APS is failing my gifted child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 3rd grade gifted kid is just being failed by this school system. No differentiation, no peers in their class that I can see, ridiculous low level instruction. Think 2-letter spelling tests. There are tears every night about how terrible school is and how they aren’t learning anything.

Please, any advice? What’s a viable option? Move to Fairfax? I hear AAP is no great thing. Are there any privates that are more challenging? Thanks for any advice or lessons learned.

Either a kid in a gifted cluster at APS is not gifted (maybe smart or mom coached) and they're literally ruining the school experience for the actually few percentage of gifted kids, or a kid is actually gifted and will get zero benefit from gifted clusters at APS. APS is terrible for gifted learners and you can see by how their policy has changed from pull out to push in, and these days, open to anyone. The superintendents (past and present) who have promoted these policies are terrible and, from our experience, they place random people to supervise the gifted programs, and they (teachers, admin, and counselors) will lie to you in the face by claiming that there are many kids that are as smart or smarter than your kid even though your kid will say that they don't do anything hard but the other kids seem to be struggling with the provided work. Like I said, I'm not sure how many actually gifted kids attend school in APS since personally I know at least a few that escaped from the district in elementary or through the TJ admission process. But if your kid is actually gifted, there actually may not be too many other kids at that level in your school/class so they won't ever teach to that level. Since they don't seem to have a dedicated specialist to teach these kids directly, I'm not even sure most elementary gen ed teachers can teach them appropriately. With that said, We know a dozen or more kids who are very smart that did AAP during primary and middle school, and then most went to TJ. We also know one or two that are really smart at local privates. Other than that, find EC that gifted kids cluster to including some sports (probably all individual), STEM teams that are competition focused, or some of the local educational companies that provide above grade level classes that are lacking at most schools. The demand is there but too bad APS is to focused on virtue signaling and not providing appropriate education.

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah, they also had the audacity to make my kids do all the work that the regular class was doing if they wanted access to the barely more difficult work that was provided by the gt specialist. The gifted work, I think, was thought of by teachers as supplemental or a reward, or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3rd grade gifted kid is just being failed by this school system. No differentiation, no peers in their class that I can see, ridiculous low level instruction. Think 2-letter spelling tests. There are tears every night about how terrible school is and how they aren’t learning anything.

Please, any advice? What’s a viable option? Move to Fairfax? I hear AAP is no great thing. Are there any privates that are more challenging? Thanks for any advice or lessons learned.

Either a kid in a gifted cluster at APS is not gifted (maybe smart or mom coached) and they're literally ruining the school experience for the actually few percentage of gifted kids, or a kid is actually gifted and will get zero benefit from gifted clusters at APS. APS is terrible for gifted learners and you can see by how their policy has changed from pull out to push in, and these days, open to anyone. The superintendents (past and present) who have promoted these policies are terrible and, from our experience, they place random people to supervise the gifted programs, and they (teachers, admin, and counselors) will lie to you in the face by claiming that there are many kids that are as smart or smarter than your kid even though your kid will say that they don't do anything hard but the other kids seem to be struggling with the provided work. Like I said, I'm not sure how many actually gifted kids attend school in APS since personally I know at least a few that escaped from the district in elementary or through the TJ admission process. But if your kid is actually gifted, there actually may not be too many other kids at that level in your school/class so they won't ever teach to that level. Since they don't seem to have a dedicated specialist to teach these kids directly, I'm not even sure most elementary gen ed teachers can teach them appropriately. With that said, We know a dozen or more kids who are very smart that did AAP during primary and middle school, and then most went to TJ. We also know one or two that are really smart at local privates. Other than that, find EC that gifted kids cluster to including some sports (probably all individual), STEM teams that are competition focused, or some of the local educational companies that provide above grade level classes that are lacking at most schools. The demand is there but too bad APS is to focused on virtue signaling and not providing appropriate education.

. Thank you. Can you give me some examples of the competition programs you’re thinking of? Or the outside providers? I will enroll in those while I start the process of getting my kid in another district/renting a place until we can buy.

[Anonymous]

It’s not a coincidence that each of Langley and McLean has more National Merit Semifinalists this year than all four of the high schools in APS combined. If you want a more challenging pyramid (and many in APS don’t), that is where you should go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh yeah, they also had the audacity to make my kids do all the work that the regular class was doing if they wanted access to the barely more difficult work that was provided by the gt specialist. The gifted work, I think, was thought of by teachers as supplemental or a reward, or something.

Yeah, at our school it’s more worksheets that the kid can do after the main thing is done. What reasonable person wants to do additional work when everyone else doesn’t have to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a coincidence that each of Langley and McLean has more National Merit Semifinalists this year than all four of the high schools in APS combined. If you want a more challenging pyramid (and many in APS don’t), that is where you should go.

