Cunningham Park

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cunningham Park is a very good school with an active PTA and supportive community. Most of the kids who go there score very well on the SOLs and do just as well as students from other Vienna elementary schools.

However because the school is so small there is a relatively large percentage of ESOL students who do not do as well on the SOLs and need additional support. My guess is the county included Cunningham on its priority list to make sure that those kids get the resources they need and that the school is not overwhelmed. My kids have really enjoyed the school and the friends they have made there.

There are dozens of Fairfax schools with higher percentage of ESOL students than Cunningham Park that are NOT on the "priority schools" list. Cunningham Park is on the list because, over a rolling three-year period, its ESOL/minority students under-performed on standardized tests compared to other students in the county.

If anyone should be avoiding the school, it's not students whose native language is English, but instead ESOL students, who have made more progress at other schools. It's important to keep in mind, however, that the designations are based on historical data. If the school has recently made strides in educating its ESOL students, that may not yet be reflected in the test data.

[Anonymous]

If you can afford a place you like in the Louise Archer, Wolf Trap, or Vienna Elementary zones, move there instead.

Cunningham Park, Marshall Road, and Freedom Hill aren't bad, but just not as good as the first three. Yet, I know tolerance varies and it's way more important what goes on at home than whether a school gets an '8' or a '9' from greatschools.net.

Town of Vienna will virtually guarantee you Kilmer or Thoreau MS and guarantee you Madison HS, something you may not get in the areas outside of the town. You have to consider all three levels.

[Anonymous]

Neither Cunningham Park nor Freedom Hill made AYP this past year. For Freedom Hill, it was the second year in a row it didn't make AYP. Does that mean that either school will have to let parents transfer to students to other schools in the area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neither Cunningham Park nor Freedom Hill made AYP this past year. For Freedom Hill, it was the second year in a row it didn't make AYP. Does that mean that either school will have to let parents transfer to students to other schools in the area?

No, neither is a Title I school, and transfer options only apply to Title I schools that haven't made AYP for several years in a row.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neither Cunningham Park nor Freedom Hill made AYP this past year. For Freedom Hill, it was the second year in a row it didn't make AYP. Does that mean that either school will have to let parents transfer to students to other schools in the area?

12:11 please post the link to this from the FCPS website, because 2009-10 testing data is not on the Freedom Hill or Cunningham Park school web page within the FCPS web site.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Check the School Report Cards for the schools on the Virginia Department of Education's web page:

http://www.doe.virginia.gov/

[Anonymous]

Since the term "did not make AYP" is an all or nothing score, i.e. you fail one of 29 objectives you fail them ALL, so let's look a little deeper at the #'s.

Cunningham Park met all AYP objectives except Mathematics Performance - Economically Disadvantaged (page 8 )
G3 - 80%, G4 - 69%, G5 - 60%, G6 - 71% vs. target of 79

Freedom Hill met all AYP objectives except Mathematics Performance - Hispanic (page 8 )
G3 - 60%, G4 - 78%, G5 - 100%, G6 - 69% vs. target of 79

Meeting or not meeting AYP is a problematic measure of success or lack thereof. The importance is in the detail scores.
So, what to observe or ask questions about...

1) Do the classes as they move thru the system, score consistently better by category?
2) Mobility rate plays havoc with teaching to kids in these categories (ins and outs to the school)
3) If you fall into either of the those categories at the particular school, ask how the school is addressing the issue.

Otherwise, pay attention to what directly affects your child in the classroom, that is more important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since the term "did not make AYP" is an all or nothing score, i.e. you fail one of 29 objectives you fail them ALL, so let's look a little deeper at the #'s.

Cunningham Park met all AYP objectives except Mathematics Performance - Economically Disadvantaged (page 8 )
G3 - 80%, G4 - 69%, G5 - 60%, G6 - 71% vs. target of 79

Freedom Hill met all AYP objectives except Mathematics Performance - Hispanic (page 8 )
G3 - 60%, G4 - 78%, G5 - 100%, G6 - 69% vs. target of 79

Meeting or not meeting AYP is a problematic measure of success or lack thereof. The importance is in the detail scores.
So, what to observe or ask questions about...

1) Do the classes as they move thru the system, score consistently better by category?
2) Mobility rate plays havoc with teaching to kids in these categories (ins and outs to the school)
3) If you fall into either of the those categories at the particular school, ask how the school is addressing the issue.

Otherwise, pay attention to what directly affects your child in the classroom, that is more important.

Great post, but how do you assess what directly affects your child in a classroom? In other words, does someone who is not Economically Disadvantaged at Cunningham Park ignore the fact that the school didn't meet the AYP objective for Math for the disadvantaged students, or do you worry that the school is going to devote a lot of resources to those kids in the future, in order to make AYP, and pay less attention to your kid? I think that's the type of uncertainty that can rattle parents.

[Anonymous]

From PP16:04...

That's exactly the type of question a good school administration will forthrightly answer in their back to school materials or to parents at the first open house. If not, then the question is warranted to be asked AND answered. Uncertainty would be what happens if there is no clear answer.

In our case (Freedom Hill), it has not and is not a 'take away from one to give to others' case; it is how to apply the existing and hopefully additional resources to best address the issue. At Freedom Hill it is not solely a language proficiency issue (they met that objective) and there are multiple significant percentages of other languages (Korean, Arabic and Hindi mainly).

After 5 years at DCPS at a "good" school, Fairfax County schools have a much more pragmatic open approach to sharing a school's method to addressing issues like. My observation is that parents on this side of the river are far more overwrought about these things considering it is one of the top ten school districts in the country.

[Anonymous]

We're very happy Cunningham Park parents, with a second kiddo headed there this fall. I can't speak to the academic experience of the lower socioeconomic kids who feed into the school from Cedar Lane apartments and other places, but we've been happy with our son's teachers, classmates, and experience there. I consider the diversity (ethnic, language, economic) within the school a positive that is more reflective of our region/nation. The priority school designation means more resources and support to help the school's ESL and free/reduced lunch populations that have grown appreciably in the last couple years.

There's good community within the school and some terrific neighborhoods around it both in the Town of Vienna, Stonewall Manor, and elsewhere. True, our neighborhoods don't have the uniformity of the 1970s and 1980s developments of 4/5 BR, 3 BA homes off Lawyers Road and Beulah Rd that feed into Archer, Wolftrap, etc., but the smaller yards (and lack of garages) can produce more neighborly interaction. Of course, schools and neighborhoods are often what you make of them...