Superintendent shares acronym meanings

Vassalboro Community School. (source: jmg.org)

At the Sept. 17 Vassalboro School Board meeting, Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer shared a list of more than 200 educational bureaucracy acronyms he obtained at a recent conference.

Some have become familiar, like ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

Some seem confusing. HR might mean either House Resolution or Human Resources, and SFA stands for either student financial assistance or School Food Authority. FY is fiscal year; FFY is federal fiscal year; PFY is preceding fiscal year; SY is school year; there is no SFY for state fiscal year.

There are long acronyms, like AEFFA (Association of Educational Federal Finance Administrators), CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program) and FPLPE (Federal Perkins Loan Program Extension). There are a minority of two-letter ones, including MC for Montana Compact and PS, which does not mean an addition to a letter or an email ­– it means postsecondary.

Easy to pronounce acronyms include GAPS, the Grant Administration and Payment System; HELP, the U. S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; LEARN, Literacy for All, Results for the Nation; and PLOP, present level of performance.