FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just keep going back to - what is the problem we are solving for?

Depends on who you ask. It’s either balancing FARMs, increase test scores on paper, a revenge tour for certain zip codes, or a perceived chance for people in poorer performing school districts to make a little bit of home value increase off their neighbors (this won’t actually happen).

There are no good answers to your question. And families are largely against these boundary changes.

[Anonymous]

I've repeated this many times on the FCPS forums: The people who really need to be close to the schools are the poorest communities.
I taught in Title I many years ago. There was far more support from the walking families than the bused kids who lived about a mile away. There was a highway to cross. Makes a big difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've repeated this many times on the FCPS forums: The people who really need to be close to the schools are the poorest communities.
I taught in Title I many years ago. There was far more support from the walking families than the bused kids who lived about a mile away. There was a highway to cross. Makes a big difference.

As someone who works in title 1 i agree with this. I have kids who are walkers but miss full weeks when a sibling who normally walks them is sick. Getting kids who live super close is hard to do. If schools are further away it will lead to much higher truancy. The post a few pages back about how certain populations worked so hard to come to the US that they will work hard to get their kids to school clearly hasn’t worked in a title 1 school. Parents are at work or don’t own cars. Kids take the bus or walk. If they miss the bus they aren’t coming in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've repeated this many times on the FCPS forums: The people who really need to be close to the schools are the poorest communities.
I taught in Title I many years ago. There was far more support from the walking families than the bused kids who lived about a mile away. There was a highway to cross. Makes a big difference.

As someone who works in title 1 i agree with this. I have kids who are walkers but miss full weeks when a sibling who normally walks them is sick. Getting kids who live super close is hard to do. If schools are further away it will lead to much higher truancy. The post a few pages back about how certain populations worked so hard to come to the US that they will work hard to get their kids to school clearly hasn’t worked in a title 1 school. Parents are at work or don’t own cars. Kids take the bus or walk. If they miss the bus they aren’t coming in

OK, fine. Make the elimination of the far-flung ES attendance islands the priority this round. Leave the rest of FCPS alone.

[Anonymous]

Are there attendance islands at the es level?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- Eliminate IB, put AP in all high schools
- Eliminate AAP centers, return all kids to their base schools

Those two things alone would correct much of the ridiculous imbalance, transfer and busing issues.

+1. Too bad they didn’t model that and show the results for all schools.

+2
This should have been the VERY FIRST thing they did, before hiring any outside consultants (at taxpayer expense).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there attendance islands at the es level?

The overwhelming majority of the attendance islands are at the ES level and all of the ones PP was referring to where lower-income kids get bused longer distances to schools are at the ES level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- Eliminate IB, put AP in all high schools
- Eliminate AAP centers, return all kids to their base schools

Those two things alone would correct much of the ridiculous imbalance, transfer and busing issues.

This is the winning answer and the necessary first step before doing any boundary study.

IB at FCPS is poorly done at all but perhaps 1 school. Look at demand and keep at 1 school if you need to but also offer a host of AP courses as well.

Get rid of AAP centers. AAP is what Gen Ed was a decade ago. Keep kids at home school and group them.

Use this realignment to see if boundary changes are needed. Rather simple but effective way to go about it. I won’t even charge $500K.

Think through this. Here are some of the effects of your idea:

For AAP:

1- It doesn’t help bussing that much cost of efficiency wise

2- AAP in its current center form allows teachers and parents to regroup kids every year and kids aren’t stuck in grades 3-6 with the same teacher (if you want to track everyone,ALL the kids are stuck in the same AAP group or middle group or low group for 4 years together)

3- It would make redistricting more impactful to more students instead of less impactful (eg a center school that pulls from a large area would lose a quarter of its students and then you would have to redistrict all the elementary schools around it)

4- You will lose some families that are helping the school system and move here for this program. The district needs to keep these families or the tipping point between UMC/MC flight and FARMS kids will dip in the wrong direction. FCPS is already playing with this balance with redistricting and doing this would be catastrophic at this point.

DP. I disagree with all of your points.

1. If we're discussing moving certain kids to other schools because "they're bused too far," then we should *absolutely* be stopping all busing of kids to AAP centers. We've all witnessed the buses with two or three kids on them, headed for AAP centers, when they could simply be attending their own base school. Talk about an enormous waste of resources.

