Ann Arbor Parents for Schools

With the concerted effort of many parts of our community, the two AAPS millage proposals passed handily on May 6th. Below is the post-election message posted on the Citizens' Millage Committee web site:

The County has finished posting their unofficial election results, and WE DID IT! Not only did both AAPS millage proposals win handily, they won in just about every precinct. (Preliminary results below.)

Ballot proposals always seem to be written so that only a lawyer could understand them. Anyway, who has time to read them while people tap their feet waiting for your voting booth? Fear not, dear reader - we're here to help.

Ballot proposals always seem to be written so that only a lawyer could understand them. Anyway, who has time to read them while people tap their feet waiting for your voting booth? Fear not, dear reader - we're here to help.

Wondering what you can do right now to help keep Ann Arbor's public schools the kind of place where you want to send your kids? We have a few ideas... Feel free to pass this along!

School property tax millage renewals are the first step toward securing adequate funding for our public schools, and Ann Arbor Parents for Schools supports these measures.

And so it begins. Facing continued pressure on the Ann Arbor Public Schools' budget, the AAPS Board of Education voted to get an early start on renewing local tax levies that provide half of our public school system's operating budget. In their 20 February meeting, board trustees voted to place these renewals on the ballot for the 6 May school elections.

There are a number of ways to cope with the funding crisis our schools find themselves in, and one way is to come together as a community and help support important programs with private donations. The AAPS Education Foundation is just starting a major initiative to expand their fundraising and granting capacity, with the aim of making significant contributions to the curriculum at all levels of the public schools. They say their aim is to "turn taxpayers into philanthropists." Since we have so little control over public funding for our public schools, entities like the Ed Foundation can come to play an important role in taking the fate of our schools back into our own hands.

An important topic at our June 12 meeting was what we all as a community can do to help the schools through this crisis. If options for raising money with taxes are extremely limited, what kind of impact can we have by volunteering or making donations? Will it be enough?

"Comment from a teacher: [funding from the] AAPS Education Foundation is a great way to give teachers a morale boost."

"What opportunities are available from PTO and other organizations to subsidize public education?"

Some of the questions raised at our June 12 meeting took different paths to the same topic: is the system broken? Are too many kids falling through the cracks? And what can we do about it? We did not get to address these questions at the meeting, so I invite everyone to weigh in on these issues.

"How can you expect parents, teachers, and the community to continue to support and not give up on a school system, which seems to be giving up on our kids. For example, fewer electives at middle school, bigger class sizes across the board. These are items that decrease the effectiveness of our children's education."

We had a number of questions raised about teachers at our June 12 meeting, only some of which were addressed by our panelists that night. The questions revolve around different perspectives on teachers: from inside, with concerns about morale and support, and from outside, with concerns about effectiveness and misperception. Here is a sample:

"While teachers have been asked to make repeated concessions in recent years, persistent negative attitudes about the union have made it difficult to build public support for increased revenues for schools. What can all parties - teachers, parents, administrators - do to overcome this obstacle? What substantive steps can the Education Assn. [union] take to address the concerns raised?"