Really liked the AAP center Orientation

[Anonymous]

bump

[Anonymous]

For those that attended AAP Center orientations, what did you think?

Anyone deciding between the Center and local level 4 at the base school? Did you attend both orientations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious which Center school presentations you all found impressive. I was at Willow Springs and I thought the presentations were not very informative, welcoming, or encouraging.

If it helps, I thought the same thing a couple of years ago about Willow Springs, but my DC is in 4th grade now, and she has had nothing but an excellent experience with the school and the AAP program. The school is excellent and the teachers that DC has had have been really great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP - Could you share some more about your experiences at Willow Springs? At the presentation, the general themes they kept repeating was for parents to teach multiplication tables over the summer and to help with organizational skills.

My DD is one of those highly intelligent kids, but does not do well with organization or rote memorization tasks. So I was getting the feeling that WS is more for gifted kids without "issues" - the kind that can plow through mounds of homework easily. That is not my daughter. She loves learning, reads all the time, is highly curious, learns very easily -- but she pages of arithmetic, worksheets, etc. frustrate her to no end.

At the presentation, they emphasized how much more work it would be, but didn't give any tangible examples of the quality of the work.

I hate to take a chance on switching to the Center, with all the social changes that entails, unless I have more information to go on. I talked with the principal about my concerns, but she seemed very superficial in her responses and unwilling to give me anything but a canned response.

My Child is at Willow Springs AAP, and I do agree that multiplication tables are VERY important, but only because they cover two years worth of math in 3rd grade, so they are moving quickly, and knowing the tables helps the kids to get things done quicker. That said, my child is also not great at straight memorizing, and two years later still struggles with memorizing multiplication. Still, she gets A's in math.

I'll tell you that we expected a ton of work, but it wasn't anymore than I expected a 3rd grader to have. It took my daughter about an hour a night to finish homework in third grade, and that is only because she is very easily distracted and works slowly to be neat. I'd imagine a child without her issues would probably manage homework in 30 minutes. The AAP program has kids with all sorts of 'issues,' I can assure you of that. At least when it comes to my daughter and her friends.

Man, Willow Springs needs to work on their sales pitch. I thought all the same things after our orientation (and saw others who thought the same last year as well) but it really is a great school with fun activities schoolwide, as well as a good AAP Center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have also heard that about the AAP centers. That there are alot of very involved parents there, compared to some base schools. Have other parents found that to be the case?

I am the room mom of a 5th grade class at a center and it is my experience that the SOME of the AAP parents have been quick to send in money if requested, but will only volunteer to help if the help involves them getting in the classroom to make sure that their snowflakes are doing better than everyone else. I have one parent who demanded in the beginning of the year that I bug the teacher about getting a group of parents to help with grading, etc.......Needless to say, I ignored her. I DID tell the teacher about it, but she laughed and said, 'No thanks.' The same Mom volunteered to help with the Holiday party only to wander around following her child and talking about him compared to other kids to anyone who would listen. Another Mom calls me bi-weekly to give me her opinion on what I should be doing and what the teacher should be teaching (because, as room mom, I have the ability to go tell the nice lady with the teaching degree what she should be doing.) The same lady demands that I call her after every e-mail I send out to discuss the contents (I don't, but I always hear from her). Then we have a Dad who cornered me after Back to School night to discuss why there were not separate groups in Math for the kids who are even smarter than the smart kids. They were new to the county, and I guess that he didn't really understand the role of the room mom?

Luckily, the majority of the parents ARE sane and I can't imagine that they are anymore whacky than other 4th grade parents. There are obviously nuts in every group, but three out of 30 isn't bad.

[Anonymous]

While I am certain a few parents have nefarious reasons for volunteering in their child's classroom, sometimes it's a matter of being sure your child is keeping up and doing his or her work. I suppose this involves some comparison to other children but perhaps it is truly based in helping your child and making sure they are doing well in the classroom. I am fairly clueless about exactly what my child should be doing at this age but I can tell if he seems disinterested or checked out compared to others. It doesn't always have to be about getting ahead and academic one-upping the other kids.

