Algebra in 6th grade - new selection process?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like another Reid fiasco.

Well aren’t scores from the former Seattle district plummeting. Lowest in the nation. So yeah, no surprise that math is getting set up to fail here too.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Does Navy offer Algebra 1 for 6th grade?

Yes and they just took the best teacher from other students for it.

Why can’t he teach both classes?? Makes no sense. Really poor decision by the admin.

Yes. Navy should have him teach both classes. The teacher last year did not teach the kids, just gave ST math and videos. I don't think the new principal cares about the pre Algebra class. The parents now have to teach their kids since the new teacher will not jsut like last year.

The 5th grade teacher (now 6th) made it very clear she did not like any of the students. She was cruel and very mean. I pray for our kids getting her again.

The new teacher is using ST math and didn't teach one thing at all. That is a useless computer program that was only used during COVID and she used it ALL last year. The kids spend hours and hours trying to finish ST math and gain nothing at all. This is completely failure of teaching. The new principal at Navy has failed the AAP pre algebra students by assigning this terrible teacher. She failed our kids last year and is now going to throw useless bad computer programs instead of teaching them. These students should have been give the good proven teacher or had an option of algebra. They are all smart enough to do it.

Navy has completely failed its students this year with the setup. No communications on the process or anything. The principal ought to hold an info session for parents since they decided to drop this on everyone last minute with no explanation and are setting all kids up for failure!

Oh sweetie, every year Navy "has completely failed its student". You parents are like a broken record.

Navy teacher obviously. Wonder which one. 🙄

OMG no, just a regular mom at a normal school wondering why Navy parents are so crazy. You're the only parents we hear from on a regular basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school had a presentation from the county tonight, and it almost felt like they were trying to talk us all out of doing it.

Takeaways:

No materials are being provided to teachers by the county except mathspace accounts.

No data will be provided to parents on skipped standards or weak prealgebra skills until MAP data comes in a few weeks, and then they aren’t sure how much information that will provide since it hasn’t been used in elementary before.

The threshold to take algebra this year in 6th is lower than in the past. They could not explain why it was chosen, what the numbers mean, or why they think children at that threshold will be successful.

There is no plan going forward to streamline 3/4/5th grade so that future kids don’t skip 2 years of math to take algebra in 6th. The goal is to get everyone regardless of AAP on a track to algebra in 8th and just move to algebra earlier if they score high on whatever tests.

They chose to automatically opt in instead of have parents opt in because “not all parents read school communications” (our parent community was ticked at this and very much argued that going forward families should not be auto enrolled). Feedback was “county is just trying to remove all barriers to algebra 1 in 6th grade”.

I’m disheartened at how poorly this is being done.

I felt bad, the presenters clearly thought the program was unnecessary and have been handed this mandate from Reid. But at the same time…man, it’s horribly done.

This is completely contrary to what we were told just last week. At that session, we were assured that Dr. Hunter and her team would provide teachers with all curriculum materials—since many have never taught this course before—and that Mathspace would be used only as a supplement, not as the sole resource. They also said that both formative and summative assessments would be developed and provided by the instructional team. If yesterday’s session at your school communicated something different, then a lot has changed in just a week.

I’m also still waiting for clarification on a critical issue: whether students will need a 7th grade Math SOL score on file in order to retake Algebra 1 HN in 7th grade if they choose to expunge their grade. The deadline to opt out is tomorrow, and I still don’t have an answer. Right now, the stated requirements for Algebra 1 HN in 7th grade are (1) being in an advanced math program or having taken 7th grade math and (2) earning an advanced pass on the 7th grade SOL. But students in this pilot won’t have that SOL score, because they’ll be taking the Algebra 1 SOL instead. https://www.fcps.edu/academics/advanced-academic-programs-aap/middle/honors-grades-7-8

It is extremely problematic that FCPS keeps touting expungement as a safeguard while leaving this question unresolved. It points to how poorly thought out the implementation of this pilot has been. Parents who assume their child can simply expunge and retake Algebra 1 HN in 7th grade should beware: unless FCPS removes the 7th grade SOL requirement, these students may be pushed into taking Algebra 1 HN in 8th grade instead—when they otherwise would have had the right to take it in 7th.

