AAP Appeals Questions Thread

[Anonymous]

158 Nnat 152 Cogat iready 99% 97%. I spent a lot of time prep the appeal package. Still not in. So sad, not sure what to tell my kid. Hope is really bad, most sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:158 Nnat 152 Cogat iready 99% 97%. I spent a lot of time prep the appeal package. Still not in. So sad, not sure what to tell my kid. Hope is really bad, most sometimes.

I think this means that you tell your child that they need to pay more attention and participate in class, they need to share their thoughts and perspectives, they need to ask for more challenging work if they need it, and they need to stop being disruptive or annoying the teacher.

*Sometimes kids who need a challenge are so bored that they annoy the heck out of teachers which leads to low HOPE scores because the teacher just flat out doesn't like their kid. I'm not saying it's right, but you need to help your child learn that they need to control themselves.

[Anonymous]

I've come to the conclusion that AAP rates the HOPE score and therefore likability of the child as high, if not higher, than the test scores. Teach your children to be likable, and they'll get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just received the email. DC is in.

Can you share info about what you did to get in? My kid got rejected after very high scores on everything! What grade is your child in?

Thanks.

Can I ask about what your Hope evaluation looked like?

Our son got in on appeal - sorry you got rejected and it sounds strange. Our original packet weak point was very clearly Hope. So we addressed that head-on in cover letter, as well as with WISC-V score, ADHD diagnosis information and a new and improved winter over fall CoGAT. We added new super AAP-focused samples and also a letter from his first grade teachers who asked to write one, saying they could not believe he wasnt accepted to begin with.

Who knows what did it. We are glad but sorry for you bc it seems hard to know what the yes/no factor. We are, however, not fans of Hope and its application.

We had very good scores initially (including perfect NNAT) but the Hope was not good, maybe terrible. We had a few meetings and found out more or less that our team low scored many kids on Hope. (They told us many kids got “never” for everything - ! - and the fact that our son was above that - with “sometimes” - was positive. But we knew it had to look terrible on the county evaluation end.)

I can deep dive into the - to us - wild standards they were using but I think the Hope scoring, esp in the rollout year here is the opposite of the intention- it holds kids back rather than includes them. We wonder if it is especially not great for kids who are not extra outgoing or are 2e. (We get that leadership is part of the AAP system in general.)

(Though it very well could be there are accepted cases that disprove this and we don’t see bc they got in w lower testing and high Hope and were happy/successful.)

Anyway, we - and our school team made us feel they don’t disagree - really have concerns about Hope.

What did that look like in your packet?

We never had one of those. I have 2 kids applying for AAP. One was 2nd grader with mediocre scores on tests but really good work output and work samples. The other was 5th grader with high scores on cogat (90th i believe) and wisc-v (91st), good writing samples etc, scored advanced math on SOL, high GBRS from teacher. Both were rejected so Im just confused on what they want. The AART teacher is no helpful in guiding what we should do.

90th and 91st percentile scores are low for AAP. For a 5th grader, you would need to show that their needs can't be met in the regular classroom. Both the wisc and cogat would suggest that your kid is fine in gen ed. I think if you had scores closer to the 95th or 96th percentile + iready scores that are at least 95th percentile, it might have been possible to get in with concrete examples of why your kid needs to be in AAP. It stinks that you can't simply show that your kid is as good as the kids in the bottom half of AAP or that your kid would do fine in AAP. They really want examples of why gen ed is not an appropriate placement for your kid.

If you view your 5th grader's scores as "high" and your second grader's as "mediocre," then the issue for your second grader is that the scores weren't even in the right ballpark. If there are no extenuating circumstances, 90th percentile is around the minimum score a kid needs to have a chance at AAP.

I find the bolded so frustrating - if this were truly the case, then 90% of the children in AAP do not belong there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just received the email. DC is in.

Can you share info about what you did to get in? My kid got rejected after very high scores on everything! What grade is your child in?

Thanks.

Can I ask about what your Hope evaluation looked like?

Our son got in on appeal - sorry you got rejected and it sounds strange. Our original packet weak point was very clearly Hope. So we addressed that head-on in cover letter, as well as with WISC-V score, ADHD diagnosis information and a new and improved winter over fall CoGAT. We added new super AAP-focused samples and also a letter from his first grade teachers who asked to write one, saying they could not believe he wasnt accepted to begin with.

Who knows what did it. We are glad but sorry for you bc it seems hard to know what the yes/no factor. We are, however, not fans of Hope and its application.

We had very good scores initially (including perfect NNAT) but the Hope was not good, maybe terrible. We had a few meetings and found out more or less that our team low scored many kids on Hope. (They told us many kids got “never” for everything - ! - and the fact that our son was above that - with “sometimes” - was positive. But we knew it had to look terrible on the county evaluation end.)

I can deep dive into the - to us - wild standards they were using but I think the Hope scoring, esp in the rollout year here is the opposite of the intention- it holds kids back rather than includes them. We wonder if it is especially not great for kids who are not extra outgoing or are 2e. (We get that leadership is part of the AAP system in general.)

