WISC Score and AAP Appeal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With that WISC, I don’t think FCPS is the right place for your child. Have you thought about Nysmith or Basis? I would really consider it, even though it would be hard financially.

Look into Virginia law, I believe they are legally required to provide gifted services for gifted children. There is no way your child is not profoundly gifted.

Do you know anything near Fairfax City? We are in the Fairfax district. he has a younger brother with a similar mental capacity about to start kindergarten. Just not as burst at the seam. So everything x2. Preferring toward the public school route with a lawyer support. And getting him more outside resources.

I'll put this here and not on your other thread. My info is 4 years old, but my kid's experience in the Mosaic AAP classes were not great. They still used reading groups, and the higher groups almost never had time with the teacher. Instead, they did a lot of busywork. Math classes were very slow, used stations, and many of the stations were garbage. The kids saw the teacher maybe once every two days, and otherwise had Dreambox, "math games" - ie talk to friends time, "math choice" - ie more talk to friends time, and other stupid stuff. Math tests were usually online multiple choice, very poorly written exams. Projects were mostly making google slideshows, and the smartest kids were usually paired up with the struggling ones. Most of the teachers were pretty awful and had terrible classroom control. My kid said that every classroom was a chaotic madhouse, and he could never hear himself think.

Mosaic AAP would be a disaster for a profoundly gifted child with behavior issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With that WISC, I don’t think FCPS is the right place for your child. Have you thought about Nysmith or Basis? I would really consider it, even though it would be hard financially.

Look into Virginia law, I believe they are legally required to provide gifted services for gifted children. There is no way your child is not profoundly gifted.

Yea, I just realized how profoundly gifted he is after getting the score back. Looking to get more resources for him such as Davidson Institute for profoundly gifted and Mensa for kids. Still processing this and preparing for the Appeal letter and work samples. And will look into other options after the appeal process. Will education lawyers even take on cases like this? I know people score into 130 ish on WISC, education lawyers don’t take those cases.

Honestly, it won't matter whether your kid gets into AAP or not. FCPS cannot even come close to meeting your kid's needs. Perhaps a very easygoing kid with that high of an IQ would be content to sit around teaching themselves in an AAP classroom, but it doesn't sound like your kid would fit that bill. Have you considered homeschooling + AoPS classes + online gifted classes?

A lawyer will get you nowhere. Virginia law doesn't specify what makes a kid gifted and in need of services. Technically, if FCPS says that the kid isn't gifted, then legally he isn't. Or, they can say that the LIII pull out is meeting their burden of providing gifted services.

He's currently doing 4th and 5th grade Singapore math and AMC/math Olympiad questions at home and reading science books on variety of topics. Currently watching astronomy videos on black holes, white holes, wormholes, time travel possibilities, and multiverse. My expertise is on Math and science and can get him the resources easily, but home schooling full time is not an option for me since I'm a single working mother with two boys, finance is not necessary a problem but I simply do not have the time to do home school for full time. I am trying to get him more online resources targeting the profoundly gifted populations. Davidson Institute and Mensa Kids are the two things I'm looking at. are there any other resources you can suggest? what is AoPS classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With that WISC, I don’t think FCPS is the right place for your child. Have you thought about Nysmith or Basis? I would really consider it, even though it would be hard financially.

Look into Virginia law, I believe they are legally required to provide gifted services for gifted children. There is no way your child is not profoundly gifted.

Yea, I just realized how profoundly gifted he is after getting the score back. Looking to get more resources for him such as Davidson Institute for profoundly gifted and Mensa for kids. Still processing this and preparing for the Appeal letter and work samples. And will look into other options after the appeal process. Will education lawyers even take on cases like this? I know people score into 130 ish on WISC, education lawyers don’t take those cases.

Honestly, it won't matter whether your kid gets into AAP or not. FCPS cannot even come close to meeting your kid's needs. Perhaps a very easygoing kid with that high of an IQ would be content to sit around teaching themselves in an AAP classroom, but it doesn't sound like your kid would fit that bill. Have you considered homeschooling + AoPS classes + online gifted classes?

