On the chopping block: AAP Centers

[Anonymous]

I cannot second enough the parent who says that if you suspect 2e, get a WISC ask for a 504 and reapply. ADD depresses COGAT and NNAT scores, but FCPS can't WISC everyone-- it's expensive. A 2e child requires a strong parent advocate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we all just agree that we hate having AAP Centers?

I can certainly agree with this. They create far too many issues, resentment, and divisiveness.

I can certainly disagree with this as my student does not have a peer group at the base school. (He was subjected to frequent bullying, among other things.)

so a child who just misses the cut off for eligibility in your school has to stay and get bullied? You bought your house around certain school boundaries. But your kid gets the option to leave. Hmmm

It sucks that a child just misses the cut off, but exactly. Her child qualified for a special program. Part of the reason he qualified for the program is a learning style that has statistically high likelihood of being 2e, which is a group of kids that has a very high likelihood of being bullied. And her child stayed in boundary (the AAP boundary) as the school boundary is defined in the FCPS Boundary locator. Google it and plug your address in there. It will spit out 2 boundaries: one AAP, one not. Both are real boundaries, depending on your child's program. And you don't ditch a program almost everyone agrees is needed at some level (whether that is top .5%, 1%, 2%, whatever) because a small number of kids are misidentified or just miss the cut off. And there are frequent complaints from Gen Ed that FCPS overidentifies kids, and should be less willing to take that borderline kid.

Some posters with GE kids on this thread have made really good points that have changed the way I think about the Center school structure. I would note lunate centers, but I see where They can be unnecessary, or even counterproductive in some cases. But a few posters (or maybe even one vocal poster) is so mean and seem to have so little compassion for AAP kids, some of whose parents describe bullying, social isolation, a genuine academic inability to function in a Gen Ed setting and struggles with 2e. And also has so little of actual substance to say. That poster (because I'd like to think it's just one) hurts people raising valid issues by turning open minded AAP parents off. And yes, that person I would characterize as a troll. Because they are not on this board to discuss a real issue in our schools. They only want to belittle others (kids!), presumably to make themselves feel better.

I think a lot of the anger directed toward the entire AAP situation can be summed up in this way: AAP kids are given a choice of schools that GE kids are not. The GE child who is bullied at his/her base school is stuck there unless the family can fulfill one of the very specific criteria for transferring. The bullied AAP kid, on the other hand, is able to leave for a center school, with no hoops to jump through as the GE student must.

Another example is the family who moves into a "lesser" school boundary, but can send their AAP child to a better school simply because s/he gets into AAP. Meanwhile, the GE kids at this base school have no such option for leaving.

Can you and others possibly see the incredible inequities the families of GE children (not to mention these kids themselves) see every day? If the situations were reversed, and your child was stuck unhappily at one school, but a large group of his/her peers were able to opt for another school - you'd be furious and speaking up about it too. The system is clearly sending a message to our General Ed kids - they are second class citizens within FCPS.

You do understand that the AAP placements aren't done by lottery, right? You're acting like a child gets a lucky draw form a hat. There is an eligibility process. And even then many students choose to stay in their base school. You and others here are singling out the kids who qualify to be in the AAP program and then exercise the option to go to a center. Not the students who stay in their base school, not the students whose base school IS the center, but the kids who are bused to centers. That's a narrow band of outrage.

[Anonymous]

I personally am trying to figure out why schools with large numbers of aap students don't have the resources and peers that seem to be the whole argument for center placement.

I don't think centers need to be eliminated entirely, but lliv schools with a decent amount of kids per grade level don't need the center option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally am trying to figure out why schools with large numbers of aap students don't have the resources and peers that seem to be the whole argument for center placement.

I don't think centers need to be eliminated entirely, but lliv schools with a decent amount of kids per grade level don't need the center option.

AAP and GE parents have both supported this idea on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally am trying to figure out why schools with large numbers of aap students don't have the resources and peers that seem to be the whole argument for center placement.

I don't think centers need to be eliminated entirely, but lliv schools with a decent amount of kids per grade level don't need the center option.

AAP and GE parents have both supported this idea on this thread.

I think FCPS does too. And they are moving away from the Center option for baseschools with a lot of AAP children. It's just that they have started the roll out with MS- probably becuase the schools themselves are bigger, so the base school AAP polulation can in many cases support a full team. Look at what is happening/ proposed for schools like Cooper, Carson, & Thoreau. I would be shocked if the same were not on the table for schools like GBW and LA in 5 years. As with full day kindergarden, they are phasing in, becuase it does take significant effort to put a AAP team or teams in the base school (move staff around) and readjust they boundaries of the Center MS to account for the lost kids. They can't do every school at once. But they are headed in that direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cannot second enough the parent who says that if you suspect 2e, get a WISC ask for a 504 and reapply. ADD depresses COGAT and NNAT scores, but FCPS can't WISC everyone-- it's expensive. A 2e child requires a strong parent advocate.

