enews: May 18, 2023

Written By Arlington Parents for Education

In This Edition:

1. Teacher's Corner: Proposed Calendar Policy
2. Final Call for Advocacy on Calendar Policy
3. School Board Adopts $804 Million FY24 Budget
4. Miranda Turner Wins Democratic Endorsement for School Board
5. Grading Policy Proposal Shifts How Students Are Measured
6. Overdue Class Size Report Reveals Average Class Sizes at Four Year High
7. Correction to May 4th Newsletter
8. What We’re Reading
9. 5/11 School Board Recap
10. Happening Soon

Teacher's Corner:
Proposed Calendar Policy


(Editor’s Note: From time to time, we will offer a perspective written by an APS parent, teacher, or community member on a topic of concern or interest for APS. What follows has only been lightly edited for clarity.)

I have serious concerns about how many school closures have been scheduled for religious holidays. I don't see an objective standard anywhere in the policy for determining which religious holidays warrant school closure and which merely warrant an observance. I think this opens up APS to potential legal liability for violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. For example, atheists could rightly take issue with placing such a burden on students and families in the name of religion.
 
The justification for taking so many religious holidays is unclear at best. Inclusivity for all our students and families is a worthy goal. But in this case, the costs surely outweigh the benefits. For example, many of these holidays are not recognized by the federal government or private businesses. This leaves parents with no good options. They can miss work (and jeopardize their career), pay money for childcare (a huge burden on finances), or leave children unsupervised. How does leaving parents in such a difficult situation help the underprivileged in our community? This burden presents a major equity concern, which is disappointing coming from APS, which claims to value equity so highly. Furthermore, closing school so frequently causes a major disruption for students, who need routine and structure to succeed academically (and this is especially true for SPED students and those with IEPs and 504s).
 
The policy is bad for my secondary students too. Arlington is in the midst of a drug crisis in our schools. As a teacher, I know that everyone within APS knows the terrible damage that fentanyl and other serious drugs have caused this year. But all these planned school closures result in students (especially teenagers) frequently having nowhere productive to go on a weekday when their parents are at work. So much unsupervised, unstructured free time is a lost opportunity for learning and an invitation for tragedy.
 
There has not been nearly enough outreach to the community about these significant changes to the school schedule. Parents and teachers, in particular, have not been properly informed of the changes nor given the opportunity to provide robust input. Also, teachers are not paid for school closures on holidays. This results in a longer school year for teachers (at the same salary rate) while shortening their summer break opportunities to earn additional income to support their families.

Final Call for Input on Proposed Calendar Policy
APS is accepting feedback on its proposed Calendar policy until May 19th. Please make your voice heard: submit feedback here. Read the APS proposed Calendar policy.

School Board Adopts $804 Million FY24 Budget


The School Board adopted an $804 million budget for the coming school year. Compared to the Superintendent’s request, the final budget makes modest changes; we shared our initial views on the request here. 
 
During the budget process, extending over six work sessions and public hearings, the School Board made modest changes, including adding funds for the following:

  • Virtual tutoring services ($221,000),

  • uniforms for our transportation staff ($21,820),

  • re-adopting 2 weeks of paid parental leave ($681,500),

  • increasing number of FTEs so the new Dean of Student Positions can add new roles at Gunston, Jefferson and Kenmore Middle Schools, in addition to new spots at our comprehensive high schools ($313,629), and

  • translators for Parent-Teacher Conference Days ($28,000). 

Notably, the School Board did not include funding for a new procurement specialist, threat assessment specialist, or funding to continue outside consulting on the compensation study. According to Dr. Durán, the budget adds “127.45 full-time positions that are either school-based or directly supporting schools.”
 
Our Take: 
We appreciate that the budget includes:

We are concerned that the adopted budget does not address the issues we raised in February, including reducing class sizes, evaluating the adequacy of competitive teacher compensation in light of raises occurring in neighboring districts, addressing the continued growth in central administrative positions, failing to find additional savings or address the heavy use of reserves.

  • APS continues to do less than our neighboring districts to remediate students’ learning loss, which is reflected in our students experiencing a slower recovery. 

