Replicating ATS success — what are exact differences

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that ATS has some good things going for it. But a HUGE part of their success is that it’s a self selecting group that starts in K and stays through 5th.


Neighborhood schools have way more transient students that move around often. So you have kids (and often it’s low income kids) who are at their 3rd school in two years.

Also in neighborhood schools class sizes fluctuate and because of that staffing fluctuates. (A lot more teacher turn over and teacher teaching different grades).


These are things you just can’t replicate in a neighborhood school.

All of that matters . But so do things like properly teaching kids to read, regular updates to parents on kids, and giving kids 1-1 tutoring when they are in danger of falling behind.

In fact so many families want a school like ATS that APS could try an experiment at a neighborhood school by adopting more of ATS’s practices and see what happens.

Science focus used to be a mini- ATS. No tucking in shirts but mostly everything else was present— daily homework starting in kindergarten, encouraging reading, emphasizing writing and having daily writing homework in fourth and fifth grade, extremely encouraging playing an instrument (if you didn’t, you had to do sol tutoring during band/orchestra so most kids did an instrument). It ended when they became a neighborhood school— it was part Covid relaxing standards, part that not enough parents wanted that type of school anymore so they couldn’t force it. I think you need buy in for something like that.

So it was an option school before?

Yes— you could transfer in from either Taylor or Jamestown (they were part of a “team”)— roughly 30-50% of the school were transfers. It became a neighborhood school in 2018, though there were still transfers in the upper grades.

"yes" is misleading. It was not an option school, not open to the County. It was, as PP says, part of a "team" of schools. So technically a lot of transfers, but only from within an eligible geographical boundary.

As to PPP's comments about how ASF used to be more like ATS but standards relaxed because the parents didn't want that anymore??? I'm doubting that. I suspect it was more general relaxation post-COVID that has hit everyone (but ATS, apparently) and wondering if it is actually primarily due to demographics and APS' general attitude toward schools with large groups of ED kids? I'm not familiar enough with the neighborhoods and boundaries - weren't more ED families districted to ASF after the Key move? Or is that Innovation? Or maybe, instead of most parents "not wanting it anymore," there just wasn't as much push for it? I'd still bet it's APS' warped perspective of equity more than parents driving those changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know someone asked why ATS is different from other option schools and someone else mentioned absenteeism. For reference. ATS has 1.7% of kids with chronic absenteeism. Claremont is 18.83% and Campbell is 19.94%.

Everyone can discuss this to death. But it is the makeup of the school. THAT is the difference. ATS doesn't have some magic solution. They haven't solved education. They have a very specific self selecting group of families who highly value education. And that is super wonderful.

It is just hard to fight against nearly 20% of the school being chronically absent. The population of the school is just different.

Also, this got me looking at absentee rates at schools.

Drew 23.66%
Randolph 21.76%
Barcroft 15.5%

Lets Compare to N. Arlington schools

Nottingham .51%
Taylor 4.02%
Cardinal 2.14%

Chronic Absenteeism is probably the real problem we need to solve to help close the achievement gap.

Yet ATS is doing better than all the North Arlington schools you mentioned with the same level of chronic absenteeism. It’s not just the parent population. My friend’s two kids came from a poor performing South Arlington school and were not at grade level for anything. The parents are super involved in their kids education but the kids were falling behind because the school sucks. The youngest started last year. ATS caught her up to grade level. She came middle of first grade and could barely read. Now the eldest is at ATS. Being caught up well. The parents were super involved but as immigrants they didn’t know how to teach their kids the mechanics of reading. Also the classroom environment wasn’t safe (literally - kids were throwing stuff all the time) and both their kids were subject to bullying. Once they switched to ATS everything changed. Kids were doing better academically, socially and emotionally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know someone asked why ATS is different from other option schools and someone else mentioned absenteeism. For reference. ATS has 1.7% of kids with chronic absenteeism. Claremont is 18.83% and Campbell is 19.94%.

Everyone can discuss this to death. But it is the makeup of the school. THAT is the difference. ATS doesn't have some magic solution. They haven't solved education. They have a very specific self selecting group of families who highly value education. And that is super wonderful.

It is just hard to fight against nearly 20% of the school being chronically absent. The population of the school is just different.

Also, this got me looking at absentee rates at schools.

Drew 23.66%
Randolph 21.76%
Barcroft 15.5%

Lets Compare to N. Arlington schools

Nottingham .51%
Taylor 4.02%
Cardinal 2.14%

Chronic Absenteeism is probably the real problem we need to solve to help close the achievement gap.

