Hello AAPS Community,
As we wrap up this first week in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, I want to thank our wonderful students, teachers and staff, parents and community for a successful opening of this 2023-24 school year across all our schools. It takes a village, and our community came together this week to ensure a strong school year opening for our students.
It has been a delight this week to visit schools across the district and experience the excitement firsthand of opening a brand new school year. Among all our 17,000+ students, we welcomed a large cohort of kindergartners, members of the Class of 2036, across elementary schools this week!
Students are happy, learning and growing from the very first day; teachers, school teams, and principals are setting the expectations and routines that will lay a foundation for success with students throughout this school year. We are all working together to ensure educational experiences of dignity, belonging and well-being.
We deeply appreciate the efforts of the Ann Arbor Public Schools teachers and school teams, ITD, facilities, food and nutrition and many other team members who worked through last weekend, making every effort to reopen our schools as safely and as quickly as possible.
You may enjoy this AAPS News video highlights of the first day of school.
As a bonus this year, we were very excited on Tuesday to open all our campuses in the AAPS following power outages and storm-related impacts late last week. This AAPS News video shares a little more of that story.
In case you missed the update, AAPS High Schools again achieved levels of distinction among the U.S. News Best High Schools 2023-24 rankings announced this week.
Thought you might enjoy the following questions borrowed from a first-grade classroom at Wines Elementary, where I had the opportunity to visit: How can we show we care for everyone? How can we celebrate each other? And how can we help each other? Excellent questions for reflection from our first graders and worthy of all our consideration over the upcoming days of fall.
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Wishing you an enjoyable and safe Labor Day weekend, and we look forward to welcoming all our students and staff back to school on Tuesday.
Take good care,
Jeanice K. Swift
Superintendent of Schools
Ann Arbor Public Schools
