FCPS' plans to address concerns at under-enrolled and over-enrolled schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Which would require redistricting EVERYWHERE to make the number of kids and space in schools work.

Keeping all AAP kids in the center zoned for their high school pyramid and adding AAP to every middle school would not require any rezoning anywhere.

It would just require the AAP kids to return to their respective pyramids.

It would also significantly improve overcrowding in the AAP center, high school transfer requests, and achievement at currently under enrolled pyramids like Lewis.

No one will need to experience the inconvenience and drama of rezoning and the AAP kid will have a more seamless school feeder pattern, where the only time they switch from their zoned school will be attending the AAP center within their pyramid.

False.

+1- if it were so easy, the board wouldn’t have ruled that they will attempt this “later.” They would have included it in the boundary review they just finished. The “It’ll take 2 hours” person clearly doesn’t care if their kid is squished into a class with 36 other kids and has to sit on the floor.

They just extrapolate from what they think would be the case at Irving to the entire county. It’s simplistic and wrong. But perhaps not surprising giving how self-centered some of those folks are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Which would require redistricting EVERYWHERE to make the number of kids and space in schools work.

Keeping all AAP kids in the center zoned for their high school pyramid and adding AAP to every middle school would not require any rezoning anywhere.

It would just require the AAP kids to return to their respective pyramids.

It would also significantly improve overcrowding in the AAP center, high school transfer requests, and achievement at currently under enrolled pyramids like Lewis.

No one will need to experience the inconvenience and drama of rezoning and the AAP kid will have a more seamless school feeder pattern, where the only time they switch from their zoned school will be attending the AAP center within their pyramid.

False.

It is all accurate.

Which part do you claim is untrue?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Which would require redistricting EVERYWHERE to make the number of kids and space in schools work.

Keeping all AAP kids in the center zoned for their high school pyramid and adding AAP to every middle school would not require any rezoning anywhere.

It would just require the AAP kids to return to their respective pyramids.

It would also significantly improve overcrowding in the AAP center, high school transfer requests, and achievement at currently under enrolled pyramids like Lewis.

No one will need to experience the inconvenience and drama of rezoning and the AAP kid will have a more seamless school feeder pattern, where the only time they switch from their zoned school will be attending the AAP center within their pyramid.

False.

It is all accurate.

Which part do you claim is untrue?

Read upthread. They cannot just have AAP at every middle school without changing some boundaries. Some schools currently without AAP will be overcrowded and some schools that are currently AAP centers will be under-enrolled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Which would require redistricting EVERYWHERE to make the number of kids and space in schools work.

No it wouldn't. But even if it did, so be it. Enough of this madness, already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Elementary schools don’t rotate for math, reading, social studies and science. They lump math/science together and reading/social studies. They can’t do “an AAP group for every subject’ and have the kids rotate out without losing TONS of time to transitions.

I don’t really care if they get rid of AAP centers at the elementary school level except that it will result in a massive redistricting project.

My kids' elementary school rotates for all four core subjects. The classrooms are all clustered next to one another, so it's not a big deal at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Elementary schools don’t rotate for math, reading, social studies and science. They lump math/science together and reading/social studies. They can’t do “an AAP group for every subject’ and have the kids rotate out without losing TONS of time to transitions.

I don’t really care if they get rid of AAP centers at the elementary school level except that it will result in a massive redistricting project.

My kids' elementary school rotates for all four core subjects. The classrooms are all clustered next to one another, so it's not a big deal at all.

And some elementary schools don't have enough AAP kids to make a class. Others barely enough. Are you saying those kids should be stuck with the inferior cluster model just because of where they live? The centers are absolutely required at the elementary level to get a mix of kids - especially if was on a subject-by-subject basis as you suggested since some subjects would have even fewer kids than others.
Now for middle school there is no reason to have centers. Hopefully the push to eliminate them isn't lost after all the boundary changes drain the political will to make the moves.

[Anonymous]

Interesting - because I have sent two emails to Anderson and haven't heard back at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about the homeowners and non-ESL students that live in the Lewis boundaries? They should be forced to move to other schools and see their home values suffer? Doesn't seem right to me.

Wtf are you babbling about? How would their home values suffer going to a better performing school with more kids? Seems like it would be a win for them.

