AAP Work Session Scheduled for Jan. 14, 3:30 pm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Except that for us Cluster 2 families, there is no compromise, only an unwanted solution that IS being shoved down our throats. We were told in the fall that Haycock is overcrowded and that the solution was to punt our kids, many of whom only arrived there in the last year or two, to Lemon Road. Then the base parents got ugly, and Strauss turned a deaf ear to us and refused -- until recently -- to even respond to us.

What I hope the Board focuses on is how to create new AAP centers for next year that are as good as the existing ones, and on how to prevent further overcrowding at our schools so that another group of students does not have to be jerked around the way ours have been. Can we please do some planning instead of just reacting?

Time to stop sulking and start preparing. Yours are still first-world problems.

Really? Talk about first world problems! You should have seen the materials prepared by the anti-grandfathering group. Oh, the horror! There are blue tape lines down the hallway and no sinks in the art room!

Exactly.
Suzie has to wait in line to wash her paint covered hands. Let's uproot 90 kids so she can get to the sink faster.

Please have your facts right before posting. There are several overcrowding issues at Haycock including some kids have to eat lunch at 10:30 and stay hungry till 4 PM (until they are picked up). Can you imaging your child going through it. As PP mentioned, either decision will impact all families involved.

Our children go to schol there, too, remember? My child has had an early lunch and a late recess. It stinks but they get through it. Also, my child's class is permitted to bring a snack so no one was going hungry until 4:00 pm. Perhaps you should address that issue with the teacher. I can't imagine they wouldn't allow a snack. I would not ask FCPS to remove other cildren from my child's school because of my child's lunch or recess time. I always assumed we were all in this together. It would never occurred to me to lobby FCPS to kick other kids out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems there's not much point now debating what is essentially now been decided.

It's not over yet. They could surprise us all and grandfather everyone.

Then the Board would be accepting the fact that the renovation may not occur, as the school doesn't have enough room for the extra modulars required. If they did do the renovation, students wouldn't have outside recess for two years. I don't understand how the desires of 90 out-of-boundry families is so much greater than the 800 plus other families that attend the school. I think they should just open a Local Level IV site at Haycock and move the rest out.

I agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems there's not much point now debating what is essentially now been decided.

It's not over yet. They could surprise us all and grandfather everyone.

Then the Board would be accepting the fact that the renovation may not occur, as the school doesn't have enough room for the extra modulars required. If they did do the renovation, students wouldn't have outside recess for two years. I don't understand how the desires of 90 out-of-boundry families is so much greater than the 800 plus other families that attend the school. I think they should just open a Local Level IV site at Haycock and move the rest out.

I agree.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Strongly disagree with PP advocating to end Haycock's center. Our kids deserve a center experience, not a watered-down local level IV. Haycock had been a historically strong center; we shouldn't lose all that expertise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Strongly disagree with PP advocating to end Haycock's center. Our kids deserve a center experience, not a watered-down local level IV. Haycock had been a historically strong center; we shouldn't lose all that expertise.

Isn't that where things are heading? Lemon Road will have AAP for the Cluster 2 schools now at Haycock, and the other Cluster 1 schools at Haycock will offer Local Level IV. You can still call Haycock a "center," but how many Cluster 1 parents outside Haycock will opt to send their children there if they can get Local Level IV at their base school?

[Anonymous]

You are all crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Strongly disagree with PP advocating to end Haycock's center. Our kids deserve a center experience, not a watered-down local level IV. Haycock had been a historically strong center; we shouldn't lose all that expertise.

Local Level IV for the Haycock students would be equivalent to a Center, based on the numbers shared with the School Board.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/93UP3K62A8BD/$file/New%20Proposal%20ES_AAP%20Centers_011413.pdf

HAYCOCK ELEM
3rd: 30
4th: 48
5th: 38
6th: 35
total: 151

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Strongly disagree with PP advocating to end Haycock's center. Our kids deserve a center experience, not a watered-down local level IV. Haycock had been a historically strong center; we shouldn't lose all that expertise.

They are gradually taking away Haycock's center's strength as they remove school after school (KG, Shrevewood, LR, WG). You will have de facto LLIV soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Strongly disagree with PP advocating to end Haycock's center. Our kids deserve a center experience, not a watered-down local level IV. Haycock had been a historically strong center; we shouldn't lose all that expertise.

You would still have a center option, it just wouldn't be at Haycock.

[Anonymous]

To the PP who said Haycock local level IV would be a center education, it would not be. A grade of only 30s or 40s is not still a center. Critical mass is currently being defined as about 50 per grade for center education.

