How would you change the FCPS boundary maps?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We love the AAP program. We would probably be in private school if FCPS didn’t have AAP. My kids have a solid peer group. When my kids were in K-2, they were mostly ignored by the teacher because they were well behaved and always did well in school. The teacher often focused on the kids with behavioral problems or struggling kids. My kids have said the biggest difference between AAP and their old classes are the kids are better behaved. I like the center model because the peer group is larger and there are better academic extracurriculars.

This is such a myth. There are *many* behavioral issues within AAP. Lots of IEPs, 504s, and just plain old acting out. My kids attended a center school and invariably, the kids sent to the principal's office were from the AAP classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ AAP is unnecessary. ”

People will continue to fight for AAP so long as the alternative is largely so called “in class differentiation” which amounts to minimal teacher time for the higher groups. Allow schools to ability group by classes and people would not care so much

Programs like AAP where there are completely different classes and schools for "advanced" kids but not for the kids who are below grade level are very, very rare in this country. Nice experiment, FCPS, but it's time to go back to what everyone else is doing far more successfully than we are. FCPS has declined significantly since moving to the AAP system. You may not see it because YOUR kid is in AAP, but the rest of us have noticed how different the education is now compared to when we were in FCPS.

+ a million
I attended FCPS as a child and my kids are currently in FCPS (and one has graduated). There is absolutely nothing that compares to the GT program that morphed into AAP sometime in the early 2000s. Current AAP parents would be blown away if they could see what the GT program used to teach. GT accepted very, very few kids - those who were truly in need of a gifted environment. As such, the teachers were able to implement a gifted curriculum, tailored to these exceptionally bright kids.

AAP is simply a slightly faster-paced version of the same curriculum. The program accepts a large swath of kids; very, very few would ever have been selected for GT. AAP should be made the regular curriculum, and GT should be re-implemented for kids who are highly gifted. FCPS has done a disservice to all of its kids through the AAP system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ AAP is unnecessary. ”

People will continue to fight for AAP so long as the alternative is largely so called “in class differentiation” which amounts to minimal teacher time for the higher groups. Allow schools to ability group by classes and people would not care so much

Programs like AAP where there are completely different classes and schools for "advanced" kids but not for the kids who are below grade level are very, very rare in this country. Nice experiment, FCPS, but it's time to go back to what everyone else is doing far more successfully than we are. FCPS has declined significantly since moving to the AAP system. You may not see it because YOUR kid is in AAP, but the rest of us have noticed how different the education is now compared to when we were in FCPS.

A lot of people are comparing the past FCPS to now. The largest differences is SPED and ESOL. How many newcomers were in these GenEd classes in the past? How many kids with severe behavior problems or Sped needs? We cannot compare classes from the past when the population looks drastically different

Do you know how many SPED kids are in AAP? A lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ AAP is unnecessary. ”

People will continue to fight for AAP so long as the alternative is largely so called “in class differentiation” which amounts to minimal teacher time for the higher groups. Allow schools to ability group by classes and people would not care so much

Programs like AAP where there are completely different classes and schools for "advanced" kids but not for the kids who are below grade level are very, very rare in this country. Nice experiment, FCPS, but it's time to go back to what everyone else is doing far more successfully than we are. FCPS has declined significantly since moving to the AAP system. You may not see it because YOUR kid is in AAP, but the rest of us have noticed how different the education is now compared to when we were in FCPS.

A lot of people are comparing the past FCPS to now. The largest differences is SPED and ESOL. How many newcomers were in these GenEd classes in the past? How many kids with severe behavior problems or Sped needs? We cannot compare classes from the past when the population looks drastically different

Do you know how many SPED kids are in AAP? A lot.

I am saying in general comparing a regular classroom in the past to now. The other difference is standardized testing and everyone having to pass a test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure that the two big reasons Shrevewood is getting screwed is because the white Timber Lane parents are worried that they will be zoned out of McLean into Marshall and the Stenwood parents don't want little brown kids in their school.

Actually, the Timber Lane families on the other side of Rte 50 are worried that they'll be rezoned to Jackson/Falls Church because that's where a lot of the neighboring kids go. There's an entire neighborhood of families that would either move or send their kids to privates - I've seen all the shiny new houses in Greenway Downs. Those people aren't staying if they get rezoned out of McLean.

FWIW, Greenway Downs, like everything south of Lee Highway, is already zoned to Jackson. It's the Timber Lane families north of 29 that get fed to Longfellow/McLean.

Sorry, I meant 29, not 50. No, Greenway Downs families that go to Timber Lane feed to McLean. I know several.

Appreciate the correction of 50 vs 29. I suppose the definition of Greenway Downs could be elastic. Are any of the "Greenway Downs" families you are thinking of that go to McLean south of 29? We had 2 kids at Timber Lane and every kid they knew south of 29 went to Jackson.