For families where STEM math sequencing is important, this creates a serious risk. And, given how FCPS tends to handle these issues, I worry we won’t get a definitive answer until June—at which point they may simply announce that any student who wants to retake Algebra 1 HN in 7th will be required to take the 7th grade SOL in July (make-up session) and earn an advanced pass, despite not having studied 7th grade math during the year.

A total mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does Navy offer Algebra 1 for 6th grade?

Yes and they just took the best teacher from other students for it.

Why can’t he teach both classes?? Makes no sense. Really poor decision by the admin.

Yes. Navy should have him teach both classes. The teacher last year did not teach the kids, just gave ST math and videos. I don't think the new principal cares about the pre Algebra class. The parents now have to teach their kids since the new teacher will not jsut like last year.

The 5th grade teacher (now 6th) made it very clear she did not like any of the students. She was cruel and very mean. I pray for our kids getting her again.

The new teacher is using ST math and didn't teach one thing at all. That is a useless computer program that was only used during COVID and she used it ALL last year. The kids spend hours and hours trying to finish ST math and gain nothing at all. This is completely failure of teaching. The new principal at Navy has failed the AAP pre algebra students by assigning this terrible teacher. She failed our kids last year and is now going to throw useless bad computer programs instead of teaching them. These students should have been give the good proven teacher or had an option of algebra. They are all smart enough to do it.

Navy has completely failed its students this year with the setup. No communications on the process or anything. The principal ought to hold an info session for parents since they decided to drop this on everyone last minute with no explanation and are setting all kids up for failure!

Oh sweetie, every year Navy "has completely failed its student". You parents are like a broken record.

Navy teacher obviously. Wonder which one. 🙄

OMG no, just a regular mom at a normal school wondering why Navy parents are so crazy. You're the only parents we hear from on a regular basis.

Please! Navy teachers have been lurking on these blogs pretending to be some innocent bystanders. But in reality you are a saboteur trying to undermine our kids education for your own benefit.

[Anonymous]

PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL TO THE SUBJECT OF THIS THREAD--IT IS NOT ABOUT NAVY. PLEASE DO NOT ENGAGE AND KEEP THIS GOING.

This thread should be used as a way to share information regarding the pilot program because parents may be hearing different things from different schools implementing the program. The thread should be used for that only.

[Anonymous]

FYI, since this seems to be misunderstood on this thread: when you expunge a middle school grade, you do not have to retake the course. You may choose to, but you don’t have to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:All along FCPS has said the iready isn’t used for anything but here we are determining if a kid should take algebra in 6th based at least in large part on an iready, a test which even teachers hate and don’t emphasize.

This is a really good point. Iready should not be used to determine anything since we have always been told that it is not used in any determinations. Now they are using it and nobody knew. This is not a reasonable measure for placement into Algebra. They should only use the SOLs and have a well defined requirement. This stinks of "wholistic" selection bias all over again.

At our ES iReady has been used to determine placement of kids not in full-time AAP into advanced math for at least 3 years now...and they publically said so.

No, my child entered AAP in the last three years and they didn’t even have an iready at the time of application. It is also not listed as one of the scores considered on FCPS AAP website such as nnat or cogat. It was initially introduced as a tool to align with SOLs and see where student gaps existed. Even our ES said it’s merely a tool to see where kids may need help. The FCPS website states:

The iReady Reading test is used in FCPS as a screening and growth tool to help teachers understand students' strengths and areas for support. The iReady Reading test helps teachers monitor the growth of every student in learning the content knowledge and skills of the state standards, regardless of their starting point.

It has never been relied upon as a standardized assessment tool for advanced math placement. FCPS merely pulled this metric out of nowhere to implement a disorganized unplanned pilot program that even the schools didn’t know about. Isn’t that why some schools declined to participate in the pilot or administered an additional test to confirm the student is a good fit. If anything they should administer the IAAT test to confirm 6th grade eligibility.

