Parents making "pact not to pursue CES & get more enrichment @ home school...anyone pulled this off?

[Anonymous]

This is such a stupid idea. All kids will be evaluated. If your child gets in, make the choice that makes the most sense for your family.

It sounds like you might want to research how differentiation works in the higher grades so you can decide if it is enough for your child.

[Anonymous]

I'm 99% sure I know what school you are talking about and they do have ELC. The school is already offering the maximum availalbe outside the CES, and MCPS is going to identify some number of kids from that school no matter what you say or do.

So, by all means hold your child out of the lottery if you feel doing so is a better fit for your values, but you will not get any more enrichment as a result because it's already at the maximum setting possible.

[Anonymous]

Our school had a large number of kids who were waitpooled for the CES one of the years they did universal screening. In addition to this large group of kids in the waitpool there were also a couple kids who got in but wanted to decline and stay at the school.

The parents got together and asked the principal for more local enrichment and they got it! It was probably something similar to the ELC but implemented very well IMO. DD has a friend who went to the CES and in comparing notes with the parents I felt DD was getting a comparable education. I wish all schools could do this and do it well.

[Anonymous]

I am PP from above and my child did not get in the wait pool but is one of the many who have the gifted designation. The enrichment that was offered was for both Reading/writing and math and it was offered to a group that was larger than just the waitpooled kids and the kids who turned down the CES. My child happened to be in that third group (not CES admitted and not wait pooled) and it was really great for her to be with those other kids. They read real books and did a lot more fun work in math. They were mixed with the other kids for the other subjects. I didn't even know this was happening until a parent told us about it because the school never announced anything so as not to create any divide between the students. It's possible the kids had no idea either.

[Anonymous]

get several families to commit to staying

You can't. You can't get this assurance. They don't owe your this. They don't owe you a truthful answer. Or they could always say they told you the truth at the time, but their feelings changed. I get it though Op. May as well put the idea in the Principal's ear. However I'm sure there's a tipping-point (whether you agree with the metric or not) when a separate advanced education is no longer inclusive enough.

[Anonymous]

Op, suggestion to you: Use the term "Flexible Groupings"

(there needs to be the "goal" that students can move up in groupings as they demonstrate mastery, prove themselves - so grouping are not based purely on a former 90% something designation)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not be confident in any reassurances from the principal on what might be provided.

Agreed. You will find that none of the plans come to fruition.

MCPS does not care all that much about your high-achieving kids at a Focus school. My kids attend a Focus school, so I can say that with certainty. There are too many kids who need extra attention/instruction and the resources will be put towards those kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would drop any talk of reassurances or any kind of quid pro quo. Just ask the principal about how a school gets an ELC and if it’s an option for your school. With the lottery, chances are some chunk of the kids you’re taking about will be staying put.

Thank you for this suggestion. Per the next PP, I wouldn't be "bribing" or anything like that. I just wasn't sure how to go about this, but this angle is already a fair one-- at least some of the highest scoring kids would stay at our school anyway, d/t the lottery. So there will be some cohort, regardless, which the principal should be trying to serve. I think just talking to a couple of families and letting them know our intentions not to included our kid in the CES pool might be enough to sway them to stay... I'd just like it if they stayed! For all the reasons I already mentioned.

-OP

To get ELC, you need a whole class of students who would qualify. If you have the opportunity, and you want any sort of guarantee of enriched content, go to the CES.

[Anonymous]

OP-Good for you for taking up this cause. I would suggest continuing the conversation with families you know as well as expanding it to the larger school community. You can do this by engaging with your PTA to discuss during a community meeting and/or survey to parents. Inviting your schools gifted liaison to a meeting w/ parents or to speak at the PTA meeting. Including the AP and Principal in this conversations and including notes about this on the school improvement plan survey. Reach out to other ES in your cluster to understand if they have implemented ELC, how, or why not. Reach out to the MCCPTA gifted committee.

Implementation of the ELC is at principal discretion and was paused by MCPS during the pandemic, but it suppose to be being discussed for re-start.

Contrary to belief most teachers and administrators do care about meeting students and families needs. They just prioritize what they see as the most need and the voices speaking.

[Anonymous]

I don't think the Principal has total control over who they can hire and what groups they can form, OP, and it starts with a budget conversation.

You should start your meeting with the Principal with these questions in mind...

[Anonymous]

Understand this from a school budget and equity point of view, and you'll see that nothing is guaranteed.