  • There is insufficient evidence to continue APS’s virtual tutoring “Paper”, since only 23% of students in grades 6-12 have used this service. We anticipate this funding is unlikely to be continued in future years and APS is missing an opportunity to use the funds to build capacity elsewhere to help students more effectively.

  • The parental leave policy still provides fewer days than the additional 18 paid holidays that APS administratively awarded to just 992 12-month employees last year. Read more on the potential monetary costs of that twelve-month employee policy and the associated loss of 17,856 employee work days.

 Miranda Turner Wins Democratic Endorsement for School Board


The 2023 Arlington County Democratic Committee’s school board endorsement process concluded Saturday night, with Miranda Turner receiving 1,004 votes and Angelo Cocchiaro receiving 332. Miranda Turner will go on to run in November on the general ballot alongside any other declared candidates (at this time the only other candidate is James “Vell” Rives), and per the Arlington Democratic Committee, “Miranda Turner will be identified as a Democrat on the County Committee’s Sample Ballot for the November election because the Official Ballot will not have a party affiliation notated next to candidates’ names.”
 
Read more here and here.

 Grading Policy Proposal Shifts How Students Are Measured

Last year, APS adopted a new homework policy for middle and high school students but tabled grading policy changes. APS is now working on the policy implementation procedure (PIP) for grading policies for middle and high school students and elementary grades, in order to implement significant changes guided by recommendations from Grading for Equity and the consulting firm Crescendo Group. At the secondary level, the proposals allow for more retakes, decrease the role of homework in calculating overall grades, and allow for late submission of assignments with a 10% penalty. In the current draft, teachers may send “advisory reports” to parents of struggling students three weeks before the end of the term.

Per recent reporting, there is not a consensus regarding a more controversial proposal to make 50% the lowest grade for an assignment, regardless of “if and when it’s submitted,” and that proposal is not included in the secondary PIP proposal at this time. A group of teachers at Wakefield High School spoke out in 2021 against these ideas, concerned that these changes “would impact student learning and socio-emotional development in a negative way.” However, at a recent work session on May 4th on the topic, several teachers spoke in support of the changes.
 
Why It Matters: These changes represent a significant change in how APS measures student progress. The intent is to focus on assessing whether or not a student is mastering content, which we agree should be the goal of grading policies. We urge APS to provide data-based evidence prior to adoption by the Superintendent that these changes positively impact student progress and mental health. While the latest PIP appears to incorporate feedback from Wakefield teachers mentioned above, these changes could also increase the burden on teachers. Additionally, many parents, particularly parents with limited English proficiency, are confused by the current standards-based grading (SBG) system (which is also under review for an updated PIP). Read more about our recommendations to more clearly communicate student progress to parents as well as students while using SBG given that every SBG rubric online, including Feldman's from the Crescendo Group has four levels of performance rankings, from 0-1, 1-4, or 1-5.  Each of these rubrics have a level above “meets standards” or average (usually called "exceeds" or "above standards").
 
Give feedback on the draft PIPs.
Interested in these changes? Join an ACTL Committee to have input on the development of PIPs and other matters impacting APS.
Dive deeper and read recent op-eds and articles on the topic: Ed Leadership, Washington Post, WSJ, Fordham Institute, EdSurge, Edutopia, Parent’s Corner from an APS parent, Our article on the history and background of Grading for Equity, Additional Parent’s Corner, PhD Dissertation Studying SBG

Overdue Class Size Report Reveals Average Class Sizes at Four Year High

APS recently released its annual class size report. In March, APE advocated for the release of this report, echoing teachers' requests at school board meetings this spring. At the elementary level, average class sizes are below the maximums allowed at each grade level (e.g., 24 for kindergarten and increasing to 27 students by 5th grade). However, average class sizes this year are at their highest since 2018, despite the fact that APS reduced class sizes in its 2022-2023 adopted budget. 
 
The report also includes “traffic light” data comparing actual class size numbers with allowed “planning factors” and maximum class sizes (note: “planning factors” is the mechanism APS uses to assign most resources in a school, from number of teachers and counselors to amount of funding for art supplies and library books), and reveals the following:

  • Elementary School Level: 63 classes are above the allowed planning factor, but below the maximum size (yellow light) and 7 classes are in excess of the maximum size (red light).

