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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
AAP Center Elimination Rumors
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Anonymous
I don't understand how clustering is the opposite of meeting the level 4 kids needs. They pull in level 3 kids to fill out the class depending on the subject. My 3rd grade dd complained about being bored in math, the AART teacher would then give her additional work. If anything she gets more attention than if she went to the center with all the average kids who qualify for level 4 yet aren't actually special. This whole argument is comical when the bar for qualifying is so low. |
Anonymous
+2 |
Anonymous
DP. Going to have to push back on this claim that center school principals don't principal place students into AAP classes. They absolutely do. I've had three kids attend a center and every year, the principal would place certain kids (usually the kids of principal's friends) into the AAP classes. Every year. |
Anonymous
Totally agree with you. And for a school system that preaches "equity" at every turn, allowing certain kids to *choose* a different school when they already have AAP in their base school is completely inequitable, redundant, and wasteful. Not to mention, the free busing that goes along with it and usually has only a handful of kids rattling around in almost empty buses. Disgraceful. |
Anonymous
DP. Which proves the point that there is NO NEED for an AAP / GE distinction between two huge groups of kids, most of whom are very similar. |
Anonymous
Immediate PP, what you are describing isn't "clustering." "Clustering" divides up the LLIV kids into multiple school classrooms, ensuring their education is further diluted. "Pulling in" Level 3 kids to fill a LLIV class is different; it's beneficial for the Level 3 kids, not so much for the LLIV kids. |
Anonymous
Our base school clusters. They limit it to no more than 6 LIV kids in each classroom. There are 8 classes of 3rd graders, with no more than 6 LIV kids in each room. The remainder is a mix of all ability levels, from English learners to those struggling with numeracy to middle of the road ability kids to strong LIII kids. The idea is that the teacher does flexible groupings for everything. Supposedly instead of reading groups 1-5 like they used to have, they now have reading groups 1-6. Instead of a science lesson with scaffolds for struggling readers, they have science lessons with scaffolds for struggling readers and extensions for advanced learners. The reality is that it is one more level of differentiation teachers don't have time to plan for, so it's the first thing that gets dropped because those kids don't raise red flags on test scores. It was miserable. My child was a free tutor for struggling classmates. We would have absolutely stayed if they did a self contained LLIV program, but we left for the center in 4th grade after a miserable 3rd grade year. It's been night and day in expectations and growth. |
Anonymous
| ^ The above is exactly what I meant when I said, "Clustering is pretty much the opposite of meeting the needs of AAP kids." They call it clustering but what they are really doing is spreading he AAP kids as thin as possible and then ignoring them. Then people like that one poster defend it because the name is misleading and they think their LLIV with some principal placed kids is clustering. No one will keep their AAP kid in a school with the clustering model once they understand what it really is. |
Anonymous
| I have to say I never understood why some schools were designated as “centers” while there were also a small group who had no AAP services at all. Seems highly inequitable. They should offer local IV to all schools, like a majority of the ES in FCPS do. |
Anonymous
Are you sure? You seem to know a lot about other people's kids and their test scores. |
Anonymous
Seriously? They’re coming from Westgate and Shrevewood 🙄 What kind of “problems” do these kids pose? If anything, I feel badly for the kids assigned to a center school that don’t qualify for AAP; truly an “us” vs “them” scenario. |
Anonymous
Look more carefully at Reid’s response, and remember: she comes from an area near Seattle, Washington, where the gifted and talented program was recently ELIMINATED entirely: “Reid: there are a lot of states that treat gifted and talented as an IEP required program. Just like if a student has an IEP and the program doesn’t exist in the base school, we will bus them. We need to calibrate so that the local level IV programs are the same as the ones offered in the centers.” Reid’s number one priority is: equity. She places equity above academics. Equity is all the cares about, other than “diversity and inclusion.” She is a DEI fanatic, just like the majority of the school board. Expect her to work against the AAP program generally over the coming years, until she can eliminate it as they did in Seattle, NYC, etc. with the full support of democrats. |
Anonymous
That was one posted referring to their school. At our elementary, there is a huge difference between AAP and general Ed in all core subjects, not just math. I'm so sorry her school doesn't provide advanced academics and uses the same curriculum. |
Anonymous
You were the first to bring up kids saying my "little baby isnt gifted as I think he is." Well it's a good thing there are tests that independently confirmed giftedness for them. No sucking up needed. It's very weird that you are comparing your kids future academic success to that of strangers. You sound very insecure about needing that annual principal placement for your future academic rockstar. |
Anonymous
Yeah some people are really bothered by their kids not being selected for AAP. I enjoy listening to them complain and denigrate others kids. If they stood back and took a second to breathe, they would understand that the kids are really where they need to be and should be happy the system allows this much flexibility for everyone’s learning needs. |