After attending the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) Board of Education (BOE) meeting on May 21, I feel both saddened and disturbed by the BOE and their decision to vote yes on the budget plan that was proposed by Superintendent Jazz Parks.
The meeting began with three hours of public commentary. During this time, AAPS students, teachers and community members took turns coming up to the mic to speak. In between each speaker, messages that had been sent in from community members who couldn’t be at the meeting were read aloud. From high school students to AAPS parents to elementary school teachers to young children, the speakers represented a diverse group of individuals who largely represented the broader AAPS community and their thoughts and feelings toward the proposed budget plan. Every speaker that came up and every message that was sent in, showed a common sense of disagreement with the plan.
Throughout all of these speeches, the urge to keep comprehensive music education, world language programs and fully staffed school libraries was reiterated several times. Despite the pleas of many AAPS community members, at the end of the night, Superintendent Park’s budget plan was approved by the BOE. Some of the things the plan entails would include cutting elementary school world language programs as well as shifting PLTW into the specials schedule rotation which would reduce the amount of time students spend in each of the other specials classes (music, art, P.E., etc.). The plan will also reduce the number of co-directors in middle and high school music programs. I feel as though this would create long-term gaps within the education of AAPS students because they won’t be getting the same level of diverse education that students in the past have experienced. Another troubling part of this plan would be to lay off teaching assistants, who at the moment do not even make a living wage, yet do much more work than written in their paper contracts. While these cuts may not seem like a dramatic change, they will largely affect many AAPS teachers who face being laid off despite some pouring decades of time into teaching in the AAPS district.
The changes that will be made as a result of the budget plan will also negatively impact AAPS students at all grade levels throughout the district. Many elementary school students will not have the opportunity to learn a second language such as Spanish and many students will face the effects of shortened specials class period times as a result of adding PLTW to the specials schedule. As diversity and inclusion are at the very core of the values that AAPS holds, cutting programs such as world language programs in elementary schools is both hypocritical and simply wrong.
As a student who has attended AAPS since Kindergarten, I feel great concern for younger students in the district who will not receive the same opportunities in areas such as music that I had growing up in the district. While I understand the need to make budget cuts in some areas due to the $25 million of debt the district has, I strongly believe there are other ways to make up for this deficit rather than cutting crucial programs that are necessary for the immersive and diverse education that the AAPS district prides itself over.
More than anything, I sympathize with the AAPS teachers who will most be affected by these changes. As I looked into the audience during the meeting, I saw the angry looks of teachers who have given their all to their students and the district as a whole, yet in a time of need were wronged and hastily overlooked.
The part that makes me the angriest is that if the salaries of top members in the AAPS central office were cut by 5% to 10%, that would generate quite a bit of money, enough to keep at least some of the programs that will be cut as a result of the approved budget plan. But rather than cutting their own salaries, these members have chosen to cut crucial programs that will affect AAPS students for years to come.
While I know the plan has already been approved and these changes will shortly begin to affect both AAPS students and teachers, I hope that in the future, the BOE and central office choose to put the well-being of AAPS students and teachers above everything else.
