FCPS Proposal to close down AAP Centers at Greenbriar West ES and Carson MS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To read the AAP forum, one would think that there are about two, maybe three AAP middle schools county wide, and maybe 4-6 AAP center elementary schools. According to this forum, ALL of them are full of drama, backstabbing, bullying, mean competitive overstressed kids and crazy out of control tiger parents, and all of them are hated passionately by the entire general ed population. All of them are primarily in one part of the county.

There is one elementary that is mentioned here from time to time in a mostly positive light. In fact, I have not seen any drama filled or disparaging posts about that school or between its parents. There are a handful of schools in other parts of the county where parents might post a question about the program and receive 1-6 helpful and courteous responses. None of the schools mentioned occasionally or with only neutral or positive comments are from the part of the county with the schools alluded to above.

So no, the AAP program is not a source of constant drama, bitterness and backstabbing. No, it is not this terrible, cut throat program ruining Fairfax County Public Schools. No, most of the general ed population does not hate the AAP population, and no, the AAP kids and parents are not swooping in trying to destroy the lovely neighborhood schools that the county has foisted them on. And no, most of the parents, AAP and non AAP, spend hour after hour obsessing over who was prepped, who was not or who is "truly gifted" and "deserving" of AAP.

In fact, other than when the placement decisions come in, AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County.

Excellent post. This is exactly why the change will not be a big deal. The vast majority of kids will move from the centers back to their base schools, receive LLIV services, and see their neighborhood friends again, all without any drama. The usual complainers will complain, but it's just their mission to be unhappy and claim that the world will end. After a few years, no one will even remember that centers existed, and the world will continue to spin on its axis.

I disagree.

I think the change will bring drama where there is none, because of the principal placement factor. Right now, it is just some outside committee that doesn't know the kids from Adam, the kids test, go somewhere else and all is well.

Having one at every school, especially the ones that will need to principal place many kids due to small number of qualifying kids, will start up drama at places where folks are quite happy right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To read the AAP forum, one would think that there are about two, maybe three AAP middle schools county wide, and maybe 4-6 AAP center elementary schools. According to this forum, ALL of them are full of drama, backstabbing, bullying, mean competitive overstressed kids and crazy out of control tiger parents, and all of them are hated passionately by the entire general ed population. All of them are primarily in one part of the county.

There is one elementary that is mentioned here from time to time in a mostly positive light. In fact, I have not seen any drama filled or disparaging posts about that school or between its parents. There are a handful of schools in other parts of the county where parents might post a question about the program and receive 1-6 helpful and courteous responses. None of the schools mentioned occasionally or with only neutral or positive comments are from the part of the county with the schools alluded to above.

So no, the AAP program is not a source of constant drama, bitterness and backstabbing. No, it is not this terrible, cut throat program ruining Fairfax County Public Schools. No, most of the general ed population does not hate the AAP population, and no, the AAP kids and parents are not swooping in trying to destroy the lovely neighborhood schools that the county has foisted them on. And no, most of the parents, AAP and non AAP, spend hour after hour obsessing over who was prepped, who was not or who is "truly gifted" and "deserving" of AAP.

In fact, other than when the placement decisions come in, AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County.

Excellent post. This is exactly why the change will not be a big deal. The vast majority of kids will move from the centers back to their base schools, receive LLIV services, and see their neighborhood friends again, all without any drama. The usual complainers will complain, but it's just their mission to be unhappy and claim that the world will end. After a few years, no one will even remember that centers existed, and the world will continue to spin on its axis.

I think if you actually had a kid at one of these schools where AAP is a parental obsession, or at an overcrowded center, or at a formerly charming neighborhood school that has been turned into a center because of the bloated AAP numbers, you might not be so quick to dismiss the people who post on this forum as "the usual complainers." It really has been a very divisive program in certain parts of the county.

I would love nothing better to see most kids back in local schools wherever possible. But I also think you underestimate how loud the outcry will be from the AAP supporters. Talk of putting LLIV in some middle schools in McLean and Vienna to ease number at Kilmer and Longfellow last year nearly started a World War.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution doesn't have to be black or white. I am a big supporter of center schools for all of the reasons mentioned before, but at some point there comes a point of diminishing returns when overcrowding becomes too much. In my opinion, LLIV elementary schools that feed into significantly overcrowded centers should be designated as "one school centers" if the LLIV has a significant population of AAP eligible students (i.e. enough to fill 2 classrooms per grade)(e.g. schools like Wolftrap). I know no one wants to subject their child to an unknown-quality center when they have a historically-proven high-quality center as an option, but I'm sure folks at the overcrowded centers can attest that the quality dimishes with each passing year as the classes swell.

