TJ Discrimination Case

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of rich people here making assumptions about how bad the lower income schools are. The only reason some of the lower income schools do not have the robust course offerings is because they're saddled with IB rather than AP. If you look at a comparable low income AP school that everyone here would avoid (Herndon High), it has the regular load of 5 different AP science classes, 4 different AP foreign language, all of the normal math AP and DE classes, and so on. The only differences between it and Langley is that the AP cohort is smaller and the gen ed cohort will have a lot more issues.

How often are those courses offered and how many sections of them are there? It can be harder to plan a schedule at a lower income school because there are fewer offerings so balancing classes needed with electives is a lot harder. And classes are canceled because not enough students are in the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

Attending a wealthy school gives you the education that comes with attending a wealthy school. Are people really going to send their kids to Whitman to boost their chances at TJ?

My kids attended a Title I school. When you reach the AAP or Honors level, there is minimal difference between the standard FCPS curriculum/pacing at the wealthy school and that at the poorer school. If the wealthier kids have an edge in the current admissions, it's because they have outside tutoring for writing the essays. It has nothing at all to do with the education received at school. It seems like anytime someone brings up how terrible the high FARMS and Title I schools are, it's a person zoned to a wealthy school who had no clue what is actually happening in the Title I schools.

I know a couple kids who graduated with the IB diploma at Annandale High. Being at a low-income, low performing school did not hurt them one bit.

It's better to be challenged by a higher performing peer group. The IB diploma program at Annandale isn't great - there aren't that many IB diploma candidates and the percentage of successful candidates (slightly over 60%) is low as well, especially when compared to other IB schools like Marshall and W-L in Arlington.

Not many families will be willing to disrupt their kids' lives by moving them to Holmes or Poe for a year or so to improve their TJ chances. It will still be a bit of a crap shoot, the kids will be mercenaries, and they won't get the same education that they likely would have received at their prior middle schools.

Most every school has a high-performing peer group. The differences is whether there are 6 sections of AP English or 3. Either way kids learn AP English.

And when there are no AP Sections of any foreign language except Spanish?

Our high farms school has AP Sections for 6 languages. Not sure what you're talking about.

There are 7 AP foreign languages. What school besides TJ regularlY offers AP in 6 of: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese and Japanese? Name the school or I call BS.
Is is BS.

Every FCPS school offers 4-5 AP languages. There's nothing special about this. So many uninformed people here it's amazing.

No they don’t. I just pulled Madison, Oakton, and Chantilly as samples. They have AP French, Spanish and Latin. Westfield has French, Spanish and German. They also have Japanese, only because they are the base HS for the Japanese Immersion program. Most will bus you to an Academy for AP Chinese and level 4 Korean, ASL and Vietnamese. Please find all these HSs offering 4, 5 or PP says 6 !!!AP languages at the school.

Sure. There aren't any lower SES schools that only have 1 option. All FCPS schools have 3 or 4 choices for AP/IB Language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of rich people here making assumptions about how bad the lower income schools are. The only reason some of the lower income schools do not have the robust course offerings is because they're saddled with IB rather than AP. If you look at a comparable low income AP school that everyone here would avoid (Herndon High), it has the regular load of 5 different AP science classes, 4 different AP foreign language, all of the normal math AP and DE classes, and so on. The only differences between it and Langley is that the AP cohort is smaller and the gen ed cohort will have a lot more issues.

How often are those courses offered and how many sections of them are there? It can be harder to plan a schedule at a lower income school because there are fewer offerings so balancing classes needed with electives is a lot harder. And classes are canceled because not enough students are in the class.