And to a different PP, why shouldn't the center be at Haycock?

I agree that what FCPS is doing is effectively taking a center education away but I feel firmly that it should not. As the FCPS expert said, grouping is essential for gifted students. Many of us chose Fairfax over Arlington because it had a system in place to serve gifted kids. A better approach would be to study AAP eligibility and tighten it up to previous levels. And, yes, I would be fine if they restored it to 5% of the student population and my kid did not get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the PP who said Haycock local level IV would be a center education, it would not be. A grade of only 30s or 40s is not still a center. Critical mass is currently being defined as about 50 per grade for center education.

And to a different PP, why shouldn't the center be at Haycock?

I agree that what FCPS is doing is effectively taking a center education away but I feel firmly that it should not. As the FCPS expert said, grouping is essential for gifted students. Many of us chose Fairfax over Arlington because it had a system in place to serve gifted kids. A better approach would be to study AAP eligibility and tighten it up to previous levels. And, yes, I would be fine if they restored it to 5% of the student population and my kid did not get in.

Lemon Road will not have critical mass. Why should Cluster 1 kids be entitled to critical mass when Cluster 2 kids are not?

[Anonymous]

Can the county create a center that doesn't have critical mass? Some of the grades at the proposed Lemon Road center would be much less than 50 per grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the PP who said Haycock local level IV would be a center education, it would not be. A grade of only 30s or 40s is not still a center. Critical mass is currently being defined as about 50 per grade for center education.

And to a different PP, why shouldn't the center be at Haycock?

I agree that what FCPS is doing is effectively taking a center education away but I feel firmly that it should not. As the FCPS expert said, grouping is essential for gifted students. Many of us chose Fairfax over Arlington because it had a system in place to serve gifted kids. A better approach would be to study AAP eligibility and tighten it up to previous levels. And, yes, I would be fine if they restored it to 5% of the student population and my kid did not get in.

From what I can tell, the expectation is that Haycock will remain a center; it will have the critical mass per your expert's definition; and it will continue to draw some out of boundary kids in Cluster 1 whose parents prefer a center to Local Level IV. The purported hand-wringing is premature and, in some cases, the motives are transparent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Except that for us Cluster 2 families, there is no compromise, only an unwanted solution that IS being shoved down our throats. We were told in the fall that Haycock is overcrowded and that the solution was to punt our kids, many of whom only arrived there in the last year or two, to Lemon Road. Then the base parents got ugly, and Strauss turned a deaf ear to us and refused -- until recently -- to even respond to us.

What I hope the Board focuses on is how to create new AAP centers for next year that are as good as the existing ones, and on how to prevent further overcrowding at our schools so that another group of students does not have to be jerked around the way ours have been. Can we please do some planning instead of just reacting?

Time to stop sulking and start preparing. Yours are still first-world problems.

Really? Talk about first world problems! You should have seen the materials prepared by the anti-grandfathering group. Oh, the horror! There are blue tape lines down the hallway and no sinks in the art room!

Exactly.
Suzie has to wait in line to wash her paint covered hands. Let's uproot 90 kids so she can get to the sink faster.

Please have your facts right before posting. There are several overcrowding issues at Haycock including some kids have to eat lunch at 10:30 and stay hungry till 4 PM (until they are picked up). Can you imaging your child going through it. As PP mentioned, either decision will impact all families involved.

Our children go to schol there, too, remember? My child has had an early lunch and a late recess. It stinks but they get through it. Also, my child's class is permitted to bring a snack so no one was going hungry until 4:00 pm. Perhaps you should address that issue with the teacher. I can't imagine they wouldn't allow a snack. I would not ask FCPS to remove other cildren from my child's school because of my child's lunch or recess time. I always assumed we were all in this together. It wouldnever occurred to me to lobby FCPS to kick other kids out.

You're again making light of or completely discounting that the overcrowding is an actual issue that needs to be addressed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the PP who said Haycock local level IV would be a center education, it would not be. A grade of only 30s or 40s is not still a center. Critical mass is currently being defined as about 50 per grade for center education.

But Haycock is overcrowded and will be undergoing renovation.

The Center should be moved out altogether and instead offer Local Level IV in its place, just as the original plan was for Hunters Woods. That gives enough swing space for the renovation and the Haycock students in AAP still get the Local Level IV program. In addition, the principal can fill the classes out with other "almost Center-eligible" kids from the bright students at Haycock so you would have two classes per grade level, meeting the critical mass readiness factor.