+1000 I like this idea and think this is also the one favored by much of the school board. There is no justification for busing students to a center when they have a critical mass of peers at their base school, particularly when the center is already overcrowded with AAP students outnumbering base school kids 2 to 1. Making qualified local schools "one school centers," would also spread the wealth around a bit, alleviating the other problem with centers -- if you build them people will come and they will specifically move to the neighborhood of a center and then devote their lives to doing everything they can to make sure all their kids get into AAP. This has also significantly contributed to overcrowding.

Yes, LLIV schools have their own issues as PPs have noted, but they also have an advantage because everyone is a neighborhood student. Students come into the school and their families are already part of the local community. They live near each other, send their kids to the same preschools, belong to the same local pools or health clubs, shop at the same stores. They all have an interest in seeing the school flourish even when their kids haven't started or are no longer there. It's not like a center where you have a cohort of families with no connection to the school/area being bused in to get a superior, segregated education often to the detriment of local students.

When my son attended a well-regarded center a few years back, his curriculum was great, but I was really taken aback at how out for themselves so many of the parents were. To them the center was more of a stepping stone than school -- a place where their kid was going to get his. I think it's more difficult to cop that kind of an attitude when you're in your local neighborhood and have to face these people.

But in our area, all of the feeder schools and the center school are within a five minute drive of each other. All of the kids and families already know each other through sports, the pool, church, neighborhood activities. The center school feels like just as much of a neighborhood school to us as does our actual neighborhood school.

Where is that? It's not that way at our center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To read the AAP forum, one would think that there are about two, maybe three AAP middle schools county wide, and maybe 4-6 AAP center elementary schools. According to this forum, ALL of them are full of drama, backstabbing, bullying, mean competitive overstressed kids and crazy out of control tiger parents, and all of them are hated passionately by the entire general ed population. All of them are primarily in one part of the county.

There is one elementary that is mentioned here from time to time in a mostly positive light. In fact, I have not seen any drama filled or disparaging posts about that school or between its parents. There are a handful of schools in other parts of the county where parents might post a question about the program and receive 1-6 helpful and courteous responses. None of the schools mentioned occasionally or with only neutral or positive comments are from the part of the county with the schools alluded to above.

So no, the AAP program is not a source of constant drama, bitterness and backstabbing. No, it is not this terrible, cut throat program ruining Fairfax County Public Schools. No, most of the general ed population does not hate the AAP population, and no, the AAP kids and parents are not swooping in trying to destroy the lovely neighborhood schools that the county has foisted them on. And no, most of the parents, AAP and non AAP, spend hour after hour obsessing over who was prepped, who was not or who is "truly gifted" and "deserving" of AAP.

In fact, other than when the placement decisions come in, AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County.

Excellent post. This is exactly why the change will not be a big deal. The vast majority of kids will move from the centers back to their base schools, receive LLIV services, and see their neighborhood friends again, all without any drama. The usual complainers will complain, but it's just their mission to be unhappy and claim that the world will end. After a few years, no one will even remember that centers existed, and the world will continue to spin on its axis.

I disagree.

I think the change will bring drama where there is none, because of the principal placement factor. Right now, it is just some outside committee that doesn't know the kids from Adam, the kids test, go somewhere else and all is well.

Having one at every school, especially the ones that will need to principal place many kids due to small number of qualifying kids, will start up drama at places where folks are quite happy right now.

Who's to say they won't still use one of the screening tests? And I'm sure the teachers will have input as well. They'll know the kids from having seen them in class and they help with the GBRS as well. I think in most cases, I'd trust the educators at the local school more than some committee looking at a folder stuffed with second-hand info and lots of parent-prepped "work" samples.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's the beginning of the end of centers. There are several board members who don't like them. I could see them saying LLIV is the same and costs less.

It the same thing and does cost less. It's a sensible solution that's been a long time coming.

In some schools where there is critical mass, it is similar. In other schools where is not critical mass, it is not.

