Ann Arbor schools drop balanced calendar from lab schools program for next school year
One of the most discussed components of the proposed lab schools program at Ann Arbor's Mitchell Elementary and Scarlett Middle schools will be put on hold for at least a year.
The balanced calendar in the proposal, which called for schools to begin class in early August and end in late June with a six-week summer vacation, won't be used in the 2011-12 school year. The decision was announced to parents at the schools via e-mail on Friday.
District spokeswoman Liz Margolis said the decision was reached after the planning committee for the program reviewed feedback gathered at parent forums last month.
“They heard it loud and clear that parents weren’t quite ready,” she said. “They need more information and they wanted more involvement in the plan.”
The program is a proposed K-8 campus between Ann Arbor Public Schools and the University of Michigan School of Education. Teacher candidates from U-M will work with Ann Arbor teachers in classrooms to help create new ideas and approaches to teaching.
The Ann Arbor school board will be updated on the lab schools program at its meeting on Wednesday.
Margolis said the balanced calendar is still an option for future school years, but will be developed and piloted more, along with giving parents more opportunities for involvement.
The news came as a relief to some parents with children at Scarlett.
Leslie Figueuroa has a son in eighth grade at Scarlett and a daughter in fourth grade at Carpenter Elementary, which would have not been on the balanced calendar. She said she had grown more comfortable with the idea of the calendar after talking with her daughter, but is glad the district is taking more time to develop the idea.
“I think they didn’t really fully think it through,” she said. “Ann Arbor is very passionate about their education system, and they need to get the support of the community behind this.”
Figueuroa’s main concern was the amount of summer activities that would be affected by the switch to the balanced calendar. Her daughter swims competitively and would have a short summer vacation between intense summer swim programs and the shortened vacation from school.
The planning committee for the program is looking into planning inter-sessions — optional periods near and during school breaks for academic enrichment — during normal school vacations, Margolis said.
“We’re still in the planning stages,” she said. “It’s still being planned and we totally understand that, when releasing something like this, parents need more time for us to explain it to them and show how it would work.”
Charlotte Mayhew, who has children in sixth and eighth grade at Scarlett, said it was a relief that the district decided to hold off on implementing the balanced calendar.
She expressed positive feelings about the program overall, but said parents need more specifics about the balanced calendar. She said the original discussions about the switch were “premature.”
“There’s a need for the kind of program they’re talking about,” she said. “This could be good for the majority of students, but it’s a relief they’re not going to do it.”
Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com.
Comments
Yuxuibbs
Thu, Dec 9, 2010 : 5:35 p.m.
they want to make the school year even longer? more than 9 1/2 months in school isn't enough? i have to go to skyline because i just happen to live on the other side of nixon road. i have not seen or really talked to any of my friends since the last day of middle school and did not have time to hang out with them for thanksgiving break because of finals. even one school on a different schedule makes it more difficult to be with friends that go to another school.
Beth
Tue, Dec 7, 2010 : 4:59 p.m.
@MitchellMom - there has been NO mention of ways to opt-out from the planning committee. I am not willing to wait and see if another school might have space available when my child is ready for 6th grade - I'd like to see permanent options put in place from the start. It would also be totally useless to have a space at Forsythe or Slauson - my children would not know anyone there, and then they'd never see each other again when those kids went to Pioneer and Skyline and my kids go to Huron. Why should that be what families in the Scarlett area are forced into choosing to do, just because we happen to live in the neighborhood we do? Again, I think this should be run as a magnet school like AA Open - you could choose to send your children there, and my children could stay at a different school with many of their friends.
MitchellMom
Tue, Dec 7, 2010 : 1:43 p.m.
@Beth, no one is being "forced onto this schedule"...if you don't want to change your family schedule, you can send your child(ren) to other A2 schools with openings that are ion the same schedule. @skigrl50, as a parent of a high-performing student, I am welcoming an opportunity to have my child be a part of this. I'm told the intersessions will be an opportunity to develop "mini-camps" that center around a topic, like say, robotics or music, where the student can delve deeper into interests. I am not one who invites boredom in the summer and have a hard time working and keeping my child engaged without breaking the bank on specialty camps. Having these "camps" integrated into the school year takes away the tedium of endless school and gives a little spark of interest throughout the year, not just in the summer.
Lakewood Mom
Tue, Dec 7, 2010 : 11:58 a.m.
