February 14, 2024 Newsletter
In This Edition:
1. Rollout of Intensified Middle School Courses has been an Equity Success
2. Additional School Board Candidates Announce
3. Local Advocacy Groups Push for County Funding of After-School Activities
4. APE Fact Check: Do APS' Paid Holidays Actually Align with Neighboring Districts?
5. APS' Annual Class-Size Report Released
6. February 8th School Board Meeting Recap
7. Happening Soon
Rollout of Intensified Middle School Courses has been an Equity Success
Congratulations to Dr. Durán, APS staff and the School Board on the successful roll out of new intensified middle school courses this year.
As presented at the School Board Work Session on January 23rd, these courses have been an equitable success, with “strong uptake” from the student body and “the enrollments by race in the intensified courses generally mirror[ing] the overall racial distribution in APS” (emphasis added). In addition, although a formal survey of teachers has not been completed, the report stated that “the feedback [from teachers of these classes] received so far has been consistently positive, with teachers reporting that they enjoy teaching these courses.”
The Backstory: Dr. Durán pushed for APS to offer these courses, stating that APS will continue to align its focus around equity and ensure that APS is meeting the instructional needs of every single child, including those children who need more of a challenge. In addition, providing these courses expands opportunities for more students to take advanced courses in high school, including AP/IB and Dual Enrollment courses, and makes APS competitive with other neighboring districts that also offer these classes.
In December, the School Board approved the roll out of intensified 6th grade classes in English, Science and Social Studies starting in the 2024-25SY. APS students and parents are "voting with their feet" and signing up to take these classes in significant numbers, as shown by data provided by APS:
Why It Matters: We are thankful to live in a school district that is demonstrating, through offering intensified classes, how equity is furthered by pursuing academic excellence. Opponents had claimed that these classes would be inequitable. Advocates of these classes responded by pointing out that these classes would be filled using an open enrollment system (i.e., there are no prerequisites for signing up), and that not offering these classes would be inherently inequitable, especially for economically disadvantaged students interested in taking them.
Our Take: APS should not rest on the initial success of these classes. To try and achieve even better results, APS should auto-enroll higher performing middle school students in these classes. A number of districts and states have required auto-enrollment for advanced middle school classes for such students, with great success in furthering equity (see the report by Ed Allies, and info on Dallas ISD, North Carolina and Texas).
In our view, APS should also continue to expand opportunities for all students, such as by offering an intensified World Geography class for 8th graders. We have previously covered how APS’ reasoning for not offering such a course (i) does not add up and (ii) puts APS at a competitive disadvantage with other neighboring schools, including those APS students applying for college admissions and scholarship opportunities. APS cannot expand college and scholarship opportunities while continuing to block access to a more rigorous version of World Geography.
Additional School Board Candidates Announce
At last week’s Arlington County Democratic Committee monthly meeting, three more candidates announced their candidacies for School Board as part of the Arlington Democrats’ School Board Endorsement Caucus:
Larry Fishtahler (As of publication no website is listed)
Chen Ling previously announced his candidacy in January. The Caucus will be held on May 5th, 8th, and 11th, and will use Ranked Choice Voting to choose two candidates for the Arlington Democrats to endorse in the fall general election. There are two open School Board seats, the new terms of which will begin in January 2025. The filing deadline for candidates is Friday, February 16.
Local Advocacy Groups Push for County Funding of After-School Activities
Earlier this month, three local groups, Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement (VOICE), Arlington Schools Hispanic Parents Association (ASHPA) and Arlington’s chapter of the NAACP held a forum on the need for more and better after school programming to help fight the opioid pandemic. The groups called for the County to devote $2 million to after-school programming at Gunston, Kenmore and Thomas Jefferson middle schools, and Wakefield and Washington-Liberty high schools. APE supports efforts to increase County programming for teenagers and other student populations. We asked the County Board last March to support additional after-school activities for teens through the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Libraries, and we continue our engagement with the Libraries to promote and increase after-school programming opportunities.
APE FACT CHECK: Do APS' Paid Holidays Actually Align with Neighboring Districts?
Arlnow recently reported on parents' and teachers' concerns about a change in practice that has resulted in 20% of APS staff receiving 26-32 paid holidays per year, in addition to their annual leave. In response, APS claimed this practice “aligns with some of our neighboring jurisdictions.”