The Claremont and Campbell #s are surprising . Like ATS, these are families that know enough to get into a lottery and are choosing a particular school . So what’s going on that nearly 20% are chronically absent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone asked why ATS is different from other option schools and someone else mentioned absenteeism. For reference. ATS has 1.7% of kids with chronic absenteeism. Claremont is 18.83% and Campbell is 19.94%.

Everyone can discuss this to death. But it is the makeup of the school. THAT is the difference. ATS doesn't have some magic solution. They haven't solved education. They have a very specific self selecting group of families who highly value education. And that is super wonderful.

It is just hard to fight against nearly 20% of the school being chronically absent. The population of the school is just different.

Also, this got me looking at absentee rates at schools.

Drew 23.66%
Randolph 21.76%
Barcroft 15.5%

Lets Compare to N. Arlington schools

Nottingham .51%
Taylor 4.02%
Cardinal 2.14%

Chronic Absenteeism is probably the real problem we need to solve to help close the achievement gap.

The Claremont and Campbell #s are surprising. Like ATS, these are families that know enough to get into a lottery and are choosing a particular school . So what’s going on that nearly 20% are chronically absent?

I can't speak to Campbell as I don't go there, but I know at Claremont we have a lot of parents who refuse to send their kid to school in cold temperatures because they think it will make them get sick. But I don't know that it is that much and obviously last winter wasn't that bad! Honestly, I have no idea! The demographics of the absentee rate aren't broken down at all. I also am not sure if tardies play into that number at all (I think I heard somewhere that if kids are a certain number of time late it counts as an absence).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone asked why ATS is different from other option schools and someone else mentioned absenteeism. For reference. ATS has 1.7% of kids with chronic absenteeism. Claremont is 18.83% and Campbell is 19.94%.

Everyone can discuss this to death. But it is the makeup of the school. THAT is the difference. ATS doesn't have some magic solution. They haven't solved education. They have a very specific self selecting group of families who highly value education. And that is super wonderful.

It is just hard to fight against nearly 20% of the school being chronically absent. The population of the school is just different.

Also, this got me looking at absentee rates at schools.

Drew 23.66%
Randolph 21.76%
Barcroft 15.5%

Lets Compare to N. Arlington schools

Nottingham .51%
Taylor 4.02%
Cardinal 2.14%

Chronic Absenteeism is probably the real problem we need to solve to help close the achievement gap.

The Claremont and Campbell #s are surprising . Like ATS, these are families that know enough to get into a lottery and are choosing a particular school . So what’s going on that nearly 20% are chronically absent?

Campbell parent here and I find the number really surprising also. Our test scores in the past decade or so have been the highest among Title 1 schools, so this chronic absence number doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe it counts Pre-K kids, too? That might be it, because Pre-K kids are sick a lot more and I would guess parents are far more likely to let their 4 year old miss Pre-K for vacations, mild illness, school refusal, etc. than K-5 kids. Might also be the reason for Claremont? Don’t they have a few Pre-K classes also?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone asked why ATS is different from other option schools and someone else mentioned absenteeism. For reference. ATS has 1.7% of kids with chronic absenteeism. Claremont is 18.83% and Campbell is 19.94%.

Everyone can discuss this to death. But it is the makeup of the school. THAT is the difference. ATS doesn't have some magic solution. They haven't solved education. They have a very specific self selecting group of families who highly value education. And that is super wonderful.

It is just hard to fight against nearly 20% of the school being chronically absent. The population of the school is just different.

Also, this got me looking at absentee rates at schools.

Drew 23.66%
Randolph 21.76%
Barcroft 15.5%

Lets Compare to N. Arlington schools

Nottingham .51%
Taylor 4.02%
Cardinal 2.14%

Chronic Absenteeism is probably the real problem we need to solve to help close the achievement gap.

Yet ATS is doing better than all the North Arlington schools you mentioned with the same level of chronic absenteeism. It’s not just the parent population. My friend’s two kids came from a poor performing South Arlington school and were not at grade level for anything. The parents are super involved in their kids education but the kids were falling behind because the school sucks. The youngest started last year. ATS caught her up to grade level. She came middle of first grade and could barely read. Now the eldest is at ATS. Being caught up well. The parents were super involved but as immigrants they didn’t know how to teach their kids the mechanics of reading. Also the classroom environment wasn’t safe (literally - kids were throwing stuff all the time) and both their kids were subject to bullying. Once they switched to ATS everything changed. Kids were doing better academically, socially and emotionally.