But, to be fair, I don’t think they should have to move if they don’t want to. 1,500 students is only a critical shortfall if you are trying to make a blatant equity play. It’s the people in Lewis pyramid trying to bolster their own house value at the expense of their neighbors.

I'm asking why people in the Lewis pyramid who are not ESL should have to transfer to other schools to find similar cohorts and challenging classes. That is the situation now and will continue to be unless something is done to help the school. Why are some pyramids designated as the permanent home of the poor and ESL populations? That is how FCPS is treating them. How is that fair to the homeowners in the Lewis pyramid? They moved higher income areas from Gambrill Road and Daventry to West Springfield. That helped their property values. Was that fair to the homeowners still zoned to Lewis? Maybe some people are tired of being dumped on.

Did you not know your school pyramid before you bought your house?

And as for being dumped on, yeah, FCPS families are overwhelmingly tired of this boundary change crap. The school board wasted years on it instead of working to improve the school system. The opportunity cost is through the roof on boundary changes, and they’re going to run it back in four years. It’s insanity.

I bought my house a long time ago and that is irrelevant. A resident anywhere in the county should expect that their schools will be reasonably equitable (not perfectly equal, but not so disparate that they are treated as pariahs). Lewis is clearly being separated from the rest of the other county high schools. Potentially with Mt. Vernon joining it with its shrinking enrollment.

Oh yeah, you’re totally right, schools are irrelevant when families choose their house. In fact, no one really cares where their kids go to school.

Do you even hear yourself?

To learn, you should go to a boundary change meeting and try to peddle that line. See what reaction you get. It took the school board two years, but by the end, they finally understood that school boundary changes are the most rage-inducing thing they can do. People across the county hate their school board members for what they’ve done.

I hope they show up to actually vote them out, instead of carry forward the status quo of woke idiots running the school board. Two years ago, we had a really competent challenger to Robyn Lady. And yet, the woke idiotic crowd that is now complaining up a storm about Robyn Lady all voted her in. Y'all deserve exactly what the school board is dishing out to you ... bc you're the ones to blame for this catastrophe!

They won't.

Franconia district where Lewis is located votes overwhelmingly drmocratic. They could run a hoat for school board in Franconia and the hoat would win.

If the Lewis parents want to send a message to the school board that soneone needs to start caring about Lewis, they would run either an independent or republican candidate, then do a huge get out the vote effort, including getting Lewis seniors involved, and flip that seat from solidly democratic to anyone but a democratic endorsed candidate

That would send shock waves to the school board and perhaps get their attention about how badly they have neglected Lewis.

Lewis’s problem is not that they have a Democrat representing them on the school board. It’s that they have the weakest, laziest Democrat on the school board representing them in sleepy Marcia St. John-Cunning. If they had someone like Ricardy Anderson representing them, Lewis would be getting a lot more attention.

Conversely, if Lewis miraculously had a GOP-endorsed school board member representing them, they would let Lewis stew in its own juices and spend all their time blaming the school’s demographics on Biden’s immigration policies. And then whatever initiatives they might champion would be quickly shot down by the Democratic majority on the board.

I agree with this. I had to watch quite a few school board meetings during the boundary review and even on other issues, Ricardy Anderson doesn't get stuff go. She just keeps bringing things back up and really advocates for her community. Lewis needs a strong school board advocate to push forward the curriculum changes that are needed to make that school more attractive to those who are zoned for it. Adding a social justice academy instead of a strong slate of AP classes or a good STEAM program just isn't going to cut it.

St. John-Cunning is singularly unimpressive. All she does is periodically (and I mean like once every three months) make some impassioned statement callling other people racist and then retreat back into her torpor.

Anderson, on the other hand, tries to figure out what her schools need and the people in her district want. And then she keeps pushing, even when other board members throw up roadblocks. Prime examples are the boundary changes to reduce the enrollments at Glasgow and Parklawn and the creation of AAP centers in the Annandale pyramid (Poe MS and North Springfield ES). She got kids moved from Glasgow to Poe in the last review even when BRAC overlooked them at first, and she's made sure further changes to move more kids to Poe and Holmes are on the table. The community may push back and say they don't support those changes, but they will have had a chance to weigh in, and then they will have to live with the consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


The last split feeder in the WSHS pyramid is Rolling Valley.

