Jackson Reed - why do their public presentations not talk about APs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JR received grant money to invest in academy directors. That money cannot be spent on other things. The money also came with curriculum requirements which is why some classes and pathways have changed in the past 2 years. Before this academies were run on a volunteer basis by over burdened teachers and the investment and organization in each one varies greatly. When the school switched from 7 to 8 classes annually, many of the teachers who had been running academies stepped down because they had another class to teach, and academies and programs fell apart. This focus and staffing should improve the academy structure.

That being said the college and career staffing is ridiculous. They have one person responsible for all college counseling, college coordination, AND AP testing. There is a a no way one person could do that for even a classes half that size. Add to it the incredible diversity of school choice from Harvard to vocational schools at JR, and the need to start working with families in junior years, it was s really a huge disservice to the community that the office doesn’t receive more investment. And it is why there are threads every year about people hiring private college counselors. The last 2 FT counselors went private when they left too, which tells you they liked the work but not the workplace.

Thanks for this information. Is it your understanding that JR’s goal is to have all kids participate in an an academy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JR received grant money to invest in academy directors. That money cannot be spent on other things. The money also came with curriculum requirements which is why some classes and pathways have changed in the past 2 years. Before this academies were run on a volunteer basis by over burdened teachers and the investment and organization in each one varies greatly. When the school switched from 7 to 8 classes annually, many of the teachers who had been running academies stepped down because they had another class to teach, and academies and programs fell apart. This focus and staffing should improve the academy structure.

That being said the college and career staffing is ridiculous. They have one person responsible for all college counseling, college coordination, AND AP testing. There is a a no way one person could do that for even a classes half that size. Add to it the incredible diversity of school choice from Harvard to vocational schools at JR, and the need to start working with families in junior years, it was s really a huge disservice to the community that the office doesn’t receive more investment. And it is why there are threads every year about people hiring private college counselors. The last 2 FT counselors went private when they left too, which tells you they liked the work but not the workplace.

I don’t believe it is grant money that pays for the academies. It is money from DCPS Central. All the comprehensive high schools have the CTE Academies.
Central approves specific academies at specific schools and each academy comes with its own director. DCPS also pays the National Academy Foundation for the NAF branding. There are a bunch of CTE folk in central who coordinate all the high school academies. The new McArthur HS also has the academy model.
Schools like the academies for marketing and recruitment and because they get access to more CTE funds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me get this straight. So the school now has 3 academy directors but no added position for college counselors. It’s pretty obvious what the priorities are, isn’t it?

Agreed that this is messed up. The school needs more counselors and teachers rather than academy directors.
There should be one director who manages all the academies. I don’t think I understand this model

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JR received grant money to invest in academy directors. That money cannot be spent on other things. The money also came with curriculum requirements which is why some classes and pathways have changed in the past 2 years. Before this academies were run on a volunteer basis by over burdened teachers and the investment and organization in each one varies greatly. When the school switched from 7 to 8 classes annually, many of the teachers who had been running academies stepped down because they had another class to teach, and academies and programs fell apart. This focus and staffing should improve the academy structure.

That being said the college and career staffing is ridiculous. They have one person responsible for all college counseling, college coordination, AND AP testing. There is a a no way one person could do that for even a classes half that size. Add to it the incredible diversity of school choice from Harvard to vocational schools at JR, and the need to start working with families in junior years, it was s really a huge disservice to the community that the office doesn’t receive more investment. And it is why there are threads every year about people hiring private college counselors. The last 2 FT counselors went private when they left too, which tells you they liked the work but not the workplace.

I don’t believe it is grant money that pays for the academies. It is money from DCPS Central. All the comprehensive high schools have the CTE Academies.
Central approves specific academies at specific schools and each academy comes with its own director. DCPS also pays the National Academy Foundation for the NAF branding. There are a bunch of CTE folk in central who coordinate all the high school academies. The new McArthur HS also has the academy model.
Schools like the academies for marketing and recruitment and because they get access to more CTE funds.

This is not my understanding from working on committees at the school. The money is absolutely slated for academy leads. You cannot switch the funds to another purpose. Other schools do indeed have CTE now and it is a movement the DCPS is involved in. And this indeed is the history of academies at JR. However feel free to follow up with the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JR received grant money to invest in academy directors. That money cannot be spent on other things. The money also came with curriculum requirements which is why some classes and pathways have changed in the past 2 years. Before this academies were run on a volunteer basis by over burdened teachers and the investment and organization in each one varies greatly. When the school switched from 7 to 8 classes annually, many of the teachers who had been running academies stepped down because they had another class to teach, and academies and programs fell apart. This focus and staffing should improve the academy structure.