Came here to say something similar. The families and type of kids that attend ATS may contribute to the success, but there is also something different about their programing. They certainly haven't discovered a special magic solution or solved education, but, they have figured out a method that is clearly seeing results.

We received slots to ATS in 2nd and 3rd grade for our two DCs. Our kids as well as us were able to see very stark differences in the day-to-day classroom learning. Their understanding and desire to continue learning drastically changed too.

[Anonymous]

We can argue until we’re blue in the face, but the truth is, everyone’s right. (Except those saying any school can implement the same teaching practices and get the same results.)

Is it self-selection? Yes.

Is it the way ATS teaches? Yes.

All APS elementary schools can teach the same way ATS does, but until that home piece (parental involvement, low absenteeism, lack of behavioral issues, etc) is fixed, it just isn’t going to work in the same way.

Should we do it anyway? Maybe. Raising standards and expectations is most likely the best thing, though we can’t pretend it’s not going to leave some disadvantaged kids behind. But at the end of the day, you can’t MAKE parents care. Home culture and attitude towards education accounts for a lot of a child’s success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where this whole this tucked in shirt talk keeps coming from. Our child started at ATS this year and no one has mentioned anything about dress code or having their shirts tucked in. Is this something that used to happen?

We are at ATS and the shirt tucking isn’t a crazy thing or we haven’t been told anything. We are in kinder though so maybe that’s why. 🤷‍♀️

It definitely used to be, although my daughter never tucked in her shirt. She either wore tunic tops, which couldn't easily be tucked, or sweaters/sweatshirts over her tshirts so they didn't show. She ran cold a lot of the time so that was her solution. Tucking in her shirt was not happening. I remember once in 4th grade she had a t-shirt and shorts on and was called to accept an award during an assembly. Her teacher, who is now a principal at another school, quickly whispered to her to tuck the shirt in before she went up to get her DAR History award so that Holly Hawthorne (former principal) didn't have a conniption. Otherwise that teacher didn't bug her about it -- it was also a sensory thing with my DD although we didn't have a specific 504 or anything about it, but most of the teachers were chill at least with the girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We can argue until we’re blue in the face, but the truth is, everyone’s right. (Except those saying any school can implement the same teaching practices and get the same results.)

Is it self-selection? Yes.

Is it the way ATS teaches? Yes.

All APS elementary schools can teach the same way ATS does, but until that home piece (parental involvement, low absenteeism, lack of behavioral issues, etc) is fixed, it just isn’t going to work in the same way.

Should we do it anyway? Maybe. Raising standards and expectations is most likely the best thing, though we can’t pretend it’s not going to leave some disadvantaged kids behind. But at the end of the day, you can’t MAKE parents care. Home culture and attitude towards education accounts for a lot of a child’s success.

This is a reasonable answer. Tired of all the suggestions that no way can APS recreate what ATS is doing and a child's success or failure is about the parents. If that's the case, let's just give up on this thing called public education because none of it apparently matters. Parents matter. What a school does during the 8 hours it has kids matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We can argue until we’re blue in the face, but the truth is, everyone’s right. (Except those saying any school can implement the same teaching practices and get the same results.)

Is it self-selection? Yes.

Is it the way ATS teaches? Yes.

All APS elementary schools can teach the same way ATS does, but until that home piece (parental involvement, low absenteeism, lack of behavioral issues, etc) is fixed, it just isn’t going to work in the same way.

Should we do it anyway? Maybe. Raising standards and expectations is most likely the best thing, though we can’t pretend it’s not going to leave some disadvantaged kids behind. But at the end of the day, you can’t MAKE parents care. Home culture and attitude towards education accounts for a lot of a child’s success.

This is a reasonable answer. Tired of all the suggestions that no way can APS recreate what ATS is doing and a child's success or failure is about the parents. If that's the case, let's just give up on this thing called public education because none of it apparently matters. Parents matter. What a school does during the 8 hours it has kids matters.

I wrote this, and to be clear, I *don’t* think they’ll be able to recreate *exactly* what ATS is doing, but perhaps they should try anyway.

Classes with kids who don’t show up/ don’t participate/ have behavioral issues aren’t going to run the same way (how could they with all of the disruptions?), but even a 50% improvement would be better than where we are now.

There’d likely be a not insignificant gap in achievement between different demographics. It probably wouldn’t be pretty. But would more kids be ready to tackle more challenging material come MS and HS? Probably.