It used to be that this was true. Nowadays the AAP program has been expanded so much that the only difference between kids in that 85-95th %ile range who are in the program and those who aren't is that the former prepped better, appealed more and got expensive outside testing done. If you want to expand the program that much, fine, but you could just pull in those same kids from inside the school itself without resorting to expensive bussing and without overcrowding the center schools.

Size of base school plays a role--our school is very small and often has only 2 classes per grade: LLIV would turn into a "smart class" and a "dumb class" in each grade, not a good thing, IMO.

Well this is exactly how center schools play out. My DC goes to one of the larger centers and while there are far more AAP classes (in fact, they outnumber the Gen Ed classes), there is the underlying - and false - assumption that the AAP classes are "smart" and Gen Ed "dumb". In fact, center schools only magnify this insanity and further the false division of students. It would be far less egregious if there was only one AAP class per grade, and the rest were all Gen Ed. Kind of like real life.

In my son's case, he has two base school classmates that went with him to the Center. One Center-eligible classmate chose to stay at the base school. So he no longer goes to the Center school and has a Local Level IV class of four students?

If there were four kids eligible for LLIV, then it would even easier for them to be integrated into a Gen Ed class and given differentiated work by the teacher. These kids will not wither up and become comatose if they are in a mixed-level class.

My DC was bullied in a 2nd grade class, including repeatedly thrown down into the dirt on the playground. So no, he did not wither up and become comatose, but I was not a fan of the school environment for him.

What does that have to do with differentiated learning? AAP/Gen Ed?

I think that if my son were with more academic peers -- as in he had more than one other kid that was at his academic level in his base school -- he might have been less isolated and subject to bullying. He came home in tears so many times due to how poorly he was treated at recess. In our case, he was thrilled to leave his base school to go to the Center as he escaped the tormenting.

My DS had plenty of "academic peers"in his school and they still bullied and isolated him. It is about social intelligence not academic intelligence. He had to be taught social skills. Bullies will find the weak spot and exploit it. If your child was in a room filled with his "academic peers" there would still be a child at the bottom of the social ladder being isolated and bullied.

I don't know why you find it so difficult to acknowledge that AAP kids in a center are less likely to bully the type of student described above than GenEd kids.

Because it isn't true.

It's absolutely true, all the way through HS. Look at how few disciplinary infractions there are at TJ.

You clearly don't have kids in high school yet. TJ is an anomaly. Sorry, but AAP definitely has its share of bullies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:13:16
I am not the poster you keep arguing with and antagonizing

It is quite simple really.

Those kid of kids who are usually on their own and social outcasts at most schools have, at the centers, a peer group of 6-10 kids who are just like them or very similarly quirky.

They go from a situation where they are either completely isolated, ignored or bullied at a typical school, to a school where they have not just one friend who is a friend by default, but several friends.
Like it or not, there is a disproportionately higher geek factor in the AAP center, that gives the kids who would normally be outcasts a group of friends. It gives these typesf kids the opportunity to develop friendships in a more natural and normal way than they are able to in a typical school where they are all alone at best, or bullied and ostracized at worst.

Whether you like AAP centers or hate them, that aspect is by far one of the best things about them.

This has not been my experience.

Do you mean it is not your child's experience or are you a student posting?

Are you saying that your awkward child has no similarly bright but awkward friends in AAP or are you saying that you can't think of six or so kids in a given AAP grade that slower socially, geeky, twice exceptional or socially challenged in spite of their brightness.

Because I am the poster you are responding to and I can think of a dozen kids off the top of my head in my kids aap grade who fall into that categorh. AAP has been very good for them. Mostly boys and two girls.

I am talking about my experience in AAP classrooms and Gen Ed classrooms, my children and my friend's children. Bullying happened in every classroom to some degree and the kids with the least social skills were always on the bottom regardless of the academic setting. It is also false that academically advanced children tend to be more socially backward- IME they have a similar range of social skills to their peers in Gen Ed. I think that there is a self selection. A child that has had difficulty finding friends for various reason that do not include a deficit in social cues will probably be moved to the AAP setting if they qualify and most likely they find it better there- but that could happen if they changed to a different school. Children who are doing very well socially in their local school tend to stay in the local school because they have found their social group. So, parent think- AAP is where children who don't fit in find friends. For children with social skills deficits, they find both places daunting.

