APS: G&T program ?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We are at an elementary where our kid gets pulled out a couple times a week (1x a week per subject usually) but it’s a smaller school. We haven’t found it to be nothing.

In general it’s a more push in model in APS.

Which school? We were told pull out isn’t an option in APS.

Pull out is not supposed to be an option, but there are some schools/staff members that don't play by the rules and make the other schools look like they aren't providing anything to advanced learners. Most schools are abiding by the model of the push-in/collaborative model, but there's always a few that march the the beat of their own drum even when it is not seen as best practices in education.

Best practices according to whom?
From my experience, the APS-touted "push in" model is the one where the regular teacher does remedial for the kids that are behind, while the GT teacher comes in to take care of everyone else, just doing the regular basic stuff.

With the name change this year (now something like advanced academic programs?), APS says that the "coach" will only offer enrichment activities for the whole class. The activities are not specifically meant for the advanced kids or kids tagged as gifted. The enrichment is now targeted at all kids. Nothing specific is being offered for kids tagged as gifted. APS has stopped using the program to differentiate.

That’s the point of clustering gifted kids together. When over 1/2 the class is identified and others still highly able, why wouldn’t all kids receive rigorous materials? I don’t think parents always understand just how many kids are identified, especially in high performing NA schools with kids who test well and have rich background experiences.

+1. 95% of every class in Arlington is gifted.

Another +1 from a NA parent.

I was recently discussing this with a parent who somehow asked for stats on gifted identification and well over half my kid’s grade has been flagged as gifted in at least one subject (from what I can tell based on my kid they use certain test score cut offs). From volunteering in class, it seems like there’s a handful of kids who are behind and need extra help in subjects and then a whole lot of kids who are really ahead.

Ahead of what? The basic SOL standard? That's a baseline and shouldn't be the sole expectation for these kids. Post-covid APS seems to think that their only obligation is to teach to the SOL standards and not meet kids where they are so that they are all learning.

[Anonymous]

APS no longer supports or invests in gifted education. The provide "resources" teachers can use to differentiate, but teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to differentiate -- and the schools get no more funding for accelerated students. They get funding based on how many meet the benchmark. They are concerned about the lower half, not the upper half. We are done with APS -- long time public school supporters -- but this has become ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:APS no longer supports or invests in gifted education. The provide "resources" teachers can use to differentiate, but teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to differentiate -- and the schools get no more funding for accelerated students. They get funding based on how many meet the benchmark. They are concerned about the lower half, not the upper half. We are done with APS -- long time public school supporters -- but this has become ridiculous.

In your opinion, what would be the ideal school environment for gifted learners in APS? Would you be happier if APS reverted back to pull out groups one time a week for 30 minutes, like they did over 10 years ago? Just curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS no longer supports or invests in gifted education. The provide "resources" teachers can use to differentiate, but teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to differentiate -- and the schools get no more funding for accelerated students. They get funding based on how many meet the benchmark. They are concerned about the lower half, not the upper half. We are done with APS -- long time public school supporters -- but this has become ridiculous.

In your opinion, what would be the ideal school environment for gifted learners in APS? Would you be happier if APS reverted back to pull out groups one time a week for 30 minutes, like they did over 10 years ago? Just curious.

The policy shouldn't be gifted activities for all. The point of identifying gifted learners is differentiation. It's fine if it's in the classroom, but the advanced/gifted learners should be getting differentiated instruction. They should be given more challenging work.

For instance, in my daughter's 5th grade class they do a pretest before each math unit. Some kids get every question on the pretest correct, but then they're still expected to just sit through the same math unit as the rest of the class, completing the same assignments. If they finish assignments early, they are offered a choice board, Lexis or free reading time. That's it. Those students shouldn't be sitting through a math unit where they are learning nothing. There should be differentiated instruction. They should get harder problems and be taught new concepts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS no longer supports or invests in gifted education. The provide "resources" teachers can use to differentiate, but teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to differentiate -- and the schools get no more funding for accelerated students. They get funding based on how many meet the benchmark. They are concerned about the lower half, not the upper half. We are done with APS -- long time public school supporters -- but this has become ridiculous.

In your opinion, what would be the ideal school environment for gifted learners in APS? Would you be happier if APS reverted back to pull out groups one time a week for 30 minutes, like they did over 10 years ago? Just curious.

