AAP chances with good test scores, bad HOPE/GBRS
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Anonymous
| Hello folks. My DC has great test scores (150+ Cogat VQN, 99% IReady, mostly 4's in report card), but really really bad HOPE ratings (a few lowest marks). What are AAP chances? Most likely a no? Since the ratings are so subjective, super bummed at the moment. |
Anonymous
I think it may depend on what is the cause of the bad HOPE scores. Behavior or attention issues? Something else such as being very disruptive, etc? |
Anonymous
| Hope scale does not evaluate behavior , or disruptive behavior |
Anonymous
| Your child is smart and even if denied you should appeal and dispute every low mark on the hope scale as it’s hard for Tearchers to answer those questions about 30 students in their class and be correct. |
Anonymous
If some are lowest marks and others are better, they look at the whole picture. It's not that a higher score is better. |
Anonymous
This, 100%. Putting an appeal together isn’t hard and it allows you to expand on your kid’s strengths and provide a counterbalance to whatever they scored low on. |
Anonymous
Thank you! Thought we might have to wait and appeal in 3rd with possibly getting better HOPE ratings from a new teacher. I have been hearing from other parents how important the HOPE ratings are (more important than the scores). My DC got a couple Rarely marks (related to Thinking outside the box and Using alternative approaches) which I feel are similar to receiving Nevers  Also, there are no additional comments and only the Writing area is marked as exceptional.
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Anonymous
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The low HOPE scores are going to make it hard. Plan to appeal. Get a WISC test done for the appeal. Write a letter that refutes the teacher’s observations and explain why the child needs AAP. That is - why the child’s needs won’t be met in the regular classroom.
Sorry this happened to your child. I have been there and know how frustrating it is to have a child that is completely unseen by their teacher. We made it in on appeal and my child is thriving in AAP. |
Anonymous
| The HOPE scale is really different from GBRS in that there is not a goal to have high scores across the entire scale. It’s very reasonable that a kid is not going to demonstrate all of those attributes at school— especially for a possibly 2E kid— and the training teachers received said that explicitly. |
Anonymous
Thanks for the pointers/suggestions! So would taking a WISC test help in our case when all of the test scores are high? Would it help disprove some of the low HOPE marks? Not familiar with WISC and will google it
Also, regarding the low scores, I am just very confused because I have been hearing nothing but positive feedback from teacher emphasizing how smart, creative my DC is and all class/homework grades support that feedback as well. |
Anonymous
The WISC is an IQ test that must be done in person with a qualified preceptor. A high score will help validate the high COGAT. With the low HOPE scores the committee may think the scores are from prepping. If what another poster said was true, that teachers have been taught to not give high scores, then the HOPE scores are even more useless than GBRS. Truly there are no standards anymore to get into AAP and it is just a roll of the dice - a wholly untransparent process subject the whims of people who don’t know your child at all. |
Anonymous
Sure some kids, perhaps even a lot of kids won’t and shouldn’t have high scores across the board, but the highly qualified kids should. You do realize that if what you say is true about how the scoring for HOPE should work, that the instrument will just give you results indicating a muddle of undifferentiated children making the test useless? Further, the new HOPE scale does nothing to fix the primary complaint about GBRS which is that it is subject to tremendous bias (unintended or otherwise) by the teachers? |
Anonymous
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This pdf shows another school district calculates HOPE scores. Not sure if this is what FCPS central committee does, but it is another way to look at it.
https://www.harlan.k12.ky.us/pdf/Gifted&TalentedForms/HopeScaleDirections.pdf They add subtotals for Academic and social scale separately and don't combine them. According to this, my child had 18 on academic scale and 10 on social scale. I don't agree with my child's HOPE rating but would like to see how other kids are scored. |
Anonymous
| How are you all seeing your kids' HOPE ratings? I thought they didn't give out packages until after decisions are made? |
Anonymous
If they go this way, it's not a horrible approach. If we're assuming that the selection process is rational (it isn't), then it would make sense to use the "social scale" to boost children into AAP who don't otherwise have the test scores and academic scale scores needed to succeed in the program. The social scale shouldn't be used to keep kids out of the program who have 150+ CogAT and 99th percentile iready. On the academic side, the scale is pretty inherently flawed if it allows a teacher to rate a kid as anything other than the top rating when the kid is objectively above grade level has both aptitude and achievement scores in the 99th percentile. The teacher's feelings should not be given more weight than the actual data. The problem with GBRS and HOPE ratings is that most 2nd grade teachers don't really understand higher levels of giftedness and the negative behaviors that would be expected for highly gifted children bored out of their minds in a 2nd grade classroom. A typical FCPS 2nd grade teacher would have a few mildly gifted kids each year and maybe 1 moderately gifted kid. If you're looking at kids in the 99.9th percentile and higher, the average teacher would need to teach 40 years to even see one of those kids. When they do see them, they don't even understand what they're seeing and would likely focus on the negative behaviors. For a typical 2nd grade teacher, the kids they will identify as the most gifted are the kids who are bright but also have very high executive function and good social skills. |