I'm telling you at our school for principal placement into advanced math it absolutely was. For years.

I know that the iReady was used as part of how students were determined to participate in Advanced math at our ES. We did not have a local LIV program. The school used iReadys, SOL scores (after 3rd grade), grades, and teacher evaluations. The AART was upfront about it, and the kids were told that iReadys were used as a criterion. There was also a screening test at the beginning of the year to confirm who should be in that class. A little over 25% of the school qualified for Advanced Math and a large percentage of that group qualified for Algebra 1H in 7th grade.

I know other parents have discussed their schools Advanced Math criteria and iReady was always cited as one of the criteria. There is not a county wide criterion for Advanced Math but pretty much everyone who has posted on the matter mentioned that the AART included the iReady as one measure.

We know families whose kids missed on one of the criteria but were placed in Advanced Math because they hit the other criteria. The missed criteria tended to be classroom behavior, the parents bemoanded the number of times they were called to the school. The kids in question were smart and good at math, they ended up in Advanced Math even when teachers threatened that their behavior would keep them out of the program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FYI, since this seems to be misunderstood on this thread: when you expunge a middle school grade, you do not have to retake the course. You may choose to, but you don’t have to.

So you get the credit (if you pass) but you don't get to see the grade--is this what you mean? Because you'd need the credit from the class, so just want to make sure we understand this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI, since this seems to be misunderstood on this thread: when you expunge a middle school grade, you do not have to retake the course. You may choose to, but you don’t have to.

So you get the credit (if you pass) but you don't get to see the grade--is this what you mean? Because you'd need the credit from the class, so just want to make sure we understand this.

Colleges will know that means it wasn’t a good grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FYI, since this seems to be misunderstood on this thread: when you expunge a middle school grade, you do not have to retake the course. You may choose to, but you don’t have to.

Yeah, but it looks really bad on a transcript, especially for students planning to pursue STEM majors. Also, if the grade is bad enough that you need to expunge, then the student should probably repeat the course bc they lack fundamental understanding of the content, which will cause problems in more advanced math courses.

[Anonymous]

Parents should take this decision seriously. You now have lesser qualified teachers teaching a foundational algebra class without any prior pre algebra prep. You may get by now but the gaps will show up. They will show up in 2-3 yrs time. Opt out unless your kid is truly a math genius

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school had a presentation from the county tonight, and it almost felt like they were trying to talk us all out of doing it.

Takeaways:

No materials are being provided to teachers by the county except mathspace accounts.

No data will be provided to parents on skipped standards or weak prealgebra skills until MAP data comes in a few weeks, and then they aren’t sure how much information that will provide since it hasn’t been used in elementary before.

The threshold to take algebra this year in 6th is lower than in the past. They could not explain why it was chosen, what the numbers mean, or why they think children at that threshold will be successful.

There is no plan going forward to streamline 3/4/5th grade so that future kids don’t skip 2 years of math to take algebra in 6th. The goal is to get everyone regardless of AAP on a track to algebra in 8th and just move to algebra earlier if they score high on whatever tests.

They chose to automatically opt in instead of have parents opt in because “not all parents read school communications” (our parent community was ticked at this and very much argued that going forward families should not be auto enrolled). Feedback was “county is just trying to remove all barriers to algebra 1 in 6th grade”.

I’m disheartened at how poorly this is being done.

I felt bad, the presenters clearly thought the program was unnecessary and have been handed this mandate from Reid. But at the same time…man, it’s horribly done.

This is completely contrary to what we were told just last week. At that session, we were assured that Dr. Hunter and her team would provide teachers with all curriculum materials—since many have never taught this course before—and that Mathspace would be used only as a supplement, not as the sole resource. They also said that both formative and summative assessments would be developed and provided by the instructional team. If yesterday’s session at your school communicated something different, then a lot has changed in just a week.

