MAP R & MAP P score to get into MS magnet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honest question as a fellow 4th grade parent — will these programs exist when our kids are trying for them next year? We’re currently in a CES and it’s been such a wonderful experience we really hope to get into the MS programs…

By the scores here my kid should qualify, so it’s a matter of the lottery and whether this will actually exist….

The CES kids are evaluated as part of the cohort from their CES elementary not their home elementary. They’re not going to take 10-15 kids from the same ES in the MS magnet programs. At least, my kid who went to CES did not get offered a MS magnet option. My less academically inclined but still solid student who did not get into or go to CES got offered MS magnet seats in the summer out of the wait pool. We declined. All of the CES kids from my non-CES kid’s grade in our neighborhood ES came back for MS and did not go to MS magnet.

Because they are no longer application programs I think there are a lot more first round admittees who decline. At least a couple years ago there seemed to be a lot of wait pool movement.

There are a bunch of incorrect things in the first paragraph here. The middle school magnet admission process does not artificially limit the number of kids coming from a specific elementary school. Placement in the lottery is solely based on grades and locally normed MAP scores (which are different based on the FARMS level of the elementary school - and the zoned elementary school is used, not the CES elementary, if different). Once a student is placed in either or both lotteries, selection is just that - a lottery. Note that for TMPS, some seats are reserved for students who are in boundary for TPMS; not sure if Eastern works the same way.

FWIW, I can think of at least 10 students from my kid's CES elementary who are in one of the two magnet middle school programs (and likely more that I don't know, and more still who got in the pool but did not get an offer or declined an offer). So it's possible and in fact highly probable that a good portion of students in 5th grade CES will make one or both lotteries (especially when you consider they needed a minimum normed MAP-R score to be in CES in the first place - and scores vary year to year but not by that much).

In-bounds TPMS has been given 25 program seats/year. When considering proportionality to the incoming populations in-bounds and for the rest of the lower county magnet catchment, it has afforded in-bounds TPMS students several times the likelihood of receiving that enriched programming. On top of that, any drops from the program after 6th grade starts have been filled by those going to TPMS already.

Separately, in addition to local norming, individual students receiving services (individual FARMS or EML status, 504 accommodation or IEP) have had a lower bar for their locally normed MAP to be placed in the lottery pools for the past several years. That is for any of the CESs or criteria-based MS magnets, not just TPMS, and the reasoning behind that (and local norming itself) has been discussed in many prior threads.

They don't give them the seats. Those seats aren't part of the program. If the they removed them they wouldn't increase the size of the program since they are from the local schools allocation.

Wait, the local Takoma Park magnet kids aren't in the regular magnet program? They take separate classes? I thought they were all combined in the same program and took the same classes, and it was just that local kids had a better chance of getting in than kids elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honest question as a fellow 4th grade parent — will these programs exist when our kids are trying for them next year? We’re currently in a CES and it’s been such a wonderful experience we really hope to get into the MS programs…

By the scores here my kid should qualify, so it’s a matter of the lottery and whether this will actually exist….

The CES kids are evaluated as part of the cohort from their CES elementary not their home elementary. They’re not going to take 10-15 kids from the same ES in the MS magnet programs. At least, my kid who went to CES did not get offered a MS magnet option. My less academically inclined but still solid student who did not get into or go to CES got offered MS magnet seats in the summer out of the wait pool. We declined. All of the CES kids from my non-CES kid’s grade in our neighborhood ES came back for MS and did not go to MS magnet.

Because they are no longer application programs I think there are a lot more first round admittees who decline. At least a couple years ago there seemed to be a lot of wait pool movement.

There are a bunch of incorrect things in the first paragraph here. The middle school magnet admission process does not artificially limit the number of kids coming from a specific elementary school. Placement in the lottery is solely based on grades and locally normed MAP scores (which are different based on the FARMS level of the elementary school - and the zoned elementary school is used, not the CES elementary, if different). Once a student is placed in either or both lotteries, selection is just that - a lottery. Note that for TMPS, some seats are reserved for students who are in boundary for TPMS; not sure if Eastern works the same way.

FWIW, I can think of at least 10 students from my kid's CES elementary who are in one of the two magnet middle school programs (and likely more that I don't know, and more still who got in the pool but did not get an offer or declined an offer). So it's possible and in fact highly probable that a good portion of students in 5th grade CES will make one or both lotteries (especially when you consider they needed a minimum normed MAP-R score to be in CES in the first place - and scores vary year to year but not by that much).