The policy shouldn't be gifted activities for all. The point of identifying gifted learners is differentiation. It's fine if it's in the classroom, but the advanced/gifted learners should be getting differentiated instruction. They should be given more challenging work.

For instance, in my daughter's 5th grade class they do a pretest before each math unit. Some kids get every question on the pretest correct, but then they're still expected to just sit through the same math unit as the rest of the class, completing the same assignments. If they finish assignments early, they are offered a choice board, Lexis or free reading time. That's it. Those students shouldn't be sitting through a math unit where they are learning nothing. There should be differentiated instruction. They should get harder problems and be taught new concepts.

NP. Those are fighting words in APS, where even the newly introduced middle school intensified classes are not supposed to teach any differentiated, new, or more advanced content.

My kid was IDed in K after a teacher referral, but was told to expect nothing until 3rd grade. I stupidly believed that 3rd grade would be the year we saw something. Ha. My kid spent a lot of time reading.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I think the label itself is the lightning rod for APS-- it means some kids get services, and some kids don't based on two tests (NNAT and Cogat). And you are bound to miss some kids with the current identification process (for example, military kids moving into APS don't get automatically tested for gifted eligibility upon school registration). Also, the NNAT and Cogat aren't great at picking up 2e kids (e.g., gifted kids with dyslexia).

What if you replaced the labeling process with a system where there is a pre-test before every unit (math or LA) and every kid had a chance to "test out" of that unit and get more advanced instruction? You could mix up the classes within a grade for math and LA content, to minimize the workload on the teachers to develop differential instruction. That's the way my elementary school worked growing up-- we didn't have a gifted program or gifted tag, but we were clustered based on pre-testing.

Personally, I think tagging for social studies and science is a complete waste of time and resources. All the kids need to learn/memorize the facts needed to pass the SOL, and a "gifted kid" isn't necessarily going to know his Virginia history going into 4th grade anymore than a kid who wasn't tagged in social studies. Same with art and music-- there is literally no additional benefit to kids being tagged in those subjects. In fact, by middle school, the most art that any kid can take is 1/2 a year in 7th and 8th grade. Art isn't even offered again as a full-year elective until high school. And anyone can take Band and Choir. APS should just focus gifted resources on providing meaningful differentiated content in math and language arts in elementary school, and not worry about everything else- especially now with intensified classes being offered in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I think the label itself is the lightning rod for APS-- it means some kids get services, and some kids don't based on two tests (NNAT and Cogat). And you are bound to miss some kids with the current identification process (for example, military kids moving into APS don't get automatically tested for gifted eligibility upon school registration). Also, the NNAT and Cogat aren't great at picking up 2e kids (e.g., gifted kids with dyslexia).

What if you replaced the labeling process with a system where there is a pre-test before every unit (math or LA) and every kid had a chance to "test out" of that unit and get more advanced instruction? You could mix up the classes within a grade for math and LA content, to minimize the workload on the teachers to develop differential instruction. That's the way my elementary school worked growing up-- we didn't have a gifted program or gifted tag, but we were clustered based on pre-testing.

Personally, I think tagging for social studies and science is a complete waste of time and resources. All the kids need to learn/memorize the facts needed to pass the SOL, and a "gifted kid" isn't necessarily going to know his Virginia history going into 4th grade anymore than a kid who wasn't tagged in social studies. Same with art and music-- there is literally no additional benefit to kids being tagged in those subjects. In fact, by middle school, the most art that any kid can take is 1/2 a year in 7th and 8th grade. Art isn't even offered again as a full-year elective until high school. And anyone can take Band and Choir. APS should just focus gifted resources on providing meaningful differentiated content in math and language arts in elementary school, and not worry about everything else- especially now with intensified classes being offered in middle school.

The NNAT and Cogat are only one source of information. There are also teacher and parent referrals. Any kid who wants to be considered can be. As others have said, it's far from exclusive in APS.

I think what parents are scoffing at is that APS now considers that it doesn't have to do any differentiation. It's only job is to teach SOL standards (likely reinforced with the move to standards based grading). And, as of this year, the "Advanced Academic Coach" is no longer seeking to differentiate for kids that need it, but instead tasked with enrichment for all.

The concept of the gifted label in science and social studies is that some kids absorb all of the mandatory content almost instantly, and can do so by independently by reading source materials. These kids have time to learn all of the SOL standard requirements while also doing more challenging work like writing a research paper, essay or presentation on the topic. Other kids in the class need more repetition to absorb the same content to pass the SOL.

