APS Percentage on IDP and Gifted

[Anonymous]

no clustering would not happen anyways

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 of the 477. Happy to answer questions op.

per day or week, how much specialized instruction does your student get as a SWD or GT student?

my DD is neither, so she gets whatever is left over, and with such a huge population of both, I worry that being in the middle means you get a lot of independent study time.

My child is gifted and reads a lot independently at school. When they were younger they regularly read several books a day. The gifted label doesn't seem to make a difference beyond clustering, which would happen anyway. I guess if the label helps teachers cluster kids that is useful? I feel for the teachers because whatever they are pushing it is NOT apparent to most parents I talk with.

Scrolling through the budget the low FRL numbers really jumped out at some of the schools.
Jamestown (16), Tuckahoe (15), Nottingham (10), Discovery (22)
A handful of others have less than 100. A lot have around 200, and then there are the schools where everyone gets lunch for free (Title I, I believe, though the budget lists it as CEP).

It is definitely useful to have the label because it guarantees clustering. If it weren't for the policy with grouping, most schools would equally spread out the highest kids so the rest of the class has "role models". This would not allow gifted kids to interact on a regular with their intellectual peers and they would often become "teachers helpers" and asked to help the lowest learners.

[Anonymous]

I looked at the dashboard, OP, and it does not list IEPs, IEPs does NOT = disabled population.
I've not seen APS list #IEPs (or #504s) for that matter.

However, I'm also interested in this data, and whether APS also compiles # of simultaneous GIFTED/Advanced AND IEP - was not aware they are available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:budget has the number listed at each ES with SN. How do you get 2E numbers? had no idea that was the topic this thread...

I've not seen 2e numbers from APS, especially not per school, but would be interested in this. If anyone can point me to page of document, or similar, if they have found it?

As far as the "Student with disabilities" numbers that APS lists - I was not aware that these specifically mean IEPs, or do they? There are a number of disabilities, and not all have an IEP, some have 504s, some don't have anything. Also the disabilities can range from very mild (perhaps noted only in medical file) to very severe (with placement and multiple interventional teams), does APS lump them together in these stats?

[Anonymous]

I read SWD as students with IEPs.
https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2023/05/CHILDREN-WITH-DISABILITIES-in-Virginia-FINAL.pdf

[Anonymous]

https://law.lis.virginia.gov/admincode/title8/agency20/chapter81/section10/

“Child with a disability" means a child evaluated in accordance with the provisions of this chapter as having an intellectual disability, a hearing impairment (including deafness), a speech or language impairment, a visual impairment (including blindness), a serious emotional disability (referred to in this part as "emotional disability"), an orthopedic impairment, autism, traumatic brain injury, an other health impairment, a specific learning disability, deaf-blindness, or multiple disabilities who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services. This also includes developmental delay if the local educational agency recognizes this category as a disability in accordance with 8VAC20-81-80 M 3. If it is determined through an appropriate evaluation that a child has one of the disabilities identified but only needs a related service and not special education, the child is not a child with a disability under this part. If the related service required by the child is considered special education rather than a related service under Virginia standards, the child would be determined to be a child with a disability. (§ 22.1-213 of the Code of Virginia; 34 CFR 300.8(a)(1) and 34 CFR 300.8(a)(2)(i) and (ii))

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 of the 477. Happy to answer questions op.

per day or week, how much specialized instruction does your student get as a SWD or GT student?

my DD is neither, so she gets whatever is left over, and with such a huge population of both, I worry that being in the middle means you get a lot of independent study time.

My child is gifted and reads a lot independently at school. When they were younger they regularly read several books a day. The gifted label doesn't seem to make a difference beyond clustering, which would happen anyway. I guess if the label helps teachers cluster kids that is useful? I feel for the teachers because whatever they are pushing it is NOT apparent to most parents I talk with.

Scrolling through the budget the low FRL numbers really jumped out at some of the schools.
Jamestown (16), Tuckahoe (15), Nottingham (10), Discovery (22)
A handful of others have less than 100. A lot have around 200, and then there are the schools where everyone gets lunch for free (Title I, I believe, though the budget lists it as CEP).

It is definitely useful to have the label because it guarantees clustering. If it weren't for the policy with grouping, most schools would equally spread out the highest kids so the rest of the class has "role models". This would not allow gifted kids to interact on a regular with their intellectual peers and they would often become "teachers helpers" and asked to help the lowest learners.

This is such an interesting point. While I do think there can be value to a student in being a role model, I know it isn't always beneficial to the student. I can understand why teachers would do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 of the 477. Happy to answer questions op.

per day or week, how much specialized instruction does your student get as a SWD or GT student?

my DD is neither, so she gets whatever is left over, and with such a huge population of both, I worry that being in the middle means you get a lot of independent study time.

Huh? That's not how it works. With the changes this year, APS isn't offering any services to gifted students that it isn't offering to all students. The Advanced Academic Coaches are now working with classroom teachers to do whole class enrichment. They do not do anything specific for the tagged students.

In reality this means that average students are engaged in appropriate learning, while students who are gifted likely have a ton of downtime after they finish their work with nothing more to do. My elementary school student has been reading several hundred pages of her book each day at school for most of the year. She finished one SOL this week and then read for 3.5 hours while everyone else finished. There's a ton of wasted time with no additional challenge for advanced and gifted students in the APS system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 of the 477. Happy to answer questions op.

per day or week, how much specialized instruction does your student get as a SWD or GT student?

my DD is neither, so she gets whatever is left over, and with such a huge population of both, I worry that being in the middle means you get a lot of independent study time.

