Innovation elementary - Arlington

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've been at Innovation since the first year it opened and have been happy there. It's a truly diverse school with all income levels and many different ethnicities represented. There isn't much of a gifted program, but I blame the APS push in model for that vs the school itself. You missed to deadline for Fall 25 option programs, so if you are enrolling a kid this year you probably don't have another choice for public school.

APS pull out gifted was great for our oldest. I guess cancelled for equity or something?

The code word for equity in the Advanced Academics program is “talent development model.”

[Anonymous]

Parent of a 4th grader in a gifted cluster classroom. We really like Innovation and have noticed a big ramp up in terms of academic expectations so far this year. Like others, we're fans of the diverse community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huge problem with the school being right on the cusp for title I - lots of students and families with needs but none of the extra funding/support. Definitely a much higher staff turnover rate. Know one teacher that left a school she was very unhappy at to join innovation and after a year she went back to her previous school. Many of the specials teachers left the same year - they see all of the students and have a sense of the school as a whole. I am sure really good teachers and staff there; it’s a systemic problem/equity problem

APS has an overall equity/poverty and distribution problem. There has been a strong and noticeable influx of poverty into the county, and many of the schools in recent years. On the elementary level that would be so easy to fix, but beyond that it’s all county policies.. APS and the county operate practically oblivious of each other and that has negative consequences.