APS is failing my gifted child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is OP saying they are at Taylor, or is that someone else responding?

Someone else I think. We are from Taylor but I’m like 90% sure most of the parents aren’t from Harvard… maybe some UVA but all I’ve met are from UmD and Penn State etc

I’ve been there a long time and those Penn Staters went to HLS. And you are an a**hat who failed the social skills of elementary school. Apparently all the Maryland people are in YOUR class and bought $2m homes with their sh*t degree.

I mean going to Ivy League is not the only way to wealth. Many are lobbyists, or in sales, some did go to law schools like GWU. Maryland is a wealthy state — if you went to Maryland it’s high likelihood your parents are pretty well off compared to random State U.

Being gifted and academic doesn’t necessarily translate to being earning a lot of money; this discussion is about meeting the academic needs of children, and the PP was asserting that everyone in Arlington had rich Ivy League parents so why do you think your snowflake is special. My point was many parents in APS can be rich without being academic or gifted, so that’s a bad proxy for if there kids are likely gifted.

In general, extremely high IQ does not lead to high income, which is fine. The problem is when it leads to unemployment or worse, of which I know plenty. A poor elementary school experience does not doom a child but it sure doesn't help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is OP saying they are at Taylor, or is that someone else responding?

Someone else I think. We are from Taylor but I’m like 90% sure most of the parents aren’t from Harvard… maybe some UVA but all I’ve met are from UmD and Penn State etc

How do you even know where the other parents in your kid's elementary school went to college? This comes up in casual conversation?

Status-obsessed strivers love to bring this stuff up in conversations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is OP saying they are at Taylor, or is that someone else responding?

Someone else I think. We are from Taylor but I’m like 90% sure most of the parents aren’t from Harvard… maybe some UVA but all I’ve met are from UmD and Penn State etc

How do you even know where the other parents in your kid's elementary school went to college? This comes up in casual conversation?

Status-obsessed strivers love to bring this stuff up in conversations.

No, the people that you mention are those people around here who ask you what you do for a living before asking for your name. Y'all know who you are. I've found that many people, especially those from the Midwest and places north of the DMV, like to talk about where they grew up and things like that. I mean, how vapid are your lives that you have to vicariously center your conversations around your kids' lives or other "real" lives you saw last night on bravo?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 3rd grade gifted kid is just being failed by this school system. No differentiation, no peers in their class that I can see, ridiculous low level instruction. Think 2-letter spelling tests. There are tears every night about how terrible school is and how they aren’t learning anything.

Please, any advice? What’s a viable option? Move to Fairfax? I hear AAP is no great thing. Are there any privates that are more challenging? Thanks for any advice or lessons learned.

private- I regret returning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3rd grade gifted kid is just being failed by this school system. No differentiation, no peers in their class that I can see, ridiculous low level instruction. Think 2-letter spelling tests. There are tears every night about how terrible school is and how they aren’t learning anything.

Please, any advice? What’s a viable option? Move to Fairfax? I hear AAP is no great thing. Are there any privates that are more challenging? Thanks for any advice or lessons learned.

private- I regret returning.

Returning??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is OP saying they are at Taylor, or is that someone else responding?

Someone else I think. We are from Taylor but I’m like 90% sure most of the parents aren’t from Harvard… maybe some UVA but all I’ve met are from UmD and Penn State etc

How do you even know where the other parents in your kid's elementary school went to college? This comes up in casual conversation?

Status-obsessed strivers love to bring this stuff up in conversations.

You're wrong. I went to a status school, and I promise you I never bring it up. I often deflect even when asked directly.

This is VERY typical behavior by the way with people who went to my college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is OP saying they are at Taylor, or is that someone else responding?

Someone else I think. We are from Taylor but I’m like 90% sure most of the parents aren’t from Harvard… maybe some UVA but all I’ve met are from UmD and Penn State etc

How do you even know where the other parents in your kid's elementary school went to college? This comes up in casual conversation?

Status-obsessed strivers love to bring this stuff up in conversations.

You're wrong. I went to a status school, and I promise you I never bring it up. I often deflect even when asked directly.

This is VERY typical behavior by the way with people who went to my college.

No you didn't.

[Anonymous]

My gifted kids are in 2nd and 5th in APS. My mom has her masters degree in fired education and both my spouse and I were in traditional cohort tracked, pull out gifted programs in the 1980s. I like the gifted program in APS and I think it’s more equitable. Unless your kid is Doogie Houser, it can work for you too.

Get your 3rd grader on the upper elementary version of Dreambox and get signed up for the Parent Dashboard so you get weekly reports. Bring your kid’s iPad home and watch them do Dreambox. Check what lessons align with each standard and work with your teacher or math interventionist to assign your kid lessons.

Get your kid books that align with their reading level and make sure they get free reading time once they finish Lexia.

Find out what differentiation is available and how kids know where those assignments are. For us they are in Canvas and they are optional and my kids don’t choose them so we do them at home.