That being said the college and career staffing is ridiculous. They have one person responsible for all college counseling, college coordination, AND AP testing. There is a a no way one person could do that for even a classes half that size. Add to it the incredible diversity of school choice from Harvard to vocational schools at JR, and the need to start working with families in junior years, it was s really a huge disservice to the community that the office doesn’t receive more investment. And it is why there are threads every year about people hiring private college counselors. The last 2 FT counselors went private when they left too, which tells you they liked the work but not the workplace.

I don’t believe it is grant money that pays for the academies. It is money from DCPS Central. All the comprehensive high schools have the CTE Academies.
Central approves specific academies at specific schools and each academy comes with its own director. DCPS also pays the National Academy Foundation for the NAF branding. There are a bunch of CTE folk in central who coordinate all the high school academies. The new McArthur HS also has the academy model.
Schools like the academies for marketing and recruitment and because they get access to more CTE funds.

This is not my understanding from working on committees at the school. The money is absolutely slated for academy leads. You cannot switch the funds to another purpose. Other schools do indeed have CTE now and it is a movement the DCPS is involved in. And this indeed is the history of academies at JR. However feel free to follow up with the school.

The money is coming from DCPS central and they are the ones restricting it for academies because that is the route they want. It is not an outside grant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JR received grant money to invest in academy directors. That money cannot be spent on other things. The money also came with curriculum requirements which is why some classes and pathways have changed in the past 2 years. Before this academies were run on a volunteer basis by over burdened teachers and the investment and organization in each one varies greatly. When the school switched from 7 to 8 classes annually, many of the teachers who had been running academies stepped down because they had another class to teach, and academies and programs fell apart. This focus and staffing should improve the academy structure.

That being said the college and career staffing is ridiculous. They have one person responsible for all college counseling, college coordination, AND AP testing. There is a a no way one person could do that for even a classes half that size. Add to it the incredible diversity of school choice from Harvard to vocational schools at JR, and the need to start working with families in junior years, it was s really a huge disservice to the community that the office doesn’t receive more investment. And it is why there are threads every year about people hiring private college counselors. The last 2 FT counselors went private when they left too, which tells you they liked the work but not the workplace.

I don’t believe it is grant money that pays for the academies. It is money from DCPS Central. All the comprehensive high schools have the CTE Academies.
Central approves specific academies at specific schools and each academy comes with its own director. DCPS also pays the National Academy Foundation for the NAF branding. There are a bunch of CTE folk in central who coordinate all the high school academies. The new McArthur HS also has the academy model.
Schools like the academies for marketing and recruitment and because they get access to more CTE funds.

Ugh. I'm sorry to hear this.

[Anonymous]

Academies are just tracking, rebranded. Twenty years ago, you only sent a college prep kid to Wilson if he was in the WISP academy. I’ve never understood why they fell out of favor. And I really don’t understand why DCUM doesn’t want college-prep kids to be allowed to aggregate in a college-prep track (oh I’m sorry, “academy”). Why “ugh”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JR received grant money to invest in academy directors. That money cannot be spent on other things. The money also came with curriculum requirements which is why some classes and pathways have changed in the past 2 years. Before this academies were run on a volunteer basis by over burdened teachers and the investment and organization in each one varies greatly. When the school switched from 7 to 8 classes annually, many of the teachers who had been running academies stepped down because they had another class to teach, and academies and programs fell apart. This focus and staffing should improve the academy structure.

That being said the college and career staffing is ridiculous. They have one person responsible for all college counseling, college coordination, AND AP testing. There is a a no way one person could do that for even a classes half that size. Add to it the incredible diversity of school choice from Harvard to vocational schools at JR, and the need to start working with families in junior years, it was s really a huge disservice to the community that the office doesn’t receive more investment. And it is why there are threads every year about people hiring private college counselors. The last 2 FT counselors went private when they left too, which tells you they liked the work but not the workplace.

