school year is to reduce student use of screens in APS because 74% of respondents to our survey last fall indicated that “APS relies too much on screens.” APS continues to increase its investments in instructional technology, systemwide technicians to provide hardware and software support, and school-based instructional technology coordinators (ITC) to support classroom teachers as well as provide tech support beyond what systemwide technicians provide.
Current practice is that elementary schools and middle schools have one ITC, but these are not controlled by planning factors.
Our three comprehensive high schools now have two ITCs per school, following an increase in last year’s adopted budget (though past budgets have recommended both cutting those positions and converting these 12-month employees to 11-month contracts).
Further, APS indicated last year that it spent more than $2 million on numerous educational software programs, but had very little information regarding the effectiveness of these programs (see budget question 23-58).
We recommend more clear delineation between the roles of systemwide technicians and ITCs, assigning planning factors to the role of ITCs, and greater oversight of both the expenditures on and effectiveness of instructional technology used in the classrooms. We also recommend less reliance on iPads for our youngest learners, consistent with practices before the pandemic.
Why It Matters:
We recognize the role of instructional technology in our 21st Century economy, including the need for staff to support classroom teachers as they enhance lessons with technology, as well as provide tech support. But every dollar allocated to instructional technology without a discussion of the effectiveness or benefit to our students’ learning is a dollar not allocated to smaller classrooms or math coaches or library books or any other need in our system.
Prior to the pandemic, APS 1-1 policy applied to students in 2nd grade and higher. Ipads (or laptops for older students) were not distributed or routinely used by younger elementary students. Now iPads are issued to all students, some students are required to take the iPads home (with families assuming the costs for damage or loss), and teachers routinely report that students are required to use certain educational apps for a minimal time per week.
We welcome plans from the Office of Educational Technology to create an advisory subcommittee focused on these issues, especially as APS has continued to increase full-time staff and investments in instructional software with limited public engagement historically on either the effectiveness of this instructional technology or the concerns of parents, former board members and teachers.
Budget Quick-Take:
The budget includes a request for four new systemwide technicians estimated at a cost of $390,000.
The budget document notes that APS currently has 27 systemwide technicians, in addition to school-based ITCs. Technicians provide “hardware and software support to all schools and central offices,” but ITCs are “often required to perform work that should be provided by a technician.”
Given the growth in both of these roles in recent years, we encourage the Board to ask questions about the intended role of a systemwide technician versus a school-based ITC. We also encourage questions on the effectiveness of ed-tech like Edmentum and Paper.
Priority 8: Strengthen the Independence of APS’ Auditor
APS is currently seeking a new auditor after the recent departure of its former auditor, which prompted criticism from the Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA) that the former auditor was required to “sign a problematic contract.” In order to attract the best candidates to this position, APS should adopt a model for its independent auditor consistent with the model adopted by the County Board in recent years. Under the current structure, APS’ auditor can be fired at-will by the Superintendent and reports to a Committee on which the Superintendent sits. This violates both APS policy and fundamental auditing standards per a letter to APS from the Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA).
We recommend that the School Board should adopt the structure used by the County Board, and recommended by ALGA, in which the auditor reports to an audit committee comprised primarily of community members.
Why It Matters:
We believe that establishing a more independent auditor is one of the most important and simplest course-corrections that APS could undertake. APS is currently seeking a new auditor and APE is concerned that quality candidates will not be interested in that position until APS addresses the shortcomings of its current policy, i.e., that it violates both APS policy and fundamental auditing standards.
Budget Quick-Take:
The budget does not address the role of an independent auditor. While it may not be strictly within the scope of the budget process, an independent auditor is essential to providing appropriate oversight of our school system and its spending to ensure that our schools are properly funded, tax-payer funds are spent appropriately, and that this spending achieves its intended outcome.
Priority 9: Find Additional Sources of Savings
APS has projected muti-year structural deficits for several years now. Recent budget cycles have avoided painful tiered cuts because of reliance on one-time federal money and reserves.
Last year, APS relied on $21.3 million in reserves to balance its budget, and this year APS will rely on $41.2 million in reserves to do so.
Per the February 23rd budget presentation, this will leave $21.3 million in reserve. This level of reserves is on the lower end of the recommended 3-5% of APS’ operating budget.
Last year, we advocated for both additional one-time funding from the county, as well as an increase in the revenue sharing agreement with the county, but we recognize that APS must also show good fiscal stewardship of its resources.
Why It Matters:
The addition of many costly non-instructional positions will begin to significantly squeeze the APS budget in coming years, which is likely to lead APS to return to its habits of underfunding teachers salaries and increasing class sizes. APS needs to be looking now for savings from non-instructional positions and from capital spending.
Budget Quick-Take:
We see very few proposed cuts in this budget, and many new positions that will need to be funded into the future - many using reserves, which we believe should be reserved for one-time funds. We note that the budget both leaves a lower level of reserves than last year’s budget and it again projects significant deficits in the three years following the 2023-2024 school year, growing to $80.9 million (9.3% of expenditures) by the 2026-2027 school year. The School Board should ask APS to identify potential sources of reductions that do not impact student-facing positions, particularly in the likelihood that county funds do not continue to grow as they have in the past.