It really depends on the cohort of children. I have two sons. Two years apart. Their social cohort was vastly different. In the eldest's class, there was a horrible mixture of personalities that created a mean girl and bullying boy culture. The school did social skills groups, mixed up kids as they moved through the school,.... it still had too many BMOC and Queen Bee wanna bees. It was toxic. Those that could pulled out. Aides never asked for that grade. Fast forward two years and it was night and day. Younger was in the nicest class ever. Everyone wanted to teach or aid in that grade as they moved up. It was at one of the school where 1/3 of the kids routinely get into AAP and there is a large cohort that is also quite smart. Interestingly, the cohort in youngest class also had the most students designated as special ed- about 20% and about ~25% had siblings in eldest's class. There were many 2E children. Unfortunately, the discrepancy has continued into HS- eldest's class seems to have more trouble than the others.

I saw mean spiritedness in all intelligences (well, not in the lowest).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Back on topic - please?

So I have one son at LLIV and a daughter starting LLIV next fall. We looked at both the center and local and decided the local was a happier choice...kids were going to school with other kids in the neighborhood, the local school was closer, and so on. We couldn't really see any academic advantage to going to the center where there were few, if any neighborhood ties. Plus the center is a HUGE school and I was worried the kids would get lost.

So at face value I'm inclined to agree with the idea that center schools aren't delivering value relative to the effort required to maintain them.

Not all Centers/LLIV programs are the same across the county, nor are they all delivering services consistently. There are also some smaller populations of AAP LIV kids at their base schools that ARE better served in centers simply because of the number of kids. For instance, one ES might only have 13 LIV qualified students in a grade, which means that this class will have to be filled with LIII qualified students, but also that they will spend their ENTIRE 3-6 grades with the same kids in order to receive services. So for those kids they have the option of a center with a larger peer group and can make that choice. In this case, the centers DO deliver the value for the money. But this is not the case across the county where some schools have 24% of ta particular grade turning up as qualified, or a larger base population.

I think that local level IV in most schools is going to cause much more drama in far more areas of the county than the center programs ever could.

What you are going to have now, at most of the schools, is one small class of "smart" kids, and 2-3 classes of everyone else.

The principal placement is going to cause SOOOOO much drama. Can you hear the non stop complaints of how the queen bee, class mom, Miss PTA kids are all getting into the "smart" class because they volunteer/kiss up/lobby/bug the teachers and the principals?

And this "smart" class is going to be roughly the same 15-24 kids, year after year, and their neighborhood kids are going to wonder why they can't be with their friends, why their friends get to be in that class and they don't, why does the school think their friend (principal placed) is so much smarter than everyone else, especially those kids who were placed by the principal.

The type of complaints you hear from people zoned for the center are going to be magnified 100X, and at every single school in the district. I can't even imagine the drama when/if this plan goes into play.

The headaches for the teacher and staff, once the placement into the LLIV classes go from an outside committee (center model) vs completely at the discretion of the principal and staff (LLIV model) are just going to be over the top. I can't imagine the amount of lobbying that is going to occur, especially in situations where there are 6-10 kids qualifying, and the school has to find 10-15 other students to place in the class. It is not going to be pretty.

Completely eliminating the center model in favor of LLIV at every school will not be the bed of roses that some of you expect it to be. What will most certainly happen, is that the AAP drama is going to spread at every school across the district, even happy schools, and it is going to be drawn out through the entire year, year after year, instead of just a quick bit of drama when the placement comes out in the spring.

In my opinion, the best idea is a mix of LLIV at places like Haycock where they have dozens of kids qualifying for Level IV placement and where they will likely be able to fill the LLIV class only with kids who qualify, and center schools for the rest of the county.

Everything you just described already occurs at center schools. Are you saying it's ok for students attending center schools (in particular, the Gen Ed students) to just put up with the status quo because you don't want that kind of drama spreading to all the other "happy" schools? Because frankly, I've had it with the center model and all the problems it causes and would be very, very grateful if centers were dismantled altogether. I had to laugh at the "quick bit of drama" you seem to think placement is. At our center, it's a topic of conversation all year long. There is never any time in which kids and parents aren't acutely aware of who is in the AAP classes (because there are so many of them) and who is in Gen Ed (far fewer). It's become so imbalanced, that not only parents of Gen Ed students, but also some AAP parents, are complaining because it has forced such a divide between kids who were all friends at one time.

