Advocacy Letter to School Board & City Council

Thank you to the 200 parents, teachers, students and community members who took our fall survey seeking input on key issues and priorities at ACHS. Your feedback helped us craft our advocacy letter to the School Board and City Council and outline our own budget priorities for the year. 

Issues included starting the year without a permanent Executive Principal, managing the two-campus model and Academies system, the complexities of academic instruction in such a large environment, staffing and transportation issues, teacher recruitment and retention, and school safety and security. While we intend to help advocate for a change in the state funding formula for public schools, we recommended a narrow focus on the following four priorities at ACHS given limited resources: 

1. Fully staff both KS and MH campuses to minimize movement between buildings.

2. Recruit a new Executive Principal who can fully engage ACHS families, teachers, and staff.

3.  Prioritize a safe and secure learning environment supported by adequate transportation.

4. Support family engagement administrative requests for our most vulnerable populations.

If you'd like to help with the effort, please reach out to Advocacy Chair Marguerite Rippy at Advocacy@achsptsa.org. If you'd like to share your thoughts with the School Board directly you may do so here. To reach City Council, you may email them here, or join us at our first General Membership Meeting of the year on Tuesday, January 20th at 7pm in Minnie Howard Room 3007 where we will discuss the budget process with special guest Mayor Alyia Gaskins.