You're splitting hairs here. Yes, it may be harder to get a decent schedule, and maybe you can't fully take every class that you want at a lower income school. Likewise, at the high income school, maybe you can't get into a preferred class because too many other people want to take the same class. The assertion is that there is a HUGE difference between the courses you can take at a high SES school and a low SES school in FCPS. That is simply not true. All FCPS high schools have pretty similar course offerings. The main differences are in the gen ed courses, not the AP and Honors ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of rich people here making assumptions about how bad the lower income schools are. The only reason some of the lower income schools do not have the robust course offerings is because they're saddled with IB rather than AP. If you look at a comparable low income AP school that everyone here would avoid (Herndon High), it has the regular load of 5 different AP science classes, 4 different AP foreign language, all of the normal math AP and DE classes, and so on. The only differences between it and Langley is that the AP cohort is smaller and the gen ed cohort will have a lot more issues.

How often are those courses offered and how many sections of them are there? It can be harder to plan a schedule at a lower income school because there are fewer offerings so balancing classes needed with electives is a lot harder. And classes are canceled because not enough students are in the class.

You're splitting hairs here. Yes, it may be harder to get a decent schedule, and maybe you can't fully take every class that you want at a lower income school. Likewise, at the high income school, maybe you can't get into a preferred class because too many other people want to take the same class. The assertion is that there is a HUGE difference between the courses you can take at a high SES school and a low SES school in FCPS. That is simply not true. All FCPS high schools have pretty similar course offerings. The main differences are in the gen ed courses, not the AP and Honors ones.

Then why is it that the parents of kids at the high SES schools work so hard not to have the boundaries moved to the lower SES schools?

I know that the parents from schools moved to South Lakes had to fight to get additional math classes and sections of IB classes and Honors classes on the schedule at South Lakes after the boundary shift because they simply were not available. It was not as easy as you say for kids to get what they need at SLHS.

There are different offerings and there are classes cancelled. The offerings are no where near equal. Can you make it work? Yes. Is it easy? No. Are there missed opportunities? Yes.

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of rich people here making assumptions about how bad the lower income schools are. The only reason some of the lower income schools do not have the robust course offerings is because they're saddled with IB rather than AP. If you look at a comparable low income AP school that everyone here would avoid (Herndon High), it has the regular load of 5 different AP science classes, 4 different AP foreign language, all of the normal math AP and DE classes, and so on. The only differences between it and Langley is that the AP cohort is smaller and the gen ed cohort will have a lot more issues.

How often are those courses offered and how many sections of them are there? It can be harder to plan a schedule at a lower income school because there are fewer offerings so balancing classes needed with electives is a lot harder. And classes are canceled because not enough students are in the class.

You're splitting hairs here. Yes, it may be harder to get a decent schedule, and maybe you can't fully take every class that you want at a lower income school. Likewise, at the high income school, maybe you can't get into a preferred class because too many other people want to take the same class. The assertion is that there is a HUGE difference between the courses you can take at a high SES school and a low SES school in FCPS. That is simply not true. All FCPS high schools have pretty similar course offerings. The main differences are in the gen ed courses, not the AP and Honors ones.

Then why is it that the parents of kids at the high SES schools work so hard not to have the boundaries moved to the lower SES schools?

I know that the parents from schools moved to South Lakes had to fight to get additional math classes and sections of IB classes and Honors classes on the schedule at South Lakes after the boundary shift because they simply were not available. It was not as easy as you say for kids to get what they need at SLHS.

There are different offerings and there are classes cancelled. The offerings are no where near equal. Can you make it work? Yes. Is it easy? No. Are there missed opportunities? Yes.

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

For your first point, it's classism. Parents of kids at high SES schools don't want their kids in the same school with the poors. They don't want their kids taking PE or electives with rougher kids. Also, if a boundary shift will force their kids to move from an AP school to an IB school, a lot of parents will fight that tooth and nail.

For the second, IB schools have different offerings and operate differently than AP schools. If you want to compare apples to apples, you need to compare a lower SES AP school with a higher SES one, or a lower SES IB school with a higher SES one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of rich people here making assumptions about how bad the lower income schools are. The only reason some of the lower income schools do not have the robust course offerings is because they're saddled with IB rather than AP. If you look at a comparable low income AP school that everyone here would avoid (Herndon High), it has the regular load of 5 different AP science classes, 4 different AP foreign language, all of the normal math AP and DE classes, and so on. The only differences between it and Langley is that the AP cohort is smaller and the gen ed cohort will have a lot more issues.

