I knew our AART was bad

[Anonymous]

Our family has been at our elementary school since 2015. Every year we only have 2-5 students who qualify for the level 4 center school. I've always suspected it's because our AART is a hot mess. I already suspected this and then heard her incredibly lame teaching during virtual school.

So this past year we got a new AART and this year TWELVE students made it into the Level 4 program. I think it's a combo of good teaching but mainly a better job putting together packets. And MUCH better communication with parents about the application process.

Just anecdotal evidence about how flawed getting into AAP is and how much it favors people who are in schools with good AARTs and parents who know how to apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our family has been at our elementary school since 2015. Every year we only have 2-5 students who qualify for the level 4 center school. I've always suspected it's because our AART is a hot mess. I already suspected this and then heard her incredibly lame teaching during virtual school.

So this past year we got a new AART and this year TWELVE students made it into the Level 4 program. I think it's a combo of good teaching but mainly a better job putting together packets. And MUCH better communication with parents about the application process.

Just anecdotal evidence about how flawed getting into AAP is and how much it favors people who are in schools with good AARTs and parents who know how to apply.

Yes to the first bolded. No to the second. A good AART should not only be able to assemble strong packets, but should also be identifying kids for Young Scholars, urging them to apply, calling any parents of kids who didn't make the pool but are still strong AAP prospects, and doing teacher referrals for the kids of parents who don't understand the system. If a school has a good AART, parents don't need to "know how to apply." They will be walked through the process, or the school will do teacher referrals.

There is no correlation between good AARTs and the SES of the school. My kids' Title I school has a wonderful AART who runs a ton of enrichment programs, has a strong Young Scholars program, and routinely gets around 20% of the 2nd grade class accepted to AAP.

[Anonymous]

There's also been a change in the eligibility criteria, though, that may be confounding things. Instead of having one "in-pool" score across all schools qualifying you for the centers, there's now a local percentage requirement. So schools that used to send fewer are sending more because 'in pool' is lower for their school norm. So instead of a 132 cogat putting you in pool across schools, in schools with a lot of very high cogat scores, they might require 135 and in schools with lower numbers of very high scores it might be 128 to go into pool. So, not contesting the quality of your AART (I have no idea!), the change in numbers is more likely due to that FCPS policy change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's also been a change in the eligibility criteria, though, that may be confounding things. Instead of having one "in-pool" score across all schools qualifying you for the centers, there's now a local percentage requirement. So schools that used to send fewer are sending more because 'in pool' is lower for their school norm. So instead of a 132 cogat putting you in pool across schools, in schools with a lot of very high cogat scores, they might require 135 and in schools with lower numbers of very high scores it might be 128 to go into pool. So, not contesting the quality of your AART (I have no idea!), the change in numbers is more likely due to that FCPS policy change.

This does mean that more kids with potential are going to be looked at without needing Parent or Teacher referred.

[Anonymous]

To be fair, kids who are strong students, are above grade level in at least one subject, and have scores in the 120-131 range in a lower SES school should get referred either by the parents or the teachers. If the AART wasn't contacting parents in that situation and urging them to do a parent referral, or if the AART wasn't doing teacher referrals for the kids who needed them, the AART wasn't doing her job.

With that large of an increase in enrollment, it's likely that the old AART was especially bad at filling out GBRS forms or selecting work samples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our family has been at our elementary school since 2015. Every year we only have 2-5 students who qualify for the level 4 center school. I've always suspected it's because our AART is a hot mess. I already suspected this and then heard her incredibly lame teaching during virtual school.

So this past year we got a new AART and this year TWELVE students made it into the Level 4 program. I think it's a combo of good teaching but mainly a better job putting together packets. And MUCH better communication with parents about the application process.

Just anecdotal evidence about how flawed getting into AAP is and how much it favors people who are in schools with good AARTs and parents who know how to apply.

Oh, I know! Navigating the process is so involved. I feel bad for parents of gifted kids who aren't so involved or motivated. They easily fall through the cracks.

[Anonymous]

Where do you get the numbers from? How do you know that x number of kids get into your school's AAP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where do you get the numbers from? How do you know that x number of kids get into your school's AAP?

OP sounds like a staff member who seems to think it's okay to be unprofessional by posting data they have no business posting, even on an anonymous forum.

[Anonymous]

Depends on teacher too.

My child is the only one from her class to get into AAP. 8 kids got in from another class with a different teacher.

I know one kid from our child's class who absolutely deserved to be in AAP and deserved even more than my own child.

[Anonymous]

You know they changed up the AAP criteria last year, right?

[Anonymous]

Which school? We are in a highly ranked school and or AART is a mess. They have never helped with our packages and Level 3 is atrocious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which school? We are in a highly ranked school and or AART is a mess. They have never helped with our packages and Level 3 is atrocious.

Most AARTs don’t help with packages. Our school has a half time AART but LIII is pretty regular. It is nice but nothing exciting or great.