FCPS Gen Ed, considering private school. Advice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at St Stephens/St Agnes also. OP needs to apply to several schools, really maybe 4-5 different schools. Admissions are fairly competitive, perhaps more competitive than OP realizes…

OP already said they can't afford independent. In Parish, St Louis is 8k a year and it sounds like OP is Catholic and local enough that they could switch Parishes. SSSAS is 43k for upper elementary

[Anonymous]

Congressional and Westminister

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Congressional and Westminister

OP here; Unfortunately both out of budget (<=$20k) and too far to drive for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Congressional and Westminister

OP here; Unfortunately both out of budget (<=$20k) and too far to drive for us.

You have two good options. Plenty of kids from area schools leave for those schools when they don't get AAP. I've heard of people having trouble getting in for 6th and a near impossible time getting in for 7th, but every family that I've known who has taken the AAP or St Louis position has ended up at St Louis if their kid didn't get AAP

[Anonymous]

The only spots open at St. Louis are due to attrition. There’s a waiting list for every grade.

Make sure you have a backup.

[Anonymous]

Since this is a private school forum, some people (myself included) may not be familiar with the terminology you used in your post. Are you looking for an academically advanced school or one that will differentiate? Or just a school with better handle on kids behavior? Maybe clarify if you want more responses in this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since this is a private school forum, some people (myself included) may not be familiar with the terminology you used in your post. Are you looking for an academically advanced school or one that will differentiate? Or just a school with better handle on kids behavior? Maybe clarify if you want more responses in this forum.

OP here; We are seeking a more productive classroom environment with a better handle on behavior. We are also seeking a different structure. As per the county policy, the current elementary school begins to split students 50/50 into full time 'advanced' and 'gen ed' classes in 3rd grade. Kids like ours, who apply but do not make it into the 'advanced' half, are grouped in class full time with a higher than average number of distracting pupils. These classes are taught by the least experienced teachers, as these classes are the least desirable to teach. We do not like the setup and would rather DC have an equal chance of interacting with experienced educators and advanced students, instead of being blocked from that.

[Anonymous]

OP consider that the issue might be your child's school. Our former AAP center was also our base school, and my friends whose kids were not in AAP never complained about their decently bright kids not having their needs met. In fact I have friends whose kids qualified for AAP level IV who chose to keep them in gen ed. Those kids are now happily doing honors in our well-regarded but mid-SES MS, no issues. On the old "TJ mania" map our area was "mid TJ mania" (so not Carson or Longfellow, ha).

We are now at a local religious school that provides more homework and language arts instruction than our public pyramid, but the religion was a big part of our switch along with the differences in academics.

Is moving an option for you, rather than private?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since this is a private school forum, some people (myself included) may not be familiar with the terminology you used in your post. Are you looking for an academically advanced school or one that will differentiate? Or just a school with better handle on kids behavior? Maybe clarify if you want more responses in this forum.

OP here; We are seeking a more productive classroom environment with a better handle on behavior. We are also seeking a different structure. As per the county policy, the current elementary school begins to split students 50/50 into full time 'advanced' and 'gen ed' classes in 3rd grade. Kids like ours, who apply but do not make it into the 'advanced' half, are grouped in class full time with a higher than average number of distracting pupils. These classes are taught by the least experienced teachers, as these classes are the least desirable to teach. We do not like the setup and would rather DC have an equal chance of interacting with experienced educators and advanced students, instead of being blocked from that.

PP who asked about the possibility of your family moving. The bolded is not true at our center at all. If anything the full-time advanced classes have more teacher turnover than the general education classes. Again I'd suggest to you that the specific issues you note are a "your school" issue as opposed to an FCPS issue.

Also the county doesn't split kids 50%/50%. 20% of FCPS is in full-time AAP, not 50%. At our center only about 1/4 of the kids in full-time AAP have our center as the base, some years less. My now-5th grader had many more friends from one specific other base school in her AAP classes than from our center/base.

I think your idea of AAP is pretty skewed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since this is a private school forum, some people (myself included) may not be familiar with the terminology you used in your post. Are you looking for an academically advanced school or one that will differentiate? Or just a school with better handle on kids behavior? Maybe clarify if you want more responses in this forum.

OP here; We are seeking a more productive classroom environment with a better handle on behavior. We are also seeking a different structure. As per the county policy, the current elementary school begins to split students 50/50 into full time 'advanced' and 'gen ed' classes in 3rd grade. Kids like ours, who apply but do not make it into the 'advanced' half, are grouped in class full time with a higher than average number of distracting pupils. These classes are taught by the least experienced teachers, as these classes are the least desirable to teach. We do not like the setup and would rather DC have an equal chance of interacting with experienced educators and advanced students, instead of being blocked from that.

PP who asked about the possibility of your family moving. The bolded is not true at our center at all. If anything the full-time advanced classes have more teacher turnover than the general education classes. Again I'd suggest to you that the specific issues you note are a "your school" issue as opposed to an FCPS issue.

Also the county doesn't split kids 50%/50%. 20% of FCPS is in full-time AAP, not 50%. At our center only about 1/4 of the kids in full-time AAP have our center as the base, some years less. My now-5th grader had many more friends from one specific other base school in her AAP classes than from our center/base.

I think your idea of AAP is pretty skewed.

OP is most likely from Ft Hunt given the schools that they're talking about. For several of the schools, they aren't far off about the gulf between gen ed and liv

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP consider that the issue might be your child's school.

OP here; This is certainly possible as we only have experience with this school. Teacher turnover is very high at the school. And to confirm, at this school it is 50/50, two classes of AAP, and two of Gen Ed, for each grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP consider that the issue might be your child's school.

OP here; This is certainly possible as we only have experience with this school. Teacher turnover is very high at the school. And to confirm, at this school it is 50/50, two classes of AAP, and two of Gen Ed, for each grade.

Yes, but all the kids in those 2 AAP classes are not originally from your school. Most of them are bused in from other schools. That's what being a center means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, but all the kids in those 2 AAP classes are not originally from your school. Most of them are bused in from other schools. That's what being a center means.

OP here; That's correct, yes. I didn't mean to insinuate otherwise. They gained an extra class starting in third grade and that is when 2 AAP/2 GE began. So it is approximately half from here, half from other schools.

[Anonymous]

I’m the PP who asked if it was Stratford because I live in the neighborhood and it sounded like that. I do think this is somewhat unique to your school but won’t change unfortunately. My kid qualified for AAP at Ft Hunt and we kept her there because of the things we’d heard about SLES, specifically the turnover and behavior issues (which are also present at Ft Hunt in some classes but are IMHO way overblown). In your shoes, I’d at least pursue the Catholics.. it can’t hurt.