A lawyer will get you nowhere. Virginia law doesn't specify what makes a kid gifted and in need of services. Technically, if FCPS says that the kid isn't gifted, then legally he isn't. Or, they can say that the LIII pull out is meeting their burden of providing gifted services.

He's currently doing 4th and 5th grade Singapore math and AMC/math Olympiad questions at home and reading science books on variety of topics. Currently watching astronomy videos on black holes, white holes, wormholes, time travel possibilities, and multiverse. My expertise is on Math and science and can get him the resources easily, but home schooling full time is not an option for me since I'm a single working mother with two boys, finance is not necessary a problem but I simply do not have the time to do home school for full time. I am trying to get him more online resources targeting the profoundly gifted populations. Davidson Institute and Mensa Kids are the two things I'm looking at. are there any other resources you can suggest? what is AoPS classes?

AoPS is the Art of Problem Solving. They have a school location in Vienna with excellent classes for advanced students. https://vienna.aopsacademy.org/courses/catalog
If you want your kids to skip levels, like take pre-Algebra next year in 3rd grade, they'll meet with your kid, assess him, and then approve him for the appropriate class level. They also have great language arts classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With that WISC, I don’t think FCPS is the right place for your child. Have you thought about Nysmith or Basis? I would really consider it, even though it would be hard financially.

Look into Virginia law, I believe they are legally required to provide gifted services for gifted children. There is no way your child is not profoundly gifted.

Do you know anything near Fairfax City? We are in the Fairfax district. he has a younger brother with a similar mental capacity about to start kindergarten. Just not as burst at the seam. So everything x2. Preferring toward the public school route with a lawyer support. And getting him more outside resources.

I'll put this here and not on your other thread. My info is 4 years old, but my kid's experience in the Mosaic AAP classes were not great. They still used reading groups, and the higher groups almost never had time with the teacher. Instead, they did a lot of busywork. Math classes were very slow, used stations, and many of the stations were garbage. The kids saw the teacher maybe once every two days, and otherwise had Dreambox, "math games" - ie talk to friends time, "math choice" - ie more talk to friends time, and other stupid stuff. Math tests were usually online multiple choice, very poorly written exams. Projects were mostly making google slideshows, and the smartest kids were usually paired up with the struggling ones. Most of the teachers were pretty awful and had terrible classroom control. My kid said that every classroom was a chaotic madhouse, and he could never hear himself think.

Mosaic AAP would be a disaster for a profoundly gifted child with behavior issues.

His regular class right now is definitely not the right environment either... he's frustrated with the class and no one can understand what he's thinking. Wish FCPS has a true gifted program. Does the Mosaic AAP program allow kids to learn things on their own? That would be helpful if they allow that, kid's general classroom does not allow it, and any attempt to do so is seen as not paying attention in class. Kid is very good at researching and learning things on his own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With that WISC, I don’t think FCPS is the right place for your child. Have you thought about Nysmith or Basis? I would really consider it, even though it would be hard financially.

Look into Virginia law, I believe they are legally required to provide gifted services for gifted children. There is no way your child is not profoundly gifted.

Yea, I just realized how profoundly gifted he is after getting the score back. Looking to get more resources for him such as Davidson Institute for profoundly gifted and Mensa for kids. Still processing this and preparing for the Appeal letter and work samples. And will look into other options after the appeal process. Will education lawyers even take on cases like this? I know people score into 130 ish on WISC, education lawyers don’t take those cases.

Honestly, it won't matter whether your kid gets into AAP or not. FCPS cannot even come close to meeting your kid's needs. Perhaps a very easygoing kid with that high of an IQ would be content to sit around teaching themselves in an AAP classroom, but it doesn't sound like your kid would fit that bill. Have you considered homeschooling + AoPS classes + online gifted classes?

