New middle school enriched and accelerated classes

[Anonymous]

The odd thing is that I never heard about the new classes until I read about it on this board. I have a 5th grader and no one is talking about it at school. No message from the principal. Is our school unique? I find the secrecy odd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The odd thing is that I never heard about the new classes until I read about it on this board. I have a 5th grader and no one is talking about it at school. No message from the principal. Is our school unique? I find the secrecy odd.

Your school should have a GT liaison teacher and a GT liaison parent. If you don't know who they are, write an email to PTA president and/or principal and they will let you know. If your school doesn't have a large enough population who is enthusiastic about education, it's normal to not know these stories.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The odd thing is that I never heard about the new classes until I read about it on this board. I have a 5th grader and no one is talking about it at school. No message from the principal. Is our school unique? I find the secrecy odd.[/quote]

Your school should have a GT liaison teacher and a GT liaison parent. If you don't know who they are, write an email to PTA president and/or principal and they will let you know. If your school doesn't have a large enough population who is enthusiastic about education, it's normal to not know these stories.[/quote]

Interesting. Never heard of a GT liaison and all the positions at our school are listed on the website. We are in a W feeder that doesn’t send many kids to a magnet for whatever reasons, although we have involved parents. Some would argue too involved.

[Anonymous]

Letter came home with DC’s report card.

[Anonymous]

Your report card is a day early

[Anonymous]

Got report card today, but no letter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe this is a dumb point, but assuming the county is buying a new curriculum that offers some more differentiation, doesn’t it stand to follow that whatever they implement next year (with very little teacher training if any) will then be phased out within two years? I’m not saying you shouldn’t want your kid to take it but still...

Not a new curriculum - based on the curriculum at the MSMC. If you read the description of the classes, sounds very similar to World Studies at Eastern and Math at TPMS. Not reinventing the wheel.

DP.. No, the ^PP is referring to the new curriculum MCPS is getting to replace 2.0. I would assume (dangerous word) that whatever curriculum they develop for the magnets based on this new curriculum, will be implemented in the other MS, but again, big assumption. Actually, I have a feeling that they will drop the "enriched" curriculum in the other MS after a couple of years of the new replacement of 2.0 curriculum has been implemented, and not even bother implementing an "enriched" one anymore. I get a sense that this move is to just placate the parents of those who didn't get in because of the "cohort" nonsense.

That’s what it is. It’s a response to lawsuit threats.

No it isn't. These classes were referenced in a public MCPS presentation last fall. But if it makes you feel better....

[Anonymous]

Sorry your facts are wrong. The courses were announced after the debacle involving the students denied admission because they had a cohort. The fact that it was a response to threatened lawsuits is info given to me by someone who works within the system and is in a position to know.

[Anonymous]

I believe it. It’s common sense discrimination, and anyone trying to defend it sounds like a socialist lunatic.

[Anonymous]

19:27 and 21:30 - You are both right. They did say that they would be piloting new "magnet-style"classes in neighborhood middle schools at the Eastern/Takoma during the fall Eastern/Takoma presentation. But it wasn't a big deal until the testing debacle - and they made a bigger announcement.

[Anonymous]

Or how about this possibility: MCPS planned a pilot of enriched classes but afternoon the testing realized there were a lot more kids who needed the enrichment and decided to expand the pilot to all schools?

This means that any issues with the new classes will be magnified in scale, but it still seems we should be happy that MCPS is offering these classes - there has been years of complaining about the lack of differentiation in MS, so this is at least a step in the right direction.

[Anonymous]

Schools including Pyle had no idea those classes would be coming their way. Maybe it will be a good thing, maybe it will be a poorly executed headache. Either way, glad there’s an effort being made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Letter came home with DC’s report card.

Has anyone else heard either way if their child is being considered? My child's compacted math teacher has no idea about the program and I called the office of AEI and was not able to get an answer about how parents will be notified (person thought schools will notify parents directly, not the central AEI office).

[Anonymous]

We're at a Pyle feeder and received a letter with our report card indicating that our child was selected for the enrichment classes.

[Anonymous]

Oh boy. A whole bunch of Pyle feeder kids’ parents are about to start calling Principal Nardi! This is a can of worms....