How often are those courses offered and how many sections of them are there? It can be harder to plan a schedule at a lower income school because there are fewer offerings so balancing classes needed with electives is a lot harder. And classes are canceled because not enough students are in the class.

You're splitting hairs here. Yes, it may be harder to get a decent schedule, and maybe you can't fully take every class that you want at a lower income school. Likewise, at the high income school, maybe you can't get into a preferred class because too many other people want to take the same class. The assertion is that there is a HUGE difference between the courses you can take at a high SES school and a low SES school in FCPS. That is simply not true. All FCPS high schools have pretty similar course offerings. The main differences are in the gen ed courses, not the AP and Honors ones.

Then why is it that the parents of kids at the high SES schools work so hard not to have the boundaries moved to the lower SES schools?

I know that the parents from schools moved to South Lakes had to fight to get additional math classes and sections of IB classes and Honors classes on the schedule at South Lakes after the boundary shift because they simply were not available. It was not as easy as you say for kids to get what they need at SLHS.

There are different offerings and there are classes cancelled. The offerings are no where near equal. Can you make it work? Yes. Is it easy? No. Are there missed opportunities? Yes.

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

For your first point, it's classism. Parents of kids at high SES schools don't want their kids in the same school with the poors. They don't want their kids taking PE or electives with rougher kids. Also, if a boundary shift will force their kids to move from an AP school to an IB school, a lot of parents will fight that tooth and nail.

For the second, IB schools have different offerings and operate differently than AP schools. If you want to compare apples to apples, you need to compare a lower SES AP school with a higher SES one, or a lower SES IB school with a higher SES one.

Compare to which school? The 5 worst schools on every metric are IB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

Attending a wealthy school gives you the education that comes with attending a wealthy school. Are people really going to send their kids to Whitman to boost their chances at TJ?

My kids attended a Title I school. When you reach the AAP or Honors level, there is minimal difference between the standard FCPS curriculum/pacing at the wealthy school and that at the poorer school. If the wealthier kids have an edge in the current admissions, it's because they have outside tutoring for writing the essays. It has nothing at all to do with the education received at school. It seems like anytime someone brings up how terrible the high FARMS and Title I schools are, it's a person zoned to a wealthy school who had no clue what is actually happening in the Title I schools.

I know a couple kids who graduated with the IB diploma at Annandale High. Being at a low-income, low performing school did not hurt them one bit.

It's better to be challenged by a higher performing peer group. The IB diploma program at Annandale isn't great - there aren't that many IB diploma candidates and the percentage of successful candidates (slightly over 60%) is low as well, especially when compared to other IB schools like Marshall and W-L in Arlington.

Not many families will be willing to disrupt their kids' lives by moving them to Holmes or Poe for a year or so to improve their TJ chances. It will still be a bit of a crap shoot, the kids will be mercenaries, and they won't get the same education that they likely would have received at their prior middle schools.

Most every school has a high-performing peer group. The differences is whether there are 6 sections of AP English or 3. Either way kids learn AP English.

And when there are no AP Sections of any foreign language except Spanish?

Our high farms school has AP Sections for 6 languages. Not sure what you're talking about.

There are 7 AP foreign languages. What school besides TJ regularlY offers AP in 6 of: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese and Japanese? Name the school or I call BS.
Is is BS.

Every FCPS school offers 4-5 AP languages. There's nothing special about this. So many uninformed people here it's amazing.

No they don’t. I just pulled Madison, Oakton, and Chantilly as samples. They have AP French, Spanish and Latin. Westfield has French, Spanish and German. They also have Japanese, only because they are the base HS for the Japanese Immersion program. Most will bus you to an Academy for AP Chinese and level 4 Korean, ASL and Vietnamese. Please find all these HSs offering 4, 5 or PP says 6 !!!AP languages at the school.