[Anonymous]

Since people brought ASFS into the conversation, look at their data on the dashboards.

It's now a neighborhood school and has been for a few years. The student profile is similar to ATS. Their achievement data isn't as high (parent effect at ATS matters) , but it's even better than the other option schools.

So what's so unique about ASFS now that can't possibly be transferred?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since people brought ASFS into the conversation, look at their data on the dashboards.

It's now a neighborhood school and has been for a few years. The student profile is similar to ATS. Their achievement data isn't as high (parent effect at ATS matters) , but it's even better than the other option schools.

So what's so unique about ASFS now that can't possibly be transferred?

I wasn’t aware ASFS is high performing. Is it comparable to ATS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that ATS has some good things going for it. But a HUGE part of their success is that it’s a self selecting group that starts in K and stays through 5th.


Neighborhood schools have way more transient students that move around often. So you have kids (and often it’s low income kids) who are at their 3rd school in two years.

Also in neighborhood schools class sizes fluctuate and because of that staffing fluctuates. (A lot more teacher turn over and teacher teaching different grades).


These are things you just can’t replicate in a neighborhood school.

All of that matters . But so do things like properly teaching kids to read, regular updates to parents on kids, and giving kids 1-1 tutoring when they are in danger of falling behind.

In fact so many families want a school like ATS that APS could try an experiment at a neighborhood school by adopting more of ATS’s practices and see what happens.

Science focus used to be a mini- ATS. No tucking in shirts but mostly everything else was present— daily homework starting in kindergarten, encouraging reading, emphasizing writing and having daily writing homework in fourth and fifth grade, extremely encouraging playing an instrument (if you didn’t, you had to do sol tutoring during band/orchestra so most kids did an instrument). It ended when they became a neighborhood school— it was part Covid relaxing standards, part that not enough parents wanted that type of school anymore so they couldn’t force it. I think you need buy in for something like that.

So it was an option school before?

Yes— you could transfer in from either Taylor or Jamestown (they were part of a “team”)— roughly 30-50% of the school were transfers. It became a neighborhood school in 2018, though there were still transfers in the upper grades.

"yes" is misleading. It was not an option school, not open to the County. It was, as PP says, part of a "team" of schools. So technically a lot of transfers, but only from within an eligible geographical boundary.

As to PPP's comments about how ASF used to be more like ATS but standards relaxed because the parents didn't want that anymore??? I'm doubting that. I suspect it was more general relaxation post-COVID that has hit everyone (but ATS, apparently) and wondering if it is actually primarily due to demographics and APS' general attitude toward schools with large groups of ED kids? I'm not familiar enough with the neighborhoods and boundaries - weren't more ED families districted to ASF after the Key move? Or is that Innovation? Or maybe, instead of most parents "not wanting it anymore," there just wasn't as much push for it? I'd still bet it's APS' warped perspective of equity more than parents driving those changes.

The relaxation of standards coincided with it being a neighborhood school, not covid. Most of asfs went to innovation when it opened, but the school started changing policies before that. It went from daily homework at every grade in 2018, to only substantial amounts of homework for fourth and fifth grade in 2019. Even fourth and fifth grade had a lot less— they went from daily graded readers responses and daily math problems to both of those being 1-2 times a week. Post covid, only fourth and fifth grade have homework, and it’s very little homework. This also coincided with standards based grading though.
The old principal and some former teachers said they couldn’t force the kids to do the homework, which is why they changed the amount. If parents aren’t supportive at home, and kids just don’t turn in the homework, they can’t fail them if they know the material. My eldest was there back in 2013, and it was a pressure cooker type of environment. Lots of kids with anxiety issues, but I’m not sure how much if that is typical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that ATS has some good things going for it. But a HUGE part of their success is that it’s a self selecting group that starts in K and stays through 5th.


Neighborhood schools have way more transient students that move around often. So you have kids (and often it’s low income kids) who are at their 3rd school in two years.

Also in neighborhood schools class sizes fluctuate and because of that staffing fluctuates. (A lot more teacher turn over and teacher teaching different grades).


These are things you just can’t replicate in a neighborhood school.

All of that matters . But so do things like properly teaching kids to read, regular updates to parents on kids, and giving kids 1-1 tutoring when they are in danger of falling behind.

In fact so many families want a school like ATS that APS could try an experiment at a neighborhood school by adopting more of ATS’s practices and see what happens.

