AAP info session today

[Anonymous]

Ok, so, I'm going there. My DD is a pretty smart kid. Whether she will get in the "pool" or not, who knows? She's in 2d and just took the COGAT. But, whether she gets in is neither here nor there. I'm on the fence as to my feelings about AAP. What is the benefit? DD can still take AAP classes in middle and high school w/o elementary AAP. She could still go to an excellent college. So what's the benefit besides extra homework and stress?? I"m 100% not being snarky. I want to know why you think AAP is a benefit (I know there are kids who need the extra challenge but the program seems to include those kids that don't fall in that category - our school is a level 4 center).

Am I wrong to thing that level 2 - 3 services are sufficient for great 3-6 and, if so, why?

[Anonymous]

PS - DD is my first so this is my first opportunity to consider this in any depth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so, I'm going there. My DD is a pretty smart kid. Whether she will get in the "pool" or not, who knows? She's in 2d and just took the COGAT. But, whether she gets in is neither here nor there. I'm on the fence as to my feelings about AAP. What is the benefit? DD can still take AAP classes in middle and high school w/o elementary AAP. She could still go to an excellent college. So what's the benefit besides extra homework and stress?? I"m 100% not being snarky. I want to know why you think AAP is a benefit (I know there are kids who need the extra challenge but the program seems to include those kids that don't fall in that category - our school is a level 4 center).

Am I wrong to thing that level 2 - 3 services are sufficient for great 3-6 and, if so, why?

You just stated all the reasons we declined AAP for our DC. I have friends with older children who have been through AAP and they all tell me that their kids were loaded down with busy work, silly projects, and extra homework, for no real reason. So many parents clamor for "extra enrichment," or challenges for their kids, and this is what they get in AAP. I have no desire for my children to spend their elementary school years weighed down by assignments that don't really add any value to their education. Plenty of time for advanced courses in high school, when they will be interesting, and actually matter in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so, I'm going there. My DD is a pretty smart kid. Whether she will get in the "pool" or not, who knows? She's in 2d and just took the COGAT. But, whether she gets in is neither here nor there. I'm on the fence as to my feelings about AAP. What is the benefit? DD can still take AAP classes in middle and high school w/o elementary AAP. She could still go to an excellent college. So what's the benefit besides extra homework and stress?? I"m 100% not being snarky. I want to know why you think AAP is a benefit (I know there are kids who need the extra challenge but the program seems to include those kids that don't fall in that category - our school is a level 4 center).

Am I wrong to thing that level 2 - 3 services are sufficient for great 3-6 and, if so, why?

My kids have not had "extra homework and stress" in AAP. However, they have had more challenging work (particularly in reading/language arts and math) and extra support for organization skills, time management, and other executive function skills than they received at their base school in earlier grades.

You are correct about high school: they will have the option to take AP/IB classes in high school with or without enrolling in AAP. However, my hope is that the executive function skills they have learned and practiced in elementary and middle school (in more challenging AP classes) will be stronger by high school, so they have an opportunity to do better work in these AP/IB classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so, I'm going there. My DD is a pretty smart kid. Whether she will get in the "pool" or not, who knows? She's in 2d and just took the COGAT. But, whether she gets in is neither here nor there. I'm on the fence as to my feelings about AAP. What is the benefit? DD can still take AAP classes in middle and high school w/o elementary AAP. She could still go to an excellent college. So what's the benefit besides extra homework and stress?? I"m 100% not being snarky. I want to know why you think AAP is a benefit (I know there are kids who need the extra challenge but the program seems to include those kids that don't fall in that category - our school is a level 4 center).

Am I wrong to thing that level 2 - 3 services are sufficient for great 3-6 and, if so, why?

My kids have not had "extra homework and stress" in AAP. However, they have had more challenging work (particularly in reading/language arts and math) and extra support for organization skills, time management, and other executive function skills than they received at their base school in earlier grades.

You are correct about high school: they will have the option to take AP/IB classes in high school with or without enrolling in AAP. However, my hope is that the executive function skills they have learned and practiced in elementary and middle school (in more challenging AP classes) will be stronger by high school, so they have an opportunity to do better work in these AP/IB classes.

