Replicating ATS success — what are exact differences

[Anonymous]

What school is that at? Drew needs help. The old timers who fought for neighborhood school don’t have kids in the school. There may be million dollar homes but they are trumped by AH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

OR (and this is probably many of them), they have sh!tty parents. No amount of teacher engagement can change a family culture of IDGAF.

People love to hate on parents . Are there really that many IDGAF parents in Arlington ? Because I haven’t met any yet.

LOL. You must not go out much. Sometimes seems like I’m the only one who cares.

I know a fair number of parents who take their kids out of school for vacations, but they're the exception.

I also know a fair number of parents who think they care more about education than others, but what they care about is test scores.

I think that taking your kid out of school for vacations is not the kind of “not caring” people are talking about.

Correct. Let me give some examples 1) we had people showing up this week to register their kid because they had no idea school started. This will probably continue for another month, 2) we have parents that just don't pick up their kids from school on a regular basis, 3) we have kids with horrible behavior problems that we can't send home because their home environment is unsafe and CPS/authorities have done nothing (or parents have already had kids taken by CPS and now know how to manipulate the system to keep the other kids). There are parents who when you contact about their kid struggling in school will refuses conferences, refuse phone calls, refuse testing or anything to help their kid. I mean I could go on, but for every parent that is super involved and caring there will be one that is not but I think the vast majority of parents are somewhere in the middle.

Wow, where do you work? Is this in APS? Can you tell us the school or at least something about it? elem? MS? HS? region?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

OR (and this is probably many of them), they have sh!tty parents. No amount of teacher engagement can change a family culture of IDGAF.

People love to hate on parents . Are there really that many IDGAF parents in Arlington ? Because I haven’t met any yet.

LOL. You must not go out much. Sometimes seems like I’m the only one who cares.

I know a fair number of parents who take their kids out of school for vacations, but they're the exception.

I also know a fair number of parents who think they care more about education than others, but what they care about is test scores.

I think that taking your kid out of school for vacations is not the kind of “not caring” people are talking about.

Correct. Let me give some examples 1) we had people showing up this week to register their kid because they had no idea school started. This will probably continue for another month, 2) we have parents that just don't pick up their kids from school on a regular basis, 3) we have kids with horrible behavior problems that we can't send home because their home environment is unsafe and CPS/authorities have done nothing (or parents have already had kids taken by CPS and now know how to manipulate the system to keep the other kids). There are parents who when you contact about their kid struggling in school will refuses conferences, refuse phone calls, refuse testing or anything to help their kid. I mean I could go on, but for every parent that is super involved and caring there will be one that is not but I think the vast majority of parents are somewhere in the middle.

Wow, where do you work? Is this in APS? Can you tell us the school or at least something about it? elem? MS? HS? region?

It is APS and elementary in S. Arlington. I imagine it happens to some extent in N. Arlington. Money doesn't protect against parental neglect.

We are just all in a bubble regarding how much we focus on our kids and our friends probably fall in that same bubble. The same can not be said for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

OR (and this is probably many of them), they have sh!tty parents. No amount of teacher engagement can change a family culture of IDGAF.

People love to hate on parents . Are there really that many IDGAF parents in Arlington ? Because I haven’t met any yet.

LOL. You must not go out much. Sometimes seems like I’m the only one who cares.

I know a fair number of parents who take their kids out of school for vacations, but they're the exception.

I also know a fair number of parents who think they care more about education than others, but what they care about is test scores.

I think the vacation scenario is a bit nuanced. Do I know people who’ve taken time off for frivolous reasons? Yes. Do I also know people who’ve taken time off for international travel, where they’ve gone to museum after museum, which has very positive effects when it comes to education? Yes.

But even so, taking a few days off to go to the beach isn’t as harmful as significant truancy (I bet some of these kids are just chilling in front of a TV).

Don’t be obtuse. You know what I’m talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

OR (and this is probably many of them), they have sh!tty parents. No amount of teacher engagement can change a family culture of IDGAF.

You are talking about upper elementary before the kids may even realize that there are consequences for not turning in work. Getting a kindergartener or first grader to do homework is hard. If a parent thinks that there is little value, it’s not the kids fault if they don’t have space/time/resources at home to do it.

To be clear, it’s not a child’s fault if his/her parents do drugs, let them watch TV all day, model terrible behavior, and don’t make them go to school.

That’s an uphill battle for the kid for sure.

No amount of teacher positivity and raised expectations can negate that though.

Want better schools? Look at your COMMUNITY.

It often takes just one special teacher to make all the difference for a kid. Having a school full of those special teachers who care, engage, provide interesting instruction, and encourage effort to reach the goals the teacher knows they can achieve rather than lowered goals to "meet the child where they are" can make a huge difference. Just because a school can't replace or fully make-up for a lousy parent doesn't mean schools can't do better than they are for the kids.

Perhaps you'd be willing to expand on your thought about looking to the community for better schools? With it following your previous comment, I don't see your point.

If there’s an overall shift in culture to one that values education, big changes will be seen.