I would add to this that if your child has significant anxiety issues or OCD, this can also depress Cogat testing,and you should get a WISC (and possibly a neuropsych eval) and reapply. And I say that recognizing that not all families can easily absorb the cost. The year we did a neuropsych eval, absorbed startup costs with a psychiatrist to medicate ADHD (way more than our insurance would ever reimburse), started with an organizational/ ADHD tutor, etc., we did a "staycation" instead of a vacation over the summer and had to cut out some extracurriculars for the kids, because we did not just have the extra money lying around.

[Anonymous]

We haven't taken a real vacation in years. We went for a cheap eval for ADHD, and that was still about $1500. That's a significant cost for most people. Especially with the cost of everything going up and significant portions of us not getting raises in year.

[Anonymous]

Good for you, last two pp, for getting your kids evaluated. I know several families who were relieved to have some answers.

[Anonymous]

As an AAP parent, here's who I resent: parents who spend a significant amount of time on Cogat Prep to qualify their kids for AAP (and yes, unlike a true IQ test the Cogat is apparently very preppable). And sadly, many parents do this because it is nearly impossible to get into TJ without the AAP compacted math sequence. The AAP standards in FCPS (top 2%, or 2 standard deviations above normal) haven't changed. The percentage of eligible kids has skyrocketed for 2 reasons: fairfax county is increasingly affluent (which is a legit reason for the program size to grow) and Cogat prepping (which IMO is not). It's enough of a problem that FCPS moved from the Cogat to the "secret" Fxat format a couple years ago. many of these kids make up the "borderline" or "mainstream" AAP population people refer to, and lead to Center size explosion (becuase even in the most affluent base school zone 50 kids out of 120 are not legitimately in the top 2%).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not gripping that "unworthy" kids are sitting in class with my DC. But I am upset that the explosion in number that has resulted from large scale prepping feeds so many misperceptions about what AAP is, who is really serves, and the needs of kids who truely are AAP qualified. And becuase the explosion in numbers has lead to the type of resentment you see on this board.

The solution would be to WISC all kids whose partents request it, plus kids who teachers recommend them (this is a version of what Montomery County does). But FCPS just does not have the funding to give all of these children a multihour test that has to be indiviudally administered by a licensed psychologist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an AAP parent, here's who I resent: parents who spend a significant amount of time on Cogat Prep to qualify their kids for AAP (and yes, unlike a true IQ test the Cogat is apparently very preppable). And sadly, many parents do this because it is nearly impossible to get into TJ without the AAP compacted math sequence. The AAP standards in FCPS (top 2%, or 2 standard deviations above normal) haven't changed. The percentage of eligible kids has skyrocketed for 2 reasons: fairfax county is increasingly affluent (which is a legit reason for the program size to grow) and Cogat prepping (which IMO is not). It's enough of a problem that FCPS moved from the Cogat to the "secret" Fxat format a couple years ago. many of these kids make up the "borderline" or "mainstream" AAP population people refer to, and lead to Center size explosion (becuase even in the most affluent base school zone 50 kids out of 120 are not legitimately in the top 2%).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not gripping that "unworthy" kids are sitting in class with my DC. But I am upset that the explosion in number that has resulted from large scale prepping feeds so many misperceptions about what AAP is, who is really serves, and the needs of kids who truely are AAP qualified. And becuase the explosion in numbers has lead to the type of resentment you see on this board.

The solution would be to WISC all kids whose partents request it, plus kids who teachers recommend them (this is a version of what Montomery County does). But FCPS just does not have the funding to give all of these children a multihour test that has to be indiviudally administered by a licensed psychologist.

People in NY prep for the WISC. The solution is to make level III services better in ALL FCPS schools so parents feel like their kids will still get a good education if they don't get into level IV. In some schools level III is once a week pull out for one hour. That disparity encourages the no holes barred mentality people have about getting their kids into AAP. There are also schools that don't offer compacted math to Gen Ed kids while others do. That disparity also needs to be fixed. I think FCPS has done a good job meeting the needs of level IV kids, but not so much smart kids who didn't qualify for AAP. This creates a lot of animosity in the parents of those kids. I have 2 kids in AAP and I see the disparity, and I don't think FCPS is doing enough across the board for kids close to the cut off. Some schools fix the problem themselves, but others do nothing. This forum doesn't help either. There are too many people at the extremes of both sides.

[Anonymous]

To the PPs recommending testing for suspected 2E issues -- thank you! I wish we would have done things differently for our kids as we only did the bare minimum (WISC-IV, WIAT-II, Beery-Buktenica, and Conners' CPT-II ) for our kids primarily due to who was in-network for our insurance and what we could afford. If I had to do it again, I would have spent more $$ to do a fuller evaluation.