It's interesting to note that when the program used to be GT, there wasn't nearly this level of angst and drama. Only the very top kids were in GT and everyone else was in Gen Ed. With the expansion of the program, the kids are just too similar to group and label them in this way. Of course it's going to cause hard feelings and if FCPS has any common sense, they will rectify this situation as soon as possible by at least getting rid of centers, de-emphasizing AAP, and focusing on the many other kids who have been completely dismissed in favor of AAP madness in recent years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drama as it stands now is limited to certain schools at certain parts of the county.

It is certainly not widespread, and in most areas it is really just limited to the time in the spring right around results, or just at the center schools.

For most people and at most schools in this county AAP drama and controversy is completely off the radar.

You realize you are posting this in a forum that had to be specifically carved out of the VA Schools forum because of the constant drama, right?

Putting a LLIV at every school 100% guarantees the drama becomes widespread and long term. It is borrowing trouble where there is none

Yeah, I think that ship has sailed.

Maybe your school and your part of the county, but not elsewhere and not to the degree that it happens on this forum.

How many AAP centers are in the county? Elementary? Middle School?

To read the AAP forum, one would think that there are about two, maybe three AAP middle schools county wide, and maybe 4-6 AAP center elementary schools. According to this forum, ALL of them are full of drama, backstabbing, bullying, mean competitive overstressed kids and crazy out of control tiger parents, and all of them are hated passionately by the entire general ed population. All of them are primarily in one part of the county.

There is one elementary that is mentioned here from time to time in a mostly positive light. In fact, I have not seen any drama filled or disparaging posts about that school or between its parents. There are a handful of schools in other parts of the county where parents might post a question about the program and receive 1-6 helpful and courteous responses. None of the schools mentioned occasionally or with only neutral or positive comments are from the part of the county with the schools alluded to above.

So no, the AAP program is not a source of constant drama, bitterness and backstabbing. No, it is not this terrible, cut throat program ruining Fairfax County Public Schools. No, most of the general ed population does not hate the AAP population, and no, the AAP kids and parents are not swooping in trying to destroy the lovely neighborhood schools that the county has foisted them on. And no, most of the parents, AAP and non AAP, spend hour after hour obsessing over who was prepped, who was not or who is "truly gifted" and "deserving" of AAP.

In fact, other than when the placement decisions come in, AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County.

I am very sorry that your school and area is not the way that most of the county is. It must be a very stressful way to live to have that much vitrol and drama over an elementary school program and placement decision that may or may not affect your child.

Not the PP, but I couldn't disagree more, especially with your assertion that "AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County". How nice for you that your school is a happy place with no AAP drama. For those of us who DO have to put up with this nonsense, however, we would be very appreciative if FCPS would do something - anything - to help us get our community schools back. If that means dismantling centers in certain areas of the county in which there are tons of AAP kids at all the base schools (Haycock, Colvin Run, Louise Archer, etc.), then so be it. Sending these kids back to their base schools would be a huge relief for those of us who DO have to contend with this very divisive issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To read the AAP forum, one would think that there are about two, maybe three AAP middle schools county wide, and maybe 4-6 AAP center elementary schools. According to this forum, ALL of them are full of drama, backstabbing, bullying, mean competitive overstressed kids and crazy out of control tiger parents, and all of them are hated passionately by the entire general ed population. All of them are primarily in one part of the county.

There is one elementary that is mentioned here from time to time in a mostly positive light. In fact, I have not seen any drama filled or disparaging posts about that school or between its parents. There are a handful of schools in other parts of the county where parents might post a question about the program and receive 1-6 helpful and courteous responses. None of the schools mentioned occasionally or with only neutral or positive comments are from the part of the county with the schools alluded to above.

So no, the AAP program is not a source of constant drama, bitterness and backstabbing. No, it is not this terrible, cut throat program ruining Fairfax County Public Schools. No, most of the general ed population does not hate the AAP population, and no, the AAP kids and parents are not swooping in trying to destroy the lovely neighborhood schools that the county has foisted them on. And no, most of the parents, AAP and non AAP, spend hour after hour obsessing over who was prepped, who was not or who is "truly gifted" and "deserving" of AAP.

