FCPS Appeals decision are out

[Anonymous]

Wow!!! Um! I NEVER said my kid had a tutor for the Exam!!! I am saying during COVID and a bad virtual education system since I was working! Once a week for 30 minutes! “Gifted kids don’t need tutors !” How rude is that? Wow! My kid is DEFINITELY smart enough with his scores for AAP. Funny cause I am not dissing 8 year olds on here and some are. Talk about misinterpretation!

[Anonymous]

No one said your kid had a tutor for the wisc, chill out.

I agree that any kid scoring above 130 on the wisc schools he automatically in. That’s the gold standard.
Maybe if they don’t trust some private psychs they can mandate everyone go through GMU.

My child’s wisc was too low to include in the appeal and he is doing fine in aap, we are not at a popular center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS was accepted with a 135 NNAT and 135 CogAT. I just read through his comments on the GBRS. They said things like he enjoys solving math problems using different methods. he uses his time after finishing his work to do independent reading into science and math topics. He is able to take concepts from social studies or in reading and apply it to his life. He is curious and imaginative.


I still think that every school should have its own AAP class and the top 10-20% of the grade, dependent on the size of the school, should be in AAP. Kids who are not able to maintain the more advanced work should return to the regular class. That way the kids who are in need of more based on their schools situation, are able to have their needs met.

DC: NNAT and COGAT 136, WISC 134, GBRS comments almost identical like yours - but the kid is not accepted.

I agree with you, every school should have AAP classes with top xx% of the grade.

[Anonymous]

So every other child I know is in Mathnasium or Kumon. The center owner said they have a TON of AAP kids. So I guess they ALL must not be gifted or advanced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one said your kid had a tutor for the wisc, chill out.

I agree that any kid scoring above 130 on the wisc schools he automatically in. That’s the gold standard.
Maybe if they don’t trust some private psychs they can mandate everyone go through GMU.

My child’s wisc was too low to include in the appeal and he is doing fine in aap, we are not at a popular center.

Someone commented “Gifted kids don’t need tutors.” That is what I was responding to, not to your comment. And YES, anyone over 130 should be admitted. They are like top 2%. That would make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So every other child I know is in Mathnasium or Kumon. The center owner said they have a TON of AAP kids. So I guess they ALL must not be gifted or advanced.

This. At least half of the kids in my child's AAP class were in Kumon, Mathnasium, RSM, AoPS, or some other tutoring system. If they're trying to guess which kids are being tutored and then keep them out of AAP, they're doing a miserable job.

Also, LOL at the PP who thought that kids who have very high IQs and are advanced are not necessarily AAP material because they aren't showing enough curiosity or enough excitement to be learning. PP, you obviously know nothing at all about gifted ed and gifted children. Gifted programs were created primarily to help the high IQ kids who were underachieving and who were falling through the cracks. It has been documented for a long time that many gifted kids disengage when they already know the material being taught and can't make themselves slog through another worksheet. Or they start having behavioral problems because everything is so incredibly slow.

The kids who the teachers view as curious and excited to learn are the kids who will thrive in any educational setting. If they're stuck in gen ed, they would create their own assignments or challenges, or they would read the entire classroom library. They really don't "need AAP." Kids who have gifted IQs genuinely need gifted programming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So every other child I know is in Mathnasium or Kumon. The center owner said they have a TON of AAP kids. So I guess they ALL must not be gifted or advanced.

This. At least half of the kids in my child's AAP class were in Kumon, Mathnasium, RSM, AoPS, or some other tutoring system. If they're trying to guess which kids are being tutored and then keep them out of AAP, they're doing a miserable job.

Also, LOL at the PP who thought that kids who have very high IQs and are advanced are not necessarily AAP material because they aren't showing enough curiosity or enough excitement to be learning. PP, you obviously know nothing at all about gifted ed and gifted children. Gifted programs were created primarily to help the high IQ kids who were underachieving and who were falling through the cracks. It has been documented for a long time that many gifted kids disengage when they already know the material being taught and can't make themselves slog through another worksheet. Or they start having behavioral problems because everything is so incredibly slow.

The kids who the teachers view as curious and excited to learn are the kids who will thrive in any educational setting. If they're stuck in gen ed, they would create their own assignments or challenges, or they would read the entire classroom library. They really don't "need AAP." Kids who have gifted IQs genuinely need gifted programming.

This! Absolutely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Recommendation for a tutor was the red flag here. Your kid got borderline scores because he had a tutor. Gifted kids don’t need tutors.

Not the person you were replying to, but I just wanted to point out that our kid definitely does have a tutor. It's not a tutor for cognitive tests, it's an academic tutor because they're doing nothing in school and we don't want our kid's mind to stagnate. We can and have tutored the child ourselves, but there's only so much we can do because we both have jobs, too. And the child's scores (on all tests) definitely weren't just borderline. Does it show that we're privileged and/or have a lot of money? I don't know. I mean yes, we live in Fairfax County, but one street over the property values are way higher than ours. I think it's just that that's where we choose to prioritize our spending, because we see it as investing in our child's development. If the AAP committee sees any of that as a red flag, there's something deeply wrong.

[Anonymous]

Gifted children can benefit from tutors. They may be gifted but weren’t born with all the worlds knowledge in their brains, or know instinctively how to study. Not every gifted child excels in every subject area. If your child is just very smart they might not ever need a tutor, but gifted children aren’t just regular kids with a high IQ, they often need support.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 kids in AAP at a smaller center. Don’t know any kids who do outside tutoring. And we know a lot of kids. I think this is really an intensely localized thing—-everyone else is doing mathnasium so you think you should be too. (I thought kumon was for remedial work, kids who Are behind who’s need extra help...)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So every other child I know is in Mathnasium or Kumon. The center owner said they have a TON of AAP kids. So I guess they ALL must not be gifted or advanced.