Also -- for parents with children with 2E issues -- be ready to have testing done again late in middle school if your children may need accommodations for College Board testing (PSAT, SAT, AP exams, subject tests). We didn't know that until middle school and we did not plan our medical reimbursement account accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the PPs recommending testing for suspected 2E issues -- thank you! I wish we would have done things differently for our kids as we only did the bare minimum (WISC-IV, WIAT-II, Beery-Buktenica, and Conners' CPT-II ) for our kids primarily due to who was in-network for our insurance and what we could afford. If I had to do it again, I would have spent more $$ to do a fuller evaluation.

Also -- for parents with children with 2E issues -- be ready to have testing done again late in middle school if your children may need accommodations for College Board testing (PSAT, SAT, AP exams, subject tests). We didn't know that until middle school and we did not plan our medical reimbursement account accordingly.

Not all evaluations are medically covered. Only about $500 of the $3k is for ours. It covers the ADHD testing but not the LD (dyslexia and dysgraphia for DC). In addition to having another eval in 7th or 8th grade for College Board and ACT tests. They need one after they are 16 for college accommodations as colleges require adult tests that are not administered until the person is at least 16 years old.

For DC he had one for the initial evaluation in 2nd grade, another for 5th grade, another for 8th and another is planned for 11th grade. It all costs $$$. But is it not as much as the 2-3 x per week reading tutoring sessions for 6 years.

[Anonymous]

From what I can tell, people are only upset about AAP centers when it makes the school size too large or puts a majority of the school in AAP. If FCPS were to make a cap on the number of AAP students allowed at these schools before reviewing boundaries, I don't think we'd have the same issues as we do today. Greenbriar West should have had a boundary change a good 3 years ago. Why do they wait so long to make any changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the PPs recommending testing for suspected 2E issues -- thank you! I wish we would have done things differently for our kids as we only did the bare minimum (WISC-IV, WIAT-II, Beery-Buktenica, and Conners' CPT-II ) for our kids primarily due to who was in-network for our insurance and what we could afford. If I had to do it again, I would have spent more $$ to do a fuller evaluation.

Also -- for parents with children with 2E issues -- be ready to have testing done again late in middle school if your children may need accommodations for College Board testing (PSAT, SAT, AP exams, subject tests). We didn't know that until middle school and we did not plan our medical reimbursement account accordingly.

Not all evaluations are medically covered. Only about $500 of the $3k is for ours. It covers the ADHD testing but not the LD (dyslexia and dysgraphia for DC). In addition to having another eval in 7th or 8th grade for College Board and ACT tests. They need one after they are 16 for college accommodations as colleges require adult tests that are not administered until the person is at least 16 years old.

For DC he had one for the initial evaluation in 2nd grade, another for 5th grade, another for 8th and another is planned for 11th grade. It all costs $$$. But is it not as much as the 2-3 x per week reading tutoring sessions for 6 years.

11:42 here -- thanks for mentioning this. Our psychologist alerted us to this in our initial parent interview but I neglected to state it in my post.

I think it would be helpful if there was a "Things I Needed To Know" list posted for parents. (Maybe there should be a wiki!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the PPs recommending testing for suspected 2E issues -- thank you! I wish we would have done things differently for our kids as we only did the bare minimum (WISC-IV, WIAT-II, Beery-Buktenica, and Conners' CPT-II ) for our kids primarily due to who was in-network for our insurance and what we could afford. If I had to do it again, I would have spent more $$ to do a fuller evaluation.

Also -- for parents with children with 2E issues -- be ready to have testing done again late in middle school if your children may need accommodations for College Board testing (PSAT, SAT, AP exams, subject tests). We didn't know that until middle school and we did not plan our medical reimbursement account accordingly.

Not all evaluations are medically covered. Only about $500 of the $3k is for ours. It covers the ADHD testing but not the LD (dyslexia and dysgraphia for DC). In addition to having another eval in 7th or 8th grade for College Board and ACT tests. They need one after they are 16 for college accommodations as colleges require adult tests that are not administered until the person is at least 16 years old.

For DC he had one for the initial evaluation in 2nd grade, another for 5th grade, another for 8th and another is planned for 11th grade. It all costs $$$. But is it not as much as the 2-3 x per week reading tutoring sessions for 6 years.

11:42 here -- thanks for mentioning this. Our psychologist alerted us to this in our initial parent interview but I neglected to state it in my post.

I think it would be helpful if there was a "Things I Needed To Know" list posted for parents. (Maybe there should be a wiki!)

Sounds like a good s/o to me! For example, child psychiatrists and psychologists may be covered by your insurance policy, but the good ones do not accept or file insurance. You have to private pay, submit for reimbursement, and be prepared to be reimbursed at a fraction of what you paid. OT ,social skills groups and ADHD/LD qualified tutors? Often not covered at all.