(Though it very well could be there are accepted cases that disprove this and we don’t see bc they got in w lower testing and high Hope and were happy/successful.)

Anyway, we - and our school team made us feel they don’t disagree - really have concerns about Hope.

What did that look like in your packet?

We never had one of those. I have 2 kids applying for AAP. One was 2nd grader with mediocre scores on tests but really good work output and work samples. The other was 5th grader with high scores on cogat (90th i believe) and wisc-v (91st), good writing samples etc, scored advanced math on SOL, high GBRS from teacher. Both were rejected so Im just confused on what they want. The AART teacher is no helpful in guiding what we should do.

90th and 91st percentile scores are low for AAP. For a 5th grader, you would need to show that their needs can't be met in the regular classroom. Both the wisc and cogat would suggest that your kid is fine in gen ed. I think if you had scores closer to the 95th or 96th percentile + iready scores that are at least 95th percentile, it might have been possible to get in with concrete examples of why your kid needs to be in AAP. It stinks that you can't simply show that your kid is as good as the kids in the bottom half of AAP or that your kid would do fine in AAP. They really want examples of why gen ed is not an appropriate placement for your kid.

If you view your 5th grader's scores as "high" and your second grader's as "mediocre," then the issue for your second grader is that the scores weren't even in the right ballpark. If there are no extenuating circumstances, 90th percentile is around the minimum score a kid needs to have a chance at AAP.

I find the bolded so frustrating - if this were truly the case, then 90% of the children in AAP do not belong there.

PP here, and I agree with you. The vast majority of the kids in AAP do not have "needs that cannot be met in the regular classroom." The whole notion that mildly above average kids need to be segregated from the other 80% of the kids to get access to mildly advanced classes is absurd. That, however, is the verbiage FCPS uses for AAP placement. It seems like in 2nd grade, the bar you have to clear is that your kid is bright and a good student and perhaps has a little bit of luck in the selection process. The moment you have to appeal or you're applying for an older grade level, the bar is that your kids needs cannot be met in the regular classroom.

The whole system is dumb and inconsistent.

[Anonymous]

I can't figure out why my child who is in the 98-99% percentile on every single test, has almost a perfect report card, was doing great all around and has no behavioral issues was rejected when 20 to 30% of the entire grade is in full time AAP. Can someone shed light on that? Do they believe their own testing? Are that many kids more deserving? Apparently they believe the child is doing well in a regular environment and should continue that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just received the email. DC is in.

Can you share info about what you did to get in? My kid got rejected after very high scores on everything! What grade is your child in?

Thanks.

Can I ask about what your Hope evaluation looked like?

Our son got in on appeal - sorry you got rejected and it sounds strange. Our original packet weak point was very clearly Hope. So we addressed that head-on in cover letter, as well as with WISC-V score, ADHD diagnosis information and a new and improved winter over fall CoGAT. We added new super AAP-focused samples and also a letter from his first grade teachers who asked to write one, saying they could not believe he wasnt accepted to begin with.

Who knows what did it. We are glad but sorry for you bc it seems hard to know what the yes/no factor. We are, however, not fans of Hope and its application.

We had very good scores initially (including perfect NNAT) but the Hope was not good, maybe terrible. We had a few meetings and found out more or less that our team low scored many kids on Hope. (They told us many kids got “never” for everything - ! - and the fact that our son was above that - with “sometimes” - was positive. But we knew it had to look terrible on the county evaluation end.)

I can deep dive into the - to us - wild standards they were using but I think the Hope scoring, esp in the rollout year here is the opposite of the intention- it holds kids back rather than includes them. We wonder if it is especially not great for kids who are not extra outgoing or are 2e. (We get that leadership is part of the AAP system in general.)

(Though it very well could be there are accepted cases that disprove this and we don’t see bc they got in w lower testing and high Hope and were happy/successful.)

Anyway, we - and our school team made us feel they don’t disagree - really have concerns about Hope.

What did that look like in your packet?

We never had one of those. I have 2 kids applying for AAP. One was 2nd grader with mediocre scores on tests but really good work output and work samples. The other was 5th grader with high scores on cogat (90th i believe) and wisc-v (91st), good writing samples etc, scored advanced math on SOL, high GBRS from teacher. Both were rejected so Im just confused on what they want. The AART teacher is no helpful in guiding what we should do.

90th and 91st percentile scores are low for AAP. For a 5th grader, you would need to show that their needs can't be met in the regular classroom. Both the wisc and cogat would suggest that your kid is fine in gen ed. I think if you had scores closer to the 95th or 96th percentile + iready scores that are at least 95th percentile, it might have been possible to get in with concrete examples of why your kid needs to be in AAP. It stinks that you can't simply show that your kid is as good as the kids in the bottom half of AAP or that your kid would do fine in AAP. They really want examples of why gen ed is not an appropriate placement for your kid.