In fact, other than when the placement decisions come in, AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County.

Excellent post. This is exactly why the change will not be a big deal. The vast majority of kids will move from the centers back to their base schools, receive LLIV services, and see their neighborhood friends again, all without any drama. The usual complainers will complain, but it's just their mission to be unhappy and claim that the world will end. After a few years, no one will even remember that centers existed, and the world will continue to spin on its axis.

YES. Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drama as it stands now is limited to certain schools at certain parts of the county.

It is certainly not widespread, and in most areas it is really just limited to the time in the spring right around results, or just at the center schools.

For most people and at most schools in this county AAP drama and controversy is completely off the radar.

You realize you are posting this in a forum that had to be specifically carved out of the VA Schools forum because of the constant drama, right?

Putting a LLIV at every school 100% guarantees the drama becomes widespread and long term. It is borrowing trouble where there is none

Yeah, I think that ship has sailed.

Maybe your school and your part of the county, but not elsewhere and not to the degree that it happens on this forum.

How many AAP centers are in the county? Elementary? Middle School?

To read the AAP forum, one would think that there are about two, maybe three AAP middle schools county wide, and maybe 4-6 AAP center elementary schools. According to this forum, ALL of them are full of drama, backstabbing, bullying, mean competitive overstressed kids and crazy out of control tiger parents, and all of them are hated passionately by the entire general ed population. All of them are primarily in one part of the county.

There is one elementary that is mentioned here from time to time in a mostly positive light. In fact, I have not seen any drama filled or disparaging posts about that school or between its parents. There are a handful of schools in other parts of the county where parents might post a question about the program and receive 1-6 helpful and courteous responses. None of the schools mentioned occasionally or with only neutral or positive comments are from the part of the county with the schools alluded to above.

So no, the AAP program is not a source of constant drama, bitterness and backstabbing. No, it is not this terrible, cut throat program ruining Fairfax County Public Schools. No, most of the general ed population does not hate the AAP population, and no, the AAP kids and parents are not swooping in trying to destroy the lovely neighborhood schools that the county has foisted them on. And no, most of the parents, AAP and non AAP, spend hour after hour obsessing over who was prepped, who was not or who is "truly gifted" and "deserving" of AAP.

In fact, other than when the placement decisions come in, AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County.

I am very sorry that your school and area is not the way that most of the county is. It must be a very stressful way to live to have that much vitrol and drama over an elementary school program and placement decision that may or may not affect your child.

Not the PP, but I couldn't disagree more, especially with your assertion that "AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County". How nice for you that your school is a happy place with no AAP drama. For those of us who DO have to put up with this nonsense, however, we would be very appreciative if FCPS would do something - anything - to help us get our community schools back. If that means dismantling centers in certain areas of the county in which there are tons of AAP kids at all the base schools (Haycock, Colvin Run, Louise Archer, etc.), then so be it. Sending these kids back to their base schools would be a huge relief for those of us who DO have to contend with this very divisive issue.

Why not an AAP magnet school? Then there would be no centers in neighborhood schools and no LLIV. The AAP madness could be confined to one or two all AAP schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To read the AAP forum, one would think that there are about two, maybe three AAP middle schools county wide, and maybe 4-6 AAP center elementary schools. According to this forum, ALL of them are full of drama, backstabbing, bullying, mean competitive overstressed kids and crazy out of control tiger parents, and all of them are hated passionately by the entire general ed population. All of them are primarily in one part of the county.

There is one elementary that is mentioned here from time to time in a mostly positive light. In fact, I have not seen any drama filled or disparaging posts about that school or between its parents. There are a handful of schools in other parts of the county where parents might post a question about the program and receive 1-6 helpful and courteous responses. None of the schools mentioned occasionally or with only neutral or positive comments are from the part of the county with the schools alluded to above.

So no, the AAP program is not a source of constant drama, bitterness and backstabbing. No, it is not this terrible, cut throat program ruining Fairfax County Public Schools. No, most of the general ed population does not hate the AAP population, and no, the AAP kids and parents are not swooping in trying to destroy the lovely neighborhood schools that the county has foisted them on. And no, most of the parents, AAP and non AAP, spend hour after hour obsessing over who was prepped, who was not or who is "truly gifted" and "deserving" of AAP.

