Forum Index
»
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
FCPS Boundary Review Updates
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
100% this! |
Anonymous
My perspective is there are some people who dislike any AAP programs, and others who dislike AAP as administered in FCPS, and that to the extent they want to rehash their objections without tying it to the boundary review it would be more appropriate if they did so on another thread. However, at the same time, I can also appreciate that AAP programs can affect enrollments and that, at a time when FCPS is considering boundary changes, a sound argument can be made that FCPS should specifically weigh in on whether it wants to preserve or change the current AAP model before floating scenarios to change boundaries. I can also appreciate that some people may have specifically sought out AAP centers, or sought to avoid AAP centers, and they might feel nonplussed if they get redistricted into a school that they specifically sought to avoid. That would particularly be the case in a situation where they were redistricted in connection with an effort to relieve overcrowding at an AAP center, and where the potential result might be that they were redistricted in a school that they had sought to avoid and had no options, whereas AAP families continued to have options unavailable to them. I do not doubt that some families have benefited from the AAP center model but, at least at the middle school level, I don't see any reason why every middle school could not support a viable LLIV program. Personally, we are at a school that, at one point, served AAP kids from several pyramids. When FCPS proposed to open a new AAP center at a different school, families protested at first that the AAP program could not possibly be as good as at our school. However, it did not take long at all before families were equally happy at the new AAP center (for which they were already zoned), and overall I felt the environment at our school improved when more families had a stronger connection to the pyramid and were less mercenary about only seeing our AAP center as a stop on their potential way to TJHSST. As for whether FCPS is interested in adjusting AAP programs as part of the boundary review, it strikes me that the verdict is still out on that, although they certainly haven't gone about it the right way if that was their intent. As I said, our SB member told a group recently that she thought every middle school should have AAP, and that AAP centers that drew from multiple middle schools should be discontinued. And she did so in connection with a discussion of the boundary review and whether FCPS was putting the proverbial cart before the horse by asking Thru to develop boundary scenarios before the School Board had really concluded on issues such as 5-8 middle schools and the future of AAP and IB. If other SB members end up sharing their view, they could end up asking Thru to develop new scenarios or refine the scenarios that have already been released. Either way, if none of these issues get revisited, and the SB just assumes that it can impose the same type of county-wide boundary changes that occurred back in the 1980s on families, they are going to be in for a rude awakening because FCPS in the mid-80s was a very different beast. The schools were more uniform when it came to both academics and demographics, and they didn't have as many specialized programs that families either might seek out or deliberately seek to avoid as is the case today. |
Anonymous
|
I think this AAP in middle school thing goes back to the days of GT centers. There were not as many kids involved as in the current AAP centers because it was a truly select group--unlike today.
But, today, with so many kids involved in some areas, it does need to be addressed along with the boundaries because it involves a good portion of the student population. You cannot shift base schools without considering where the AAP students will be. |
Anonymous
Yeah it is. $4 million (half the as the other half is for elementary) is a drop in the bucket. I think the getting kids into AAP to adjust class sizes happens more in LLIV. It never happened at our AAP center. It is also our home school and several parents were denied entry into AAP even with appeals. |
Anonymous
$8 million could hire an awful lot of teachers. Do the math. |
Anonymous
Yes, I'm confused about why that PP is insisting that the non-AAP kids need to be at an AAP center, too. They'll be in general ed classes either way. It seems to me that it would make the most sense for the kids who are in AAP (and let's be real, this is a very small number of kids - 10 at most in AAP) to be able to stay at Navy and everyone else to be able to go to the same school as their surrounding neighbors in Franklin Farm and the neighborhoods it is connected to via Ashburton Ave. This is why I'm thinking the reason they're moving these kids to Oak Hill is solely because Franklin is under capacity so they want those kids to stay zoned to Franklin. |
Anonymous
Why TF do people think parents at this one school are so important? Who cares what they think??? It's also literally 5 streets. There can't be that many kids on those streets. |
Anonymous
It's absurd to "fix" an attendance island by rezoning an entire neighborhood to a whole new school pyramid. |
Anonymous
To be fair, the majority of th Shrevewood kids live in that one neighborhood. It's already very "elite" so moving it wouldn't make much of a difference in parental snobbery. |
Anonymous
But isn't it hard on the kids who make friends at Carson and then end up in a different high school where everyone has been together since middle school? |
Anonymous
And schools like Lewis only have single digits of students (like a half dozen or fewer) earning the IB diploma, so the expensive program is basically FCPS throwing bags of hundred dollar bills off the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. IB only exists to give families a way to easily transfer out of low quality schools for AP. Almost no students transfer from AP schools to IB schools. Except for Robinson, none of the IB programs are successful and very few students want IB. Robinson is the only IB school in FCPS that has more than 100 students achieving the IB diploma. |
Anonymous
Not if you use the IB to AP loophole. Lewis, for example, loses almost 300 students each year to AP. If Lewis was AP instead of IB, Lewis would be just below capacity AND have much higher test scores, perhaps significantly higher. |
Anonymous
YES - when we were house hunting 10 years ago, it was so weird to see the schools listed in the description as "Navy ES, Franklin OR Carson MS, Oakton HS" like it was a choice. It's not a choice, your kid has to get into AAP first, but from what I've read here, almost everyone at Navy gets into AAP. There is definitely something fishy going on at that school. No other centers have more AAP classes than general education with only one school feeding in 5 students at most each year. |
Anonymous
|
And 164 transfer from Herndon to South Lakes. Presumably for IB.
It just occurred to me that South Lakes likely does not want the change because it would take higher achieving students out of South Lakes back to Herndon. Get rid of IB now. See if that solves the problem. It saves lots of $$ and why move other kids in when it is a simple solution. |
Anonymous
The majority of the Shrevewood kids don’t live in that neighborhood. If they did, moving it would have a bigger impact on the Longfellow/McLean numbers than indicated. If they want to move and don’t mind being in the minority at a new split feeder at Shrevewood, fine, but it’s weird to fix one purported “problem” (an attendance island) by creating another one (a new split feeder). |