When does advanced math start in AAP? CURRENT PARENTS ONLY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current 5th grader parent, prep for 7th started this year. Kid is subject-specific adv math, did adv last year in 4th, now on the two year adv track with the expectation that they'll be taking the 7th SOL at the end of 6th.

Hope that helps.

OP here - does this mean that if my child isn't in advanced math in 4th, we shouldn't bother with applying next year? We didn't apply this year - hemmed and hawed and missed the deadline. Clearly this parent isn't AAP material...

It depends on why your kid isn’t in advanced math. Each school is different in how the select gen ed kids for advanced math. Check with your kids teacher about your school’s process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current 5th grader parent, prep for 7th started this year. Kid is subject-specific adv math, did adv last year in 4th, now on the two year adv track with the expectation that they'll be taking the 7th SOL at the end of 6th.

Hope that helps.

OP here - does this mean that if my child isn't in advanced math in 4th, we shouldn't bother with applying next year? We didn't apply this year - hemmed and hawed and missed the deadline. Clearly this parent isn't AAP material...

It depends on why your kid isn’t in advanced math. Each school is different in how the select gen ed kids for advanced math. Check with your kids teacher about your school’s process.

This. At our school they pushed a bunch of kids into advanced math in 6th last year and it was fine. But some kids who were principal placed into AAP level IV in 4th (it's a center, but I know for a fact that they were principal placed) dropped back to gen ed everything in 5th. So it wildly varies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Teacher here. The 3rd AAP standards were cut down a lot. Like it is basically third grade math with extensions. This is from the county pacing guides.

It seems counterproductive for the county to slow the pacing of an “advanced” program. Shouldn’t the pacing be preparing a 3rd Grade AAP student to handle 4th Grade Advanced Math—which, according to the FCPS website, follows the regular 5th Grade curriculum? Have the standards been cut down for 4th Grade, or are they still following the Advanced Math pacing this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's an easy way to tell if your student is receiving accelerated math or not - look at their last report card. There's a box that will note they are being graded on above grade level standards. Our third grader is.

OP can correct me if I'm wrong, but OP is looking to see not if a kid is in advanced math, but if the current year 3rd grade advanced math curriculum is still accelerated the way it was in prior years. As you can see on this thread, reports are mixed and contradictory. Some people are claiming that the current 3rd grade advanced math standards still have kids go to half of 4th, while others are saying it's just extensions on general education. The report card checkbox won't answer that question. Only talking with school personnel probably will, because this is new this year with the new math standards.

Teacher here. The 3rd AAP standards were cut down a lot. Like it is basically third grade math with extensions. This is from the county pacing guides.

Are the extensions going deeper into 3rd grade content or do they go into 4th grade content?

[Anonymous]

Is E3 now being used at all non-center elementary schools for third grade? Has it exited the pilot stage and become official policy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Teacher here. The 3rd AAP standards were cut down a lot. Like it is basically third grade math with extensions. This is from the county pacing guides.

It seems counterproductive for the county to slow the pacing of an “advanced” program. Shouldn’t the pacing be preparing a 3rd Grade AAP student to handle 4th Grade Advanced Math—which, according to the FCPS website, follows the regular 5th Grade curriculum? Have the standards been cut down for 4th Grade, or are they still following the Advanced Math pacing this year?

Not teacher PP, but I assume the 4th grade standards will change to whatever E3 had next year. 5th grade I think (an E3 teacher can say for sure - I know there at least used to be some on here) is basically the same, but now they just have to cover a WHOLE lot more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Teacher here. The 3rd AAP standards were cut down a lot. Like it is basically third grade math with extensions. This is from the county pacing guides.

It seems counterproductive for the county to slow the pacing of an “advanced” program. Shouldn’t the pacing be preparing a 3rd Grade AAP student to handle 4th Grade Advanced Math—which, according to the FCPS website, follows the regular 5th Grade curriculum? Have the standards been cut down for 4th Grade, or are they still following the Advanced Math pacing this year?

Not teacher PP, but I assume the 4th grade standards will change to whatever E3 had next year. 5th grade I think (an E3 teacher can say for sure - I know there at least used to be some on here) is basically the same, but now they just have to cover a WHOLE lot more.

So do you think that E3 is the policy now for all non-center schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Teacher here. The 3rd AAP standards were cut down a lot. Like it is basically third grade math with extensions. This is from the county pacing guides.

It seems counterproductive for the county to slow the pacing of an “advanced” program. Shouldn’t the pacing be preparing a 3rd Grade AAP student to handle 4th Grade Advanced Math—which, according to the FCPS website, follows the regular 5th Grade curriculum? Have the standards been cut down for 4th Grade, or are they still following the Advanced Math pacing this year?

Not teacher PP, but I assume the 4th grade standards will change to whatever E3 had next year. 5th grade I think (an E3 teacher can say for sure - I know there at least used to be some on here) is basically the same, but now they just have to cover a WHOLE lot more.

So do you think that E3 is the policy now for all non-center schools?

It's really, really unclear because this board has reported being told different things, but given 3rd grade teacher PP plus a historical comparison of last year's standards to this, it sure SEEMS likely that E3 is now advanced math EVERYWHERE starting with this 3rd grade cohort (4th and up are under the old standards). If anyone gets Kristen Maloney or the math lead for FCPS on the phone and asks, please do report back.

Some people say they were told last year that E3 would go everywhere this year. Some say they were told the standards have changed. Some say they were told the standards are still half of 4th grade math this year. Would be nice for interested parents to know.

FWIW there was one person on here who said she taught advanced math without E3 and then at an E3 pilot. She said 5th graders generally did better on the 6th grade SOL in E3....I hate the idea of E3 with a passion but if it's working, then it's working.

