Summer AIM prep class

[Anonymous]

Where does that line of thought end? For me, it ends when the school year begins. I personally think during the school year, effort should be made to meet the needs of all learners. I am in no way saying gifted or magnet or advanced learners should be ignored during the year. I view summer differently, and think for elementary and middle school students, summer school is most important for remediation and reteaching students who are not on or above grade level. If funds and available teachers were more abundant, other priorities could be added as well. But in a situation where budgets are very limited, I think it’s actually better for all the students if the most struggling learners get targeted support over the summer so they may enter the next grade better equipped and less “behind” than they otherwise might have been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where does that line of thought end? For me, it ends when the school year begins. I personally think during the school year, effort should be made to meet the needs of all learners. I am in no way saying gifted or magnet or advanced learners should be ignored during the year. I view summer differently, and think for elementary and middle school students, summer school is most important for remediation and reteaching students who are not on or above grade level. If funds and available teachers were more abundant, other priorities could be added as well. But in a situation where budgets are very limited, I think it’s actually better for all the students if the most struggling learners get targeted support over the summer so they may enter the next grade better equipped and less “behind” than they otherwise might have been.

+1 totally agree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The AIM class at Takoma is more advanced than what is offered outside the magnet, so I imagine it's offered to all magnet kids.

The invite says nothing about magnet only AIM. TPMS has not offered this in previous years. Invite is from AEI.

A kid scoring 270 in 5th should be fine, but I'd guess the reason for this has more to do with the spread created by the lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where does that line of thought end? For me, it ends when the school year begins. I personally think during the school year, effort should be made to meet the needs of all learners. I am in no way saying gifted or magnet or advanced learners should be ignored during the year. I view summer differently, and think for elementary and middle school students, summer school is most important for remediation and reteaching students who are not on or above grade level. If funds and available teachers were more abundant, other priorities could be added as well. But in a situation where budgets are very limited, I think it’s actually better for all the students if the most struggling learners get targeted support over the summer so they may enter the next grade better equipped and less “behind” than they otherwise might have been.

At our school, anyone who is at grade level gets ignored. They only care about struggling learners. They figure kids at grade level are from families whose parents can hire tutors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where does that line of thought end? For me, it ends when the school year begins. I personally think during the school year, effort should be made to meet the needs of all learners. I am in no way saying gifted or magnet or advanced learners should be ignored during the year. I view summer differently, and think for elementary and middle school students, summer school is most important for remediation and reteaching students who are not on or above grade level. If funds and available teachers were more abundant, other priorities could be added as well. But in a situation where budgets are very limited, I think it’s actually better for all the students if the most struggling learners get targeted support over the summer so they may enter the next grade better equipped and less “behind” than they otherwise might have been.

This is a reasonable response, given the consistent and significant underfunding, so long as 1) there is breadth to bring those with relative learning deficit up to speed, as this benefits the entire class for the following year (if it's only those few most struggling, it leaves too much heterogeneity for teachers), and 2) there is a rapid resumption of enrichments at the beginning of the year for those needing to stretch, perhaps relying on prior-year performance/identification, rather than waiting to the end of the first quarter, as we've seen happen.