Be heard about the local building norm changes to AAP Screening Pool

[Anonymous]

Want the school board to hear your opinion about the completely unpublicized change to local building norms for the level IV screening pool?

Registration is now open for the speaker's list for the 12/16 meeting. You can give a 2 minute speech in-person, Zoom in your 2 minute speech live, or submit a 2 minute video speech. The speaker's list is selected by lottery, so submitting is no guarantee they will pick you. However it's a great way to actually get the parent voice out there.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ivN9YIJeuu3kHRYX_ilq2SRNHFwhGMfIYzazmpsEYX8/viewform?edit_requested=true

[Anonymous]

Can you explain why this is a problem?

[Anonymous]

The change was well publicized.

Maybe not well understood, by anyone. But definitely well publicized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The change was well publicized.

Maybe not well understood, by anyone. But definitely well publicized.

Was it though? I don't think so. Last year they used the lesser of the 132 cut or building norms. It was not publicized that they changed to just building norms, nor did the school board (the governing body) ever vote to do so that I can remember or find.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you explain why this is a problem?

I think it's a problem that they didn't advertise it. I plan to adopt a wait and see approach to see if it has any impact on level IV other than changing the economic and racial make-up somewhat (if it even does that, all it's changing so far is the pool).

[Anonymous]

agreed. this was by no means well publicized since we have spent the past week sleuthing out whether this was even the case that all schools would have their own set of norms, no district wide standard.

if someone can find the doc that says that, please post here and enlighten us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:agreed. this was by no means well publicized since we have spent the past week sleuthing out whether this was even the case that all schools would have their own set of norms, no district wide standard.

if someone can find the doc that says that, please post here and enlighten us.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/C7TSU8744C3E/$file/2021%20Oct%20-%20local%20norm%20expansion%20briefing.pdf

[Anonymous]

But how do we know that is the approach being used by the Board? I think there has just been one poster who claimed they had a score higher than 132 but weren’t in pool. I have not seen any other proof that the pool cut off has changed depending on the SES of the school.

What has changed is that that are encouraging a lower pool cut of for the lower SES schools to allow more minority kids in AAP.

[Anonymous]

To add, this is to give an equitable advantage to minority students who don’t have involved parents and who might not have access to higher quality educational materials. This does NOT mean the pool cut off has been raised across the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But how do we know that is the approach being used by the Board? I think there has just been one poster who claimed they had a score higher than 132 but weren’t in pool. I have not seen any other proof that the pool cut off has changed depending on the SES of the school.

What has changed is that that are encouraging a lower pool cut of for the lower SES schools to allow more minority kids in AAP.

I just posted in another thread, but my DC also had a subscore of 135 and was not in-pool, although that would have been enough for in-pool in previous years. That said, I don't think this change is going to materially make a difference at the high-performing schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:agreed. this was by no means well publicized since we have spent the past week sleuthing out whether this was even the case that all schools would have their own set of norms, no district wide standard.

if someone can find the doc that says that, please post here and enlighten us.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/C7TSU8744C3E/$file/2021%20Oct%20-%20local%20norm%20expansion%20briefing.pdf

Maybe it's my poor reading comprehension, but until people started reporting scores that were over 132 but not in-pool I read the above to say this year would be a continuation of last year only at all schools. Basically there would be the 132 OR the local norm, not exclusively the local norm. The above doc is NOT clear. I mean, doesn't this read like just an extension of last year's pilot:

For the pilot, local building norms were approved for use in schools that already had level IV services available
as of SY 2021-22, thus the new local building norms process was piloted in 105 schools. Local norms were not
used at 34 schools.

That doc was never in an email from FCPS. It was never in an email from schools (unless someone can say they got it). It was not shared by AARTs or teachers. AARTs tended to give vague or even wrong descriptions of the scores for the pool this year based on reports from this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But how do we know that is the approach being used by the Board? I think there has just been one poster who claimed they had a score higher than 132 but weren’t in pool. I have not seen any other proof that the pool cut off has changed depending on the SES of the school.

What has changed is that that are encouraging a lower pool cut of for the lower SES schools to allow more minority kids in AAP.

At least 3, maybe more, have posted scores of over 132. And the fact that we are still confused shows that this was NOT well publicized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To add, this is to give an equitable advantage to minority students who don’t have involved parents and who might not have access to higher quality educational materials. This does NOT mean the pool cut off has been raised across the county.

It hasn't been raised across the county. Just at the schools that used to have 40 kids in the pool (and similar). Nobody thinks it's been raised everywhere.

[Anonymous]

The fact is that this board doesn't help. Due to the anonymous nature of this board, the same individual could be posting multiple times, people say stuff without noting the school, and honestly, all of it is as suspect as FCPS. As a parent, you should email the Assistant Principal for testing to ask what the local threshold is and whether there is a county-wide threshold. If your AP is unwilling to provide total clarity in the response, you should forward that email to your School Board rep along with a 'cc' to your Regional AP. And then you should sign up to speak at the School Board hearing about inadequate transparency into the system. Otherwise it makes no sense. The real way this board becomes a powerful tool for parents is when parents can go on record with the school their kid is in when disclosing information, such as the input that was received from the AART for the parent whose kid received a 137 and didn't make the pool. Otherwise this board really shouldn't be used as the "data source" to make any sort of definitive decision.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, does it matter? Was anyone on this board not going to submit a parent referral? My oldest kid wasn’t in pool and got in first round, my middle kid was in pool but we needed to appeal for him to get in. So for my family this pool business is not meaningful.