Look at some of the low-income Asian communities. The kids know that their parents mean business. So regardless of income level, a lot of them end up at TJHSST.

It can be done, but school needs to become a priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

OR (and this is probably many of them), they have sh!tty parents. No amount of teacher engagement can change a family culture of IDGAF.

People love to hate on parents . Are there really that many IDGAF parents in Arlington ? Because I haven’t met any yet.

LOL. You must not go out much. Sometimes seems like I’m the only one who cares.

I know a fair number of parents who take their kids out of school for vacations, but they're the exception.

I also know a fair number of parents who think they care more about education than others, but what they care about is test scores.

I think that taking your kid out of school for vacations is not the kind of “not caring” people are talking about.

Correct. Let me give some examples 1) we had people showing up this week to register their kid because they had no idea school started. This will probably continue for another month, 2) we have parents that just don't pick up their kids from school on a regular basis, 3) we have kids with horrible behavior problems that we can't send home because their home environment is unsafe and CPS/authorities have done nothing (or parents have already had kids taken by CPS and now know how to manipulate the system to keep the other kids). There are parents who when you contact about their kid struggling in school will refuses conferences, refuse phone calls, refuse testing or anything to help their kid. I mean I could go on, but for every parent that is super involved and caring there will be one that is not but I think the vast majority of parents are somewhere in the middle.

Wow, where do you work? Is this in APS? Can you tell us the school or at least something about it? elem? MS? HS? region?

“Not MY school. I live in 22207!” 😂😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

OR (and this is probably many of them), they have sh!tty parents. No amount of teacher engagement can change a family culture of IDGAF.

You are talking about upper elementary before the kids may even realize that there are consequences for not turning in work. Getting a kindergartener or first grader to do homework is hard. If a parent thinks that there is little value, it’s not the kids fault if they don’t have space/time/resources at home to do it.

To be clear, it’s not a child’s fault if his/her parents do drugs, let them watch TV all day, model terrible behavior, and don’t make them go to school.

That’s an uphill battle for the kid for sure.

No amount of teacher positivity and raised expectations can negate that though.

Want better schools? Look at your COMMUNITY.

It often takes just one special teacher to make all the difference for a kid. Having a school full of those special teachers who care, engage, provide interesting instruction, and encourage effort to reach the goals the teacher knows they can achieve rather than lowered goals to "meet the child where they are" can make a huge difference. Just because a school can't replace or fully make-up for a lousy parent doesn't mean schools can't do better than they are for the kids.

Perhaps you'd be willing to expand on your thought about looking to the community for better schools? With it following your previous comment, I don't see your point.

If there’s an overall shift in culture to one that values education, big changes will be seen.

Look at some of the low-income Asian communities. The kids know that their parents mean business. So regardless of income level, a lot of them end up at TJHSST.

It can be done, but school needs to become a priority.

There is reason why ATS has a high Asian population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

OR (and this is probably many of them), they have sh!tty parents. No amount of teacher engagement can change a family culture of IDGAF.

People love to hate on parents . Are there really that many IDGAF parents in Arlington ? Because I haven’t met any yet.

LOL. You must not go out much. Sometimes seems like I’m the only one who cares.

I know a fair number of parents who take their kids out of school for vacations, but they're the exception.

I also know a fair number of parents who think they care more about education than others, but what they care about is test scores.

I think that taking your kid out of school for vacations is not the kind of “not caring” people are talking about.

Oh, I'm aware of that. I'm just suggesting people do a mote check before they start ranting about The Poors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

Yeah, no. No one’s gonna go for that. You’d be better off advocating for ATS-style teaching at Drew or something.

Drew needs something. All the fighting to get a neighborhood school and it still has the same abysmal achievement outcomes. I live next door and would have zero issue with making it ATS 2 with guaranteed admission for neighborhood kids. Then the 25 kids at the ATS hub stop at Drew can come back to their neighborhood school..

All the fighting didn't address the underlying structural problem, which is that Green Valley is primarily a neighborhood full of renters, and renters turn over. Kids that move in and out of school from year to year (and during a year) cannot make progress the way that kids who attend the same school and are known to the teachers and the principal and have records of their strengths and weaknesses can be helped.

ATS kids can be placed with the teachers that can best meet their individual needs, and classes can be formed with a balanced mix of kids, or divided in ways that make sense if there are enough to make big groups. In fact, you can do that in most north Arlington schools because the overall mix of kids doesn't change from year to year and the principals have tons of testing data to work with. They can't do that at Drew or many other south Arlington schools because they don't know 30 percent of the kids who show up in September--they weren't there in June. They don't know if they're putting four disruptive kids in the same room, or all the kids who need the most reading help in the same class, or if a kid is a grade behind his age when he shows up to enroll the day before school starts and they should put him in the room of kids that are more remedial instead of the room of kids that are more advanced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.

Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.

Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?

Who said race? This is FRL.

