Poe Middle low number of TJ applicants

[Anonymous]

We are hearing people complain why our community school, Poe Middle, is not sending in substantial number of TJ applicants and thus not gaining high seat count as other schools like Carson Middle. First off based on recent years data, Poe middle has sent around 25 applicants, which is significant given only a quarter of our students are math proficient at grade level, where as Carson Middle sent around 280 applicants well over ten times with very high math proficiency. Our students are getting blamed for lack of STEM interest, which is not true. Teach our students proper math and science, and out students will send in more TJ applications than Carson Middle, and get more seats.

FCPS should fix our school issues starting with chronic absenteeism, make sure basic as well as advanced math is taught to entire class, and stop making this a racial issue of why our majority hispanic and black student body is not scoring significant number of TJ seats. We have fantastic teachers, but unless overall school issues are resolved, their lessons cannot be delivered effectively, and our students cannot learn math and science.

[Anonymous]

How can FCPS fix chronic abseentism?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can FCPS fix chronic abseentism?

Addressing chronic absenteeism is not unaddressable issue. Many school systems have done it successfully, using targeted interventions, parent family engagement, positive school climate, addressing barriers to attendance, attendance incentives, community partnership, etc... FCPS has to have the resolve to fix it instead of making it a race issue and simply blaming the innocent helpless students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can FCPS fix chronic abseentism?

Addressing chronic absenteeism is not unaddressable issue. Many school systems have done it successfully, using targeted interventions, parent family engagement, positive school climate, addressing barriers to attendance, attendance incentives, community partnership, etc... FCPS has to have the resolve to fix it instead of making it a race issue and simply blaming the innocent helpless students.

Are you referring to 2024 or to success in 2019 and earlier?

Chronic absenteeism now is not caused by "barriers to attendance". The cause in 2024 is elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Why should Poe send any more kids to TJ when the AAP kids there go to Frost and Glasgow? Start by convincing Ricardy Anderson that Poe and Holmes need their own AAP programs. She foolishly tried to change the base boundaries at the three schools and that went nowhere.

[Anonymous]

FCPS is spending tons of time on chronic absenteeism. Reid recently presented efforts to the school board.

I’m curious, OP, if you think the families and students bear any responsibility for taking the initiative to apply to TJ? The admissions process already favors schools like Poe. When is it up to the student to do something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are hearing people complain why our community school, Poe Middle, is not sending in substantial number of TJ applicants and thus not gaining high seat count as other schools like Carson Middle. First off based on recent years data, Poe middle has sent around 25 applicants, which is significant given only a quarter of our students are math proficient at grade level, where as Carson Middle sent around 280 applicants well over ten times with very high math proficiency. Our students are getting blamed for lack of STEM interest, which is not true. Teach our students proper math and science, and out students will send in more TJ applications than Carson Middle, and get more seats.

FCPS should fix our school issues starting with chronic absenteeism, make sure basic as well as advanced math is taught to entire class, and stop making this a racial issue of why our majority hispanic and black student body is not scoring significant number of TJ seats. We have fantastic teachers, but unless overall school issues are resolved, their lessons cannot be delivered effectively, and our students cannot learn math and science.

How does FCPS solve this? They call parents, the email parents, they send letters to parents. The schools remind parents of the importance of attending school. What do you propose that the county does?

At some point in time the onus shifts from the County and the School to the parents. The parents have to decide that school is important enough and make their kid go. If they parents are not willing to do that, there is not a darn thing that the school or the County can do.

Do you think that the kids at the other schools are all going to school because the school has positive spirit and is welcoming or because their parents have told them it is necessary for the future success in life? Plenty of kids at my sons school would be happy to hang out at home all day and not go to school if they were allowed to. School isn’t fun. they got o school because their parents tell them that they have to. They do well in school because they need to for college. They know this because their parents are telling them this. A few go and do well enough because they want to play a sport or participate in certain activities so they have to maintain decent grades.

Stop blaming the County. There is only so much that it can do. The parents need to step up and parent. If school is not important to them, if they are not talking to their kids about the benefits of school and doing well in school, that is on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are hearing people complain why our community school, Poe Middle, is not sending in substantial number of TJ applicants and thus not gaining high seat count as other schools like Carson Middle. First off based on recent years data, Poe middle has sent around 25 applicants, which is significant given only a quarter of our students are math proficient at grade level, where as Carson Middle sent around 280 applicants well over ten times with very high math proficiency. Our students are getting blamed for lack of STEM interest, which is not true. Teach our students proper math and science, and out students will send in more TJ applications than Carson Middle, and get more seats.