This. At least half of the kids in my child's AAP class were in Kumon, Mathnasium, RSM, AoPS, or some other tutoring system. If they're trying to guess which kids are being tutored and then keep them out of AAP, they're doing a miserable job.

Also, LOL at the PP who thought that kids who have very high IQs and are advanced are not necessarily AAP material because they aren't showing enough curiosity or enough excitement to be learning. PP, you obviously know nothing at all about gifted ed and gifted children. Gifted programs were created primarily to help the high IQ kids who were underachieving and who were falling through the cracks. It has been documented for a long time that many gifted kids disengage when they already know the material being taught and can't make themselves slog through another worksheet. Or they start having behavioral problems because everything is so incredibly slow.

The kids who the teachers view as curious and excited to learn are the kids who will thrive in any educational setting. If they're stuck in gen ed, they would create their own assignments or challenges, or they would read the entire classroom library. They really don't "need AAP." Kids who have gifted IQs genuinely need gifted programming.

Well, we we joined our younger one in kumon during this summer after she got into AAP as she bored at home and wanted to keep her occupied. Our older kid (also in AAP) started once a week math tutoring (with some homework each day) around 4th grade, which is a little ahead of his class instruction, but gives him more practice and problems to solve. In our experience tutoring isn't really required until 4th grade, but definitely helps afterwords. Also, I believe most of my older kids AAP class goes to some sort of after school enrichment and we thought he would probably fall behind if we didn't do the same . Alternatively, if parents could provide enrichment, it would be great!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Also, LOL at the PP who thought that kids who have very high IQs and are advanced are not necessarily AAP material because they aren't showing enough curiosity or enough excitement to be learning. PP, you obviously know nothing at all about gifted ed and gifted children. Gifted programs were created primarily to help the high IQ kids who were underachieving and who were falling through the cracks. It has been documented for a long time that many gifted kids disengage when they already know the material being taught and can't make themselves slog through another worksheet. Or they start having behavioral problems because everything is so incredibly slow.

Yep, this definitely sounds like my story. In school I had a teacher who was semi-abusive and convinced that I was dumb. My parents stood up for me, so the teacher called in cognitive evaluators to prove that she was right. The evaluators came to the opposite conclusion, I went on to thrive in GT, and the rest is history.

It's sad to see that so many seemingly worthy children didn't get the same chance this time around, and that the school system has sunk back to relying on subjective witchcraft in determining the results.

[Anonymous]

I am a huge center school. Almost every kid I know that got into AAP this year from our school had some type of outside tutoring on math (in fact that is how they are viewed as being so advance in math and problem solving). My 140+ Cogat and WISC kid was the only one who didn't take those classes during the school year. Scored above grade in iReady in the beginning in the year got all 4s in math. I din't think I needed to push my child into that type of enrichment program because I was sure that my kid would not have any problems "catching up" once she got into AAP and in later years. (We did the same thing with our older child who got into APP the first time around. She had no problems with Math without any tutoring and was at the top of her class.)

I do wonder though that some of the kids that got into AAP this year from my school may have had higher GBRS because their enrichment. From what I understand these enrichment programs focus heavily on "problem solving" and competition math.

So, I think this notion that somehow kids getting higher GBRS are kids working independently, no outside help etc. is completely off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a huge center school. Almost every kid I know that got into AAP this year from our school had some type of outside tutoring on math (in fact that is how they are viewed as being so advance in math and problem solving). My 140+ Cogat and WISC kid was the only one who didn't take those classes during the school year. Scored above grade in iReady in the beginning in the year got all 4s in math. I din't think I needed to push my child into that type of enrichment program because I was sure that my kid would not have any problems "catching up" once she got into AAP and in later years. (We did the same thing with our older child who got into APP the first time around. She had no problems with Math without any tutoring and was at the top of her class.)

I do wonder though that some of the kids that got into AAP this year from my school may have had higher GBRS because their enrichment. From what I understand these enrichment programs focus heavily on "problem solving" and competition math.

So, I think this notion that somehow kids getting higher GBRS are kids working independently, no outside help etc. is completely off.

Sorry! Correction. Scored above on reading and high end of in-grade in math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a huge center school. Almost every kid I know that got into AAP this year from our school had some type of outside tutoring on math (in fact that is how they are viewed as being so advance in math and problem solving). My 140+ Cogat and WISC kid was the only one who didn't take those classes during the school year. Scored above grade in iReady in the beginning in the year got all 4s in math. I din't think I needed to push my child into that type of enrichment program because I was sure that my kid would not have any problems "catching up" once she got into AAP and in later years. (We did the same thing with our older child who got into APP the first time around. She had no problems with Math without any tutoring and was at the top of her class.)

I do wonder though that some of the kids that got into AAP this year from my school may have had higher GBRS because their enrichment. From what I understand these enrichment programs focus heavily on "problem solving" and competition math.

So, I think this notion that somehow kids getting higher GBRS are kids working independently, no outside help etc. is completely off.

Sorry! Correction. Scored above on reading and high end of in-grade in math.

It’s not believable that you know the tutoring habits of that many families.

You also don’t know if you kid was at the top of a class. Sure, a teacher may have mentioned it at some point (but even that is unusual), but that’s not something you’re hearing repeatedly over the years.

- former teacher