Yeah, this definitely has nothing to do with the average household income of McLean vs Arlington/SES/demographics.🙄 I’m not saying that accounts for all of the difference, but it’s not insignificant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a coincidence that each of Langley and McLean has more National Merit Semifinalists this year than all four of the high schools in APS combined. If you want a more challenging pyramid (and many in APS don’t), that is where you should go.

Yeah, this definitely has nothing to do with the average household income of McLean vs Arlington/SES/demographics.🙄 I’m not saying that accounts for all of the difference, but it’s not insignificant.

Yorktown is very high SES but it has only a handful of NMSF semifinalists. If your hypothesis is right it should be like Mclean

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Not going to put my kid but it’s a North Arlington school that is well regarded. If this is outside the norm then I’ll raise hell to get my kid out. Can you please let me know which school you had a good experience with that actually challenged your child?

Is this one teacher or has this been your experience every year? This wasn't our experience overall with two kids in a well-regarded N. Arlington elementary school. That said, there was the year that one kid got a total dud teacher. Don't think they learned a thing that year. And the other kid kept getting young teachers who got pregnant so they had a lot of long term subs. You get some ups and downs in public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a coincidence that each of Langley and McLean has more National Merit Semifinalists this year than all four of the high schools in APS combined. If you want a more challenging pyramid (and many in APS don’t), that is where you should go.

Yeah, this definitely has nothing to do with the average household income of McLean vs Arlington/SES/demographics.🙄 I’m not saying that accounts for all of the difference, but it’s not insignificant.

Yorktown is very high SES but it has only a handful of NMSF semifinalists. If your hypothesis is right it should be like Mclean

Not a direct comparison because of APS's option program. The top kids transfer to WL for IB

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a coincidence that each of Langley and McLean has more National Merit Semifinalists this year than all four of the high schools in APS combined. If you want a more challenging pyramid (and many in APS don’t), that is where you should go.

Yeah, this definitely has nothing to do with the average household income of McLean vs Arlington/SES/demographics.🙄 I’m not saying that accounts for all of the difference, but it’s not insignificant.

Yorktown is very high SES but it has only a handful of NMSF semifinalists. If your hypothesis is right it should be like Mclean

Not a direct comparison because of APS's option program. The top kids transfer to WL for IB

Wait, wut? We always joke that Mclean, Langley, and Oakton are starting their JV squad because their varsity team tested into TJ...

[Anonymous]

There's no world where a spelling test, even if it was grade level appropriate, is going to stretch a gifted student. I think that's a stupid example. That's just something that every gifted kid in public school has had to do anyways.

For my kid in APS elementary, she spent a lot of time reading challenging books after she finished her work. She'd get through several a week so we'd source them at the public library. I made suggestions so she read a lot of classics. Once they started CKLA we'd try to pick out stretch books to add onto the curriculum. I also pushed for her to have access to IXL to do additional math after she finished her assigned math and any extension packets, and that happened some years. In writing, I asked her classroom teacher to expect more of her if there was still time to work, so that happened sometimes. Basically, not to let her finish the assignment in 5 minutes and go back to her book--ask her to keep writing to fill the time. It did get better as she got into higher grades. Our school did always cluster so she did have excellent peers.

APS has gutted the program, especially post-covid. The now-named AACs aren't supposed to offer any curriculum targeting gifted students, but to make extension materials available that are suitable for the whole class. That's really wrong, IMO, and isn't meeting the needs of students who need more challenging content and to grapple with big ideas.

[Anonymous]

We took our daughter out of Taylor after third grade. She's now at a Big 3 private and doing so much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We took our daughter out of Taylor after third grade. She's now at a Big 3 private and doing so much better.

We moved to APS 17 years ago for the schools, and now don’t know what to do with our youngest. Wish we could afford private or to move… not sure if parochial would be better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to supplement. Order books.

Unless you can afford to move

Yes I can afford to move. That is why I asked the question.
Why would supplementing with books do any good if the child is stuck in school all day learning nothing? They can’t use those supplements during the school day.

Some schools/teachers will allow students to work on supplementary material in class after they have completed the classwork. What conversations have you had with the teachers/administration? That's where to start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a coincidence that each of Langley and McLean has more National Merit Semifinalists this year than all four of the high schools in APS combined. If you want a more challenging pyramid (and many in APS don’t), that is where you should go.

Yeah, this definitely has nothing to do with the average household income of McLean vs Arlington/SES/demographics.🙄 I’m not saying that accounts for all of the difference, but it’s not insignificant.

Yorktown is very high SES but it has only a handful of NMSF semifinalists. If your hypothesis is right it should be like Mclean

Not a direct comparison because of APS's option program. The top kids transfer to WL for IB

More Langley and McLean kids place to TJ than Yorktown kids transfer to W-L, no? PP is right - North Arlington has similar demographics to McLean in terms of income. The difference is the schools (and as noted many in APS prefer that system over the greater differentiation in FCPS). But unless OP wants to go private it sounds like she’d be happier in the Langley or McLean pyramids.