I don’t believe it is grant money that pays for the academies. It is money from DCPS Central. All the comprehensive high schools have the CTE Academies.
Central approves specific academies at specific schools and each academy comes with its own director. DCPS also pays the National Academy Foundation for the NAF branding. There are a bunch of CTE folk in central who coordinate all the high school academies. The new McArthur HS also has the academy model.
Schools like the academies for marketing and recruitment and because they get access to more CTE funds.

This is not my understanding from working on committees at the school. The money is absolutely slated for academy leads. You cannot switch the funds to another purpose. Other schools do indeed have CTE now and it is a movement the DCPS is involved in. And this indeed is the history of academies at JR. However feel free to follow up with the school.

The money is coming from DCPS central and they are the ones restricting it for academies because that is the route they want. It is not an outside grant.

.

This exactly. It is not grant money. It is part of the funds that DCPS allocates to schools. They restrict how you spend it so a school cannot move it around for other purposes.

[Anonymous]

Why is it so difficult to learn all this background. DCPS should not make it so hard for parents to learn information.
I’m concerned that only students in the IT academy will be allowed to sign up for the AP CS courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Academies are just tracking, rebranded. Twenty years ago, you only sent a college prep kid to Wilson if he was in the WISP academy. I’ve never understood why they fell out of favor. And I really don’t understand why DCUM doesn’t want college-prep kids to be allowed to aggregate in a college-prep track (oh I’m sorry, “academy”). Why “ugh”?

WISP is not a CTE NAF Academy. It is an internal JR academy.
It does not receive CTE funds but perhaps JR allocates it some extra funds

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so difficult to learn all this background. DCPS should not make it so hard for parents to learn information.
I’m concerned that only students in the IT academy will be allowed to sign up for the AP CS courses.

Why not just sign up for the IT academy? You apparently want your kid to take the course, and joining the academy apparently means more money for JR. Win/win. What am I missing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so difficult to learn all this background. DCPS should not make it so hard for parents to learn information.
I’m concerned that only students in the IT academy will be allowed to sign up for the AP CS courses.

Why not just sign up for the IT academy? You apparently want your kid to take the course, and joining the academy apparently means more money for JR. Win/win. What am I missing?

dp: Presumably tge IT academy has other requirement/constraints?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so difficult to learn all this background. DCPS should not make it so hard for parents to learn information.
I’m concerned that only students in the IT academy will be allowed to sign up for the AP CS courses.

Why not just sign up for the IT academy? You apparently want your kid to take the course, and joining the academy apparently means more money for JR. Win/win. What am I missing?

Because my kid is already in the Engineering academy.
There are no AP courses required of the Engineering academy but my kid would like to try the AP CS courses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so difficult to learn all this background. DCPS should not make it so hard for parents to learn information.
I’m concerned that only students in the IT academy will be allowed to sign up for the AP CS courses.

Why not just sign up for the IT academy? You apparently want your kid to take the course, and joining the academy apparently means more money for JR. Win/win. What am I missing?

I’m not sure it is a win/win because the funding is more complex than you are assuming.
It is not necessarily extra money for JR. The school gets a set budget and DCPS Central forces the school to allocate the funding into different buckets.
One of the buckets is funding of the academies including academy director positions.
Presumably if all that money was not going towards the academies, it could be used for something else.
So if you value the academies, maybe this is a win-win, but if your kid is not part of either the Hospitality, Biomed, IT or Engineering academies, you might be frustrated by all the resources being poured into these specific academies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so difficult to learn all this background. DCPS should not make it so hard for parents to learn information.
I’m concerned that only students in the IT academy will be allowed to sign up for the AP CS courses.

Why not just sign up for the IT academy? You apparently want your kid to take the course, and joining the academy apparently means more money for JR. Win/win. What am I missing?

I’m not sure it is a win/win because the funding is more complex than you are assuming.
It is not necessarily extra money for JR. The school gets a set budget and DCPS Central forces the school to allocate the funding into different buckets.
One of the buckets is funding of the academies including academy director positions.
Presumably if all that money was not going towards the academies, it could be used for something else.
So if you value the academies, maybe this is a win-win, but if your kid is not part of either the Hospitality, Biomed, IT or Engineering academies, you might be frustrated by all the resources being poured into these specific academies

Ok, but the hypothetical kid we’re talking about is already in one academy and wants to join a second. Clearly they do value the academies and are happy to see the money being poured into their kid’s areas of interest.