2. AAP in its current form is labeling children at the age of seven and sorting them into one of two vast groups. Most kids at age seven haven't matured enough to be labeled one or the other, and many are advanced in some subjects but not all. By implementing flexible groupings for all four core subjects, ALL kids would be able to cycle into and out of the most appropriate level for them. Each classroom teacher/per grade would take one level per core class and the kids would simply rotate classes. This is how it used to be done and it worked beautifully. Note, there would still be an AAP group, but it would be open to ALL kids who were able to do the work. This is not getting rid of AAP. It's making sure that every child has the chance to excel in any/all of the four core classes. There would be no "AAP class" that didn't change for an entire year. Kids would be able to regroup and meet other kids throughout the year instead. Being labeled as this or that at age seven benefits no one. It gives some kids a false sense of inferiority and other kids a false sense of superiority.

3. Sending all kids back to their base school would lessen the population at center schools, yes. But some center schools are overcrowded as it is, so this isn't a bad thing. Those schools that stand to lose too many kids could be looked at for rezoning, but we should at least see what it looks like with ALL kids attending their neighborhood schools again.

4. No one is talking about doing away with AAP - simply offering it in the base schools through flexible grouping. Centers are redundant and wasteful, not to mention divisive and unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP falls under special education and FCPS is required to make it available. AAP teachers are specifically trained to teach AAP material, work with AAP kids, and have stricter continuing education requirements. For this they get a bit of a bump in salary too. Getting rid of AAP center and moving kids back to their base school may be too expensive and not feasible. Elementary school will be required to have atleast one AAP classroom because again it falls under special education. To accomplish this they will need to hire, train, and pay more teachers which will be expensive. Some schools may not have enough AAP eligible kids to build a class so they'll have to bring in other kids which will slow down the teachers ability to move at a faster pace and piss off parents who will complain the program is diluted. Removing Middle School AAP centers will be a whole different headache since everything is subject based.

AAP is NOT special education. By saying that, you show great ignorance about both AAP and Special Ed.

AAP teachers do not receive higher pay nor have more stringent continuing ed requirements - only initial requirements.

I support keeping the centers: our base schools - both elementary and middle -
are woefully under supportive of true AAP students and DC would be extremely bored or get in trouble due to boredom (like I did).

Your kid would be just fine with AAP flexible groupings. And what FCPS really needs to do, is go back to having an actual (tiny) GT program. AAP is not a gifted program, to start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP falls under special education and FCPS is required to make it available. AAP teachers are specifically trained to teach AAP material, work with AAP kids, and have stricter continuing education requirements. For this they get a bit of a bump in salary too. Getting rid of AAP center and moving kids back to their base school may be too expensive and not feasible. Elementary school will be required to have atleast one AAP classroom because again it falls under special education. To accomplish this they will need to hire, train, and pay more teachers which will be expensive. Some schools may not have enough AAP eligible kids to build a class so they'll have to bring in other kids which will slow down the teachers ability to move at a faster pace and piss off parents who will complain the program is diluted. Removing Middle School AAP centers will be a whole different headache since everything is subject based.

It's my understanding that all of the middle schools have LLIV. There's no need for AAP Centers in middle school.

Or elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP falls under special education and FCPS is required to make it available. AAP teachers are specifically trained to teach AAP material, work with AAP kids, and have stricter continuing education requirements. For this they get a bit of a bump in salary too. Getting rid of AAP center and moving kids back to their base school may be too expensive and not feasible. Elementary school will be required to have atleast one AAP classroom because again it falls under special education. To accomplish this they will need to hire, train, and pay more teachers which will be expensive. Some schools may not have enough AAP eligible kids to build a class so they'll have to bring in other kids which will slow down the teachers ability to move at a faster pace and piss off parents who will complain the program is diluted. Removing Middle School AAP centers will be a whole different headache since everything is subject based.

AAP is NOT special education. By saying that, you show great ignorance about both AAP and Special Ed.

AAP teachers do not receive higher pay nor have more stringent continuing ed requirements - only initial requirements.

I support keeping the centers: our base schools - both elementary and middle -
are woefully under supportive of true AAP students and DC would be extremely bored or get in trouble due to boredom (like I did).

Your kid would be just fine with AAP flexible groupings. And what FCPS really needs to do, is go back to having an actual (tiny) GT program. AAP is not a gifted program, to start.

This is never going to happen. A tiny GT program will not have acceptable demographics to the politicians. Stop tilting at windmills.

