Dear AAP Parents
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Anonymous
That is extremely narrow-minded view. In that case, let's just cut special needs, music, arts, etc. since none of that matter to a lot of people as well. |
Anonymous
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Music, art, etc are experienced by all the children. Just like P.E.
As far as Special Needs, gifted children should be treated similar to children with special needs since it is a special need according to their 'lobbying' group. They should get pull outs from class, enrichment, access to the AART teacher at the school, that sort of thing. Not a multiple separate centers, separate classrooms (unless they are severely disabled of course), separate curriculums, etc. They get enrichment to access the curriculum that everyone else has maybe in a more meaningful way suited to them. They are mainstreamed as much as possible. |
Anonymous
This is true, as most students are not in AAP. Most students are not on the football team, either. Most students are not in immersion. Most students are not in band. (etc.) |
Anonymous
What about kids who need more full time support, whether it is for enrichment or remediation? |
Anonymous
Special-needs programs are for kids with special needs. AAP doesn't qualify. It is simply an enrichment program, which could easily be implemented in all classes. Music and art benefit all kids - not just a certain contingent. If the enrichment offered by our public school system doesn't meet with your approval, there's always private school or homeschooling. |
Anonymous
Correct, and those are all programs that could be cut too - or at the very least, require a fee for participation. |
Anonymous
The very few kids who require "full-time support" are considered "special needs". Applying the term "special needs" to the mainstream kids in AAP as a whole is a joke, and frankly, insulting to kids who are actually SN. |
Anonymous
None of those examples are for core instruction (like AAP). |
Anonymous
AAP is simply enrichment or extensions of core instruction. Both of which could easily be applied to all classrooms. If taxpayers are going to have to continue to fund this program, it should be to the benefit of all students. |
Anonymous
Seriously?? Full time support for enrichment. Do you even know the definition of enrichment?? There are kids in my child's school with full on disabilities, cannot walk without assistance, cannot form complete sentences, wheelchair bound. These students NEED full time support. Please tell me why Ceasar's English and Worldly Wise and cute colorful agendas require full time support? |
Anonymous
| Do we really have to justify AAP's existence every other day? |
Anonymous
Not at my kids AAP Centers. Perhaps this is the case at your AAP Center. |
Anonymous
This simply isn't true. Special needs covers both the upper and lower bounds of kids intellectual and educational needs. For kids that are highly gifted, they need something different than what is provided in the general classroom. If they chose to do away with the centers, I'd be fine with that as long as the base schools have teachers and curriculums to support kids that are truly gifted. The problem IMO is that they don't have enough kids in each school to support having them pulled out for every academic class for special instruction. This would isolate them even more socially. Having these kids together provides an opportunity to see that there are other kids like them which provides a social acceptance and acknowledgement of their abilities that they don't receive otherwise. They have plenty of other time in their day to socialize with kids of different abilities outside of the academic instruction time. If you have a kid that excels in a sport and plays on a travel team, do you feel the same way about the travel team as you do AAP? If my kid isn't as good as your kid why should your kid get higher level instruction and mine does not. My kid could learn more skills by being around you kid - that's not fair. Your kid should be forced to play that sport with kids of much lower ability during the whole season and never be allowed to play on a team with kids of their high skill level because you'll make my kid feel bad. If my kid excels intellectually (very high IQ; 1:10,000 kids) why don't they need a different curriculum outside of the gen ed curriculum? Your highly skilled sports kid would get bored and quit their sport if forced to play with kids that were of average skill. Please have some sympathy for parents with kids like mine (which I know are not ALL kids in APP). The truly gifted kids know who the other highly gifted kids are and who the high achiever kids are in AAP right away, but this doesn't mean they don't want to play or work with any other kids. They just know who to go to when they want to talk about subjects that their other classmates won't be interested in or understand. Adults are the same way, so you can't judge gifted kids for this behavior. |
Anonymous
| How are private travel teams anything like a publicly funded school system? |
Anonymous
It responds to most of the "reasons" that people state as to why AAP centers are not necessary. They make other kids feel bad, they provide a curriculum that should be provided to all, etc. It's not an exact comparison, so let's compare it to sports at a HS with JV and Varsity. Why shouldn't all of the kids just play on one big team and not be separated by ability? Do you expect the special needs kids on the lower end of the spectrum to not receive accommodations geared toward their needs? Do you tell their parents they don't really need it, to just suck it up and sit in a classroom all day using a curriculum that is clearly not matched to their educational needs. Kids on the higher end should receive the same accommodations. If they get rid of centers they need to provide something else for these kids (not all current AAP but for the ones that are highly gifted). |