A lawyer will get you nowhere. Virginia law doesn't specify what makes a kid gifted and in need of services. Technically, if FCPS says that the kid isn't gifted, then legally he isn't. Or, they can say that the LIII pull out is meeting their burden of providing gifted services.

He's currently doing 4th and 5th grade Singapore math and AMC/math Olympiad questions at home and reading science books on variety of topics. Currently watching astronomy videos on black holes, white holes, wormholes, time travel possibilities, and multiverse. My expertise is on Math and science and can get him the resources easily, but home schooling full time is not an option for me since I'm a single working mother with two boys, finance is not necessary a problem but I simply do not have the time to do home school for full time. I am trying to get him more online resources targeting the profoundly gifted populations. Davidson Institute and Mensa Kids are the two things I'm looking at. are there any other resources you can suggest? what is AoPS classes?

AoPS is the Art of Problem Solving. They have a school location in Vienna with excellent classes for advanced students. https://vienna.aopsacademy.org/courses/catalog
If you want your kids to skip levels, like take pre-Algebra next year in 3rd grade, they'll meet with your kid, assess him, and then approve him for the appropriate class level. They also have great language arts classes.

Thank you for the resource! i'll definitely take a look!

[Anonymous]

We are in the same boat. Our child scored 140 in WISC 5@GMU supposed to be 99.6 percentile but after reading here I am not confident she will get through appeal.

[Anonymous]

Our child scored 130 in WISC with private psychologist. Is it worth including the score in our appeal? Highest subscore was 139 in verbal comprehension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our child scored 130 in WISC with private psychologist. Is it worth including the score in our appeal? Highest subscore was 139 in verbal comprehension.

Is the WISC higher than the NNAT and Cogat score? If you really want DC evaluated with complete info, yes include it. If you are just interested in admittance to AAP, the WISC must be better than the other scores. The others on this thread are talking about truly outstanding scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got the WISC score back. Fisc 154 and all subcategories are above 99.5%. NNAT 160, Cogat 144. GBRS: 1C2F1O. Kid is active and learning very fast, which leads to disrupting classes when challenge not met thus the lower GBRS. The WISC score clearly identify him as highly gifted. what's the appeal strategy on the cover letter?

There are plenty of kids that are learning fast and not disrupting class. Appeal because he is smart and could use more of a challenge but also follow up on his behavior and help him get that under control.

+1 . He's smart as heck, but work on his self control because there is no guarantee that he will be any less disruptive in an AAP classroom. It's not fair to the teachers and students if his behavior derails the class. Then all of them learn less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our child scored 130 in WISC with private psychologist. Is it worth including the score in our appeal? Highest subscore was 139 in verbal comprehension.

Is the WISC higher than the NNAT and Cogat score? If you really want DC evaluated with complete info, yes include it. If you are just interested in admittance to AAP, the WISC must be better than the other scores. The others on this thread are talking about truly outstanding scores.

DP. FWIW, a 130 on the WISC is equivalent to a 132 on the Cogat, due to different scales. A score 2 standard deviations above 100 is an "outstanding" score (unless prepping was involved).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our child scored 130 in WISC with private psychologist. Is it worth including the score in our appeal? Highest subscore was 139 in verbal comprehension.

Is the WISC higher than the NNAT and Cogat score? If you really want DC evaluated with complete info, yes include it. If you are just interested in admittance to AAP, the WISC must be better than the other scores. The others on this thread are talking about truly outstanding scores.

The NNAT was 160 and COGAT 131 VQN

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The strategy is explaining why your child's needs can't be met in Gen Ed and also providing evidence to fill the gaps in the GBRS, particularly the 1 OO.

This is the right answer. And his behavior showing he is frustrated is exactly what you need to highlight in your letter to illustrate why his needs cannot be met in the regular classroom.

AAP is for kids whose needs cannot be met in the regular classroom. It doesn’t matter how high a child’s IQ is, if the regular classroom can meet that child’s needs they don’t need to be in the AAP classroom. You have evidence that your son’s needs are not being met, so I would emphasize that in the letter.