For what it's worth I have never been witness to or even overheard the kind of behavior described by the PP. Most parents and volunteers are truly focused on helping the kids and making sure their child is doing his or her best. I am not a room parent nor inclined to be so perhaps that is an altogether different experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I am certain a few parents have nefarious reasons for volunteering in their child's classroom, sometimes it's a matter of being sure your child is keeping up and doing his or her work. I suppose this involves some comparison to other children but perhaps it is truly based in helping your child and making sure they are doing well in the classroom. I am fairly clueless about exactly what my child should be doing at this age but I can tell if he seems disinterested or checked out compared to others. It doesn't always have to be about getting ahead and academic one-upping the other kids.

For what it's worth I have never been witness to or even overheard the kind of behavior described by the PP. Most parents and volunteers are truly focused on helping the kids and making sure their child is doing his or her best. I am not a room parent nor inclined to be so perhaps that is an altogether different experience.

I am the PP, and I agree 100% with your last few sentences. Like I said, there are crazies in every group, and I just highlighted behavior that I've seen from a few parents. The other 27 families in my child's class seem perfectly sane and quite helpful.

This is my first (and last) year as a room parent. I basically ended up with the job because no one else signed up, and I was at the right place at the wrong time, I guess. It really hasn't been so bad. By 5th grade, there isn't too much to do as the room parent. The teacher doesn't need the help in the room, and the parties and such have been pretty much paired down to Holiday and End of Year. I am comfortable enough with my abilities to say that I am MUCH more of a worker bee than the leader, so even though there hasn't been too much to do, I've had a hard time staying organized. Next year, hopefully someone else will step up and I can go back to being an assistant and let someone else tell me what to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have also heard that about the AAP centers. That there are alot of very involved parents there, compared to some base schools. Have other parents found that to be the case?

I am the room mom of a 5th grade class at a center and it is my experience that the SOME of the AAP parents have been quick to send in money if requested, but will only volunteer to help if the help involves them getting in the classroom to make sure that their snowflakes are doing better than everyone else. I have one parent who demanded in the beginning of the year that I bug the teacher about getting a group of parents to help with grading, etc.......Needless to say, I ignored her. I DID tell the teacher about it, but she laughed and said, 'No thanks.' The same Mom volunteered to help with the Holiday party only to wander around following her child and talking about him compared to other kids to anyone who would listen. Another Mom calls me bi-weekly to give me her opinion on what I should be doing and what the teacher should be teaching (because, as room mom, I have the ability to go tell the nice lady with the teaching degree what she should be doing.) The same lady demands that I call her after every e-mail I send out to discuss the contents (I don't, but I always hear from her). Then we have a Dad who cornered me after Back to School night to discuss why there were not separate groups in Math for the kids who are even smarter than the smart kids. They were new to the county, and I guess that he didn't really understand the role of the room mom?

Luckily, the majority of the parents ARE sane and I can't imagine that they are anymore whacky than other 4th grade parents. There are obviously nuts in every group, but three out of 30 isn't bad.

I also have a 5th grader in an AAP center and I wonder if we are at the same center. This describes about half the parents I have met at the center. It has been hard to connect with the parents because I am easygoing and don't concern myself with comparisons or other people's kids. My younger child will be at the center also next year, and I'm hoping that the new 3rd grade crowd has a few more normals than the 5th grade crowd.

[Anonymous]

Man, Willow Springs needs to work on their sales pitch. I thought all the same things after our orientation (and saw others who thought the same last year as well) but it really is a great school with fun activities schoolwide, as well as a good AAP Center.

+1

Another parent of 2 kids at WS. I totally agree! The school is actuallly a great place, once you get past the completely uninspiring AAP orientation.

[Anonymous]

We just went to one yesterday. And I agree it was odd. But then I realized it doesn't need to inspiring because either you want your kid to go or not. In our case, we don't have another option. Our base school isn't meeting the needs for my child. We were 100% sure we were going before the orientation. I would bet half of the parents there felt the same. It's mainly an opportunity to see the school. In our case with the center school, they are over what they can handle anyway so I guess they figure, we'll give it to you straight.....I actually found it very honest for FCPS.