K-12

by P.D. Lesko FOR TWO YEARS, Ann Arbor Public School officials and members of the Board of Trustees have been hemming and hawing, discussing and studying the pros and cons of later start times for the district’s sleep-deprived teens. In…

by Donna Iadipaolo ONE MAN WANTS to change the face of debate and speech activities in Ann Arbor for middle school students. His name is Shawn Batt, and he is the founder of Michigan Speech Outreach (MSO), which began as a Lansing-based…

AAPS SUPERINTENDENT DR. Swift is preparing to launch another “listening tour” similar to the successful one she conducted shortly after her hiring. We congratulate her on this effort to get out of Balas and into the community to hear from…

DONNA LASINSKI IS on AAPS Superintendent Jeanice Kerr Swift’s Blue Ribbon Advisory commission, a group of parents who meet with Swift monthly to give her feedback and counsel. Lasinski is polite and personable. She’s tough, too, and doesn’t…

WASHTENAW FUTURES plans to help high school counselors and students during College Application Week to complete and submit college applications. Ashley Kryscynski is the regional Michigan College Application Week coordinator for…

CHRISTINE STEAD IS the Vice President of the AAPS Board of Education. She comes to her interview dressed conservatively. She is not an Ann Arbor Birkenstock Board Bohemian. She is warm, smooth—not smarmy—in her answers and the definition of…

by Donna Iadipaolo THIS FALL, HAISLEY Elementary School became the first school in the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) to participate in the national “Little Free Library” (LFL) program. The Little Free Library movement began in 2009…

THE WHITMORE LAKE Public Schools may be a short distance from Ann Arbor just up US-23, but the two school districts are plagued by the same financial woes and the Whitmore Lake district’s student performance as measured by the MEAP, SAT and…

With just days to go in the race to fill four seats on the AAPS Board of Education, Deirdre Piper has withdrawn from the crowded field of 10 candidates. She sent this statement is response to a question about her withdrawl from the race:…

by P.D. Lesko Please Note: I am acquainted with Hunter Van Valkenburgh, as well as his wife Aina Bernier.  Monica Harrold, the wife of Board of Education candidate Jeffrey Harrold, was the principal at Northside Elementary, which my kids…