Does Great Falls go to Westfield because Fox Mill goes to South Lakes and those are the two Japanese language immersion programs.

Part of Carson goes to Westfield, and Carson has Japanese immersion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Jokes on them really. Those schools typically only send a few kids where the wealthy schools typically send 30 so have much better odds.

That assumes the schools have equal caliber kids. They clearly think their kid is more likely to make the top 1.5% of the other school than the top 30 of their own school.

+1 The schools obviously don't have comparable kids under the new TJ scoring system. If a school is getting none of the general pool spots, then the score needed to be in the top 1.5% is lower than the threshold score to be selected from the general pool, which is in turn lower than the top 1.5% cutoff score from that school nabbing a bunch of general pool spots.

It is also unlikely that attending a wealthier school will improve your essays or increase your GPA relative to a less wealthy school. There's nothing whatsoever in the current process that would give any advantage to the kids at the wealthier school. There is something, in the form of bonus points for FARMS, that favors kids from less wealthy schools for the general pool spots. They're still not scoring high enough to earn them.

Attending a wealthy school gives you the education that comes with attending a wealthy school. Are people really going to send their kids to Whitman to boost their chances at TJ?

My kids attended a Title I school. When you reach the AAP or Honors level, there is minimal difference between the standard FCPS curriculum/pacing at the wealthy school and that at the poorer school. If the wealthier kids have an edge in the current admissions, it's because they have outside tutoring for writing the essays. It has nothing at all to do with the education received at school. It seems like anytime someone brings up how terrible the high FARMS and Title I schools are, it's a person zoned to a wealthy school who had no clue what is actually happening in the Title I schools.

I know a couple kids who graduated with the IB diploma at Annandale High. Being at a low-income, low performing school did not hurt them one bit.

It's better to be challenged by a higher performing peer group. The IB diploma program at Annandale isn't great - there aren't that many IB diploma candidates and the percentage of successful candidates (slightly over 60%) is low as well, especially when compared to other IB schools like Marshall and W-L in Arlington.

Not many families will be willing to disrupt their kids' lives by moving them to Holmes or Poe for a year or so to improve their TJ chances. It will still be a bit of a crap shoot, the kids will be mercenaries, and they won't get the same education that they likely would have received at their prior middle schools.

Most every school has a high-performing peer group. The differences is whether there are 6 sections of AP English or 3. Either way kids learn AP English.

And when there are no AP Sections of any foreign language except Spanish?

Our high farms school has AP Sections for 6 languages. Not sure what you're talking about.

There are 7 AP foreign languages. What school besides TJ regularlY offers AP in 6 of: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese and Japanese? Name the school or I call BS.
Is is BS.

Every FCPS school offers 4-5 AP languages. There's nothing special about this. So many uninformed people here it's amazing.

No they don’t. I just pulled Madison, Oakton, and Chantilly as samples. They have AP French, Spanish and Latin. Westfield has French, Spanish and German. They also have Japanese, only because they are the base HS for the Japanese Immersion program. Most will bus you to an Academy for AP Chinese and level 4 Korean, ASL and Vietnamese. Please find all these HSs offering 4, 5 or PP says 6 !!!AP languages at the school.

Does Great Falls go to Westfield because Fox Mill goes to South Lakes and those are the two Japanese language immersion programs.

Part of Carson goes to Westfield, and Carson has Japanese immersion.

The JI classes at Carson are for the Fox Mill kids, I don't think anyone else can take the JI classes. I would guess that there is a regular Japanese class offered that other students can take so that would make sense for Westfield.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

Higher income doesn't necessarily mean more advanced academics. I think the area around TJ is pretty high income, but the schools are low rated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

Higher income doesn't necessarily mean more advanced academics. I think the area around TJ is pretty high income, but the schools are low rated.

