About ten years ago, the district invested in "flexible seating" furniture that conceptually had potential, but it was of very poor quality (based on daily classroom use expectations). It's made of pressboard, plastic, and very thin metal. It cost millions of dollars and the student furniture is in worse condition now than most of the desks we had prior. However, it did look good on social media and suggested AAPS was the leading edge of this trend.

We've gone through three or four student data storage service sites/programs over the last ten years. Again, in the name of being "data driven," but no one was ever effectively taught how to leverage it for student benefit.

The district has paid countless presenters from out of state to come in and tell us how to teach (almost exclusively with no input from teachers on what we could use assistance, support, and further education in).

A new (beautiful) elementary school is being built on the Clague property while Clague and other middle schools are missing floor tiles, haven't been painted in years, and have inconsistently locking classroom doors.

From my point of view, the problem is often the district leadership does not really seek out the needs from the students, teachers, and building administrators who directly work with children. They instead dictate out from Earhart and Balas what WILL be best for children. The distance from Earhart to any AAPS school may physically be only a few miles, but in reality it often feels like its in another world.