This is not true. Sangster is also a small split feeder to WSHS. Most kids from Sangster go to Lake Braddock, but there is a small portion that go to WSHS. They tried to fix this in one of the map scenarios, but people in that small area were up in arms about getting moved to Lake Braddock. Lake Braddock is much easier to get to for those folks then potentially moving people currently zoned for Rolling Valley to Lewis!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Elementary schools don’t rotate for math, reading, social studies and science. They lump math/science together and reading/social studies. They can’t do “an AAP group for every subject’ and have the kids rotate out without losing TONS of time to transitions.

I don’t really care if they get rid of AAP centers at the elementary school level except that it will result in a massive redistricting project.

My kids' elementary school rotates for all four core subjects. The classrooms are all clustered next to one another, so it's not a big deal at all.

And some elementary schools don't have enough AAP kids to make a class. Others barely enough. Are you saying those kids should be stuck with the inferior cluster model just because of where they live? The centers are absolutely required at the elementary level to get a mix of kids - especially if was on a subject-by-subject basis as you suggested since some subjects would have even fewer kids than others.
Now for middle school there is no reason to have centers. Hopefully the push to eliminate them isn't lost after all the boundary changes drain the political will to make the moves.

At this point, there is NO reason to have AAP centers, in either elementary or middle. Sorry. It's redundancy at its worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting - because I have sent two emails to Anderson and haven't heard back at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about the homeowners and non-ESL students that live in the Lewis boundaries? They should be forced to move to other schools and see their home values suffer? Doesn't seem right to me.

Wtf are you babbling about? How would their home values suffer going to a better performing school with more kids? Seems like it would be a win for them.

But, to be fair, I don’t think they should have to move if they don’t want to. 1,500 students is only a critical shortfall if you are trying to make a blatant equity play. It’s the people in Lewis pyramid trying to bolster their own house value at the expense of their neighbors.

I'm asking why people in the Lewis pyramid who are not ESL should have to transfer to other schools to find similar cohorts and challenging classes. That is the situation now and will continue to be unless something is done to help the school. Why are some pyramids designated as the permanent home of the poor and ESL populations? That is how FCPS is treating them. How is that fair to the homeowners in the Lewis pyramid? They moved higher income areas from Gambrill Road and Daventry to West Springfield. That helped their property values. Was that fair to the homeowners still zoned to Lewis? Maybe some people are tired of being dumped on.

Did you not know your school pyramid before you bought your house?

And as for being dumped on, yeah, FCPS families are overwhelmingly tired of this boundary change crap. The school board wasted years on it instead of working to improve the school system. The opportunity cost is through the roof on boundary changes, and they’re going to run it back in four years. It’s insanity.

I bought my house a long time ago and that is irrelevant. A resident anywhere in the county should expect that their schools will be reasonably equitable (not perfectly equal, but not so disparate that they are treated as pariahs). Lewis is clearly being separated from the rest of the other county high schools. Potentially with Mt. Vernon joining it with its shrinking enrollment.

Oh yeah, you’re totally right, schools are irrelevant when families choose their house. In fact, no one really cares where their kids go to school.

Do you even hear yourself?

To learn, you should go to a boundary change meeting and try to peddle that line. See what reaction you get. It took the school board two years, but by the end, they finally understood that school boundary changes are the most rage-inducing thing they can do. People across the county hate their school board members for what they’ve done.

I hope they show up to actually vote them out, instead of carry forward the status quo of woke idiots running the school board. Two years ago, we had a really competent challenger to Robyn Lady. And yet, the woke idiotic crowd that is now complaining up a storm about Robyn Lady all voted her in. Y'all deserve exactly what the school board is dishing out to you ... bc you're the ones to blame for this catastrophe!

They won't.

Franconia district where Lewis is located votes overwhelmingly drmocratic. They could run a hoat for school board in Franconia and the hoat would win.

If the Lewis parents want to send a message to the school board that soneone needs to start caring about Lewis, they would run either an independent or republican candidate, then do a huge get out the vote effort, including getting Lewis seniors involved, and flip that seat from solidly democratic to anyone but a democratic endorsed candidate

That would send shock waves to the school board and perhaps get their attention about how badly they have neglected Lewis.