Huh? That's not how it works. With the changes this year, APS isn't offering any services to gifted students that it isn't offering to all students. The Advanced Academic Coaches are now working with classroom teachers to do whole class enrichment. They do not do anything specific for the tagged students.

In reality this means that average students are engaged in appropriate learning, while students who are gifted likely have a ton of downtime after they finish their work with nothing more to do. My elementary school student has been reading several hundred pages of her book each day at school for most of the year. She finished one SOL this week and then read for 3.5 hours while everyone else finished. There's a ton of wasted time with no additional challenge for advanced and gifted students in the APS system.

In MS, they offer optional enrichment/extended activities for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:budget has the number listed at each ES with SN. How do you get 2E numbers? had no idea that was the topic this thread...

I've not seen 2e numbers from APS, especially not per school, but would be interested in this. If anyone can point me to page of document, or similar, if they have found it?

As far as the "Student with disabilities" numbers that APS lists - I was not aware that these specifically mean IEPs, or do they? There are a number of disabilities, and not all have an IEP, some have 504s, some don't have anything. Also the disabilities can range from very mild (perhaps noted only in medical file) to very severe (with placement and multiple interventional teams), does APS lump them together in these stats?

I believe that SWD means students who receive services. So just IEP.

OP’s link provides #s for SWD and gifted - and both - for each school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 of the 477. Happy to answer questions op.

per day or week, how much specialized instruction does your student get as a SWD or GT student?

my DD is neither, so she gets whatever is left over, and with such a huge population of both, I worry that being in the middle means you get a lot of independent study time.

Huh? That's not how it works. With the changes this year, APS isn't offering any services to gifted students that it isn't offering to all students. The Advanced Academic Coaches are now working with classroom teachers to do whole class enrichment. They do not do anything specific for the tagged students.

In reality this means that average students are engaged in appropriate learning, while students who are gifted likely have a ton of downtime after they finish their work with nothing more to do. My elementary school student has been reading several hundred pages of her book each day at school for most of the year. She finished one SOL this week and then read for 3.5 hours while everyone else finished. There's a ton of wasted time with no additional challenge for advanced and gifted students in the APS system.

So essentially GT had been eliminated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 of the 477. Happy to answer questions op.

per day or week, how much specialized instruction does your student get as a SWD or GT student?

my DD is neither, so she gets whatever is left over, and with such a huge population of both, I worry that being in the middle means you get a lot of independent study time.

Huh? That's not how it works. With the changes this year, APS isn't offering any services to gifted students that it isn't offering to all students. The Advanced Academic Coaches are now working with classroom teachers to do whole class enrichment. They do not do anything specific for the tagged students.

In reality this means that average students are engaged in appropriate learning, while students who are gifted likely have a ton of downtime after they finish their work with nothing more to do. My elementary school student has been reading several hundred pages of her book each day at school for most of the year. She finished one SOL this week and then read for 3.5 hours while everyone else finished. There's a ton of wasted time with no additional challenge for advanced and gifted students in the APS system.

So essentially GT had been eliminated?

No. GT enrichment work is available to all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 of the 477. Happy to answer questions op.

per day or week, how much specialized instruction does your student get as a SWD or GT student?

my DD is neither, so she gets whatever is left over, and with such a huge population of both, I worry that being in the middle means you get a lot of independent study time.

Do you even have elementary age kids? I have two gifted kids and the answer to how many hours a week of special instruction they get that your child is excluded from is 0.
APS is a push-in model where the gifted resource teacher provides special lessons and activities to groups of kids that contains more than just the identified kids OR is available to the whole class. They are “May do” activities that sometimes my kid opts into but doesn’t have to. My experience through 4th grade is that the gifted activities are independent study while other kids are being taught the core material or having “independent reading time”. It also results in my 1st grader spending tons of time on apps while other kids are in “small group meetings” at the teacher’s desk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:budget has the number listed at each ES with SN. How do you get 2E numbers? had no idea that was the topic this thread...

I've not seen 2e numbers from APS, especially not per school, but would be interested in this. If anyone can point me to page of document, or similar, if they have found it?

As far as the "Student with disabilities" numbers that APS lists - I was not aware that these specifically mean IEPs, or do they? There are a number of disabilities, and not all have an IEP, some have 504s, some don't have anything. Also the disabilities can range from very mild (perhaps noted only in medical file) to very severe (with placement and multiple interventional teams), does APS lump them together in these stats?

yes usually APS considers SWDs to be students with IEPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://law.lis.virginia.gov/admincode/title8/agency20/chapter81/section10/

“Child with a disability" means a child evaluated in accordance with the provisions of this chapter as having an intellectual disability, a hearing impairment (including deafness), a speech or language impairment, a visual impairment (including blindness), a serious emotional disability (referred to in this part as "emotional disability"), an orthopedic impairment, autism, traumatic brain injury, an other health impairment, a specific learning disability, deaf-blindness, or multiple disabilities who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services. This also includes developmental delay if the local educational agency recognizes this category as a disability in accordance with 8VAC20-81-80 M 3. If it is determined through an appropriate evaluation that a child has one of the disabilities identified but only needs a related service and not special education, the child is not a child with a disability under this part. If the related service required by the child is considered special education rather than a related service under Virginia standards, the child would be determined to be a child with a disability. (§ 22.1-213 of the Code of Virginia; 34 CFR 300.8(a)(1) and 34 CFR 300.8(a)(2)(i) and (ii))

These are the implementing regulations for the IDEA in Virginia, the law that governs IEPs. There are also two more laws, Section 504 and the ADA, under which disabled students in public schools have rights.

But in practice when APS uses the term SWD or students with disabilities, they often are just referring to students with IEPs, not those with 504 plans.