FCPS should fix our school issues starting with chronic absenteeism, make sure basic as well as advanced math is taught to entire class, and stop making this a racial issue of why our majority hispanic and black student body is not scoring significant number of TJ seats. We have fantastic teachers, but unless overall school issues are resolved, their lessons cannot be delivered effectively, and our students cannot learn math and science.

How does FCPS solve this? They call parents, the email parents, they send letters to parents. The schools remind parents of the importance of attending school. What do you propose that the county does?

At some point in time the onus shifts from the County and the School to the parents. The parents have to decide that school is important enough and make their kid go. If they parents are not willing to do that, there is not a darn thing that the school or the County can do.

Do you think that the kids at the other schools are all going to school because the school has positive spirit and is welcoming or because their parents have told them it is necessary for the future success in life? Plenty of kids at my sons school would be happy to hang out at home all day and not go to school if they were allowed to. School isn’t fun. they got o school because their parents tell them that they have to. They do well in school because they need to for college. They know this because their parents are telling them this. A few go and do well enough because they want to play a sport or participate in certain activities so they have to maintain decent grades.

Stop blaming the County. There is only so much that it can do. The parents need to step up and parent. If school is not important to them, if they are not talking to their kids about the benefits of school and doing well in school, that is on them.

There are posts on this site about how insulted parents are when they hear from the school or county about high numbers of excused or unexcused absences. I read a piece that showed up on my feed that a parent was insulted that her DC was marked unexcused because she didn't provide any reason for her DC's absence and thought that a parent had the right to keep her DC home for any reason whatsoever. She thought that policy would incentivize parents to lie that their children are sick when they keep them home (I felt like I was reading an essay by an 8 year old).

There is a problem with chronic absenteeism in FCPS. It's parents.

[Anonymous]

By next year, there will be about 20 kids at TJ who came from Poe. That's probably at least 15 more than would have been admitted before the system was changed to give schools like Poe automatic seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By next year, there will be about 20 kids at TJ who came from Poe. That's probably at least 15 more than would have been admitted before the system was changed to give schools like Poe automatic seats.

20 kids admitted with just algebra 1?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is spending tons of time on chronic absenteeism. Reid recently presented efforts to the school board.

I’m curious, OP, if you think the families and students bear any responsibility for taking the initiative to apply to TJ? The admissions process already favors schools like Poe. When is it up to the student to do something?

How is it student's fault when they are not even being taught proper algebra1 but are being misled that they can do well at TJ? and once in TJ, told to accept a D as normal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is spending tons of time on chronic absenteeism. Reid recently presented efforts to the school board.

I’m curious, OP, if you think the families and students bear any responsibility for taking the initiative to apply to TJ? The admissions process already favors schools like Poe. When is it up to the student to do something?

How is it student's fault when they are not even being taught proper algebra1 but are being misled that they can do well at TJ? and once in TJ, told to accept a D as normal?

Algebra 1 H is Algebra 1 H. A student who takes Algebra 1 H and does well enough to be considered for TJ has the math background needed for TJ. TJ math moves more quickly than regular math, not all the students can handle that. Kids dropped back to their base school from plenty of schools before the admission change.

Until someone actually shows that the kids from Poe and Holmes are all getting D’s in math at TJ I am going to assume that this is BS.

No one is telling kids at Poe or Holmes that they have to apply to attend TJ or even say yes. The kids have a chance to understand what is expected at TJ. They make choices that they think works best. Stop making them out to be innocent lambs lead to the slaughter at TJ.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if OP is a troll who on every TJ message board attacks every TJ student from a non-feeder school as deserving sympathy because, in the poster’s words, all they can achieve are Cs and Ds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP is a troll who on every TJ message board attacks every TJ student from a non-feeder school as deserving sympathy because, in the poster’s words, all they can achieve are Cs and Ds.

OP is highlighting the inconvenient truth. Grade level math is not being taught at Poe Middle, and instead of fixing it, the solution is to admit a couple into TJ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if OP is a troll who on every TJ message board attacks every TJ student from a non-feeder school as deserving sympathy because, in the poster’s words, all they can achieve are Cs and Ds.

OP is highlighting the inconvenient truth. Grade level math is not being taught at Poe Middle, and instead of fixing it, the solution is to admit a couple into TJ?

Or maybe some kids from Poe are actually doing ok and were ready for the challenge. And making sweeping generalizations about all kids from ANY school is not a balanced assessment of the situation. There are kids at Poe who are at or above grade level. There are also many who aren’t.

-the parent of a kid who went to Poe and TJ