Your chance to learn about the school budget and have a voice!

Ann Arbor Public Schools Budget Forums
Superintendent Todd Roberts and Deputy Superintendent Robert Allen will be hosting two sessions to give staff, parents, students and community members an overview of the district’s budget planning for the 2009/2010 school year.

Thursday, March 5
7:00-9:00pm
Forsythe Middle School
1655 Newport

Tuesday’s meeting at Scarlett was very lightly attended: let’s see if we can get more concerned parents to this last meeting!

At the PTO’s general meeting on April 17th, we heard a presentation from the Citizens’ Millage Committee about the two school tax proposals on the May 6th ballot. In response to that presentation, the PTO members present agreed unanimously that the PTO should take a public position supporting the proposals. They also approved the following resolution by a unanimous vote:

[Originally posted on www.aaparentsforschools.org]

Governor Jennifer Granholm’s budget proposal for the 2008 fiscal year includes a number of provisions that affect school aid, including changes which would help plug the funding shortfall for the current year (fiscal 07). Below are some extracts from the release on the budget proposal with some commentary; a full analysis of the budget, and legislative action, will follow soon.

District Superintendent Todd Roberts held his second community forum on the school budget last night at Pioneer HS. Dr. Roberts told the small group in attendance that his hope was to raise community awareness of the financial limits facing the district, and to lay the foundation for a community-wide discussion of school priorities this coming spring. He clearly hoped that his presentation would also build support for Proposal 5, on the ballot this November. During the discussion that followed, Dr.

With the run-up to the November elections and the (muted) buzz about Proposal 5, I thought this would be a good time to wax eloquent a bit about how our schools are funded.

Why can’t we?

One of the comments I hear most often about programs at our public schools goes something like, “We’re such a well-off community, why can’t we have…” and insert your preferred item: smaller classes, more teachers, foreign language, more enrichment, or any of a dozen others. Another thing I hear, more quietly, from many families at Burns Park is, “Do we have to have all the PTO fundraisers?”

The answer to the second question is “Yes,” and the reason for that answer has a lot to do with the answer to the first question. And for that answer, we need to go back in time a bit – thirteen years to be precise.