AAP school experience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, it's parents of the gen ed kids who cause the most strife. They pass their jealousy off to their kids, which is nonsense if AAP is the lousy program they claim it is. If that were true, why would it matter what class your kid was in?

Agree! They have an inferiority complex.

Respectfully, you're full of crap. Parents could remain completely silent about anything AAP-related, and the Gen Ed kids would still be getting the message from AAP kids in some instances that the AAP kids are "gifted" and the Gen Ed kids are "lesser than." It's a predictable consequence of the structure FCPS has created and the early age at which kids are screened and separated. One need only read Golding or Orwell to know this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s awful.

The kids who come to the center are endlessly told how smart and special they are at home and look down on the Gen Ed kids. Their parents treat the school like their own personal private school. The superiority complex infects the entire AAP class including the kids in boundary, and the Gen Ed kids internalize the message.

It’s super awesome when your 3rd grader comes home and tells you they aren’t smart enough for “special smart kid” program.

The whole program needs to end.

All of this. I find it beyond ironic that the SB preaches "equity" at every turn and then sees fit to create this class system. Just offer AAP (or GT or whatever they want to call it) along with other flexible group levels and allow kids to cycle up or down as needed in each core subject. There are PLENTY of Gen Ed kids who are advanced in one subject but not others and there are also PLENTY of AAP kids who are not advanced across the board. Way too much overlap of these two groups.

And the "center" model is redundant and the worst of all worlds. They need to send all kids back to their base schools and end centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a counterpoint, my older child as at a center school and has had a great experience. I’ve heard zero complaints about kids being treated like second-class citizens or that it’s like segregation. Kids are just in different classes. Kids in advanced math get pulled into the AAP class for math. All kids are mixed together on different “teams” for specials.

I have friends who live in different parts of the county, some with kids in Level IV AAP and some not (and some at centers and some not). My anecdotal perception is that parents are the main drivers of “toxicity” at centers.

Is your child in AAP? If so, that is why you've heard zero complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The program itself is lacking. It’s really not advanced or any big challenge for the kids at all. There is nothing very creative or innovative. The so-called extensions are truly lackluster. You are better off supplementing on your own. These kids are not coming out as strong writers or strong spellers, they even struggle to go on to Algebra 1 by 7th grade. The program is failing on many levels. It needs a complete overhaul, more rigor, or it needs to go away. The program is a ruse for the parent’s sake.

+100
They need to return to the very selective GT program for the kids who *need* it and just make AAP the general curriculum. Or even step that up. As you say, it's lacking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The program itself is lacking. It’s really not advanced or any big challenge for the kids at all. There is nothing very creative or innovative. The so-called extensions are truly lackluster. You are better off supplementing on your own. These kids are not coming out as strong writers or strong spellers, they even struggle to go on to Algebra 1 by 7th grade. The program is failing on many levels. It needs a complete overhaul, more rigor, or it needs to go away. The program is a ruse for the parent’s sake.

+100
They need to return to the very selective GT program for the kids who *need* it and just make AAP the general curriculum. Or even step that up. As you say, it's lacking.

Preach

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our base is our center. My kids are in the AAP program but most of our neighborhood isn't. I've never, ever heard a complaint from anyone. Kids typically know each other from summer swim (even if you're not at the same pool you see each other at B meets), rec sports, club sports, etc. My AAP kids played with their gen ed friends at recess all the way through.

It's a little different for the kids who come in to the full-time AAP classes later or gen ed later, who didn't get a chance to build those friendships in K-2, especially if they don't do sports.

And I agree with 08:26 that this may all be due in part to being in a more "chill" part of FCPS. We're mid-SES, in an area where people typically like the schools but yet don't get crazy competitive.

My kids' base school was also the center. They were not in AAP but attended this school from K-6. Their friendships with their K-2 friends pretty much ended when AAP notifications came out, and definitely by the start of 3rd grade. It was a terrible experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, it's parents of the gen ed kids who cause the most strife. They pass their jealousy off to their kids, which is nonsense if AAP is the lousy program they claim it is. If that were true, why would it matter what class your kid was in?

Oh, please. When your kid comes home from school in tears because all of their friends told them they just "weren't smart enough" to join them in AAP, get back to us. I never said anything at all to my DC about AAP, other than to reassure them after being hurt by these obnoxious kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, it's parents of the gen ed kids who cause the most strife. They pass their jealousy off to their kids, which is nonsense if AAP is the lousy program they claim it is. If that were true, why would it matter what class your kid was in?

You remind me of the first boundary meeting I attended--many years ago. A parent stood up defending the (then GT) program. She said that we need it because if "other" kids were in the class with hers that her child would be bored and cause trouble.

