Swanson - new cohorting system?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are in college now and they had these cohorts when they were at Swanson. The benefit is that the teachers on a given team do collaborate to some degree - your kid won't end up with a math, science, and English test all on the same day - and the teachers can talk when there is a student have issues in one class to see if that's a problem in other classes. The downside is if kids are on different teams than their friends, they won't have any core classes with them. They still have lunch together and could have electives together. At W&L they still do these cohorts for 9th grade (called learning communities, or something - just designated by #). I think it does help a big school feel smaller since they often see the same kids in their classes.

Wakefield also does "houses" for freshmen.

[Anonymous]

Op here, as I predicted she is not with any of her friends. This weekend is going to be rough!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here, as I predicted she is not with any of her friends. This weekend is going to be rough!

It's just 3 classes- English, Social Studies, and Science. With 100 kids per team, there is a good chance her friends might not have been in her classes anyway. And you still have lunch, gym, band, choir, and all the other electives where she might be with her friends.

[Anonymous]

Teams have been around for years...where have you been, OP? They are the best way for teachers to discuss kids they have in common and make sure their social and emotional needs are being met.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teams have been around for years...where have you been, OP? They are the best way for teachers to discuss kids they have in common and make sure their social and emotional needs are being met.

Don't be rude. For those of us with rising 6th or 7th graders this wasn't a thing last year (or the year before apparently) so it seemed out of the blue. The more I think about it, the more I can see where it makes sense. I still don't see why they don't release schedules as they do at HB and the high schools. Withholding information seems like classic APS.

If parents call to complain, ignore them. If parents see a scheduling error such as the wrong math class or wrong elective, it can be fixed before the kid is in the midst of the first day. I've yet to hear a good reason why that information should be held back until Monday morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here, as I predicted she is not with any of her friends. This weekend is going to be rough!

It's just 3 classes- English, Social Studies, and Science. With 100 kids per team, there is a good chance her friends might not have been in her classes anyway. And you still have lunch, gym, band, choir, and all the other electives where she might be with her friends.

Oh absolutely, I know it's not a big deal! And last year she didn't have core classes with any of her friends either. The thing is that, being a 7th grader, she is going to think it's a big deal because of the labels, and turn a proverbial molehill into a mountain. I am just bracing myself, lol.

Honestly I think it'll be good for her to branch out and maybe make some new friends - she won't see it that way, but hopefully over time she is able to gain some perspective on stuff like this. (--OP)

[Anonymous]

In my DD's case, she was picked on last year and is dreading finding out whether she has any classes with girls that she wants to avoid. Knowing going in that she won't be with friends is adding to that stress. Let's face it, middle school is awful and having friendly faces around is important. If you don't remember that or your kid happens to be top of the social pyramid lucky you.

I'm reminding her that the team thing actually only means three classes plus Star so there's still a chance in the other half of the day to have existing friends while she works to make new ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teams have been around for years...where have you been, OP? They are the best way for teachers to discuss kids they have in common and make sure their social and emotional needs are being met.

Don't be rude. For those of us with rising 6th or 7th graders this wasn't a thing last year (or the year before apparently) so it seemed out of the blue. The more I think about it, the more I can see where it makes sense. I still don't see why they don't release schedules as they do at HB and the high schools. Withholding information seems like classic APS.

If parents call to complain, ignore them. If parents see a scheduling error such as the wrong math class or wrong elective, it can be fixed before the kid is in the midst of the first day. I've yet to hear a good reason why that information should be held back until Monday morning.

Parents calling to question, complain, request changes, etc. causes a lot of wasted time answering phones and returning messages that counselors and admin and teachers can be devoting to getting ready for the start of the year. And a high volume of such calls leads to ignoring the calls all together, not answering the phone and therefore legitimate or urgent phone calls don't even get answered.

FWIW, sometimes it's just as well that they dont release the schedules early because they're still working on them a few days before school begins. We had a call from my rising freshman's counselor last year informing us they had to make another elective choice which also required shifting other classes around - the Thursday before school started on Monday. Counselors are busy working...they aren't just sitting around waiting for students to identify schedule errors or preferences. Particularly for middle school, I wouldn't want to be pestered by the parents disputing their kid's math placement - which has been a lot of the problem in the past - or inappropriately requesting schedules by social cliques. People just want to know everything "right now" all the time. Maybe we should be better examples for our kids by modeling patience, flexibility, and "we'll find out soon, nothing we can do about it" coping mechanisms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 8th grader is grumpy about this change too, but I don't get what the big deal is. If the whole grade was mixing together like last year, you still might not have ended up in class with your friends either. I remember this change mentioned at the end of last year (maybe at PTA or School Board meeting?) as a way for the Swanson teachers to be able to better focus on addressing the kids who were causing the problems. For example, Taser Kid would have been assigned to a team of teachers who could have come up with a strategy to address his behavior collectively, and maybe it wouldn't have ended with a taser coming to school due to all the missed warning signals. Swanson was chaos last year in the 7th grade, so I am happy for the additional structure.

It is not a system devised in order to address the problem kids.
It is an academic system that facilitates teacher teams for collaboration, grouping kids for academic needs, creating a sense of a smaller community by attending most of your classes with some of the same kids, etc.
Don't blame it on taser kids.

Yup- this system is not unique to Swanson or even APS- my middle school in the mid 90s in a more rural part of VA had teamed cohorts. Ours were outer space themed!