[Anonymous]

“ A lot of people are comparing the past FCPS to now. The largest differences is SPED and ESOL. How many newcomers were in these GenEd classes in the past? How many kids with severe behavior problems or Sped needs? We cannot compare classes from the past when the population looks drastically different”

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We love the AAP program. We would probably be in private school if FCPS didn’t have AAP. My kids have a solid peer group. When my kids were in K-2, they were mostly ignored by the teacher because they were well behaved and always did well in school. The teacher often focused on the kids with behavioral problems or struggling kids. My kids have said the biggest difference between AAP and their old classes are the kids are better behaved. I like the center model because the peer group is larger and there are better academic extracurriculars.

This is such a myth. There are *many* behavioral issues within AAP. Lots of IEPs, 504s, and just plain old acting out. My kids attended a center school and invariably, the kids sent to the principal's office were from the AAP classes.

Do you receive daily reports on who was sent to the principal's office or the private education plans of students other than your child? How would you know this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ AAP is unnecessary. ”

People will continue to fight for AAP so long as the alternative is largely so called “in class differentiation” which amounts to minimal teacher time for the higher groups. Allow schools to ability group by classes and people would not care so much

Programs like AAP where there are completely different classes and schools for "advanced" kids but not for the kids who are below grade level are very, very rare in this country. Nice experiment, FCPS, but it's time to go back to what everyone else is doing far more successfully than we are. FCPS has declined significantly since moving to the AAP system. You may not see it because YOUR kid is in AAP, but the rest of us have noticed how different the education is now compared to when we were in FCPS.

+ a million
I attended FCPS as a child and my kids are currently in FCPS (and one has graduated). There is absolutely nothing that compares to the GT program that morphed into AAP sometime in the early 2000s. Current AAP parents would be blown away if they could see what the GT program used to teach. GT accepted very, very few kids - those who were truly in need of a gifted environment. As such, the teachers were able to implement a gifted curriculum, tailored to these exceptionally bright kids.

AAP is simply a slightly faster-paced version of the same curriculum. The program accepts a large swath of kids; very, very few would ever have been selected for GT. AAP should be made the regular curriculum, and GT should be re-implemented for kids who are highly gifted. FCPS has done a disservice to all of its kids through the AAP system.

All of this. The GT program was exceptional. When you think about it - they would pull half a dozen kids for a whole school. Not the AAP is the slightly above average program. And it hurts the whole county while keeping the slighly above average kids on track. It is not helping gifted kids either, because the program is not very strong. I have known the truly exceptional kids to still have to go get private education to get in an accelerated environment.

[Anonymous]

I have taught both GenEd and AAP in the same grade level. Behavior wise it has been night and day experience. Now, I am not saying you can’t have kids with behavior problems in AAP. But in my experience it is absolutely less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We love the AAP program. We would probably be in private school if FCPS didn’t have AAP. My kids have a solid peer group. When my kids were in K-2, they were mostly ignored by the teacher because they were well behaved and always did well in school. The teacher often focused on the kids with behavioral problems or struggling kids. My kids have said the biggest difference between AAP and their old classes are the kids are better behaved. I like the center model because the peer group is larger and there are better academic extracurriculars.

This is such a myth. There are *many* behavioral issues within AAP. Lots of IEPs, 504s, and just plain old acting out. My kids attended a center school and invariably, the kids sent to the principal's office were from the AAP classes.

I don't normally bother posting in support of AAP because it gets such hate on this board, but I have to say that the above poster's experience was ours, too. Our daughter spent most of 1st and 2nd sitting at her desk working on word searches while the teacher focused on the struggling kids. Every week, she'd bring home a big stack of completed word search pages to show how she spent her time. That completely changed when she moved to the AAP center. The center model has been great. Had she stayed at the base school, she would have been one of only 12 kids who were selected for AAP in a class of more than 30, the vast majority being principal-placed kids who didn't qualify per the selection committee. That would have been a completely different experience.

[Anonymous]

I think the direction of the thread shows why there won't be big boundary changes.

When people talk about major boundary changes, they talk about closer alignments of feeder schools within a pyramid. But the elementary and middle school feeders include a mix of schools that don't have LLIV, have LLIV, and are AAP centers. If you're trying to figure out what he school enrollments might be after boundary changes, the academic programs have to be taken into account. Doing away with AAP centers might simplify matters from a planning perspective, but is a highly controversial topic.