If you view your 5th grader's scores as "high" and your second grader's as "mediocre," then the issue for your second grader is that the scores weren't even in the right ballpark. If there are no extenuating circumstances, 90th percentile is around the minimum score a kid needs to have a chance at AAP.

I find the bolded so frustrating - if this were truly the case, then 90% of the children in AAP do not belong there.

PP here, and I agree with you. The vast majority of the kids in AAP do not have "needs that cannot be met in the regular classroom." The whole notion that mildly above average kids need to be segregated from the other 80% of the kids to get access to mildly advanced classes is absurd. That, however, is the verbiage FCPS uses for AAP placement. It seems like in 2nd grade, the bar you have to clear is that your kid is bright and a good student and perhaps has a little bit of luck in the selection process. The moment you have to appeal or you're applying for an older grade level, the bar is that your kids needs cannot be met in the regular classroom.

The whole system is dumb and inconsistent.

💯

[Anonymous]

Is it true that FCPS administers a custom cogat test that only contains 35 verbal questions? Cogat is 152-154 questions for 2nd grade everywhere. They had technical issues on first day and following two days got postponed. We were shocked with the low percentile in verbal, but it was compared to a national database that has scores for students who completed 52 questions and not only 35 in the verbal section! Any input appreciated please.

[Anonymous]

I’m a teacher and have seen how many teachers fill out the HOPE score. Most of them are inconsistent and depends on the kids behavior. The brief training the AART teacher gave to teacher was not helpful or thorough. Most ES teachers aren’t gifted themselves and don’t have a gifted education related background. I found it frustrating that many of them see misbehavior or acting up itself as a sign of not willing to learn even though some kids are clearly bright and bored. The fact that this random HOPE scale filled by a teacher within 1-2 min weighs more than Cogat, NNAT or WICS is unacceptable and preventing truly gifted from accessing the advanced curriculum. I have seen a 2nd grader whose scores are mediocre across the board but got in level IV solely because her AART teacher wrote a long essay on her GBRS describing how gifted she is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that FCPS administers a custom cogat test that only contains 35 verbal questions? Cogat is 152-154 questions for 2nd grade everywhere. They had technical issues on first day and following two days got postponed. We were shocked with the low percentile in verbal, but it was compared to a national database that has scores for students who completed 52 questions and not only 35 in the verbal section! Any input appreciated please.

The Fxgat is normed and the same for every FCPS 2nd grader. Your DC didn't get a different lower test score.

[Anonymous]

The question here is if any other FCPS second grader has only attempted 35 questions on the verbal section or not! The company that owns and administers the test says the verbal section is a norm 52 questions. My DC Cogat score card says only 35 attempted. School says they administer custom exam with shorter verbal section! The problem here is that the percentile measures the correct answers against a national sample of scores, so 31 of 35 correct is still in the 60th percentile on the report as others had 52 attempts to easily get over 31 correct answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:158 Nnat 152 Cogat iready 99% 97%. I spent a lot of time prep the appeal package. Still not in. So sad, not sure what to tell my kid. Hope is really bad, most sometimes.

Same for my kid. Not sure if FCPS realizes they are treading on vet thin ice with these bogus evaluations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've come to the conclusion that AAP rates the HOPE score and therefore likability of the child as high, if not higher, than the test scores. Teach your children to be likable, and they'll get in.

My kid is very likable and still not in. His entire peer group is in, and the teachers like him, but he’s not in. There’s bias but I can’t put my finger on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does the review committee care about the GAI at all or is it only focused on the FSIQ? My DN was 137 on GAI but 130 on FSIQ. The assessment coordinator highlighted only the GAI in the summary report. I plan to get DN tested for 2e.

What test is for 2e identification?

There is not “test” for 2e. 2e means twice exceptional, you have a disability and are academically gifted. The disability can range from A-Z and have to be gifted- autism, learning disabiltiy, dyslexia, adhd, etc. The way you can test is by meeting with your pediatrician and a psychologist to run some evaluations. My DC was found eligible for an 504 due to having ADHD and during the student study, they determine the WISC (iq) and their strengths and weaknesses. After the adhd diagnosis, my DC is considered 2e.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher and have seen how many teachers fill out the HOPE score. Most of them are inconsistent and depends on the kids behavior. The brief training the AART teacher gave to teacher was not helpful or thorough. Most ES teachers aren’t gifted themselves and don’t have a gifted education related background. I found it frustrating that many of them see misbehavior or acting up itself as a sign of not willing to learn even though some kids are clearly bright and bored. The fact that this random HOPE scale filled by a teacher within 1-2 min weighs more than Cogat, NNAT or WICS is unacceptable and preventing truly gifted from accessing the advanced curriculum. I have seen a 2nd grader whose scores are mediocre across the board but got in level IV solely because her AART teacher wrote a long essay on her GBRS describing how gifted she is.

If you want your kid to get into AAP, become best friends with the AART. Most AARTs do not have impressive academic or professional backgrounds, but here they are making decisions that affect our kids.