Depends completely on the kid, not AAP. It is a crapshoot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so, I'm going there. My DD is a pretty smart kid. Whether she will get in the "pool" or not, who knows? She's in 2d and just took the COGAT. But, whether she gets in is neither here nor there. I'm on the fence as to my feelings about AAP. What is the benefit? DD can still take AAP classes in middle and high school w/o elementary AAP. She could still go to an excellent college. So what's the benefit besides extra homework and stress?? I"m 100% not being snarky. I want to know why you think AAP is a benefit (I know there are kids who need the extra challenge but the program seems to include those kids that don't fall in that category - our school is a level 4 center).

Am I wrong to thing that level 2 - 3 services are sufficient for great 3-6 and, if so, why?

My kids have not had "extra homework and stress" in AAP. However, they have had more challenging work (particularly in reading/language arts and math) and extra support for organization skills, time management, and other executive function skills than they received at their base school in earlier grades.

You are correct about high school: they will have the option to take AP/IB classes in high school with or without enrolling in AAP. However, my hope is that the executive function skills they have learned and practiced in elementary and middle school (in more challenging AP classes) will be stronger by high school, so they have an opportunity to do better work in these AP/IB classes.

Depends completely on the kid, not AAP. It is a crapshoot.

03:46 here -- it is dependent on the kid, and, in our case, supports for 504 plans.

We had little to no support for 504 plans at our base school. Was that the administration, counseling staff and the specific teachers? Could be.

We found much more knowledge about and support for 504 plans at the AAP center school. It may be the center school had more experience working with kids like mine with 504 plans, so it was easier to have supports in place. Or perhaps it was the AAP center school's administration, counseling staff and the specific teachers we encountered.

For us, AAP made a big difference. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so, I'm going there. My DD is a pretty smart kid. Whether she will get in the "pool" or not, who knows? She's in 2d and just took the COGAT. But, whether she gets in is neither here nor there. I'm on the fence as to my feelings about AAP. What is the benefit? DD can still take AAP classes in middle and high school w/o elementary AAP. She could still go to an excellent college. So what's the benefit besides extra homework and stress?? I"m 100% not being snarky. I want to know why you think AAP is a benefit (I know there are kids who need the extra challenge but the program seems to include those kids that don't fall in that category - our school is a level 4 center).

Am I wrong to thing that level 2 - 3 services are sufficient for great 3-6 and, if so, why?

My kids have not had "extra homework and stress" in AAP. However, they have had more challenging work (particularly in reading/language arts and math) and extra support for organization skills, time management, and other executive function skills than they received at their base school in earlier grades.

You are correct about high school: they will have the option to take AP/IB classes in high school with or without enrolling in AAP. However, my hope is that the executive function skills they have learned and practiced in elementary and middle school (in more challenging AP classes) will be stronger by high school, so they have an opportunity to do better work in these AP/IB classes.

Depends completely on the kid, not AAP. It is a crapshoot.

+100

[Anonymous]

We chose AAP because our DS was bored and goofing off at our base school. I feared the stereotype of AAP as too much homework and crazy parents, but by the end of last year, we figured we might as well give it a try.

It's turned out to be a fabulous environment for DS. Creativity and critical thinking are encouraged; worksheets (other than math, and there's a lot of that) are discouraged. He's a big questioner, and he's finally in a classroom in which questioning is encouraged and the teacher has the time to deal it.

I still feel that this environment should be offered to everyone, not just in special schools into which one tests. (I have other children in Gen Ed.) If the county won't provide that, though, you might as well try AAP.

[Anonymous]

We declined AAP for my oldest child. He is now in 7th grade taking two high school classes (algebra & language I). Kids who went AAP are only in one (we had special circumstances that let us start foreign language at 7th grade).

AAP doesn't matter in middle school. Math placement is based on your Iowa and SOL scores. And although we also turned down going to the magnet AAP Middle school to attend the local middle school. The school groups all the level 4 kids together. So there is a fraction of 28 kids who have their core subjects together.

My kid is way smart - was doing exponents (on his own) in first grade and was reading at age 3. My husband and I both have strong liberal arts under graduate degrees and have a "liberal arts" mind set. We wanted him to learn how to get along with people of all backgrounds. AAP to me just looked like "Big Bang Theory" - kids in there own world. But, I want my kids to be able to get along and communicate with anyone.

We didn't want the extra homework and projects that I saw on the wall. We turned down AAP in 3rd grade, and we said, we can also go in later years. We never did. Again, this would all depend on your base school. We had some great teachers. We also had time to do sports, after school activities and other things.