Given that the School Board members have the attention of gnats and mostly look for quick, feel-good exercises, the likelihood that they'll wrestle with such big, controversial issues is next to none.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, the solution to all these problems is to simply have tracking in elementary schools. We already have them in middle and high schools, in the form of honors, AP, IB, Dual - Enrollment, the existence of TJHSST, etc. So why not simply have tracking in elementary school? Make every elementary schooler who doesn't attend a private school go to the elementary school closest to their house. But separate children by academic ability starting in kindergarten itself. To be clear, I am not saying this has to be a fixed thing. A student can be in the class for regular students in Kindergarten, but can end up in the highest ability level class in 1st grade if they show a drastic improvement in their abilities. Conversely a child who falls behind may have to go from the advanced class to the regular class. This way every student can be in a class with students with similar academic abilities, but they can be assured that it can always change if their performance increased or decreases. In addition, an exception can be made for those with children on the very low and very high end of the intellectual spectrum; they do not have to attend a local school if they believe their child's needs will be met better elsewhere. Though by very high intellect I am talking about actual geniuses like Terence Tao, not just a typical above average student that ends up getting into TJHSST.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my opinion, the solution to all these problems is to simply have tracking in elementary schools. We already have them in middle and high schools, in the form of honors, AP, IB, Dual - Enrollment, the existence of TJHSST, etc. So why not simply have tracking in elementary school? Make every elementary schooler who doesn't attend a private school go to the elementary school closest to their house. But separate children by academic ability starting in kindergarten itself. To be clear, I am not saying this has to be a fixed thing. A student can be in the class for regular students in Kindergarten, but can end up in the highest ability level class in 1st grade if they show a drastic improvement in their abilities. Conversely a child who falls behind may have to go from the advanced class to the regular class. This way every student can be in a class with students with similar academic abilities, but they can be assured that it can always change if their performance increased or decreases. In addition, an exception can be made for those with children on the very low and very high end of the intellectual spectrum; they do not have to attend a local school if they believe their child's needs will be met better elsewhere. Though by very high intellect I am talking about actual geniuses like Terence Tao, not just a typical above average student that ends up getting into TJHSST.

When FCPS did not have AAP and/or only had a very small GT program, it was not uncommon for classes for a particular elementary grade or subject area to be sorted by ability (especially math) or, if not, for teachers to teach to sub-groups within their class (especially reading). Then in middle school there was more clear differentiation in the class assignments, and by high school students were recommended or screened before they could take AP classes (this was before FCPS's brief period of infatuation with IB in the late 90s/early 00s).

All of that, of course, is anathema to those who believe such tracking consigns lower-income kids and non-Asian minorities to less demanding classes. That's why we now have ever-growing AAP programs, TJ admitting kids by school pyramid rather than simply by performance, few if any restrictions on who can take AP or IB courses, and the prospect of less, not more, differentiation in math instruction. Trying to pull off a "Back to the Future" approach now is no small task.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my opinion, the solution to all these problems is to simply have tracking in elementary schools. We already have them in middle and high schools, in the form of honors, AP, IB, Dual - Enrollment, the existence of TJHSST, etc. So why not simply have tracking in elementary school? Make every elementary schooler who doesn't attend a private school go to the elementary school closest to their house. But separate children by academic ability starting in kindergarten itself. To be clear, I am not saying this has to be a fixed thing. A student can be in the class for regular students in Kindergarten, but can end up in the highest ability level class in 1st grade if they show a drastic improvement in their abilities. Conversely a child who falls behind may have to go from the advanced class to the regular class. This way every student can be in a class with students with similar academic abilities, but they can be assured that it can always change if their performance increased or decreases. In addition, an exception can be made for those with children on the very low and very high end of the intellectual spectrum; they do not have to attend a local school if they believe their child's needs will be met better elsewhere. Though by very high intellect I am talking about actual geniuses like Terence Tao, not just a typical above average student that ends up getting into TJHSST.

NO!

I taught K and first.. This would be terrible. Way too much fluidity in K and first to do this. It's not that hard to differentiate.

And, here is something, I have not seen mentioned. For those who talk about second grade vs third grade AAP. There is a huge jump in demands in third grade from second grade--even in non-AAP.

As for the bolded--are you familiar with public law and mainstreaming? It is the law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The schools along Rte 50 inside the beltway's attendance boundaries are a clusterf_ck - I'm talking Graham Rd, Pine Spring, Beech Tree. And then there's Timberlane - a random school half zoned to McLean - in the middle of all that, and Shrevewood which is very overcrowded. Such a mess.

Yup, and the Stenwood parents continue to fight allowing kids who are closer to Stenwood than Shrevewood attend. It's absurd.

Stenwood is going to have its boundaries substantially changed when Frisch's Dunn Loring project is finished. Part of Shrevewood will finally move to Stenwood, and much of Stenwood (and part of Freedom Hill) will end up at Dunn Loring.

Does anyone actually think Dunn Loring is going to happen? I live near there and it's been business as usual there. No signs of any change.

This link may or may not work (the DCUM software often prevents simple links from working), but it indicates the real work on Dunn Loring isn't planned to begin until the 2023-24 school year:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/budget/sites/budget/files/assets/documents/fy2022/advertised/cip/9-fairfax%20county%20public%20schools.pdf

Shrevewood will be overcrowded for many more years.

That is so unnecessary. Domino over to Colvin Run and up to Great Falls and Forestville. It's like the Blake Lane Park issue where no one could find schools along Hunter mill all the way up to Forest Edge. This county used to more active in administrative and other changes based on school capacity. Now each little fiefdom acts like it the Cities of Falls Church or Fairfax.