AAP drama

[Anonymous]

If my AAP child EVER allowed herself to think that way....

OMG

I hope another parent would be kind enough to tell me so that I could spend the entire summer explaining to her how entirely inappropriate that behavior is, and how false the premise of AAP admission correlating to anything other than doing well on a preppable COGAT test is.

Honestly, this is one of the great things about us prepping for COGAT. My daughter knows that most kids in school are just as smart as she is, but she did workbooks and did well on an important test. That's it.

[Anonymous]

Dear OP, you must support your child and explain life to him. I am sorry it has to be done at such a young age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely the kids talk about this. I am sorry Op. AAP sucks. Damage control time. Strengthen relationships with friends who will remain. Immediately. Do not chase the friends who will be leaving.

AAP doesn’t suck. Not allowing gifted and talented kids the space to grow and be challenged sucks.

AAP is not a gifted and talented program. So yes, it does suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely the kids talk about this. I am sorry Op. AAP sucks. Damage control time. Strengthen relationships with friends who will remain. Immediately. Do not chase the friends who will be leaving.

AAP doesn’t suck. Not allowing gifted and talented kids the space to grow and be challenged sucks.

AAP is not a gifted and talented program. So yes, it does suck.

Of course it's not for the gifted. Anyone who is delusional enough to think otherwise is... incorrect.

That said, availability of AAP is the best thing about FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely the kids talk about this. I am sorry Op. AAP sucks. Damage control time. Strengthen relationships with friends who will remain. Immediately. Do not chase the friends who will be leaving.

AAP doesn’t suck. Not allowing gifted and talented kids the space to grow and be challenged sucks.

AAP is not a gifted and talented program. So yes, it does suck.

Of course it's not for the gifted. Anyone who is delusional enough to think otherwise is... incorrect.

That said, availability of AAP is the best thing about FCPS.

The way it is done is awful. It's the worst thing about FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely the kids talk about this. I am sorry Op. AAP sucks. Damage control time. Strengthen relationships with friends who will remain. Immediately. Do not chase the friends who will be leaving.

AAP doesn’t suck. Not allowing gifted and talented kids the space to grow and be challenged sucks.

AAP is not a gifted and talented program. So yes, it does suck.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely the kids talk about this. I am sorry Op. AAP sucks. Damage control time. Strengthen relationships with friends who will remain. Immediately. Do not chase the friends who will be leaving.

AAP doesn’t suck. Not allowing gifted and talented kids the space to grow and be challenged sucks.

AAP is not a gifted and talented program. So yes, it does suck.

Of course it's not for the gifted. Anyone who is delusional enough to think otherwise is... incorrect.

That said, availability of AAP is the best thing about FCPS.

The way it is done is awful. It's the worst thing about FCPS.

+1
They badly need to go back to the days of an ACTUAL, very selective GT program for the very few who qualified. And flexible groupings for everyone else. Masses of kids are not gifted.

[Anonymous]

My child is in the program at her center school and her sister wasn’t accepted. She told her sister she was in the stupid class and I immediately freaked out. I do think kids in the aap program feel superior. I thought about taking her out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely the kids talk about this. I am sorry Op. AAP sucks. Damage control time. Strengthen relationships with friends who will remain. Immediately. Do not chase the friends who will be leaving.

AAP doesn’t suck. Not allowing gifted and talented kids the space to grow and be challenged sucks.

When half a grade is AAP it is not a gifted and talented program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely the kids talk about this. I am sorry Op. AAP sucks. Damage control time. Strengthen relationships with friends who will remain. Immediately. Do not chase the friends who will be leaving.

AAP doesn’t suck. Not allowing gifted and talented kids the space to grow and be challenged sucks.

When half a grade is AAP it is not a gifted and talented program.

Our center school has 3 AAP classes per grade and 3 gen ed classes per grade because it pulls from other schools. It's not "half a grade is AAP". Use your brain, PP.

[Anonymous]

I don't believe that this happened, at least not in the extremely dramatic way that OP is saying it happened.

We've been at two FCPS elementary schools, switching in 5th. My daughter barely knew what AAP was, nobody really talked about it, and very few kids at the old school left for the center until fairly recently. At her new school, people have talked about it, she says she's heard the AAP kids are the smart kids and we've talked about how schools group children based on how they learn and what they need to focus on, and you can't generalize that they're smarter because smart means a lot of things. She's in a class with kids and a teacher that are the right fit for her.

That's it. There's no bullying, no "I can't be friends with you anymore", nothing like that. And in fact, in both schools, kids who went to the Center are still part of the same activities (sports, scouts, etc.) and the kids all see each other all the time - very easy to maintain those friendships if you want to.

That said, if this actually did happen, good riddance, right? Your child is presumably 8 years old and will have forgotten these girls by the fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is in the program at her center school and her sister wasn’t accepted. She told her sister she was in the stupid class and I immediately freaked out. I do think kids in the aap program feel superior. I thought about taking her out.

A lot of this comes from their parents but sometimes it is in fact the teachers at the AAP center who make them feel this way - a lot of Centers completely separate the kids - they don't even have lunch together!!!

[Anonymous]

Of course it's real. AAP parents want to think that the right words, the right coaching of what their kids should/shouldn't say is going to make a difference. It isn't. It's a horrible practice.

Op, above all else. If you have more than one child, keep them together. Educate them together. The toxic environment your daughter is experiencing -- you do not want this between siblings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I failed as a parent today! My child (2nd grader) came home crying today because apparently three of her friends are switching schools to go to an AAP center next year. I’m happy with my child’ performance and school, and didn’t even consider pushing for this. But she’s been crying for over an hour about how she is “stupid” and will have no friends next year. She doesn’t even want to see these girls tomorrow because they told her they aren’t friends with her anymore. I had absolutely on idea this is something kids talk about- this is my first kid. Have other parents experienced this ?

This sounds very unreal.

NP. I assure you, this is absolutely real. The same scenario happened with my child back in 2nd grade too. What made it even worse was that he attended a center school already and so had to see these mean kids for the rest of his elementary years - they were in the AAP classes and he was in GE. When they all found out they had gotten in, they made a lunch table for only themselves, and anyone not accepted to AAP was not allowed to sit there. This lasted for a few days until I and a few other parents notified the teachers and then that ended. But as another poster said, the damage had been done. My son was called "dumb" and the kids who had been his best friends immediately shunned him.

Being told as a SEVEN year old that you're either "smarter" than other kids, or "not as smart" is incredibly damaging. The truth is, the vast majority of these kids are identical in ability. Only a very few at either end of the spectrum are so different that they need a specialized curriculum.

The AAP nonsense continued through middle school. Once high school rolled around, my son took all honors and AP classes and excelled. He was accepted to a top 20 college. He says to this day that nothing ever made him feel as bad as those kids who were chosen for AAP. And it was all so unnecessary. The school could have simply had flexible groupings for the four core subjects, that kids could cycle into and out of as needed. Instead, they choose to divide and label kids into two giant groups - groups full of almost identical kids. It's a total sham.

- Discipline kids poor behavior.
- Stop mainstreaming every single kid, many who need different accommodations that takes years to get out of the general education classes.
- Gate honors/GT classes again.
- Stop the flow of ESOL kids into gened classes when they can barely speak English.

This would allow flexible groupings to be viable. As it stands now, AAP is just normal school that many are clamoring for.

Or live in a rich part of the county.

The rude, arrogant comment happened in the rich part.

[Anonymous]

Yep, most people don’t realize that test prep starts in 1st grade in FCPS. Time to look at private school options. Either now or middle school at the latest.