AAPS 2023 Preview | A2Schools Podcast | Week of January 9, 2023

In this week's podcast, Dr. Swift and Andrew Cluley talk about what students, staff, and families can expect in 2023 as we celebrate the new year and the return from Winter Break.

Topics include, new school board trustees, upcoming work on the district's strategic equity plan, next steps for the environmental framework, and construction work coming this summer and beyond.

In AAPS good news we share that Executive Director Student and School Safety Liz Margolis was recognized for her work by the Ann Arbor Fire Department over Winter Break.

We also discuss the temporary mask requirement for students, staff, and visitors in AAPS schools through January 20th.

Transcript

:05

Andrew Cluley

Welcome to the A2 Schools Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Cluley. As always, I'm joined by our Superintendent, Dr. Swift. Thanks for being here today.

:12

Jeanice Swift

It's great to be here, Andrew. Happy New Year.

:15

Andrew Cluley

Yes, Happy New Year. This is our first podcast of 2023 and I think we're just going to kind of talk about what we can expect to see in the schools coming up in this year of 2023. It's pretty exciting. What are you most looking forward to as we are back in school in January?

:32

Jeanice Swift

You know, it feels like some greatest hits of excitement at this time of the year as we come around the corner of this 2022-23 school year and welcome a brand new calendar year. You know, I think about the academic progress of our students coming back in after winter break. We've had a strong fall and students are really making academic progress.

:57

Jeanice Swift

And I love the winter time of the school year because you really get to that depth of learning that is so important as students feel that growth year over year. I also love this time of year for that social emotional development. Students have developed friendships and relationships at school and and good, strong relationships with their teachers and principals and support team at school. So I'm really excited about this next quarter of the school year.

1:30

Andrew Cluley

Now, I know that we ended December with a lot of work going on. The Board of Education has got some fresh faces that have just started. Can you talk a little bit about that?

1:41

Jeanice Swift

So exciting to welcome three incoming newly elected members of our Board of Education, Trustee Mohammad Trustee Schmidt and Trustee Townsend Gides. We're so excited to have them join us. And I love this time in our progress where we coalesce a board to really carry forward the work of the prior board and build on that strength, but also to put their own stamp on their work in governing the district.

2:16

Andrew Cluley

And of course, we have to mention that it is January and January is School Board Appreciation Month. So, I think we all want to say thank you to all the trustees for volunteering their time, and they're making this commitment to further education in Ann Arbor.

2:32

Jeanice Swift

I love it. And I'll tell you, it is an unsung role. And I think folks don't always realize that these individual trustees give of their time. It is like a job, and yet they do it in service to our students and to the Ann Arbor Public Schools and to our community. So many thanks to our trustees, past and present and hope that folks out there will be thinking about the future as well in board service.

3:08

Andrew Cluley

So, another thing that I know is on our plate in January and for the next several months is, is the work on the strategic equity plan. Can you talk about sort of what families and school students and staff and teachers can all anticipate happening in terms of working on that strategic equity plan in the Ann Arbor Public Schools?

3:29

Jeanice Swift

You know, it's a really exciting time. Our teachers in our school teams have been on this equity work for a few years now, and yet we've had as the next step, a full community engagement. That's been hard to do during the most challenging years of COVID. But we feel like now, beginning in January, we will start to bring together those advisory groups.

3:57

Jeanice Swift

We will also be putting out to everyone in the community for their feedback on our, generic parts of our plan, and really using that feedback from our parents, from our students, and from our own Ann Arbor Public Schools team as to how we want to see this strategic plan unfold. The heart and soul of it is equity, opportunity and access for children and for their quality education.

4:30

Jeanice Swift

So, watch for those announcements coming up and that'll be really a January through June focus. And our intention is to bring forward an equity plan for the district in June of 23.

4:47

Andrew Cluley

Along those lines late last year, the board approved the environmental sustainability framework, but I know that there's some work to be done on that. There was some items that are things that we're hoping to have happen pretty quickly, and then there's some areas where the framework set up sort of a guidelines, but we got to we got to flesh those out a little bit more. So, can you talk a little bit about what we're going to be seeing with the environmental sustainability framework?