I’m also still waiting for clarification on a critical issue: whether students will need a 7th grade Math SOL score on file in order to retake Algebra 1 HN in 7th grade if they choose to expunge their grade. The deadline to opt out is tomorrow, and I still don’t have an answer. Right now, the stated requirements for Algebra 1 HN in 7th grade are (1) being in an advanced math program or having taken 7th grade math and (2) earning an advanced pass on the 7th grade SOL. But students in this pilot won’t have that SOL score, because they’ll be taking the Algebra 1 SOL instead. https://www.fcps.edu/academics/advanced-academic-programs-aap/middle/honors-grades-7-8

It is extremely problematic that FCPS keeps touting expungement as a safeguard while leaving this question unresolved. It points to how poorly thought out the implementation of this pilot has been. Parents who assume their child can simply expunge and retake Algebra 1 HN in 7th grade should beware: unless FCPS removes the 7th grade SOL requirement, these students may be pushed into taking Algebra 1 HN in 8th grade instead—when they otherwise would have had the right to take it in 7th.

For families where STEM math sequencing is important, this creates a serious risk. And, given how FCPS tends to handle these issues, I worry we won’t get a definitive answer until June—at which point they may simply announce that any student who wants to retake Algebra 1 HN in 7th will be required to take the 7th grade SOL in July (make-up session) and earn an advanced pass, despite not having studied 7th grade math during the year.

A total mess.

Was Dr. Hunter at your meeting? She was "unable to attend" ours, so it was just two Ellens (1 said she'd been in the position 1 month, the other said 9 months. Read: We aren't responsible for this cluster!) I'd put more faith in Dr. Hunter's own words.

One of the Ellens said "FCPS has always provided a full suite of resources to all our teachers. Middle and high school teachers just don't like to use them and make their own. Our elementary school teachers have a history of using what the county provides." Except we know that's a lie and middle and high school math teachers have NOT gotten a full suite of resources, they have random links in a pdf and a log in to mathspace, so if that is what is being given to elementary teachers, God speed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents should take this decision seriously. You now have lesser qualified teachers teaching a foundational algebra class without any prior pre algebra prep. You may get by now but the gaps will show up. They will show up in 2-3 yrs time. Opt out unless your kid is truly a math genius

We were going to opt out but then our principal (yes Navy) took away the best teacher for pre Algebra AAP and replaced it with a choice that many parents are upset about (and for good reason). As a result, we had no choice but to put our child into the new Algebra program. It's the lesser of two bad choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI, since this seems to be misunderstood on this thread: when you expunge a middle school grade, you do not have to retake the course. You may choose to, but you don’t have to.

So you get the credit (if you pass) but you don't get to see the grade--is this what you mean? Because you'd need the credit from the class, so just want to make sure we understand this.

Colleges will know that means it wasn’t a good grade

Colleges are not going to care about any grades from middle school. Heck, a lot of colleges discount grades from 9th grade when they recompute GPAs.

The bigger issue is that if the grade is poor enough to expunge, the kid will struggle in Algebra II or pre-calc. I'm not sure that I would place a child in FCPS 6th grade Algebra without also having the kid take Algebra through RSM or AoPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI, since this seems to be misunderstood on this thread: when you expunge a middle school grade, you do not have to retake the course. You may choose to, but you don’t have to.

So you get the credit (if you pass) but you don't get to see the grade--is this what you mean? Because you'd need the credit from the class, so just want to make sure we understand this.

Colleges will know that means it wasn’t a good grade

Colleges are not going to care about any grades from middle school. Heck, a lot of colleges discount grades from 9th grade when they recompute GPAs.

The bigger issue is that if the grade is poor enough to expunge, the kid will struggle in Algebra II or pre-calc. I'm not sure that I would place a child in FCPS 6th grade Algebra without also having the kid take Algebra through RSM or AoPS.

I agree with your second part, but I know for fact the colleges care. It is absolutely a red flag to not have a grade for a math class. They look very closely at course selection, grades for all high school courses. Expunge at your own risk.