Science focus used to be a mini- ATS. No tucking in shirts but mostly everything else was present— daily homework starting in kindergarten, encouraging reading, emphasizing writing and having daily writing homework in fourth and fifth grade, extremely encouraging playing an instrument (if you didn’t, you had to do sol tutoring during band/orchestra so most kids did an instrument). It ended when they became a neighborhood school— it was part Covid relaxing standards, part that not enough parents wanted that type of school anymore so they couldn’t force it. I think you need buy in for something like that.

So it was an option school before?

Yes— you could transfer in from either Taylor or Jamestown (they were part of a “team”)— roughly 30-50% of the school were transfers. It became a neighborhood school in 2018, though there were still transfers in the upper grades.

"yes" is misleading. It was not an option school, not open to the County. It was, as PP says, part of a "team" of schools. So technically a lot of transfers, but only from within an eligible geographical boundary.

As to PPP's comments about how ASF used to be more like ATS but standards relaxed because the parents didn't want that anymore??? I'm doubting that. I suspect it was more general relaxation post-COVID that has hit everyone (but ATS, apparently) and wondering if it is actually primarily due to demographics and APS' general attitude toward schools with large groups of ED kids? I'm not familiar enough with the neighborhoods and boundaries - weren't more ED families districted to ASF after the Key move? Or is that Innovation? Or maybe, instead of most parents "not wanting it anymore," there just wasn't as much push for it? I'd still bet it's APS' warped perspective of equity more than parents driving those changes.

The relaxation of standards coincided with it being a neighborhood school, not covid. Most of asfs went to innovation when it opened, but the school started changing policies before that. It went from daily homework at every grade in 2018, to only substantial amounts of homework for fourth and fifth grade in 2019. Even fourth and fifth grade had a lot less— they went from daily graded readers responses and daily math problems to both of those being 1-2 times a week. Post covid, only fourth and fifth grade have homework, and it’s very little homework. This also coincided with standards based grading though.
The old principal and some former teachers said they couldn’t force the kids to do the homework, which is why they changed the amount. If parents aren’t supportive at home, and kids just don’t turn in the homework, they can’t fail them if they know the material. My eldest was there back in 2013, and it was a pressure cooker type of environment. Lots of kids with anxiety issues, but I’m not sure how much if that is typical.

Based on friends who kid transferred from the “old” ASF to ATS, ASF had more of a “pressure cooker” environment than ATS. Their kid was happier at ATS than ASF. According to them ASF was lots of work with no love. ATS adds love to the mix which means the kids are happier. Not sure what they mean by that but that’s what they told me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone asked why ATS is different from other option schools and someone else mentioned absenteeism. For reference. ATS has 1.7% of kids with chronic absenteeism. Claremont is 18.83% and Campbell is 19.94%.

Everyone can discuss this to death. But it is the makeup of the school. THAT is the difference. ATS doesn't have some magic solution. They haven't solved education. They have a very specific self selecting group of families who highly value education. And that is super wonderful.

It is just hard to fight against nearly 20% of the school being chronically absent. The population of the school is just different.

Also, this got me looking at absentee rates at schools.

Drew 23.66%
Randolph 21.76%
Barcroft 15.5%

Lets Compare to N. Arlington schools

Nottingham .51%
Taylor 4.02%
Cardinal 2.14%

Chronic Absenteeism is probably the real problem we need to solve to help close the achievement gap.

Yet ATS is doing better than all the North Arlington schools you mentioned with the same level of chronic absenteeism. It’s not just the parent population. My friend’s two kids came from a poor performing South Arlington school and were not at grade level for anything. The parents are super involved in their kids education but the kids were falling behind because the school sucks. The youngest started last year. ATS caught her up to grade level. She came middle of first grade and could barely read. Now the eldest is at ATS. Being caught up well. The parents were super involved but as immigrants they didn’t know how to teach their kids the mechanics of reading. Also the classroom environment wasn’t safe (literally - kids were throwing stuff all the time) and both their kids were subject to bullying. Once they switched to ATS everything changed. Kids were doing better academically, socially and emotionally.

Came here to say something similar. The families and type of kids that attend ATS may contribute to the success, but there is also something different about their programing. They certainly haven't discovered a special magic solution or solved education, but, they have figured out a method that is clearly seeing results.

We received slots to ATS in 2nd and 3rd grade for our two DCs. Our kids as well as us were able to see very stark differences in the day-to-day classroom learning. Their understanding and desire to continue learning drastically changed too.

BINGO!!
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.