In-bounds TPMS has been given 25 program seats/year. When considering proportionality to the incoming populations in-bounds and for the rest of the lower county magnet catchment, it has afforded in-bounds TPMS students several times the likelihood of receiving that enriched programming. On top of that, any drops from the program after 6th grade starts have been filled by those going to TPMS already.

Separately, in addition to local norming, individual students receiving services (individual FARMS or EML status, 504 accommodation or IEP) have had a lower bar for their locally normed MAP to be placed in the lottery pools for the past several years. That is for any of the CESs or criteria-based MS magnets, not just TPMS, and the reasoning behind that (and local norming itself) has been discussed in many prior threads.

They don't give them the seats. Those seats aren't part of the program. If the they removed them they wouldn't increase the size of the program since they are from the local schools allocation.

Wait, the local Takoma Park magnet kids aren't in the regular magnet program? They take separate classes? I thought they were all combined in the same program and took the same classes, and it was just that local kids had a better chance of getting in than kids elsewhere.

No, you're right -- the selected local TP catchment kids attend the same magnet program classes as those brought in for the "program seats," and, under the current paradigm, their chances of accessing that enriched programming are several times greater than those for the remainder of the lower county. The misdirection from the issue represented by the PP to whom you responded appears almost any time the known inequitable access is mentioned.

The claim is that the "program" (for those outside of the TPMS catchment) only ever could be 100 seats (rather than that being a number changeable by the school system), and that the promised 25 local seats also should not be reduced, whether to increase the seats available to those on the outside (TPMS has the buiding capacity) or simply to get to relative parity of opportunity without that outside increase. There doesn't seem to be acknowledgement of the dissonance of that stance with the fact that openings for outside/"program" seats that happen after school starts (e.g., due to a family moving out of the area or a student wishing to return to their home school) get backfilled from those already attending the school -- i.e., locals (except in the case of a COSA).

That said, access to Chinese immersion for local Potomac ES families has been even more inequitable, with seats first filling from those locals interested before the lottery for outsiders. Strangely (or not, depending on your level of skepticism), that didn't appear to be the same for Bayard Rustan's Chinese immersion seats.

Some magnets have had smaller or no local set-asides. Some, over the years, have had that reduced or eliminated. The TP stakeholders will keep defending theirs, of course, though that, itself, is dissonant with the TP equity vibe.

Of course, a better answer to all of this is enough magnet seating or truly equivalent local programming throughout the system to cover all who would benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honest question as a fellow 4th grade parent — will these programs exist when our kids are trying for them next year? We’re currently in a CES and it’s been such a wonderful experience we really hope to get into the MS programs…

By the scores here my kid should qualify, so it’s a matter of the lottery and whether this will actually exist….

The CES kids are evaluated as part of the cohort from their CES elementary not their home elementary. They’re not going to take 10-15 kids from the same ES in the MS magnet programs. At least, my kid who went to CES did not get offered a MS magnet option. My less academically inclined but still solid student who did not get into or go to CES got offered MS magnet seats in the summer out of the wait pool. We declined. All of the CES kids from my non-CES kid’s grade in our neighborhood ES came back for MS and did not go to MS magnet.

Because they are no longer application programs I think there are a lot more first round admittees who decline. At least a couple years ago there seemed to be a lot of wait pool movement.

There are a bunch of incorrect things in the first paragraph here. The middle school magnet admission process does not artificially limit the number of kids coming from a specific elementary school. Placement in the lottery is solely based on grades and locally normed MAP scores (which are different based on the FARMS level of the elementary school - and the zoned elementary school is used, not the CES elementary, if different). Once a student is placed in either or both lotteries, selection is just that - a lottery. Note that for TMPS, some seats are reserved for students who are in boundary for TPMS; not sure if Eastern works the same way.

FWIW, I can think of at least 10 students from my kid's CES elementary who are in one of the two magnet middle school programs (and likely more that I don't know, and more still who got in the pool but did not get an offer or declined an offer). So it's possible and in fact highly probable that a good portion of students in 5th grade CES will make one or both lotteries (especially when you consider they needed a minimum normed MAP-R score to be in CES in the first place - and scores vary year to year but not by that much).

Maybe they have changed these aspects since my kid went through it 4-5 years ago. Ours was the first year of no applications and very few CES kids got in.