President's Education Award

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All As.

There are no As in ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone get these?

The biggest bar to getting these is needing a pass advanced on either the math or the reading 5th grade SOL. They waive this requirement for kids who transferred into FCPS in 6th. They may have also waived it in the last two years due to the pandemic. The requirements for the report card are trivial, and almost every kid would qualify.

When my DD had her end of year ceremony for 6th grade several years ago in a non-AAP school, about 20 out of 100 kids got the award. 6 of the kids were actually very smart with good grades and pass advanced on the SOLs. The remainder were completely average kids who transferred into the school and had the SOL requirement waived. A lot of above average kids didn't get the award, because they had very high grades but didn't manage a pass advanced on either of the SOLs.

in AAP, everyone should get the award. Kids who can't manage a pass advanced on either the math or reading SOL or who can't manage to get a 3+ on 80% of the core grades don't belong in AAP.

This is so false!!! My kid got one and they’ve failed their SOLs (or one of them) for every year at the school (minus pandemic year). They still got one this year and they most certainly didn’t Pass Advanced.

Politics will sometimes play a part as well

[Anonymous]

My DC is finishing 5th grade AAP. One pass advanced this year (and previous years) and almost all 4s on his report card. Do all ES schools do this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is very strange that parents posting here seem to know the private grades and SOL scores of an entire graduating class.

Kids talk. I don't know everyone's scores, but I have some awareness of the scores of the kids who shared, because DD tells me these things.

[Anonymous]

OK well I don't know about anyone else's grade but I do know my kids. They mostly have 3s. Have failed an SOL in previous years, have an IEP and they still got one. Not sure what the politics would be. Other kids with IEPs didn't get one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK well I don't know about anyone else's grade but I do know my kids. They mostly have 3s. Have failed an SOL in previous years, have an IEP and they still got one. Not sure what the politics would be. Other kids with IEPs didn't get one.

If a principal doesn’t want a kid to receive the award because he doesn’t like something about that kid, the kid won’t get that award. This would be an example of politics and this does occur at certain AAP centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child earned all As on their final report card and did not receive the award, but I know others at their school did. I have no idea what criteria their school used.

At our school we get a list of kids who are eligible for the Excellence Awards. We then decided who gets the achievement awards.

Does the principal have any say when it comes to this decision?

Sounds arbitrary especially when compared to schools that don't do this.

I teach AAP, we give it to all the kids who are in the eligibility list. So it’s over half the grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK well I don't know about anyone else's grade but I do know my kids. They mostly have 3s. Have failed an SOL in previous years, have an IEP and they still got one. Not sure what the politics would be. Other kids with IEPs didn't get one.

Was it the gold or silver? The silver has MUCH lower criteria…like they try hard…

[Anonymous]

Interesting. So we know a family who has a top rate student in 6th grade AAP. Their son did not receive the award at the 6th grade promotion ceremony. The family was dumbfounded considering how well their student has performed (All years: Pass advance SOLs and practically straight 4's) with eligibility for Algebra 1 honors.

They reached out to the principal afterwards to get an understanding on the criteria. The principal said that scores, report cards are entered into a "system" which then computes recipients.

The principal had a look at the recipient list and verified that our family friends child was infact a recipient of the award.

My question is how can a school make such a mistake!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. So we know a family who has a top rate student in 6th grade AAP. Their son did not receive the award at the 6th grade promotion ceremony. The family was dumbfounded considering how well their student has performed (All years: Pass advance SOLs and practically straight 4's) with eligibility for Algebra 1 honors.

They reached out to the principal afterwards to get an understanding on the criteria. The principal said that scores, report cards are entered into a "system" which then computes recipients.

The principal had a look at the recipient list and verified that our family friends child was infact a recipient of the award.

My question is how can a school make such a mistake!

Hahaha, what a story Mark!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. So we know a family who has a top rate student in 6th grade AAP. Their son did not receive the award at the 6th grade promotion ceremony. The family was dumbfounded considering how well their student has performed (All years: Pass advance SOLs and practically straight 4's) with eligibility for Algebra 1 honors.

They reached out to the principal afterwards to get an understanding on the criteria. The principal said that scores, report cards are entered into a "system" which then computes recipients.

The principal had a look at the recipient list and verified that our family friends child was infact a recipient of the award.

My question is how can a school make such a mistake!

My son mentioned that a student in his AAP class was recognized the day after the promotion ceremony with the award. The principal along with the assistant principals presented the award in class and apologized to the student and admitted their mistake in front the of the class and teacher.

I wonder if this is the same situation mentioned above.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a common problem with the system. 2 years ago, the day after virtual graduation, the school put out a list of corrections for this award. Apparently, five kids were omitted from the list. My DD had all 4s on the report card and pass advanced on every single SOL, but was still omitted from the list from Gatehouse.

[Anonymous]

At DD’s school, this award was in the envelope they received at graduation that had all their certificates. There were VERY few awards given out at the promotion ceremony, which kept it brief, for which we are all thankful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who had 6th graders this year, how many received this award during the 6th grade graduation ceremony? What is the criteria for this award and if your student didn't receive it what does that mean? Are they at the bottom of their AAP class?

Center AAP (50-55 studnets). Almost all in my DC class and about half in other. Almost nil from non-app class.
Don't think all got 4.0 gpa but don't know the actual criteria as how these kids were selected. MAde no sense!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who had 6th graders this year, how many received this award during the 6th grade graduation ceremony? What is the criteria for this award and if your student didn't receive it what does that mean? Are they at the bottom of their AAP class?

Center AAP (50-55 studnets). Almost all in my DC class and about half in other. Almost nil from non-app class.
Don't think all got 4.0 gpa but don't know the actual criteria as how these kids were selected. MAde no sense!

This was my observation as well few years ago. More than half the AAP classes received the award, where as only 1 to 2 kids from non AAP classes received it. I wasn't expecting so much difference in AAP vs non-AAP as advanced math (only thing that matters in AAP) has no extra weight while calculating the eligibility for the award. Are AAP kids really that far ahead compared to non-AAP?