placing out of an IB high school (e.g. south lakes) to attend an AP high school instead

[Anonymous]

For those who have children in high school or know the FCPS rules, what are the options for a high school student to place out of their regular IB school (e.g. south lakes) to attend an AP school instead? Is there an FCPS policy / procedure for this? What the are choice about which other AP school that student would attend and how is it decided?

[Anonymous]

I think they say what your alternate school is on the boundary finder website. It's based on distance.

[Anonymous]

Find the closest AP school on google maps, check capacity on the FCPS dashboard. You may attend the closest AP school that is open to transfers.

Fill out the application for transfer by the deadline, and you're all set.

[Anonymous]

New poster here -- when is this process started? Can you start this when the student is in 8th grade to attend the AP school starting in 9th grade?

[Anonymous]

Here's the information:

http://www.fcps.edu/dss/osp/StudentRegistration/student-transfer/

I believe that parents of students currently in 8th grade seeking to transfer their kids to an out-of-boundary AP school would typically need to apply by April 2013.

A lot of South Lakes students transfer to Westfield, Oakton and Madison. South Lakes also gets students who live in those school districts who want to transfer into South Lakes for the IB program.

[Anonymous]

Westfield and Oakton are currently closed to transfers. Madison is currently open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Westfield and Oakton are currently closed to transfers. Madison is currently open.

I wouldn't make assumptions, though, about which schools will accept transfers for the fall of 2013 based on the information from the spring of 2012 that's currently shown on the "Capacity Dashboard." Those numbers change every year.

Have people actually had experiences where students applied for a transfer from an IB to an AP school by the regular deadline in April, and were not allowed to attend the AP school that was closest to them because that school was deemed closed to transfers? I know that, over in Vienna, it's usually been easy to arrange for a transfer from Marshall to Madison, or vice versa, but those schools haven't been as crowded as some of the schools further west.

By some measures, South Lakes is going to be the most over-crowded high school in the county in a few years, if it isn't already, so FCPS ought to welcome the transfers. [People who lived in the Westfield district told the School Board a few years ago when FCPS decided to redistrict part of Westfield to South Lakes that this was going to happen, but Stuart Gibson and his colleagues on the School Board were not interested in listening.]

[Anonymous]

2013 fall transfer availability is determined by capacity as of April 2013.

Schools listed as closed will reject transfer applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the information:

http://www.fcps.edu/dss/osp/StudentRegistration/student-transfer/

I believe that parents of students currently in 8th grade seeking to transfer their kids to an out-of-boundary AP school would typically need to apply by April 2013.

09:40 here - thanks for posting this information.

Since the new transfer deadline is April 15, is it possible that the "Capacity Dashboard" information is not updated until after the deadline?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the information:

http://www.fcps.edu/dss/osp/StudentRegistration/student-transfer/

I believe that parents of students currently in 8th grade seeking to transfer their kids to an out-of-boundary AP school would typically need to apply by April 2013.

09:40 here - thanks for posting this information.

Since the new transfer deadline is April 15, is it possible that the "Capacity Dashboard" information is not updated until after the deadline?

Nevermind - I answered my own question after looking at the Letter of Understanding:

http://www.fcps.edu/it/forms/se243.pdf


Students and parents will accept the decision to deny admission due to lack of space available at the requested
school. If the requested school is not available, parents may request the next closest high school with the
appropriate program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the information:

http://www.fcps.edu/dss/osp/StudentRegistration/student-transfer/

I believe that parents of students currently in 8th grade seeking to transfer their kids to an out-of-boundary AP school would typically need to apply by April 2013.

09:40 here - thanks for posting this information.

Since the new transfer deadline is April 15, is it possible that the "Capacity Dashboard" information is not updated until after the deadline?

Yes, that's possible - if you look, the last update was on April 26th, 2012, after the April 15th deadline for transfers in the fall of 2012.

The main point I was trying to make was not to assume a school won't accept transfers from IB to AP, or vice versa, based on the Capacity Dashboard information, particularly when it doesn't even reflect the current school year. You can always give it a shot and see what happens.