[Anonymous]

AAP in its current form is labeling children at the age of seven and sorting them into one of two vast groups. Most kids at age seven haven't matured enough to be labeled one or the other, and many are advanced in some subjects but not all. By implementing flexible groupings for all four core subjects, ALL kids would be able to cycle into and out of the most appropriate level for them. Each classroom teacher/per grade would take one level per core class and the kids would simply rotate classes. This is how it used to be done and it worked beautifully. Note, there would still be an AAP group, but it would be open to ALL kids who were able to do the work. This is not getting rid of AAP. It's making sure that every child has the chance to excel in any/all of the four core classes. There would be no "AAP class" that didn't change for an entire year. Kids would be able to regroup and meet other kids throughout the year instead. Being labeled as this or that at age seven benefits no one. It gives some kids a false sense of inferiority and other kids a false sense of superiority

I have always said that third grade is not the time to separate the kids. I was a primary grade teacher. Frequently, the top kids at the beginning of the year are exceeded by others by the end of the year. Maturity also plays a part in the process.

What some AAP parents do not realize is that there is a big jump from second to third grade in GenEd. They judge AAP by their comparison to second grade.

Agree that there are some kids who are highly gifted. But, it is a tiny group--even in affluent schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP falls under special education and FCPS is required to make it available. AAP teachers are specifically trained to teach AAP material, work with AAP kids, and have stricter continuing education requirements. For this they get a bit of a bump in salary too. Getting rid of AAP center and moving kids back to their base school may be too expensive and not feasible. Elementary school will be required to have atleast one AAP classroom because again it falls under special education. To accomplish this they will need to hire, train, and pay more teachers which will be expensive. Some schools may not have enough AAP eligible kids to build a class so they'll have to bring in other kids which will slow down the teachers ability to move at a faster pace and piss off parents who will complain the program is diluted. Removing Middle School AAP centers will be a whole different headache since everything is subject based.

AAP is NOT special education. By saying that, you show great ignorance about both AAP and Special Ed.

AAP teachers do not receive higher pay nor have more stringent continuing ed requirements - only initial requirements.

I support keeping the centers: our base schools - both elementary and middle -
are woefully under supportive of true AAP students and DC would be extremely bored or get in trouble due to boredom (like I did).

Your kid would be just fine with AAP flexible groupings. And what FCPS really needs to do, is go back to having an actual (tiny) GT program. AAP is not a gifted program, to start.

This is never going to happen. A tiny GT program will not have acceptable demographics to the politicians. Stop tilting at windmills.

Then they need to implement flexible groupings for every student, at every base school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

AAP in its current form is labeling children at the age of seven and sorting them into one of two vast groups. Most kids at age seven haven't matured enough to be labeled one or the other, and many are advanced in some subjects but not all. By implementing flexible groupings for all four core subjects, ALL kids would be able to cycle into and out of the most appropriate level for them. Each classroom teacher/per grade would take one level per core class and the kids would simply rotate classes. This is how it used to be done and it worked beautifully. Note, there would still be an AAP group, but it would be open to ALL kids who were able to do the work. This is not getting rid of AAP. It's making sure that every child has the chance to excel in any/all of the four core classes. There would be no "AAP class" that didn't change for an entire year. Kids would be able to regroup and meet other kids throughout the year instead. Being labeled as this or that at age seven benefits no one. It gives some kids a false sense of inferiority and other kids a false sense of superiority

I have always said that third grade is not the time to separate the kids. I was a primary grade teacher. Frequently, the top kids at the beginning of the year are exceeded by others by the end of the year. Maturity also plays a part in the process.

What some AAP parents do not realize is that there is a big jump from second to third grade in GenEd. They judge AAP by their comparison to second grade.

Agree that there are some kids who are highly gifted. But, it is a tiny group--even in affluent schools.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just keep going back to - what is the problem we are solving for?

Inefficient usage of available facilities/capacity and transportation resources, along with inequitable access to programming.

Several examples: we've got students in some cases bussing past 2-3 schools (and/or 2-3x the distance) on the way to their "home" school (as an egregious example, look at the little attendance island adjacent to Mount Vernon Woods ES that attends Fort Hunt WS instead, going past Riverside and/or Stratford Landing on the way). We have more split feeders than we need, which break up community and friendships unnecessarily in most cases. We have schools well under capacity adjacent to schools well over capacity, unnecessarily putting kids in modular or trailer classrooms. We have students who have to leave their ES friends behind to access appropriate programming for MS in another pyramid, then 2 years later after building new friendships they break those and have to return back to their original pyramid. I could go on but those are a few of the big ones.