The Facts: This year, 12-month staff (not teachers) will receive 27 days paid holidays, rising to 29 and 32 under the adopted calendars for 2024-25 and 2025-2026 school years. Some 12-month staff, notably administrators,gave up 6 days of annual leave in their collective bargaining agreement; however, on net, they gained more paid holidays in exchange. (Read our recent letter to APS’ internal auditor for background).
As we shared last September, APS 12-month staff now work fewer days than our Northern Virginia neighbors. Similar data was provided again in public comment last week; we are sharing the speaker's table above with her permission.
Why It Matters: APS will soon release its proposed budget for the coming school year. Given the challenge of declining local revenues, on which APS overwhelmingly relies, APS likely cannot afford to continue this pandemic-era practice that benefits only 20% of its staff. Furthermore, these days are in excess of what any public employee receives, including those in neighboring districts. This benefit for 20% of APS' full-time employees must be evaluated for its budgetary and operational impacts, and our school board members should add it to the Internal Auditor’s work plan.
Read our letter and ask the School Board to add this item to the audit work plan.
APS' Annual Class-Size Report Released
APS released its annual class size report last week with some revisions over the past few days. According to the report, the data "reflect one point in time," when "class size numbers were run" on November 1st, 2023. The following chart provides a comprehensive look at class sizes across all elementary schools, using a color-coded key which is specific only to elementary class size numbers (which use planning factor formulas to allocate most resources in a school). Note that for elementary schools, blue indicates the smallest class size, and red the largest class size.
Last year’s report totaled the classes which fell into each “traffic light” category by grade (for elementary) and by grade and subject (for middle and high school), so one could easily see the class sizes that are typical across the entire APS system. The summary tables are not included in this year's report. Given that there is no summary table tallying the total for each category by grade, APE has tallied each category by grade to provide the community with some high-level summary statistics regarding elementary class sizes:
For middle and high school, we have also tallied the number of classes that are over the maximum planning factor, to help APS parents understand which grades and subjects are most impacted by class sizes that are too large. Note that the key for middle and high school class sizes is different from the elementary data key--green indicates a smaller class size than blue for middle and high school courses (while blue is smaller for elementary data, despite the colors being presented in the same order across all keys). Also, planning factors are different for English Language Arts courses than Math, Science and Social Science courses; class sizes are capped at 24 for English, whereas they are capped at 27 for math, science and social science.
The number of middle and high school core classes that are "in the red” at APS are as follows. We have added the total number of classes at each school in order to provide context for the number that are over the maximum class size:
The number of middle and high school core classes that are "in the red” at APS are as follows. We have added the total number of classes at each school in order to provide context for the number that are over the maximum class size:
February 8th School Board Meeting Recap
APS Service Awards: A total of 102 employees achieved 25, 30 & 35 years of service.
CCPTA President Claire Noakes spoke regarding School Board Appreciation Month with a call to raise School Board Member salaries.
FY 2024 Mid-Year Fiscal Monitoring Report was presented with a 2.9M expected shortfall.
Human Resources Update presentation included "Bright Spot" and "Opportunities" including: 45% of APS staff provided unfavorable responses to staff engagement questions on the 2022 Your Voice Matters (YVM) survey; 43% of APS staff provided unfavorable responses to workplace climate questions on the 2022 Your Voice Matters (YVM) survey.
Approval of an Alternative Accreditation Plan for Arlington Community High School, which is a non-traditional, alternative school for peers who have become out-of-step with their peers.
Read the full summary of the meeting here.
Happening Soon
Tuesday, February 20, 6:30-8:30pm Work Session #2 with the Advisory Council on Teaching & Learning (ACTL). Syphax. Watch live.
Thursday, February 22, 7:00 pm School Board Meeting. Sign up to speak. Syphax. Watch live.
Tuesday, February 27, 6-8 pm, Office Hours with School Board Member Cristina Diaz-Torres. Virtual. Sign up.
Thursday, February 29, 7-9 pm, Superintendent’s Proposed FY 2025 Budget Presentation. Syphax. Watch live.
Don't forget! You can subscribe to APS School Calendars here.
