Compacted 4/5 math: Post your school and how it's being handled

[Anonymous]

How does a kid qualify for compacted math? Is it based on MSA scores?

[Anonymous]

No it's based on teacher evaluation and the child's score on a 5 part test.

[Anonymous]

And on their overall performance in math.

[Anonymous]

We have never done any other enrichment with our daughter. Zippy. Just regular old lame math HW and she qualified. My understanding was it was based on her performance in math throughout her third grade year, teacher evaluation and her score on the test. We are in a Whitman cluster elementary school with a large number of children who qualified so that there is one separate class of 4/5 math.

[Anonymous]

In our east county school, there was absolutely no third grade homework. Different set of expectations from east to west it appears.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WTF?? My kids are K and 2 nd but MCPS is actually busing students around for one subject??? Why don't they just offer a better math curriculum and allow compacted accelerated math in the home school. Its an incredible waste of time for the students and expense to the tax payers to be busing kids around when this could be done in the home school.

Why can't they set up a couple of webcams if the class size doesn't merit an onsite teacher? Each bus trip must be more than the cost of the technology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF?? My kids are K and 2 nd but MCPS is actually busing students around for one subject??? Why don't they just offer a better math curriculum and allow compacted accelerated math in the home school. Its an incredible waste of time for the students and expense to the tax payers to be busing kids around when this could be done in the home school.

Why can't they set up a couple of webcams if the class size doesn't merit an onsite teacher? Each bus trip must be more than the cost of the technology.

As I am talking to more families, I think the plan is to pick up elementary kids at the same stops/times as the bus is already traveling for HCG middle school. So it is not an extra expense to take kids to their compacted 4/5 early morning class. It is an extra expense, though, to bus them back to their regular school.

Back in the old days, teachers just sent advanced kids to the next grade up. So simple but good enough!! I like the idea of a webcam, too, back at the home school. Will be interesting to see how this evolves!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF?? My kids are K and 2 nd but MCPS is actually busing students around for one subject??? Why don't they just offer a better math curriculum and allow compacted accelerated math in the home school. Its an incredible waste of time for the students and expense to the tax payers to be busing kids around when this could be done in the home school.

Why can't they set up a couple of webcams if the class size doesn't merit an onsite teacher? Each bus trip must be more than the cost of the technology.

As I am talking to more families, I think the plan is to pick up elementary kids at the same stops/times as the bus is already traveling for HCG middle school. So it is not an extra expense to take kids to their compacted 4/5 early morning class. It is an extra expense, though, to bus them back to their regular school.

Back in the old days, teachers just sent advanced kids to the next grade up. So simple but good enough!! I like the idea of a webcam, too, back at the home school. Will be interesting to see how this evolves!!

If that is true, it is even worse for the kids. Those buses come very early (b/c they pick up at a variety of elementary schools and the routes are quite long). To make an elementary aged child go through all of that is wrong. Just wrong. What was so bad about simply differentiating the the schools again? Could this be the old "law of unintended consequences" at work again?

[Anonymous]

The timing of the HGC center ms busses would be all wrong (for many kids). Our MS bus picked up at 6:25 to go from Rockville to Blair where kids board a second bus to their ms. If a math student only needed to get to the local ms school, they would be an hour early. Why would they not just take their regular neighborhood ms bus?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The timing of the HGC center ms busses would be all wrong (for many kids). Our MS bus picked up at 6:25 to go from Rockville to Blair where kids board a second bus to their ms. If a math student only needed to get to the local ms school, they would be an hour early. Why would they not just take their regular neighborhood ms bus?

Agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our east county school, there was absolutely no third grade homework. Different set of expectations from east to west it appears.

WTH? Are you sure your kid wasn't just hiding it from you, and telling you there was no homework? I have an east county third grader, and I have already seen the homework folder, after only a week of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our east county school, there was absolutely no third grade homework. Different set of expectations from east to west it appears.

WTH? Are you sure your kid wasn't just hiding it from you, and telling you there was no homework? I have an east county third grader, and I have already seen the homework folder, after only a week of school.

My child was in third grade last year when the new curriculum was being rolled out, and yes I'm sure about the lack of homework. I had to meet with the principal about it.

[Anonymous]

I would be very happy if my third-grader had no homework.

[Anonymous]

a little google goes a long way
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/math/compacted/

How will instruction for the Curriculum 2.0 Compacted Grades 4/5 Math course be delivered?

MCPS central office staff, in collaboration with stakeholders, developed the following options which are under consideration for implementation in the 2013-2014 school year:

Implement the course in the local school as a separate class.

Implement the course as part of a small differentiated group within a Grade 4 classroom.

Work with another school to establish a class for identified students, which is taught by an itinerant teacher trained to deliver the compacted curriculum.

Creation of a distance learning class for multiple schools, taught by an itinerant teacher trained to deliver the compacted curriculum.

Send a small group of students to a nearby middle school where the C2.0 Compacted Grade 4/5 Math Course would be taught during first period.

[Anonymous]

15:25. Yes, this is known information. What will be informative for all now, is implementation by school. Which schools are using which methods?

Is the compacted curriculum being offered in school more often in some parts of the county than others? What's the impact on kids and families based on geography?

Only way we get to this information is to track what's happening by school and eventually figure out how to track results based on implementation methods.

It's not scientific, but it moves the knowledge/transparency bar forward.