Irony: At graduation from high school, her child was not going to college. My DD was over 4.0, AP Scholar, commended National Merit, and won many department awards. Her child was not at any of those ceremonies. Maybe, he would have been better off with the "regular" kids.

+1
There's a lot of hubris among certain AAP kids and their parents. Many former Gen Ed kids zoom ahead of their former AAP peers once in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with FCPS is that all kids should be learning the AAP curriculum. The general education classes in elementary school are not teaching nearly enough. There needs to be a separate gifted and talented program for the extreme cases of children who are very highly gifted (most students do not fall into this group).

Agree. And a true gifted program is not just a slightly accelerated regular curriculum, which is all AAP is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a lot of bullying at the AAP Centers. It comes from parents and teachers who tell these kids they are better than the General Ed children. Newsflash: they're not.

OK AAP haters, when you say teachers are telling kids that they are somehow superior because they are in advanced academics, we totally know you have lost the plot and are just grasping at straws to make your arguments. Parents I can buy. Kids saying dumb stuff I can buy. But a vanishingly small number of teachers would be that incredibly stupid or intentionally mean.

DP. I think you're taking the PP very literally. When kids misbehave, I've heard AAP teachers say things like, "I don't expect this kind of behavior from you. You are in this class for a reason and behaving like this is not appropriate." Etc. They very much do say things to AAP students which make it clear they hold them to higher standards, etc.

Meanwhile, I had a friend tell me she couldn't believe certain kids (troublemakers) had gotten into AAP. I had to laugh. She actually thought her kid was going to be insulated from any bad behavior once in an AAP classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s so sad is once a base kid moves into the AAP class, they lose all their friendships with the gen Ed kids because they literally never see them again.

This has been our experience at a school with an LLIV program. There are two regular classes and one AAP class. The girls in the 6th grade AAP class have cliqued up to the point where they even have their own sports teams in the local rec league. They stayed friends in 3rd, but my child and several others got dropped like a hot potato in 4th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a lot of bullying at the AAP Centers. It comes from parents and teachers who tell these kids they are better than the General Ed children. Newsflash: they're not.

OK AAP haters, when you say teachers are telling kids that they are somehow superior because they are in advanced academics, we totally know you have lost the plot and are just grasping at straws to make your arguments. Parents I can buy. Kids saying dumb stuff I can buy. But a vanishingly small number of teachers would be that incredibly stupid or intentionally mean.

At my son’s AAP center, a teacher asked a child who didn’t follow a direction if “they had just gotten off a boat from China and didn’t understand English”. So yeah, the teachers can be stupid. FWIW, this was in a mixed AAP/GenEd gym class.

One idiot teacher doesn’t represent the entire profession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s so sad is once a base kid moves into the AAP class, they lose all their friendships with the gen Ed kids because they literally never see them again.

This has been our experience at a school with an LLIV program. There are two regular classes and one AAP class. The girls in the 6th grade AAP class have cliqued up to the point where they even have their own sports teams in the local rec league. They stayed friends in 3rd, but my child and several others got dropped like a hot potato in 4th.

I knew a teacher who was really exasperated about one of those 2E kids in her classroom who threw screaming fits frequently. The kind where the rest of the class had to leave while the child exploded screaming. And, the irony: the kid really wasn't that smart. The mom pushed for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, it's parents of the gen ed kids who cause the most strife. They pass their jealousy off to their kids, which is nonsense if AAP is the lousy program they claim it is. If that were true, why would it matter what class your kid was in?

Agree! They have an inferiority complex.

Respectfully, you're full of crap. Parents could remain completely silent about anything AAP-related, and the Gen Ed kids would still be getting the message from AAP kids in some instances that the AAP kids are "gifted" and the Gen Ed kids are "lesser than." It's a predictable consequence of the structure FCPS has created and the early age at which kids are screened and separated. One need only read Golding or Orwell to know this.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s so sad is once a base kid moves into the AAP class, they lose all their friendships with the gen Ed kids because they literally never see them again.

This has been our experience at a school with an LLIV program. There are two regular classes and one AAP class. The girls in the 6th grade AAP class have cliqued up to the point where they even have their own sports teams in the local rec league. They stayed friends in 3rd, but my child and several others got dropped like a hot potato in 4th.

I knew a teacher who was really exasperated about one of those 2E kids in her classroom who threw screaming fits frequently. The kind where the rest of the class had to leave while the child exploded screaming. And, the irony: the kid really wasn't that smart. The mom pushed for it.

I don’t even know where to start with this, but it sounds a whole lot like frustration that students with disabilities can also be gifted.

Sorry that challenges your belief in eugenics