Just like a kid who is behind or has a learning disability, you need to be more involved. Try to do that without being “that parent” who created more work for everyone and you will likely get help from your school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is OP saying they are at Taylor, or is that someone else responding?

Someone else I think. We are from Taylor but I’m like 90% sure most of the parents aren’t from Harvard… maybe some UVA but all I’ve met are from UmD and Penn State etc

How do you even know where the other parents in your kid's elementary school went to college? This comes up in casual conversation?

Status-obsessed strivers love to bring this stuff up in conversations.

You're wrong. I went to a status school, and I promise you I never bring it up. I often deflect even when asked directly.

This is VERY typical behavior by the way with people who went to my college.

This is such a weird comment. “You’re wrong because of my own personal example of a thing (going to a status school, whatever the hell that means) that is not even what you said (being a status-obsessed striver).” Um, ok.

But thanks for sharing with us that you are, indeed, a status-obsessed striver. I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My gifted kids are in 2nd and 5th in APS. My mom has her masters degree in fired education and both my spouse and I were in traditional cohort tracked, pull out gifted programs in the 1980s. I like the gifted program in APS and I think it’s more equitable. Unless your kid is Doogie Houser, it can work for you too.

Get your 3rd grader on the upper elementary version of Dreambox and get signed up for the Parent Dashboard so you get weekly reports. Bring your kid’s iPad home and watch them do Dreambox. Check what lessons align with each standard and work with your teacher or math interventionist to assign your kid lessons.

Get your kid books that align with their reading level and make sure they get free reading time once they finish Lexia.

Find out what differentiation is available and how kids know where those assignments are. For us they are in Canvas and they are optional and my kids don’t choose them so we do them at home.

Just like a kid who is behind or has a learning disability, you need to be more involved. Try to do that without being “that parent” who created more work for everyone and you will likely get help from your school.

Ugh, not Dreambox and Lexia. Those programs move so slowly. They're the opposite of engaging for a gifted learner. No creativity or problem solving. Just basic spoonfed content that you have to wait for the program to read aloud to you at a snail's pace before you can click the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My gifted kids are in 2nd and 5th in APS. My mom has her masters degree in fired education and both my spouse and I were in traditional cohort tracked, pull out gifted programs in the 1980s. I like the gifted program in APS and I think it’s more equitable. Unless your kid is Doogie Houser, it can work for you too.

Get your 3rd grader on the upper elementary version of Dreambox and get signed up for the Parent Dashboard so you get weekly reports. Bring your kid’s iPad home and watch them do Dreambox. Check what lessons align with each standard and work with your teacher or math interventionist to assign your kid lessons.

Get your kid books that align with their reading level and make sure they get free reading time once they finish Lexia.

Find out what differentiation is available and how kids know where those assignments are. For us they are in Canvas and they are optional and my kids don’t choose them so we do them at home.

Just like a kid who is behind or has a learning disability, you need to be more involved. Try to do that without being “that parent” who created more work for everyone and you will likely get help from your school.

Ugh, not Dreambox and Lexia. Those programs move so slowly. They're the opposite of engaging for a gifted learner. No creativity or problem solving. Just basic spoonfed content that you have to wait for the program to read aloud to you at a snail's pace before you can click the answer.

Agreed all the iPad apps are garbage. These apps are just catatonic electronic babysitters and not learning tools. Dreambox is not learning how to do math. Lexia is just reading picture ebooks and doing meaningless activities. They need a teacher that actually understands gifted learning and not just regurgitates some secondhand pedagogy. My kids were something like 4-6 levels (or I think more, don't remember) above grade level lexile score in elementary. It's useless unless they can discuss the readings and write about it with a teacher and peers. Dreambox is also useless since there's no feedback and parents can't see what their kids are getting wrong. We did a lot of supplementing but why do 8 hours of what amounts to special ed at school then? They're entitled to an education appropriate to their level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: you may want to check these
https://taylor.apsva.us/programsandservices/gifted-services/updates-from-rtg/

Take a look at those Advanced Academics Newsletters
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o33ttRdVaN2N2YGaOe6rKkucjIMTvJPu/view?usp=sharing

music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydhOJROs22c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtsWcNiIoPM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Tc6Ad2BFs

art
https://www.apsva.us/post/aps-announces-the-2024-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-literary-and-visual-arts-contest-winners/
https://www.instagram.com/apsvirginia/p/CnPnSPhO-MF/

I also heard that APS elementary school teams won first place in the Virginia Science Olympiad, defeating teams from FCPS. These may indicate APS does not always fail gifted kids in ES? You may want to reach out to your school to explore available opportunities.

Are you kidding me? We did science Olympiad last year and it’s a joke. Parent volunteers and the kids spending the whole time working on nonsense like a rubber band car.

