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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
AAP school experience
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Anonymous
|
Can anyone share your kids experience being at an AAP elementary school but not testing into the AAP
program? |
Anonymous
| Yes. It's awful. Center schools are the worst kind of segregation and division and need to be a thing of the past. |
Anonymous
| Can you say “2nd class citizens”? |
Anonymous
| Two issues with AAP centers. First is the inherent class structure (see above post). Second and worse issue is AAP has become GenEd. |
Anonymous
| The AAP program needs to end. |
Anonymous
|
It’s awful.
The kids who come to the center are endlessly told how smart and special they are at home and look down on the Gen Ed kids. Their parents treat the school like their own personal private school. The superiority complex infects the entire AAP class including the kids in boundary, and the Gen Ed kids internalize the message. It’s super awesome when your 3rd grader comes home and tells you they aren’t smart enough for “special smart kid” program. The whole program needs to end. |
Anonymous
|
As a counterpoint, my older child as at a center school and has had a great experience. I’ve heard zero complaints about kids being treated like second-class citizens or that it’s like segregation. Kids are just in different classes. Kids in advanced math get pulled into the AAP class for math. All kids are mixed together on different “teams” for specials.
I have friends who live in different parts of the county, some with kids in Level IV AAP and some not (and some at centers and some not). My anecdotal perception is that parents are the main drivers of “toxicity” at centers. |
Anonymous
But that wasn’t the question. |
Anonymous
| AAP is ridiculous. |
Anonymous
| What’s so sad is once a base kid moves into the AAP class, they lose all their friendships with the gen Ed kids because they literally never see them again. |
Anonymous
| The program itself is lacking. It’s really not advanced or any big challenge for the kids at all. There is nothing very creative or innovative. The so-called extensions are truly lackluster. You are better off supplementing on your own. These kids are not coming out as strong writers or strong spellers, they even struggle to go on to Algebra 1 by 7th grade. The program is failing on many levels. It needs a complete overhaul, more rigor, or it needs to go away. The program is a ruse for the parent’s sake. |
Anonymous
Must be school dependent. Some centers ensure overlap during art, music, gym, recess, etc. |
Anonymous
| The AAP teachers at our school aren’t very good. Most aren’t even certified to teach AAP. |
Anonymous
They do overlap in some specials and recess but it’s so minute it doesn’t sustain any friendships. |
Anonymous
|
I have an AAP kid who started at a center this year (moved from base). They have met kids from other classes - they all play sports at recess. They talk about kids as being in so-and-so’s class, not whether they are AAP.
I also had an older kid stay local where there was only one AAP class that stayed together - my impression is that was more problematic socially. In middle school that child is friends with none of those kids now. This is in a more “chill” part of FCPS though, not the schools typically discussed in this forum. |