September 2, 2014
Hello Ann Arbor Public Schools Community,
Welcome to the 2014-2015 school year!
We are incredibly excited to welcome our students and families into our beautiful schools and caring classrooms to begin the academic year on today,Tuesday, September 2nd.
2014-2015 is already shaping up to be an incredible year as we continue to extend and enhance the quality for which Ann Arbor Public Schools has long been known. The Ann Arbor name represents quality teaching and learning experiences and top-shelf academic programs. AAPS educational outcomes, including ACT, Michigan Merit Exam (MME), and Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) consistently place AAPS among top-performing districts in Michigan and across the country.
Rich and plentiful performing arts, elective and extracurricular opportunities abound. After-school, Rec & Ed, athletic, and other enrichment offerings continue to make Ann Arbor Public Schools the envy across the region. The wide variety of opportunities available for students illustrates the Ann Arbor community value of providing a quality ‘whole-child’ learning experience.
AAPS expansions this year include:
- additional Preschool and Young 5s Classrooms,
- phase one of World Language expansion featuring the addition of Chinese, Arabic, and Sign Language offerings across several schools,
- opening of two new school programs:
- Ann Arbor STEAM at Northside, K-8 and the Pathways to Success Academic Campus, continued technology infusion and enhancements across all AAPS schools, and
- K-12 International Baccalaureate Programming transitioning into Mitchell Elementary, Scarlett Middle School, and Huron High School over the coming three school years.
The most important resource we offer for students and their families in AAPS, however, are not our incredible programs – they are our amazing and talented educators – our teachers and leaders are caring, competent, and committed. You will find that they are exceptional, A+, and that they embody the AAPS mission to:
“ensure each student realizes his or her aspirations while advancing the common good,
by creating a world-class system of innovative teaching and learning.”
AAPS schools also benefit tremendously from a highly engaged, supportive network of parents, community leaders, non-profit organizations, business and higher education partnerships that support and ensure educational excellence in our Ann Arbor community. In Ann Arbor, we are fortunate to enjoy a ‘village’ approach to ensuring quality education for our children.
Our continuing goals this year include ensuring frequent, accurate communication, continuous improvement in levels of responsiveness, problem solving, and quality delivery throughout the organization. We value face-to-face opportunities for community outreach and engagement, and we will soon share more about our 2014-2015 community engagement focus that will take us to every school neighborhood again this year to continue our community conversation. Please watch for more details coming by mid-September.
We are a school district growing and innovating our way forward; we are an organization on the move. We commit ourselves to serve as educators who lead, care and inspire across every classroom, for every child, every day.
Thank you for your support of the Ann Arbor Public Schools.
Sincerely,
Jeanice Kerr Swift
Superintendent of Schools
Ann Arbor Public Schools
If you are championing frequent and accurate communication from AAPS to the community, why are you continuing the suspicious policy of refusing to share preliminary enrollment information after the second week of school? The way Ann Arbor Public Schools fails to share relevant information with the public until days or even weeks after the deadline to have shared that info with the State of Michigan Dept of Education does not inspire confidence in the district’s claim of operating transparently.
Ms. O’Connell, Enrollment numbers are very fluid the first month of school. Every day, especially at the high schools, students are being taking off the enrollment rolls and added. We see about 1/4 of our students turn over each year and with 32 schools with over 16,500 -17,000 students quoting enrollment numbers at this date would not present an accurate count. Smaller districts don’t have the numbers of students to confirm and don’t see additional enrollments into the first two weeks of school like AAPS sees. Releasing numbers now would actually be inaccurate. The state uses the official count day on October 1 to accurately provide enrollment figures. This is when AAPS will release accurate enrollment.