I think that's the problem. A lot of the people posting negatively about gifted here are low IQ when it comes to gifted curriculum. They don't understand the struggle that these kids have every day and why school becomes miserable. For example, how about we sit you gifted classroom deniers in a classroom and have you read about the alphabet and how to count on your fingers for a week straight, 3-5 hours a day. See if you don't go crazy even with your adult ADHD coping mechanisms. That's comparable to how some of these kids feel every day. They're basically trapped in a prison cell and ignored for 8 hours a day.

It's different teaching and learning and not just making some lesson a little bit harder. Most gen ed teachers are absolutely not qualified to teach these kids and there are no specialists willing to put in the work; perhaps because they're not qualified as well? You probably have a half dozen to a dozen sped teachers and counselors to babysit a handful of kids who actually need it but NO gifted teachers... Why?? Every kid is entitled to an appropriate education taught (near or) at their level.

Plus, as was mentioned, these gifted kids are forced to do the sped level general ed work before they're "allowed" to do the sped+ extra work as some perverse form of reward. The worst part is, the gen ed kids plateau under the APS model as well.

Read your post. You sound entitled, superior, and frankly, crazy.

Why? Can you be more specific? I’m not the PP, but I don’t think anything that person said was wrong.

I wish we there was a term for these kids other than “gifted.” They really do learn differently, but there’s such a stigma to that term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My gifted kids are in 2nd and 5th in APS. My mom has her masters degree in fired education and both my spouse and I were in traditional cohort tracked, pull out gifted programs in the 1980s. I like the gifted program in APS and I think it’s more equitable. Unless your kid is Doogie Houser, it can work for you too.

Get your 3rd grader on the upper elementary version of Dreambox and get signed up for the Parent Dashboard so you get weekly reports. Bring your kid’s iPad home and watch them do Dreambox. Check what lessons align with each standard and work with your teacher or math interventionist to assign your kid lessons.

Get your kid books that align with their reading level and make sure they get free reading time once they finish Lexia.

Find out what differentiation is available and how kids know where those assignments are. For us they are in Canvas and they are optional and my kids don’t choose them so we do them at home.

Just like a kid who is behind or has a learning disability, you need to be more involved. Try to do that without being “that parent” who created more work for everyone and you will likely get help from your school.

Ugh, not Dreambox and Lexia. Those programs move so slowly. They're the opposite of engaging for a gifted learner. No creativity or problem solving. Just basic spoonfed content that you have to wait for the program to read aloud to you at a snail's pace before you can click the answer.

Agreed all the iPad apps are garbage. These apps are just catatonic electronic babysitters and not learning tools. Dreambox is not learning how to do math. Lexia is just reading picture ebooks and doing meaningless activities. They need a teacher that actually understands gifted learning and not just regurgitates some secondhand pedagogy. My kids were something like 4-6 levels (or I think more, don't remember) above grade level lexile score in elementary. It's useless unless they can discuss the readings and write about it with a teacher and peers. Dreambox is also useless since there's no feedback and parents can't see what their kids are getting wrong. We did a lot of supplementing but why do 8 hours of what amounts to special ed at school then? They're entitled to an education appropriate to their level.

Exactly. My kids don’t do anything close to their level at school and then these iPad programs are supposed to be the answer? It makes no sense. We also supplement, but if all of this is in the name of “equity” is it equitable that since I can afford my kid is learning math at an appropriate level through outside classes while the other kids aren’t? Lowering the bar for everyone makes no sense. We are still struggling with whether private makes sense or if things get better once their is true differentiation in middle school and high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is OP saying they are at Taylor, or is that someone else responding?

Someone else I think. We are from Taylor but I’m like 90% sure most of the parents aren’t from Harvard… maybe some UVA but all I’ve met are from UmD and Penn State etc

How do you even know where the other parents in your kid's elementary school went to college? This comes up in casual conversation?

Status-obsessed strivers love to bring this stuff up in conversations.

You're wrong. I went to a status school, and I promise you I never bring it up. I often deflect even when asked directly.

This is VERY typical behavior by the way with people who went to my college.

No you didn't.

you're funny

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is OP saying they are at Taylor, or is that someone else responding?

Someone else I think. We are from Taylor but I’m like 90% sure most of the parents aren’t from Harvard… maybe some UVA but all I’ve met are from UmD and Penn State etc

How do you even know where the other parents in your kid's elementary school went to college? This comes up in casual conversation?

Status-obsessed strivers love to bring this stuff up in conversations.

You're wrong. I went to a status school, and I promise you I never bring it up. I often deflect even when asked directly.

This is VERY typical behavior by the way with people who went to my college.

This is such a weird comment. “You’re wrong because of my own personal example of a thing (going to a status school, whatever the hell that means) that is not even what you said (being a status-obsessed striver).” Um, ok.

But thanks for sharing with us that you are, indeed, a status-obsessed striver. I guess.

Did you miss the part about how this is typical behavior of all my classmates? I mean okay, you make your assumptions about us, but I actually live in this crowd.