Also, please don't channel your inner middle schooler and say parents are making a "pact". It doesn't make you look serious or mature

[Anonymous]

I wish you well, OP, but I’d be wary of counting on a deal with the principal. While I think principals have a great deal of leeway in how they run their school and advocating with them for whatever programs you want is important, in my experience ES principals rarely stay long. It seems that MCPS is organized in a progressive system where ES principals who do well are promoted to secondary schools or possibly the central office administration. I hope your school gets the enrichment you’re hoping for, but if there is a change in principal, all deals will be void, and in the meantime parents who have decided to keep their kids at the homeschool will have lost the opportunity to send them to CES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, if my kids' school educated my kids so well that they ended up with 99th percentile scores, I'd be grateful not looking for "leverage" to get them to do something different. I don't understand why a kid "needs" enrichment if they are doing that well.

-- parent of two 99th percentile kids (out of 3) who will never understand this mentality.

I... would be willing to consider this perspective, but I'm not sure I fully understand. I think the disconnect here is that you seem to see high standardized test scores as prima facie evidence that the kids are being "well-educated."

I would agree that they are not being "poorly-educated!"

But I think it's been pretty well-established that very high test scores in young children tend to be much more correlated to parents' SES and education levels than the children's educations (though of course, most such kids usually attend "good" or at least adequate schools).

I feel like you're painting me as a DCUM striver, and that couldn't be further from the truth. I love our school's teachers, but this is not a well-resourced school by MCPS standards. It's a Great Schools 4 or 5. Now, GS is BS (ha) but this is not a case of a parent whose kid is born among the 99th percentile, clawing to put her in the 99.1st percentile. I don't care! Or else I would be pushing to get her into the CES at all costs!

I said I'd like "enrichment" for every student. I believe literally every student would benefit from more personalized, challenging instruction than worksheets and so on. But that's an uphill battle against the whole American public educational philosophy.

There are two reasons I'd like to push for more at our school, specifically for kids who would be in the CES pool.

VERY VERY secondarily, I'd like my own kid to be less bored. Yes, yes, only boring people get bored. But she's possibly 2E and it could help her to be taught with a different approach that meets her where she is, in terms of abstract thinking. But this is only about 10 or 20% of why I'd like "leverage" via enrichment at our school.

The primary reason I am looking for "leverage" is to secure the ~commitment of other families, who might be more likely to send their kids to CES if they are selected. I don't want our school to keep losing primarily white and Asian American MC/UMC kids to the CES. That tends to reinforce all kinds of problematic stereotypes, and shrinks the ~gifted pool at our school, which means fewer resources for those that are left (that tend to skew Black and Latino-- just as gifted but usually a bit lower-scoring).

It's true that this is a little selfish on my part as well, in the sense that I don't want my kid to lose half of her friends/community, either way. About half of her friends are in this CES-likely cohort, and half are not. Either she will lose friends/nerd peers to the CES, or, if she goes to CES, which I'd strongly prefer she did not, she will lose half of her friends left at her ES, not to mention the community feel, and just... I don't want her to go to an overwhelmingly white/UMC program. She is not white, FWIW.

Anyway.

I understand where you are coming from OP. Unfortunately, you will not get the traction or momentum that you need to make your vision a reality. Most parents who are in your situation and can be your allies in this scenario will bow out. Why? Because concentrating their efforts/time/money to enrich/educate their kids on their own is a 100x times easier than wasting energy and time to fight MCPS to get crumbs.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the skepticism on this thread. I've seen good things happen when parents organize. It's easy to ignore one parent but more difficult to ignore a well organized group of parents of high achieving children especially if these same parents are active in the school.

[Anonymous]

LOL! The reality is that the largest group that will be shat upon by MCPS in the magnet selection will be Asian-Americans. They have the most to lose because college and jobs are stacked against their children. Magnet or enriched education is a necessity for them for college admissions, not just a "good to have". If the magnet education is not available to their children, they will do their best to enrich by themselves because they are not lacking in education themselves. They are also likely to spend on education by cutting corners on every other aspect of their life because it is a swim or sink scenario for them. They are also likely to have least amount of faith on MCPS or any talk of "equity" because they know that they are targeted. So, it is hard to get them to "speak up" against the administration as they don't want any retaliatory action against their kids. They have learned to bite their tongue and just work harder. Anyways, it is nice of OP to think of the whole community and I wish her best of luck.

Also, "brain drain" is a lot better than "brain in the drain".