In fact, other than when the placement decisions come in, AAP is completely off the radar for the majority of parents in Fairfax County.

Excellent post. This is exactly why the change will not be a big deal. The vast majority of kids will move from the centers back to their base schools, receive LLIV services, and see their neighborhood friends again, all without any drama. The usual complainers will complain, but it's just their mission to be unhappy and claim that the world will end. After a few years, no one will even remember that centers existed, and the world will continue to spin on its axis.

I disagree.

I think the change will bring drama where there is none, because of the principal placement factor. Right now, it is just some outside committee that doesn't know the kids from Adam, the kids test, go somewhere else and all is well.

Having one at every school, especially the ones that will need to principal place many kids due to small number of qualifying kids, will start up drama at places where folks are quite happy right now.

But you see, all is NOT well. These kids may be out of sight out of mind to those at the base school, but not so much for those of us whose base school is the center. We're the ones having to put up with the massive amounts of kids coming every year for AAP. Enough already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not an AAP magnet school? Then there would be no centers in neighborhood schools and no LLIV. The AAP madness could be confined to one or two all AAP schools.

Interesting concept - "TJ" for elementary and middle school for the truly gifted, everyone else back in their neighborhood school.

Makes too much sense to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Back on topic - please?

So I have one son at LLIV and a daughter starting LLIV next fall. We looked at both the center and local and decided the local was a happier choice...kids were going to school with other kids in the neighborhood, the local school was closer, and so on. We couldn't really see any academic advantage to going to the center where there were few, if any neighborhood ties. Plus the center is a HUGE school and I was worried the kids would get lost.

So at face value I'm inclined to agree with the idea that center schools aren't delivering value relative to the effort required to maintain them.

Not all Centers/LLIV programs are the same across the county, nor are they all delivering services consistently. There are also some smaller populations of AAP LIV kids at their base schools that ARE better served in centers simply because of the number of kids. For instance, one ES might only have 13 LIV qualified students in a grade, which means that this class will have to be filled with LIII qualified students, but also that they will spend their ENTIRE 3-6 grades with the same kids in order to receive services. So for those kids they have the option of a center with a larger peer group and can make that choice. In this case, the centers DO deliver the value for the money. But this is not the case across the county where some schools have 24% of ta particular grade turning up as qualified, or a larger base population.

I think that local level IV in most schools is going to cause much more drama in far more areas of the county than the center programs ever could.

What you are going to have now, at most of the schools, is one small class of "smart" kids, and 2-3 classes of everyone else.

The principal placement is going to cause SOOOOO much drama. Can you hear the non stop complaints of how the queen bee, class mom, Miss PTA kids are all getting into the "smart" class because they volunteer/kiss up/lobby/bug the teachers and the principals?

And this "smart" class is going to be roughly the same 15-24 kids, year after year, and their neighborhood kids are going to wonder why they can't be with their friends, why their friends get to be in that class and they don't, why does the school think their friend (principal placed) is so much smarter than everyone else, especially those kids who were placed by the principal.

The type of complaints you hear from people zoned for the center are going to be magnified 100X, and at every single school in the district. I can't even imagine the drama when/if this plan goes into play.

The headaches for the teacher and staff, once the placement into the LLIV classes go from an outside committee (center model) vs completely at the discretion of the principal and staff (LLIV model) are just going to be over the top. I can't imagine the amount of lobbying that is going to occur, especially in situations where there are 6-10 kids qualifying, and the school has to find 10-15 other students to place in the class. It is not going to be pretty.

Completely eliminating the center model in favor of LLIV at every school will not be the bed of roses that some of you expect it to be. What will most certainly happen, is that the AAP drama is going to spread at every school across the district, even happy schools, and it is going to be drawn out through the entire year, year after year, instead of just a quick bit of drama when the placement comes out in the spring.

In my opinion, the best idea is a mix of LLIV at places like Haycock where they have dozens of kids qualifying for Level IV placement and where they will likely be able to fill the LLIV class only with kids who qualify, and center schools for the rest of the county.

You are a sour ass. That comment about the PTA queen bees was completely unwarranted. My kids are in AAP and I've only volunteered a couple of times for stuff our PTA organizes because it fundamentally doesn't interest me, but I can guarantee you that with one or two exceptions, the women running the PTA at our school don't have kids in AAP, don't complain about it, and work like dogs year round to fundraise and organize events for all the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not an AAP magnet school? Then there would be no centers in neighborhood schools and no LLIV. The AAP madness could be confined to one or two all AAP schools.