5:15

Jeanice Swift

Absolutely. We're really excited that we are now able, after really multiple years of work in planning, we're ready to move to cross that bridge from planning to actual implementation. On the environmental sustainability framework, we know that there are mini grants coming out for teachers, so our teachers who have a passion around the planet, environmentally sustainable practice, just watch for those grant announcements.

5:48

Jeanice Swift

And then I know that one of the first things they're going to be doing is an evaluation of all of our outdoor learning spaces, and that's an important component of our overall educational plan, is is just our firm belief in having our students learn in beautiful outdoor settings. Also, we have students involved now in the environmental sustainability work in the district, our students from the Freeman.

6:20

Jeanice Swift

And I'm not going to say the proper name, but the Freeman Student Board and then also student outreach from the Neutral Zone. And so, we're really excited to see our students get their voices into this environmental work in the district.

6:39

Andrew Cluley

That's great to hear. And I guess I know that we've also got looking forward I know it's January right now and summer may seem forever away. You know, Michigan in January can can often make it seem like the sun will never come back out. But that summertime, we've already got the plans working in terms of work, construction work that will happen while students are away in the summertime.

7:05

Andrew Cluley

And then excitingly, there's also a couple of meetings coming up. Let's talk about some longer-term planning with both the new Mitchell Elementary and the new Pathways buildings. Can you talk about what families can expect on that?

7:18

Jeanice Swift

It's such a great time. We're so grateful to our community for having supported this capital bond program in the district. And so, we are completing over the coming two years those early commitments of the bond program. And so that's the LED lighting. You remember, Andrew, the number one request, air conditioning and climate control in all of our buildings.

7:48

Jeanice Swift

So, we are finishing that. I know it seems crazy the time has gone so quickly, but we're actually finishing that during ‘23 and ‘24, we're about 75% finished now with getting that early work done in our schools, makes such a big difference for our students and our staff to have buildings that are climate controlled. And then in that way we can do year-round in summer programing without any restrictions.

8:19

Jeanice Swift

And we're really excited now about, as you mentioned, two new school building projects, one on the campus of Mitchell Elementary will have a new Mitchell campus there for preschool through fifth grade. And then secondly, over on the Pathways Campus, Stone School Road there, we will have a new building. Now, those engagement processes have been ongoing. Bud during that January, February timeframe, we will be out in the community engaging with each of those school communities around their ideas for their new buildings.

9:03

Jeanice Swift

So, and that's all leading up to designs for the new schools being brought forward around spring break. So around that end of March, early April timeframe. So, it really is an exciting time.

9:19

Andrew Cluley

I know the meetings that are coming up in January are really exciting because it's sort of that feedback where it's like the students and the community gave their ideas in the fall and now they're going get that chance to sort of unwrap a present of seeing what are you guys coming up with, with from our ideas. And so, it'll be great to see.

9:38

Andrew Cluley

We'll see what, what, what hits. And I'm sure that there will be a couple of things that miss and the team will go back and take that input before coming back, as you said around spring break with more, more concrete plans.

9:49

Jeanice Swift

It's so funny. I feel like it's a recipe that in the fall we've got all of these ingredients and requests and ideas and tremendous thoughts, I loved seeing the students engage back in the fall. And now we're going to just see how the dish comes out and maybe make some adjustments as we go through spring. It should be fun.

10:10

Andrew Cluley

So, we certainly have a lot on tap here in 2023.

10:14

Jeanice Swift

We really do. It's an exciting time. And, you know, I'm so proud of our teachers, our school teams and school leaders really for all the work that they're doing to make every day count for our students. Really grateful to our parents for the work they do every day to bring us their beautiful children ready to learn. It's really an exciting time in the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

10:41

Andrew Cluley

Well, and that brings us to the good news segment on the A2 Schools podcast, and I think this week's what we're going to highlight is the recognition that Director of Student excuse me, that’s Executive Director of Student and School Safety, Liz Margolis received just last week from the Ann Arbor Fire Department. I know you and I were both able to attend the ceremony, and it was really exciting to see the fire department talk about the value of the partnership with obviously Ms. Margolis, but really the entire district in terms of making sure that we're doing what we can to make our schools as safe a place as possible.