[Anonymous]

The State of Virginia changed the math curriculum requirements and that is what is being taught now. Advanced Math continues but the curriculum has changed to reflect the new curriculum for third, fourth, and fifth grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The State of Virginia changed the math curriculum requirements and that is what is being taught now. Advanced Math continues but the curriculum has changed to reflect the new curriculum for third, fourth, and fifth grade.

There was a thread comparing the standards. The changes in 3rd grade advanced math ARE SUBSTANTIALLY different than the changes in the math standards at the state level. The current 3rd grade advanced math standards include incredibly little (certainly not half) of the 4th grade math standards at the state level. This is different than prior 3rd grade advanced math standards compared to 3rd grade state-level standards.

Virginia's updated standards, which I know happens every 7 years or whatever, do not entirely explain the changes to the 3rd grade standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The State of Virginia changed the math curriculum requirements and that is what is being taught now. Advanced Math continues but the curriculum has changed to reflect the new curriculum for third, fourth, and fifth grade.

There was a thread comparing the standards. The changes in 3rd grade advanced math ARE SUBSTANTIALLY different than the changes in the math standards at the state level. The current 3rd grade advanced math standards include incredibly little (certainly not half) of the 4th grade math standards at the state level. This is different than prior 3rd grade advanced math standards compared to 3rd grade state-level standards.

Virginia's updated standards, which I know happens every 7 years or whatever, do not entirely explain the changes to the 3rd grade standards.

There were some changes in the content of 3rd grade standards in the recent 2023 SOL update. On the plus side, the new standards call for students to memorize their multiplication and division facts, something the prior standards did not. On the negative side, they eliminated multiplying a two-digit number by a one-digit number, +/- of fractions with like denominators, and added data literacy projects (as VMPI had called for).

However, on top of the standards changes, there is the issue that the PP raises above which is whether FCPS has moved away from covering half of 4th grade SOL content in advanced 3rd grade math and is instead moving to implement E3 broadly. It would be strategic to implement E3 at the same time that the standards change so that it would be harder for the public to know what is driving the content changes. Also, remember that the original intention was to implement VMPI with the 2023 SOL update and E3 was likely always a part of FCPS's VMPI plan. While the state VMPI proposal was ended, FCPS could still implement the parts of VMPI under its control, like E3.

[Anonymous]

The FCPS website has the same pacing across all 3rd Grade (AAP has extensions for some topics), which seems to align with a broad E3 implementation that has been adopted with the new SOL in 2024-2025.

IMO, combining E3 for the entire grade level seems absurd. There’s better ways to offer flexible entry points into advanced math for those who acquire the knowledge in later years, without holding back AAP students that have demonstrated proficiency at least 1-2 grade levels higher than the new SOL for math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The FCPS website has the same pacing across all 3rd Grade (AAP has extensions for some topics), which seems to align with a broad E3 implementation that has been adopted with the new SOL in 2024-2025.

IMO, combining E3 for the entire grade level seems absurd. There’s better ways to offer flexible entry points into advanced math for those who acquire the knowledge in later years, without holding back AAP students that have demonstrated proficiency at least 1-2 grade levels higher than the new SOL for math.

Well, if so, FCPS's strategy of providing no information on E3 during its pilot stages paid off; they were able to end accelerated pacing of math in grades 3 and 4 without any public uproar. They learned from VMPI. Sneak it in slowly and people won't notice. Why isn't this a bigger issue at the centers in particular?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The FCPS website has the same pacing across all 3rd Grade (AAP has extensions for some topics), which seems to align with a broad E3 implementation that has been adopted with the new SOL in 2024-2025.

IMO, combining E3 for the entire grade level seems absurd. There’s better ways to offer flexible entry points into advanced math for those who acquire the knowledge in later years, without holding back AAP students that have demonstrated proficiency at least 1-2 grade levels higher than the new SOL for math.

Well, if so, FCPS's strategy of providing no information on E3 during its pilot stages paid off; they were able to end accelerated pacing of math in grades 3 and 4 without any public uproar. They learned from VMPI. Sneak it in slowly and people won't notice. Why isn't this a bigger issue at the centers in particular?

Probably because most people are fine with kids taking Algebra 1 in 8th grade, like the vast majority of the Country, and there is still a path for kids to take Algebra 1 in 7th grade. It's a big nothing burger except for a few Type A tiger parents who think that their kid is falling behind because they are not taking Algebra 1 in 6th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The FCPS website has the same pacing across all 3rd Grade (AAP has extensions for some topics), which seems to align with a broad E3 implementation that has been adopted with the new SOL in 2024-2025.

IMO, combining E3 for the entire grade level seems absurd. There’s better ways to offer flexible entry points into advanced math for those who acquire the knowledge in later years, without holding back AAP students that have demonstrated proficiency at least 1-2 grade levels higher than the new SOL for math.

Well, if so, FCPS's strategy of providing no information on E3 during its pilot stages paid off; they were able to end accelerated pacing of math in grades 3 and 4 without any public uproar. They learned from VMPI. Sneak it in slowly and people won't notice. Why isn't this a bigger issue at the centers in particular?

Probably because most people are fine with kids taking Algebra 1 in 8th grade, like the vast majority of the Country, and there is still a path for kids to take Algebra 1 in 7th grade. It's a big nothing burger except for a few Type A tiger parents who think that their kid is falling behind because they are not taking Algebra 1 in 6th grade.

This is about students being able to take and thrive in 7th grade Algebra 1. Compaction for them will come later and be more rushed. Those student that prepare outside of school will be fine; those that rely on school for acceleration will likely qualify in fewer numbers. Families may not realize that FCPS has made this change and unfortunately may not find it out until their students take an SOL in 5th grade.