You’d think wrong. A lots of the nearbY ESs are Title I

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

Higher income doesn't necessarily mean more advanced academics. I think the area around TJ is pretty high income, but the schools are low rated.

You’d think wrong. A lots of the nearbY ESs are Title I

I'm pretty sure my FCPS HS was among the worst in the county, but today is in the top 5 HSs in the state. Anyway, at least a half-dozen of us, even back then, went on to ivies. Sure, we had a lot of knuckleheads in gen-ed but rarely encountered them. Most of the AP kids were in classes together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of rich people here making assumptions about how bad the lower income schools are. The only reason some of the lower income schools do not have the robust course offerings is because they're saddled with IB rather than AP. If you look at a comparable low income AP school that everyone here would avoid (Herndon High), it has the regular load of 5 different AP science classes, 4 different AP foreign language, all of the normal math AP and DE classes, and so on. The only differences between it and Langley is that the AP cohort is smaller and the gen ed cohort will have a lot more issues.

How often are those courses offered and how many sections of them are there? It can be harder to plan a schedule at a lower income school because there are fewer offerings so balancing classes needed with electives is a lot harder. And classes are canceled because not enough students are in the class.

You're splitting hairs here. Yes, it may be harder to get a decent schedule, and maybe you can't fully take every class that you want at a lower income school. Likewise, at the high income school, maybe you can't get into a preferred class because too many other people want to take the same class. The assertion is that there is a HUGE difference between the courses you can take at a high SES school and a low SES school in FCPS. That is simply not true. All FCPS high schools have pretty similar course offerings. The main differences are in the gen ed courses, not the AP and Honors ones.

Then why is it that the parents of kids at the high SES schools work so hard not to have the boundaries moved to the lower SES schools?

I know that the parents from schools moved to South Lakes had to fight to get additional math classes and sections of IB classes and Honors classes on the schedule at South Lakes after the boundary shift because they simply were not available. It was not as easy as you say for kids to get what they need at SLHS.

There are different offerings and there are classes cancelled. The offerings are no where near equal. Can you make it work? Yes. Is it easy? No. Are there missed opportunities? Yes.

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

For your first point, it's classism. Parents of kids at high SES schools don't want their kids in the same school with the poors. They don't want their kids taking PE or electives with rougher kids. Also, if a boundary shift will force their kids to move from an AP school to an IB school, a lot of parents will fight that tooth and nail.

For the second, IB schools have different offerings and operate differently than AP schools. If you want to compare apples to apples, you need to compare a lower SES AP school with a higher SES one, or a lower SES IB school with a higher SES one.

Compare to which school? The 5 worst schools on every metric are IB.

Yes. That's because FCPS gambled and failed on IB attracting affluent students to the lower performing schools. Still, within FCPS, all IB schools have basically the same offerings. All AP schools have basically the same offerings. There is not a huge gulf in what is available to advanced students in Langley vs. Herndon. They're all offering the standard load of APs and not a lot extra. An AP level kid at Herndon is not receiving an inferior education compared to an AP level kid at Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

Higher income doesn't necessarily mean more advanced academics. I think the area around TJ is pretty high income, but the schools are low rated.

You’d think wrong. A lots of the nearbY ESs are Title I

Correct. The closest ES to TJ is Weyanoke, one of the five poorest ES in the county. Nearby Annandale Terrace and Braddock are also extremely poor. Poe MS is the poorest MS in the county.

However, Columbia ES, on the other side of 236 from TJ, has a good balance and isn’t as overwhelmed with high-needs. It feeds into Holmes, which is high poverty but not like Poe.