I also had two neighbors who regretted sending their kids to AAP. Both kids are in college now. The one felt that their DD self confidence would have been higher if she wasn't always looking at the uber smart kids. She would have been in the top 10% in a mixed classroom, but in her AAP class she felt that she was in the bottom. The other suffered when he went to high school and ended up in a the base high school group.

[Anonymous]

OP, I would urge you to think less about middle school, high school, and beyond and just consider what would be a good environment for your child next year.

I would also strongly suggest that you get a sense of your center's culture and teachers (which may only be possible at orientation, which means your child would be in the pool). The glassy-eyed math burnouts so often described in these threads are not the kids at our center. But they may well be the majority elsewhere; I have no idea.

[Anonymous]

I think by posting in this forum you are going to get a bias opinion.

[Anonymous]

At our school, I have not found that AAP = more homework or more stress. My kids have very little homework. My older child is more "stressed" but he brings that on himself. It is not born out of any competition with his peers. My younger child is far less stressed (dare I say he could care quite a bit more about his schoolwork?). I'm encouraged that he is surrounded by peers in AAP who seem to care about school. That is helpful for him.

But the primary benefit I have observed at our school (and it may not be this way everywhere)-- is that in 1st and 2nd grade, I felt like the poor teachers spent 80% of their time and energy dealing with 1) kids who were really struggling academically; and/or 2) kids with discipline problems. That meant that my kids were spending 7 hours in school, and getting about 30 minutes worth of learning each day. In AAP, I think they're getting closer to 4 hours of honest to goodness "learning" each day. That makes it worth it for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our school, I have not found that AAP = more homework or more stress. My kids have very little homework. My older child is more "stressed" but he brings that on himself. It is not born out of any competition with his peers. My younger child is far less stressed (dare I say he could care quite a bit more about his schoolwork?). I'm encouraged that he is surrounded by peers in AAP who seem to care about school. That is helpful for him.

But the primary benefit I have observed at our school (and it may not be this way everywhere)-- is that in 1st and 2nd grade, I felt like the poor teachers spent 80% of their time and energy dealing with 1) kids who were really struggling academically; and/or 2) kids with discipline problems. That meant that my kids were spending 7 hours in school, and getting about 30 minutes worth of learning each day. In AAP, I think they're getting closer to 4 hours of honest to goodness "learning" each day. That makes it worth it for me.

To be fair to the teachers, in K-2 the students come in at such a wide range of abilities. Just getting down the basics of letter recognition, reading, numbers, social skills takes a lot of time and energy.

Around 2-3 grade is when it starts to even out. So although AAP offers a good structure, the 3rd grade GE classes are also taught and structured in a way that wasn't possible before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school, I have not found that AAP = more homework or more stress. My kids have very little homework. My older child is more "stressed" but he brings that on himself. It is not born out of any competition with his peers. My younger child is far less stressed (dare I say he could care quite a bit more about his schoolwork?). I'm encouraged that he is surrounded by peers in AAP who seem to care about school. That is helpful for him.

But the primary benefit I have observed at our school (and it may not be this way everywhere)-- is that in 1st and 2nd grade, I felt like the poor teachers spent 80% of their time and energy dealing with 1) kids who were really struggling academically; and/or 2) kids with discipline problems. That meant that my kids were spending 7 hours in school, and getting about 30 minutes worth of learning each day. In AAP, I think they're getting closer to 4 hours of honest to goodness "learning" each day. That makes it worth it for me.

To be fair to the teachers, in K-2 the students come in at such a wide range of abilities. Just getting down the basics of letter recognition, reading, numbers, social skills takes a lot of time and energy.

Around 2-3 grade is when it starts to even out. So although AAP offers a good structure, the 3rd grade GE classes are also taught and structured in a way that wasn't possible before.

Well, I'm very happy that you think now your kids (I love it how entire families are Advanced or Gifted, btw). But it does beg the question of why kids in GE who perhaps are also quick to catch onto things are left with the teachers who are too busy with kids who are struggling or discipline problems. Would seem to me that a super smart/advanced
AAP kid could still proceed on his/her own while the teacher was working with slower kids. It is difficult to see how a kid who is merely advanced but not gifted (as perhaps yours are) needs to be hot-housed in a special program at a separate school, when other kids are actually being held back in GE classes because the teachers are too busy to meet their needs.

So much entitlement. This whole system is screwed up. And I say that as a mom who has had kids in both AAP and GE.

[Anonymous]

I meant "Well, I'm very happy that you think now your kids (I love it how entire families are Advanced or Gifted, btw) are getting an appropriate number of hours of education.