Local Level IV vs Level IV Center

[Anonymous]

Bumping a portion of an older thread up since some recent posts have discussed Local Level IV vs. Level IV Centers.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/30/165593.page#1558230

Local Level IV can vary a great deal, and not only from school to school but also year to year. Some principals state that Local Level IV is the same as a Level IV Center and they are not.

[Anonymous]

In theory, the curricula should be nearly identical.

In practice, there are difference largely the result of the cohorts. For example, at Louise Archer (IV Center), there are 4 AAP fourth grade classes. At Marshall Roads ES (LLIV), there is about 1/2 of a class.

That means, my DD, at Louise Archer has all of her academic classmates in Level IV services. At Marshall Road, they pull in kids from General Ed to fill out the slots.

It also means that each year, there are different students in the class (at the center). In LLIV, there are always the same 15 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In practice, there are difference largely the result of the cohorts.

At our school, there were five 2nd grade kids found center-eligible last year. Four of them went to the assigned center and the last kid stayed at the base school. This last kid had such a miserable time at the base school in 3rd grade that he transferred to the center school last month.

[Anonymous]

At Oakton ES, two out of five 3rd grade classrooms are LLIV. My understanding is that out of the 48 kids in those two classes, 32 were found "center eligible" by the county and the rest were selected by the principal. Oakton must be doing something right, because I heard that not even one child opted for third grade at the center last year. Every single center eligible child stayed at the base school. It's not because the center is bad, either. Our center is Sunrise Valley ES.

[Anonymous]

I wish our school had local level iv. Our ES sent over 30 kids to a center last year and geographically it's a real pain, especially when siblings are At the base school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At Oakton ES, two out of five 3rd grade classrooms are LLIV. My understanding is that out of the 48 kids in those two classes, 32 were found "center eligible" by the county and the rest were selected by the principal. Oakton must be doing something right, because I heard that not even one child opted for third grade at the center last year. Every single center eligible child stayed at the base school. It's not because the center is bad, either. Our center is Sunrise Valley ES.

Maybe they should eliminate the Center for Oakton and just have Local Level IV.

[Anonymous]

I think the plan is to make Oakton a center school in a few years.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the disparity among schools. We have a part-time AART who does pull-outs once a week with the local level IV 3rd graders and up. Supposedly the rest of the week the kids are getting "differentiated work," but parents are not pleased with the program overall, and most kids who are eligible go to the center.

Why is this so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the disparity among schools. We have a part-time AART who does pull-outs once a week with the local level IV 3rd graders and up. Supposedly the rest of the week the kids are getting "differentiated work," but parents are not pleased with the program overall, and most kids who are eligible go to the center.

Why is this so?

Because the school principal has decided to only fund a part-time AART. Some schools have full-time AARTs because either the principal found the extra money or the PTA did some fundraising to pay for something else in the school budget so the principal could afford to pay for a full-time AART.

A school with a PTA checking account balance close to $100,000 will have a much easier time paying for a full-time AART than a school with a PTA checking account balance of $10,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the disparity among schools. We have a part-time AART who does pull-outs once a week with the local level IV 3rd graders and up. Supposedly the rest of the week the kids are getting "differentiated work," but parents are not pleased with the program overall, and most kids who are eligible go to the center.

Why is this so?

At our school the AART does pull-outs with 3rd graders (and 4,5,6th also) once a week and this is Level III services. Is that what you mean?

[Anonymous]

I do not think the funding always comes from the PTA. My oldest goes to Crossfield ES and the AART is there 2 days a week. My middle son is in K at Dogwood, and the AART is there full time. In Dogwood's case, I am sure the principal had to be creative to find the funding, though I think some of it comes from the fact that it is a Young Scholars school. My son in K is already getting pull outs. My older son (now in LLIV at Crossfield) never had pull outs, but the AART there is stretched thin being there 2 days a week.

Content wise, we have been somewhat pleased with the curriculum in our son's LLIV class, in particular the Language Arts curriculum, as well as accelerated math. Science, I have barely seen. Social Studies seems typical. We chose to leave ds1 there to say with a familiar school as he would have been sent to a different center than his classmates. One drawback is that when there are social issues, that perhaps might not work out, those same children will be together now until 6th grade. At a center, there would be more classes of each grade. With regard to the peer group (academically) we have been pleased. That said, I am not sure what % is LLIV eligible this year, it might be pretty high.

[Anonymous]

I didn't know the PTA could pay for teachers. Can they? We have a full time AAP teacher at our local level IV school I think, but our K child only gets a worksheet given to the teacher every couple of weeks. There is no pull out at the kindergarten level.

[Anonymous]

PP above is misinformed. The PTA (at least in Ffx County) does not pay for teachers. The principal makes the decision as to whether or not he/she wants to fund a full-time AART. We are at Flint Hill ES and we have a full-time AART. She starts doing pull-outs in first grade. We also have LLIV, but I'm not sure how full it is with Level IV students. How do you find out that info?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't know the PTA could pay for teachers. Can they? We have a full time AAP teacher at our local level IV school I think, but our K child only gets a worksheet given to the teacher every couple of weeks. There is no pull out at the kindergarten level.

The PTA cannot pay for teachers. The PTA can fund other items (such as SMARTboards or other forms of technology) and the principal can take budget allocations for such technology items and shift them elsewhere. Or, as the PP indicated, Title I funding can be moved around and result in funding of a full-time AART position.

[Anonymous]

Back to discussing the question at hand:

Our DN (my new term - dear neutral) child was found eligible for level IV through the pool. Chose to leave DN in the local level IV class for various reasons. DN is doing enough work including compact math and seems to be happy. The other kids are all hard workers. To be honest, though, I think very few level IV kids chose to stay - only really know of 3 out of about 29. Some children in the class don't stay for compact math. Not sure if the "level of thinking" is much different and whether that makes a big impact at this age. Many of our future CEO's are not in AAP..... I do wish we had the opportunity to observe a class in each setting before making a decision.