[Anonymous]

I have a young elementary kid in a NA school and am considering whether to apply to private schools in the next couple years. She's happy going to school but consistently says everything is too easy. Like many PPs, all her standardized scores are 99% -- I think last one we got was Naglieri from December, she had a 138. Do private schools differentiate better? I worry they don't, but admittedly haven't visited with this issue in mind (we toured a bunch when she was 2 yrs old for preschool but decided not to apply at that time). If I'm going to have to supplement (or push the school for more difficult work) in either case, I guess I'd rather have school be free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a young elementary kid in a NA school and am considering whether to apply to private schools in the next couple years. She's happy going to school but consistently says everything is too easy. Like many PPs, all her standardized scores are 99% -- I think last one we got was Naglieri from December, she had a 138. Do private schools differentiate better? I worry they don't, but admittedly haven't visited with this issue in mind (we toured a bunch when she was 2 yrs old for preschool but decided not to apply at that time). If I'm going to have to supplement (or push the school for more difficult work) in either case, I guess I'd rather have school be free.

I don't think differentiation matters so much in private because the private schools generally seem to be more rigorous to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a young elementary kid in a NA school and am considering whether to apply to private schools in the next couple years. She's happy going to school but consistently says everything is too easy. Like many PPs, all her standardized scores are 99% -- I think last one we got was Naglieri from December, she had a 138. Do private schools differentiate better? I worry they don't, but admittedly haven't visited with this issue in mind (we toured a bunch when she was 2 yrs old for preschool but decided not to apply at that time). If I'm going to have to supplement (or push the school for more difficult work) in either case, I guess I'd rather have school be free.

I don't think differentiation matters so much in private because the private schools generally seem to be more rigorous to begin with.

I agree with this. Private class sizes also tend to be smaller, so it is easier for the teachers to offer more personalized attention. And if a kid is really struggling (i.e., below grade level) they will usually suggest that the families go back to public school where the child can get more specialized support. Most private schools do not have nearly as many support teachers as the public schools for kids with special learning needs, unless it is a specialized private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS no longer supports or invests in gifted education. The provide "resources" teachers can use to differentiate, but teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to differentiate -- and the schools get no more funding for accelerated students. They get funding based on how many meet the benchmark. They are concerned about the lower half, not the upper half. We are done with APS -- long time public school supporters -- but this has become ridiculous.

In your opinion, what would be the ideal school environment for gifted learners in APS? Would you be happier if APS reverted back to pull out groups one time a week for 30 minutes, like they did over 10 years ago? Just curious.

Yes, that would be one option; another would be to segment classes by levels, so that in larger schools, there could be classes designated for more advanced students. Current state is nothing at all. Equity doesn't mean bringing everyone down; it means bringing everyone up.

[Anonymous]

The segmenting is difficult when many upper grade levels departmentalize and switch classes. In that case, only one teacher teaches a subject area.

[Anonymous]

Part of the problem in APS

[Anonymous]

Part of the problem in APS is the typical North Arlington parent who is highly highly educated themselves and did well in school (at least later on in life) and thus believes their bent towards education and educational success have transmitted to their offspring.

They have trouble accepting their child isn’t gifted amongst their peers — most of whom would probably qualify as gifted outside this ridiculous cohort.

Just look at the number of people posting on these threads about their child’s amazing scores and writing poetry in kindergarten. Blah blah blah.

And now that we are all gifted, no one is. I don’t really fault them but it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part of the problem in APS is the typical North Arlington parent who is highly highly educated themselves and did well in school (at least later on in life) and thus believes their bent towards education and educational success have transmitted to their offspring.

They have trouble accepting their child isn’t gifted amongst their peers — most of whom would probably qualify as gifted outside this ridiculous cohort.

Just look at the number of people posting on these threads about their child’s amazing scores and writing poetry in kindergarten. Blah blah blah.

And now that we are all gifted, no one is. I don’t really fault them but it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yes- especially true in the N Arlington elementary schools. You can pull the SOL scores from the VA Dept of Ed website and see that some of those ES have 99% pass rates on the SOLs, with ~50% advance pass rates. The majority of those advance pass kids are capable of scoring a 120 on the NNAT and/or Cogat, and are likely tagged as gifted. To some extent, APS doesn't need to sort the kids in elementary school, because we've already sorted ourselves into higher-performing and lower-performing schools by where we chose to buy our homes.