Lewis’s problem is not that they have a Democrat representing them on the school board. It’s that they have the weakest, laziest Democrat on the school board representing them in sleepy Marcia St. John-Cunning. If they had someone like Ricardy Anderson representing them, Lewis would be getting a lot more attention.

Conversely, if Lewis miraculously had a GOP-endorsed school board member representing them, they would let Lewis stew in its own juices and spend all their time blaming the school’s demographics on Biden’s immigration policies. And then whatever initiatives they might champion would be quickly shot down by the Democratic majority on the board.

I agree with this. I had to watch quite a few school board meetings during the boundary review and even on other issues, Ricardy Anderson doesn't get stuff go. She just keeps bringing things back up and really advocates for her community. Lewis needs a strong school board advocate to push forward the curriculum changes that are needed to make that school more attractive to those who are zoned for it. Adding a social justice academy instead of a strong slate of AP classes or a good STEAM program just isn't going to cut it.

St. John-Cunning is singularly unimpressive. All she does is periodically (and I mean like once every three months) make some impassioned statement callling other people racist and then retreat back into her torpor.

Anderson, on the other hand, tries to figure out what her schools need and the people in her district want. And then she keeps pushing, even when other board members throw up roadblocks. Prime examples are the boundary changes to reduce the enrollments at Glasgow and Parklawn and the creation of AAP centers in the Annandale pyramid (Poe MS and North Springfield ES). She got kids moved from Glasgow to Poe in the last review even when BRAC overlooked them at first, and she's made sure further changes to move more kids to Poe and Holmes are on the table. The community may push back and say they don't support those changes, but they will have had a chance to weigh in, and then they will have to live with the consequences.

Did you mean Dr. Anderson is attentive?

Surely you mispoke by saying Sandy Anderson.

Sandy Anderson does NOT work for her constituents.

She is one of the least attentive and most political school board members.

Dunne is one of the few that put the students and families first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Elementary schools don’t rotate for math, reading, social studies and science. They lump math/science together and reading/social studies. They can’t do “an AAP group for every subject’ and have the kids rotate out without losing TONS of time to transitions.

I don’t really care if they get rid of AAP centers at the elementary school level except that it will result in a massive redistricting project.

My kids' elementary school rotates for all four core subjects. The classrooms are all clustered next to one another, so it's not a big deal at all.

And some elementary schools don't have enough AAP kids to make a class. Others barely enough. Are you saying those kids should be stuck with the inferior cluster model just because of where they live? The centers are absolutely required at the elementary level to get a mix of kids - especially if was on a subject-by-subject basis as you suggested since some subjects would have even fewer kids than others.
Now for middle school there is no reason to have centers. Hopefully the push to eliminate them isn't lost after all the boundary changes drain the political will to make the moves.

At this point, there is NO reason to have AAP centers, in either elementary or middle. Sorry. It's redundancy at its worst.

I just gave you the reason. Many elementary schools do not have enough level 4 AAP kids to make a full class. Mixing them in a cluster model makes it no longer an AAP classroom, and the pace goes at that of the slowest kids. Providing gifted children services is a legal requirement in Virginia. You can't just decree that they should be ignored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Elementary schools don’t rotate for math, reading, social studies and science. They lump math/science together and reading/social studies. They can’t do “an AAP group for every subject’ and have the kids rotate out without losing TONS of time to transitions.

I don’t really care if they get rid of AAP centers at the elementary school level except that it will result in a massive redistricting project.

My kids' elementary school rotates for all four core subjects. The classrooms are all clustered next to one another, so it's not a big deal at all.

And some elementary schools don't have enough AAP kids to make a class. Others barely enough. Are you saying those kids should be stuck with the inferior cluster model just because of where they live? The centers are absolutely required at the elementary level to get a mix of kids - especially if was on a subject-by-subject basis as you suggested since some subjects would have even fewer kids than others.
Now for middle school there is no reason to have centers. Hopefully the push to eliminate them isn't lost after all the boundary changes drain the political will to make the moves.

At this point, there is NO reason to have AAP centers, in either elementary or middle. Sorry. It's redundancy at its worst.