I don't have a lot of direct experience with this - all I know is that (1) in Vienna, the administrators at Madison and Marshall are very cooperative; and (2) after the 2008 South Lakes redistricting, I seem to recall that some parents who wanted to transfer out of South Lakes back to the AP schools to which their neighborhoods previously had been assigned got angry at Bruce Butler, who was then the principal at South Lakes, because he would only approve transfer requests to the AP schools closest to their homes (which were not always the same schools as the schools to which they'd previously been assigned). He may have been following the FCPS policy, but they viewed him as trying to keep their kids out of the schools they knew.

[Anonymous]

So is the AP program in high school different than the AAP program in elementary? As in you are offered certain courses in AP in High School? Your choice if you qualify to take them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the information:

http://www.fcps.edu/dss/osp/StudentRegistration/student-transfer/

I believe that parents of students currently in 8th grade seeking to transfer their kids to an out-of-boundary AP school would typically need to apply by April 2013.

09:40 here - thanks for posting this information.

Since the new transfer deadline is April 15, is it possible that the "Capacity Dashboard" information is not updated until after the deadline?

Yes, that's possible - if you look, the last update was on April 26th, 2012, after the April 15th deadline for transfers in the fall of 2012.

The main point I was trying to make was not to assume a school won't accept transfers from IB to AP, or vice versa, based on the Capacity Dashboard information, particularly when it doesn't even reflect the current school year. You can always give it a shot and see what happens.

I don't have a lot of direct experience with this - all I know is that (1) in Vienna, the administrators at Madison and Marshall are very cooperative; and (2) after the 2008 South Lakes redistricting, I seem to recall that some parents who wanted to transfer out of South Lakes back to the AP schools to which their neighborhoods previously had been assigned got angry at Bruce Butler, who was then the principal at South Lakes, because he would only approve transfer requests to the AP schools closest to their homes (which were not always the same schools as the schools to which they'd previously been assigned). He may have been following the FCPS policy, but they viewed him as trying to keep their kids out of the schools they knew.

It's really not about the administration being cooperative. If the schools are closed at the time, they are closed. The county will reject the application before it even gets to the administration. Marshall was open a couple years ago, but the program has grown in popularity. There is a chance they may have additional capacity after the renovation is complete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So is the AP program in high school different than the AAP program in elementary? As in you are offered certain courses in AP in High School? Your choice if you qualify to take them?

AP/IB/Honors is all open enrollment in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The main point I was trying to make was not to assume a school won't accept transfers from IB to AP, or vice versa, based on the Capacity Dashboard information, particularly when it doesn't even reflect the current school year. You can always give it a shot and see what happens.

I don't have a lot of direct experience with this - all I know is that (1) in Vienna, the administrators at Madison and Marshall are very cooperative; and (2) after the 2008 South Lakes redistricting, I seem to recall that some parents who wanted to transfer out of South Lakes back to the AP schools to which their neighborhoods previously had been assigned got angry at Bruce Butler, who was then the principal at South Lakes, because he would only approve transfer requests to the AP schools closest to their homes (which were not always the same schools as the schools to which they'd previously been assigned). He may have been following the FCPS policy, but they viewed him as trying to keep their kids out of the schools they knew.

It's really not about the administration being cooperative. If the schools are closed at the time, they are closed. The county will reject the application before it even gets to the administration. Marshall was open a couple years ago, but the program has grown in popularity. There is a chance they may have additional capacity after the renovation is complete.

Sorry if I wasn't clear - by "cooperative" I didn't mean that the administrators were somehow bending the rules, but only that transfers appeared to be widely available and that the administrators cooperated with requests.

Last year, Marshall had 155 transfers into the school and 109 transfers out. Did out-of-boundary students who wanted to participate in the IB program this school year get turned away? If so, that would be a big turnaround for the school. Its current stated capacity of 1,511 students is as low as it is because the school was under-enrolled for a long time, which led the county to put in Academy programs at Marshall years ago that are space-intensive and reduce the program capacity.