  • Middle School Level: Williamsburg has the highest number of classes above the max level (red light); most notably, 23 English Language arts classes are above the max level.

  • High School Level: Wakefield has the highest number of classes above the max level (red light), including 29 English Language Arts classes, 6 math classes, 11 science classes and 9 social studies classes.

Source: APS

Why It Matters: There is evidence that smaller class sizes are correlated with improved academic outcomes. Additionally, given the proposed changes in grading policies (discussed above), teachers asked APS to be “mindful about class size” because of the additional time that would be needed for retakes and grading. Appropriately implementing those policies will be more challenging given the number of high school classes above the maximum class sizes. While APS has tabled further consideration of class sizes until after it receives the results of a forthcoming planning factor study included in this year’s budget, the class size report helps to address near-term issues where some schools have classes above the allowed maximums.

What We're Reading


Can This School Board Be Saved? Author AJ Crabill Has a 5-Point Plan (The 74 Million)
“
My experiences, and everything I’ve read, and the research literature also point in the same direction: the things that school boards focus on actually do, in fact, matter. When school boards focus on student outcomes, they’re more likely to create the condition for improvements in student outcomes. If school boards focus on the color of the cheerleaders’ uniforms, we’re more likely to have the proper color of uniforms.” Read More
 
Pandemic Learning Losses Were Very Steep. They Don’t Have to Be Permanent (NY Times–Opinion) 
“Schools cannot just ‘hurry up.’ Especially in math, teachers build students’ understanding sequentially — from arithmetic to fractions to exponents to algebra. Schools have curriculums, and teachers have their lesson plans for each topic. In theory, a school district could rethink its curriculum following a disruption — skimming and paring to move more quickly — but that would be difficult to coordinate across hundreds or thousands of teachers. And do we really want students to have an abbreviated understanding of fractions?...As enticing as it might be to get back to normal, doing so will just leave in place the devastating increase in inequality caused by the pandemic. In many communities, students lost months of learning time. Justice demands that we replace it. We must find creative ways to add new learning opportunities in the summer, after school, on weekends or during a 13th year of school.” Read More
 
Students Can’t Get Off of Their Phones. Schools Have Had Enough (NY Times)
“This year, the rules are the same in every classroom: No phones. If students are caught in class or even in a hallway, they must go to their school’s office and wait for a parent to come to collect their phone. If they need to read messages on their phone — say, about a ride home or a team practice — the rules permit them to visit the office and view them there. ‘When they’re finished, they put the phone back into their backpacks and go on their way,’ he said. He sees more interaction between teachers and students, more focus, less conflict in hallways. And only a handful of students are second-time offenders, he said. ‘The majority of our students, when we surveyed them, were thankful for it because it has reduced the stress in their life,’ he said. ‘They’re not worried about what their friends are saying, at least not during school time.’ Several parents were critical early on, he said, but most have been accepting.” Read More

May 11th School Board Meeting

 

At the May 11th Arlington School Board meeting, the Board: 

  • Discussed and approved the final 2024 Fiscal Year budget. 

  • Reviewed the draft proposal for the upcoming school year calendar (up for approval later this year). 

  • Heard an annual report from the Student Advisory Board.

  • Discussed a $4.5 million cost overrun approval for improvements to the H-B Woodlawn/Stratford site, which includes improvements to building access, accessible parking, bicycle infrastructure, and athletic facilities.

Read the full report.
See the scorecard.

Happening Soon!

Thursday, May 18, 6:30 PM: Work Session on the Library Services Program Evaluation. Syphax. Watch live.
 
Monday, May 22, 5:30-7:30 PM: Open Office Hours with Cristina Diaz-Torres. Sign up to speak.
 
Wednesday, May 24, 8 AM: Policy Subcommittee Meeting. Syphax. Watch live.
 
Thursday, May 25, 7 PM: Next School Board Meeting. Sign up to speak. Syphax. Watch live.
 

Did you know you can add the APS calendar to your iphone calendar or google calendar?  Check it out!

Arlington Parents for Education
Previous

e-news: June 1, 2023
Next

enews: May 4, 2023