Interesting concept - "TJ" for elementary and middle school for the truly gifted, everyone else back in their neighborhood school.

Makes too much sense to work.

+100 Especially if the magnet schools were limited to the "truly gifted" only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Back on topic - please?

So I have one son at LLIV and a daughter starting LLIV next fall. We looked at both the center and local and decided the local was a happier choice...kids were going to school with other kids in the neighborhood, the local school was closer, and so on. We couldn't really see any academic advantage to going to the center where there were few, if any neighborhood ties. Plus the center is a HUGE school and I was worried the kids would get lost.

So at face value I'm inclined to agree with the idea that center schools aren't delivering value relative to the effort required to maintain them.

Not all Centers/LLIV programs are the same across the county, nor are they all delivering services consistently. There are also some smaller populations of AAP LIV kids at their base schools that ARE better served in centers simply because of the number of kids. For instance, one ES might only have 13 LIV qualified students in a grade, which means that this class will have to be filled with LIII qualified students, but also that they will spend their ENTIRE 3-6 grades with the same kids in order to receive services. So for those kids they have the option of a center with a larger peer group and can make that choice. In this case, the centers DO deliver the value for the money. But this is not the case across the county where some schools have 24% of ta particular grade turning up as qualified, or a larger base population.

I think that local level IV in most schools is going to cause much more drama in far more areas of the county than the center programs ever could.

What you are going to have now, at most of the schools, is one small class of "smart" kids, and 2-3 classes of everyone else.

The principal placement is going to cause SOOOOO much drama. Can you hear the non stop complaints of how the queen bee, class mom, Miss PTA kids are all getting into the "smart" class because they volunteer/kiss up/lobby/bug the teachers and the principals?

And this "smart" class is going to be roughly the same 15-24 kids, year after year, and their neighborhood kids are going to wonder why they can't be with their friends, why their friends get to be in that class and they don't, why does the school think their friend (principal placed) is so much smarter than everyone else, especially those kids who were placed by the principal.

The type of complaints you hear from people zoned for the center are going to be magnified 100X, and at every single school in the district. I can't even imagine the drama when/if this plan goes into play.

The headaches for the teacher and staff, once the placement into the LLIV classes go from an outside committee (center model) vs completely at the discretion of the principal and staff (LLIV model) are just going to be over the top. I can't imagine the amount of lobbying that is going to occur, especially in situations where there are 6-10 kids qualifying, and the school has to find 10-15 other students to place in the class. It is not going to be pretty.

Completely eliminating the center model in favor of LLIV at every school will not be the bed of roses that some of you expect it to be. What will most certainly happen, is that the AAP drama is going to spread at every school across the district, even happy schools, and it is going to be drawn out through the entire year, year after year, instead of just a quick bit of drama when the placement comes out in the spring.

In my opinion, the best idea is a mix of LLIV at places like Haycock where they have dozens of kids qualifying for Level IV placement and where they will likely be able to fill the LLIV class only with kids who qualify, and center schools for the rest of the county.

You are a sour ass. That comment about the PTA queen bees was completely unwarranted. My kids are in AAP and I've only volunteered a couple of times for stuff our PTA organizes because it fundamentally doesn't interest me, but I can guarantee you that with one or two exceptions, the women running the PTA at our school don't have kids in AAP, don't complain about it, and work like dogs year round to fundraise and organize events for all the kids.

Did I say I complain about the PTA moms? Never have, never will. Those women do an amazing job. The majority of them are simply wonderful.

But you have to agree that there are many many people who attribute any success by the kids of these moms as happening because mom always volunteers/is in the classroom/bribes the teacher by bringing cupcakes-running the parties-copying all the worksheets-yada yada yada. Unfortunately, the kids of these moms face a lot of scrutiny, and I guarantee that for every one of them that gets pupil placed into a program like a LLIV, there are scores of gossips behind the scenes whispering that the kid is only there because mom pulled strings or nagged the administration.

You must know this to be true. Unfortunate, but true. Teachers kids face the same kind of competitiveness and scrutiny. (I was one of those) It sucks, but it is indeed what happens.