There are families who move to the area after their kids get into TJ, but the idea that many families will seek out Holmes and Poe to improve their kids’ odds of getting into TJ seems unlikely. Outside of the circles that are totally obsessed with TJ you’re going to find more families just gravitating towards the four pyramids considered most accommodating to high-achieving kids: Langley, McLean, Chantilly, and Oakton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of rich people here making assumptions about how bad the lower income schools are. The only reason some of the lower income schools do not have the robust course offerings is because they're saddled with IB rather than AP. If you look at a comparable low income AP school that everyone here would avoid (Herndon High), it has the regular load of 5 different AP science classes, 4 different AP foreign language, all of the normal math AP and DE classes, and so on. The only differences between it and Langley is that the AP cohort is smaller and the gen ed cohort will have a lot more issues.

How often are those courses offered and how many sections of them are there? It can be harder to plan a schedule at a lower income school because there are fewer offerings so balancing classes needed with electives is a lot harder. And classes are canceled because not enough students are in the class.

You're splitting hairs here. Yes, it may be harder to get a decent schedule, and maybe you can't fully take every class that you want at a lower income school. Likewise, at the high income school, maybe you can't get into a preferred class because too many other people want to take the same class. The assertion is that there is a HUGE difference between the courses you can take at a high SES school and a low SES school in FCPS. That is simply not true. All FCPS high schools have pretty similar course offerings. The main differences are in the gen ed courses, not the AP and Honors ones.

Then why is it that the parents of kids at the high SES schools work so hard not to have the boundaries moved to the lower SES schools?

I know that the parents from schools moved to South Lakes had to fight to get additional math classes and sections of IB classes and Honors classes on the schedule at South Lakes after the boundary shift because they simply were not available. It was not as easy as you say for kids to get what they need at SLHS.

There are different offerings and there are classes cancelled. The offerings are no where near equal. Can you make it work? Yes. Is it easy? No. Are there missed opportunities? Yes.

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

They've bought into a myth fostered by greedy real-estate agents that dates back to the segregation days. However, you'd can get more or less the same education at any FCPS school full stop. The same opportunities exist everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of rich people here making assumptions about how bad the lower income schools are. The only reason some of the lower income schools do not have the robust course offerings is because they're saddled with IB rather than AP. If you look at a comparable low income AP school that everyone here would avoid (Herndon High), it has the regular load of 5 different AP science classes, 4 different AP foreign language, all of the normal math AP and DE classes, and so on. The only differences between it and Langley is that the AP cohort is smaller and the gen ed cohort will have a lot more issues.

How often are those courses offered and how many sections of them are there? It can be harder to plan a schedule at a lower income school because there are fewer offerings so balancing classes needed with electives is a lot harder. And classes are canceled because not enough students are in the class.

You're splitting hairs here. Yes, it may be harder to get a decent schedule, and maybe you can't fully take every class that you want at a lower income school. Likewise, at the high income school, maybe you can't get into a preferred class because too many other people want to take the same class. The assertion is that there is a HUGE difference between the courses you can take at a high SES school and a low SES school in FCPS. That is simply not true. All FCPS high schools have pretty similar course offerings. The main differences are in the gen ed courses, not the AP and Honors ones.

Then why is it that the parents of kids at the high SES schools work so hard not to have the boundaries moved to the lower SES schools?

I know that the parents from schools moved to South Lakes had to fight to get additional math classes and sections of IB classes and Honors classes on the schedule at South Lakes after the boundary shift because they simply were not available. It was not as easy as you say for kids to get what they need at SLHS.

There are different offerings and there are classes cancelled. The offerings are no where near equal. Can you make it work? Yes. Is it easy? No. Are there missed opportunities? Yes.

Lower SES classes need far more Gen Ed classes then higher SES schools. It is that simple. That will impact the number of sections and courses offered. The overall classroom experience and available classes are different, that is why redistricting is an issue. The haves don't want to give up those classes offerings and the have nots want what they have.

They've bought into a myth fostered by greedy real-estate agents that dates back to the segregation days. However, you'd can get more or less the same education at any FCPS school full stop. The same opportunities exist everywhere.

Opportunities exist everywhere. They aren’t the same, or even close. And I’m speaking from experience with multiple pyramids.