There are white kids in the VPI classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me its FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. Its FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and its student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

This is an interesting comment, but I think that APS just needs to offer more schools that use the ATS model. This is a public school district. It’s unfair to offer a product like ATS- the literal best public elementary school in Virginia- when it benefits so few of the taxpaying population. I would be fine with them setting aside percentage for students receiving FRL, but there’s no getting around the fact that we need more ATS slots for everyone.

All of the options are built and supported by the fact that there is demand for 125%, maybe 175%, of capacity, but no more. As a public system, you don't want to build an option building that then depends on you struggling to fill it every year. As others have noted here, there are huge swaths of APS system that do NOT want rigid ATS for their kids. And if your answer is,fine, don't build buildings, just implement inside current schoools, then I strongly suggest you look into the lessons learned from the failures of "schools win schools" in APS. Long story short, nothing makes a local school more like a civil war battleground than when you ty to divide up its classrooms between very different pedagogies. See Montessori experience at Drew.

But demand for ATS is almost 200% of current capacity. Way more than demand for other options.

This is a fact. look at the waitlists. You could fill a second APS and I think you could fill quite a few more HBs. That said, why is HB such a short school if it was a new build? Why didn't APS maximize that space. Wait, I know why. WE HAVE A HORRIBLE SCHOOL BOARD AND THEY ALL MUST GO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.

Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.

Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?

Who said race? This is FRL.

There are white kids in the VPI classes.

Right, but PP said minorities. Reading comprehension, people. No wonder our kids are struggling.

[Anonymous]

Guess what y'all. ATS has a school rap! It's long and don't have it with me but yes. We tuck in shirts, don't wear sweat pants which is news to me b/c we've been at that school for 8 years, comb our hair which we don't do. it's crazy. I'll have to type some lines later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me its FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. Its FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and its student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

This is an interesting comment, but I think that APS just needs to offer more schools that use the ATS model. This is a public school district. It’s unfair to offer a product like ATS- the literal best public elementary school in Virginia- when it benefits so few of the taxpaying population. I would be fine with them setting aside percentage for students receiving FRL, but there’s no getting around the fact that we need more ATS slots for everyone.

All of the options are built and supported by the fact that there is demand for 125%, maybe 175%, of capacity, but no more. As a public system, you don't want to build an option building that then depends on you struggling to fill it every year. As others have noted here, there are huge swaths of APS system that do NOT want rigid ATS for their kids. And if your answer is,fine, don't build buildings, just implement inside current schoools, then I strongly suggest you look into the lessons learned from the failures of "schools win schools" in APS. Long story short, nothing makes a local school more like a civil war battleground than when you ty to divide up its classrooms between very different pedagogies. See Montessori experience at Drew.

But demand for ATS is almost 200% of current capacity. Way more than demand for other options.

This is a fact. look at the waitlists. You could fill a second APS and I think you could fill quite a few more HBs. That said, why is HB such a short school if it was a new build? Why didn't APS maximize that space. Wait, I know why. WE HAVE A HORRIBLE SCHOOL BOARD AND THEY ALL MUST GO.

What % of the SB was there when the HB build decision was made?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me its FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. Its FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and its student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

This is an interesting comment, but I think that APS just needs to offer more schools that use the ATS model. This is a public school district. It’s unfair to offer a product like ATS- the literal best public elementary school in Virginia- when it benefits so few of the taxpaying population. I would be fine with them setting aside percentage for students receiving FRL, but there’s no getting around the fact that we need more ATS slots for everyone.

All of the options are built and supported by the fact that there is demand for 125%, maybe 175%, of capacity, but no more. As a public system, you don't want to build an option building that then depends on you struggling to fill it every year. As others have noted here, there are huge swaths of APS system that do NOT want rigid ATS for their kids. And if your answer is,fine, don't build buildings, just implement inside current schoools, then I strongly suggest you look into the lessons learned from the failures of "schools win schools" in APS. Long story short, nothing makes a local school more like a civil war battleground than when you ty to divide up its classrooms between very different pedagogies. See Montessori experience at Drew.

But demand for ATS is almost 200% of current capacity. Way more than demand for other options.

This is a fact. look at the waitlists. You could fill a second APS and I think you could fill quite a few more HBs. That said, why is HB such a short school if it was a new build? Why didn't APS maximize that space. Wait, I know why. WE HAVE A HORRIBLE SCHOOL BOARD AND THEY ALL MUST GO.

Its true that part of the reason HB works is because all the adults know all the kids, and the kids know that they have a lot of freedom but at the same time have to act to a reasonable standard. It wouldn't work with twice as many kids, or if there were tons of kids there that didn't really want to be there. Not every teacher wants to be in a school where the students can wander around freely and address them directly, and not every teenager can handle being in a building where they can wander around freely and address adults directly--especially if they haven't been given increasing amounts of independence and responsibility all along, and seen it modeled from all of their older peers.

I had kids at both Gunston and HB and I can tell you -- you can't just take parts of the HB model and plunk it down somewhere else, or double it in size. I assume the same is true with ATS. Or at least, you won't automatically get the same results. Not to say there aren't aspects that could be replicated other places, or lessons to be learned, it's just not something you can easily do 1:1.