A Balanced Calendar, even for only two schools, would have ramifications for staffing in areas other than teachers. Secretarial, custodial, food services, tech support, bussing, I would imagine special arrangements would need to be made. All of those groups have bargaining units with the exception of bussing at this time.
CLX
Tue, Dec 7, 2010 : 11:17 a.m.
You can't have a system in which only one middle school and one elementary school is on such a drastically different schedule and force people to send their kids there. That's not realistic for families who have children at other schools - younger sibs at the other feeder elementary schools or older sibs at Huron. It's outrageous that AAPS was trying to shove this change through with almost no notice whatsoever. Yet this is typical of this administration - very arrogant, and very out of touch with the needs of working families. 3 months in school and 3 weeks off for one child, and the typical 9 months on and 3 months off for the other? Can you imagine trying to work around that schedule? It may well be a worthy idea, but in this economy - heck in any economy - AAPS is going to have to think through the realities of its decisions for the families affected. Was a deal brokered with UM before they even presented to the parents? Shouldn't AAPS be wondering whether something like this might fly with the families it is supposed to be working with and representing before it starts planning with outside organizations? Such arrogance is unbelievable.
interested
Sun, Mar 3, 2013 : 10:56 a.m.
To be fair to the new admin (which generally I am not sympathetic to), this has been in talks for many years now, well before Green took control of AAPS.
skigrl50
Tue, Dec 7, 2010 : 9:22 a.m.
My children attended Scarlett and did very well there, they were well prepared for Huron and very well prepared for the University of MIchigan. Just being the devils advocate here, why would the parent of a student performing well in school want their child to be on this alternative schedule. Personally, I feel that kids need a little time to be bored in the summer to learn to discover their interests and gifts. I also think that summer camp is a great thing for kids and I would hate to see this schedule take that away for kids. Will families be given the opportunity to have their children attend a different middle school? There is something about children being used as "lab rats" in this experiment that bothers me. Where is the data? What are long proven long-term outcomes? I've read about these great ideas, having professors in the buildings, student teachers, etc.. I think that Scarlett has some great teachers, how are young, inexperienced student teachers possibly going to help these veteran teachers?
local
Tue, Dec 7, 2010 : 7:21 a.m.
That is the big issue for me as well. UofM sweeps in with this great idea and is willing to pay for some amount of time, then the money dries up because they have found another project they want to fund. With AAPS budget the way it is, I can't believe they have the funds to continue such a program after UofM decides to stop funding. Instead of changing calendar just simply inject Mitchell and Scarlett with all the UofM students teachers and professors they can get and allow them to try the new things they want to do using calendar already in place. For the summer months, inject these same UofM people into the summer school program specific for those schools.
skigrl50
Tue, Dec 7, 2010 : 6:20 a.m.
My question lies with the many families that live in apartment complexes that feed the Scarlet cluster. Many families tend to move in and out during Labor Day weekend. Won't these students, many of whom will be what this program is targeted to help be almost a month behind their classmates if they start as new students at the traditional beginning of school? Wasn't Carpenter Elementary a lab school for UM a few years back and as soon as the money ran out they packed up and were gone in a flash? How do we know that won't happen again>
Beth
Mon, Dec 6, 2010 : 9:16 p.m.
The point of the lab school is to incorporate professors, staff, and students from the UM Ed School, to support and train both AAPS teachers and UM student teachers. Their hope is to get more adults working with the kids and to try new ideas, all with the goal of boosting student achievement. I can support that, but I cannot support the balanced calendar for just part of the district. My kids would spend several years on separate vacation schedules, and that absolutely will not work for our family. If they want to go with the balanced calendar, they need to make Scarlett and Mitchell a K-8 school, like Ann Arbor Open, that families opt into. No family should be forced onto this schedule, or into having their children on separate schedules, just because of where in the district they happen to live. The planning committee is still pushing hard for the balanced calendar to happen, although it won't be in the fall of 2011. If you have concerns about how this would affect your family, PLEASE e-mail the Board of Education- boe@aaps.k12.mi.us - to let them know. Please also attend the BOE meeting this Wednesday at 7pm, on the 4th floor of the downtown library, where this proposal will be formally presented to the Board for the first time.
local
Mon, Dec 6, 2010 : 6 p.m.
Isn't the whole point of the lab school to have year round teaching with a few breaks throughout? What is the point then to this lab school if it isn't the calendar. If it is truly to just get extra adults in the schools (college students, etc...), then just do that. I guess I am unclear about what the lab school really is then.