11:20

Jeanice Swift

You know, I was so inspired to listen to the fire chief and to be there with so many of our fire department team really celebrating community engagement and community partnerships. And we're so proud of our partnership with Ann Arbor Fire Department. I’m very grateful and proud for Ms. Margolis this work to ensure that we have a strong partnership.

11:47

Jeanice Swift

And so, I also enjoyed Andrew, hearing those kind of heroic stories of really remarkable acts of our fire department team. So that was a bonus for the afternoon for sure.

12:05

Andrew Cluley

And I just want to highlight the chief mentioned a couple of things specifically, one being the Pioneer being opened as a cooling shelter a couple of summers ago when much of the city was without power. So that was an instance where we were giving back to the community. But then they also talked about the work that's been done so that now in all the fire trucks and all the police cars, they have the emergency key so that they can get into AAPS buildings.

12:33

Andrew Cluley

But they also were highlighting U of M has just gone through the same process. So, it's really, you know, in the time of emergency, these first responders are going to be able to get into the buildings both across our schools and also across the U of M campus, which is just such an important thing to happen.

12:50

Jeanice Swift

It's just an important key and critical element of a strong partnership and really probably something that folks don't even think about until unfortunately, it's a crisis moment. So, we just really appreciate the efforts of our first responders in the community. They are out helping us every day. And it's inspiring to see their work.

13:18

Andrew Cluley

Okay. Now, this brings us to the the big question. We haven't had these in several weeks, maybe a couple of months now. But there clearly is a big question around people's minds these days. And that was the decision that we made this week to require masks through January 20th. Can you talk a little bit about what led to that decision?

13:39

Jeanice Swift

I appreciate, Andrew, you bringing that up. We are at a particularly risky time now as we kind of bridge our way from winter break and folks being out on travel and social engagement and bridge back into the close confines of a classroom environment indoors in Michigan winter. And so, we wanted to really protect and take a proactive step, particularly as we saw over last weekend, cases start to tick up following the return from winter break.

14:18:

Jeanice Swift

So, we really are appreciating the support and the work of everyone in the community. And just to do everything we can to preserve in-school learning. You know, Andrew, our goal is clear every day and that is exactly what our parents and our community have indicated to us. And it's also our critical mission, Children in school learning on every day possible.

14:47

Jeanice Swift

And I'm so grateful that we've started well, on Monday and now we're moving into week one. And you know, a year ago we really had some struggles during January. So, we're hoping this year just navigate through and keep everyone as healthy as possible.

15:06

Andrew Cluley

And this really isn't just COVID. I think that's something that's really important because there's a lot of people that have, I think, had some confusion that it's just a COVID issue. It's really a host of illnesses that are been circulating around and that are causing concerns.

15:21

Jeanice Swift

It is. And we really appreciate that folks understand it could be RSV, it could be influenza, during December, and I understand it continues now. An outbreak of strep in the district. So, this is not a COVID mitigation as much as it is just a viral and winter challenge. And hopefully together we're going to navigate it well. And I don't know about you, Andrew, but I'm focusing on the sunny days of spring that are hopefully not too far away. And at that time, we hope by then our viruses will be receding.

16:04

Andrew Cluley

Well, thank you very much for joining me today, Doctor Swift on the A2 School's Podcast.

16:09

Jeanice Swift

It's wonderful to be here and just wishing all of our students and staff, our parents and community a very Happy New Year 2023.

16:20

Andrew Cluley

You've been listening to the A2 Schools Podcast. As always, if you have any questions about the Ann Arbor Public Schools, the first place to go to try and get answers is a2schools.org, our website. If you have a specific question or a topic that you'd like us to talk about on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you. You can email communications@a2schools.org and thank you once more for listening to this week's edition of the A2 Schools Podcast.