APS Superintendent Update February 2025

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Strategic Plan Summit

Almost a year ago, 54 community members, staff, and student leaders came together to take an honest look at the strengths and challenges of Alpena Public Schools. Since then, through countless discussions, much collaboration, and a great deal of hard work, we’ve made meaningful progress—including the Board of Education’s official adoption of our Strategic Plan in August 2024.

Now, it’s time to come together again to reflect on what’s been accomplished and share what the future looks like for APS.

We invite you to join us for an important Strategic Plan Update on February 24th, 6 pm in the Wildcat Den at Alpena High School.  This informal session will provide key updates with opportunities for dialogue, community feedback, and shared ideas about the future of APS.  Your voice matters, and we’d love to see you there. Let’s keep building a stronger APS—together.

 Snow Days

In my experience, no decision sparks more nostalgic “when I was a kid” stories than the call to close school for inclement weather. Reactions are often immediate and passionate. It’s understandable—weather-related closures impact families in different ways, and people feel strongly about them. I do ask that those of you who feel the need to call the district and passionately express your disagreement with our decision do so respectfully.  Our dedicated and caring staff work hard to support our students and community, and they deserve to be treated with respect

We know that closing school can be disruptive, and we don’t take the decision lightly. Our goal is always to prioritize the safety of our students and staff. While we do our best, no one gets it right 100% of the time—I’ve even found myself looking out the window on a snow day thinking, “Well, where’s the snow?” But when it comes to student safety, we’d rather err on the side of caution than take unnecessary risks.

As for where we stand this year: We’ve had six weather-related closures so far. The state allows for six, with the possibility of appealing for up to three additional days. Fortunately, APS built an extra instructional day into the calendar, meaning we have one more closure available before we’d need to request additional days.

If we exceed a total of ten snow days (the six state-provided days, plus our extra built-in day, plus the three waiver days), then we would need to extend the school year into June. Snow day makeup in June…for some reason, I have visions of Olaf blissfully unaware that he is melting in the hot sun.