I just gave you the reason. Many elementary schools do not have enough level 4 AAP kids to make a full class. Mixing them in a cluster model makes it no longer an AAP classroom, and the pace goes at that of the slowest kids. Providing gifted children services is a legal requirement in Virginia. You can't just decree that they should be ignored.

Sigh. Every time someone suggests getting rid of AAP centers, people like you immediately jump to the conclusion that we're advocating getting rid of AAP. That's not at all what I said. At this point, decades after AAP centers were implemented, 99% of schools all have their own AAP classes. The idea of giving kids another school to choose from, the center, is ridiculous. If they have AAP at their base school, they should be required to stay there.

The very few schools that don't have AAP (which are??) should get it. And flexible grouping is a much smarter way to give all the kids who can do advanced work a chance to do it, in whatever core subjects are appropriate for them. It's not a gifted program. The whole process should be simplified, not made more complicated with byzantine regulations and zoning issues. Just offer it in all schools. Done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It does not make sense for any Lake Bradfock students to attend Keene Mill for AAP.

Lake Braddock has more than enough elementary kids to move those students to a center or create a center gor them in their pyramid.


It is crazy to call an Keene Mill a split feeder because it simply is not.

AAP feeder patterns are insane. The AAP kids at Gunston who live in the portion of the school zoned to Hayfield go to Lake Braddock, while the kids who live in the South County zone go to South County. Why don’t we have AAP at all middle schools yet? I also think there is a similar issue at Lorton Station where the AAP kids attending the Lorton Station center from Saratoga go to Lake Braddock instead of Lewis.

Which is why they need to eliminate centers for good and just keep all kids at their base schools. Have an AAP group for every subject and allow kids to rotate in and out as needed. This does not need to be the ridiculously complicated system they currently have for something that's not even a gifted program.

Elementary schools don’t rotate for math, reading, social studies and science. They lump math/science together and reading/social studies. They can’t do “an AAP group for every subject’ and have the kids rotate out without losing TONS of time to transitions.

I don’t really care if they get rid of AAP centers at the elementary school level except that it will result in a massive redistricting project.

My kids' elementary school rotates for all four core subjects. The classrooms are all clustered next to one another, so it's not a big deal at all.

And some elementary schools don't have enough AAP kids to make a class. Others barely enough. Are you saying those kids should be stuck with the inferior cluster model just because of where they live? The centers are absolutely required at the elementary level to get a mix of kids - especially if was on a subject-by-subject basis as you suggested since some subjects would have even fewer kids than others.
Now for middle school there is no reason to have centers. Hopefully the push to eliminate them isn't lost after all the boundary changes drain the political will to make the moves.

At this point, there is NO reason to have AAP centers, in either elementary or middle. Sorry. It's redundancy at its worst.

I just gave you the reason. Many elementary schools do not have enough level 4 AAP kids to make a full class. Mixing them in a cluster model makes it no longer an AAP classroom, and the pace goes at that of the slowest kids. Providing gifted children services is a legal requirement in Virginia. You can't just decree that they should be ignored.

Sigh. Every time someone suggests getting rid of AAP centers, people like you immediately jump to the conclusion that we're advocating getting rid of AAP. That's not at all what I said. At this point, decades after AAP centers were implemented, 99% of schools all have their own AAP classes. The idea of giving kids another school to choose from, the center, is ridiculous. If they have AAP at their base school, they should be required to stay there.

The very few schools that don't have AAP (which are??) should get it. And flexible grouping is a much smarter way to give all the kids who can do advanced work a chance to do it, in whatever core subjects are appropriate for them. It's not a gifted program. The whole process should be simplified, not made more complicated with byzantine regulations and zoning issues. Just offer it in all schools. Done.

Just because some schools offer local AAP does not mean it is equivalent of what they offer at the center. "Local level 4" at those schools is just the cluster model with a different name. So no, 99% of elementary schools do not have real AAP.
In my opinion what they really need to do is put even fewer kids in AAP and actually make it a gifted program. Then even fewer schools would have enough kids who qualify to make a full class - which is why the centers exist. That's how it used to be. Parents here can't handle their kid not making the cut to be in the top track, so they've gotten AAP expanded and watered down. Now we end up with a new set of parents like you with kids on the watered down edge of AAP who just want their kid in it for whatever courses they can muster a good enough score to be considered. It's ridiculous.