New Budget Recommendations -- eliminate AAP busing and centers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you get rid of testing?

And stick with just the GBRS? wow.

I am saying with the degree of test prep, the tests do not tell much; they take time away from education. GBRS is a long term average, testing is a 1 day measurement. Sick kid=low score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I liked the flexible grouping our LLIV did AAP in 3-6. The Level IV students were in AAP for all four core classes. The Level III students were in the AAP core classes for which they qualified and in Gen ED or SPecial Ed for the core subjects in which they qualified for those. It made for more mixing during the class changes and kids were not necessarily stuck with the same kids in all four classes regardless of where they stood.

This was for the entire year though correct? If so, it's not flexible grouping. Your principal hand picked some kids to attend AAP core classes because there was space and probably did so party to make class sizes more even. This is different than flexible grouping which is often grouping of children on a monthly basis.

Okay, whatever it is called, I liked it and it worked very well. Some students were moved during the year, but not many.

Great, but what's your point related to eliminating AAP busing and centers? Those students only go into those classes when there's room in the AAP class and then people get upset because those non level 4 students are hand picked at the discretion of the teacher and principal verses having a set metric like a testing score. It's not a system that can be used across the county without some better parameters for placing kids.

The parameters should be: the kids that test the top 1-2% in both NNAT and COGAT. The rest should stay at the base schools and be grouped by subject based on their abilities. End of story!

GBRS scoring by teachers should be eliminated.

First, the majority of AAP kids are in the top 1-2% of the nation. Second, how would that help anything? Do a scenario of a high level, medium level, and title 1 school.

The majority of the AAP kids ARE NOT in the top 1-2%. It's closer to 10-15%. Then maybe the cut off should be the top 1% or even IQ over 140-145.

The problem will always remain. No matter what the cut off is - the parents of the children that JUST missed the cut off will be upset. If AAP became that restrictive (hard requirement of 140 or over) then we'd have a group up in arms about being more inclusive and taking more factors (ie GBRS, parental input etc) into account to get a broader picture of the child's abilities/needs.....which is what we have now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I liked the flexible grouping our LLIV did AAP in 3-6. The Level IV students were in AAP for all four core classes. The Level III students were in the AAP core classes for which they qualified and in Gen ED or SPecial Ed for the core subjects in which they qualified for those. It made for more mixing during the class changes and kids were not necessarily stuck with the same kids in all four classes regardless of where they stood.

This was for the entire year though correct? If so, it's not flexible grouping. Your principal hand picked some kids to attend AAP core classes because there was space and probably did so party to make class sizes more even. This is different than flexible grouping which is often grouping of children on a monthly basis.

Okay, whatever it is called, I liked it and it worked very well. Some students were moved during the year, but not many.

Great, but what's your point related to eliminating AAP busing and centers? Those students only go into those classes when there's room in the AAP class and then people get upset because those non level 4 students are hand picked at the discretion of the teacher and principal verses having a set metric like a testing score. It's not a system that can be used across the county without some better parameters for placing kids.

The parameters should be: the kids that test the top 1-2% in both NNAT and COGAT. The rest should stay at the base schools and be grouped by subject based on their abilities. End of story!

GBRS scoring by teachers should be eliminated.

First, the majority of AAP kids are in the top 1-2% of the nation. Second, how would that help anything? Do a scenario of a high level, medium level, and title 1 school.

The majority of the AAP kids ARE NOT in the top 1-2%. It's closer to 10-15%. Then maybe the cut off should be the top 1% or even IQ over 140-145.

County no. But the top 3% nationally is about 10% in FCPS.

I strongly disagree with getting rid of the GBRS. I would rather get rid of the testing -- which is largely ignored in the process.

If you limit it to 145, there would be 18 kids county wide (ok, we are smarter than average, so maybe we are looking at 100 kids). We are at 2 standard deviations above national norm, or 1.5 over norm, which means 1 in 7.

Exactly, then you woild only need one ES program county wide and the rest could be done in the schools. For schools, where there isn't a quorum for a class, the students could take math with the next grade up and then in 6th grade the special ed teacher could take the class as a pullout. that is how my DC's small FCPS did it and it worked fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you get rid of testing?

And stick with just the GBRS? wow.

I am saying with the degree of test prep, the tests do not tell much; they take time away from education. GBRS is a long term average, testing is a 1 day measurement. Sick kid=low score.

The variations in teacher ability to identify "highly gifted kids" is so profound that it's very unreliable.

If it were up to our kids' 1st grade teacher, my kid with a 150 IQ would have had a very low GBRS and our kid with a 135 IQ would had a 16 GBRS. She had no idea what she was talking about. One kid is a genius who doesn't care about grades and the other kid is a smart, high achiever who is a super great listener and rule follower. Due to testing, the school and 2nd grade teacher got it right, but I can't imagine this is always the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you get rid of testing?

And stick with just the GBRS? wow.

I am saying with the degree of test prep, the tests do not tell much; they take time away from education. GBRS is a long term average, testing is a 1 day measurement. Sick kid=low score.

The variations in teacher ability to identify "highly gifted kids" is so profound that it's very unreliable.

If it were up to our kids' 1st grade teacher, my kid with a 150 IQ would have had a very low GBRS and our kid with a 135 IQ would had a 16 GBRS. She had no idea what she was talking about. One kid is a genius who doesn't care about grades and the other kid is a smart, high achiever who is a super great listener and rule follower. Due to testing, the school and 2nd grade teacher got it right, but I can't imagine this is always the case.

pp here - also, I don't care how sick or tired your kid is (unless their in bed with a fever). If they are highly gifted they will test well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I liked the flexible grouping our LLIV did AAP in 3-6. The Level IV students were in AAP for all four core classes. The Level III students were in the AAP core classes for which they qualified and in Gen ED or SPecial Ed for the core subjects in which they qualified for those. It made for more mixing during the class changes and kids were not necessarily stuck with the same kids in all four classes regardless of where they stood.

This was for the entire year though correct? If so, it's not flexible grouping. Your principal hand picked some kids to attend AAP core classes because there was space and probably did so party to make class sizes more even. This is different than flexible grouping which is often grouping of children on a monthly basis.

Okay, whatever it is called, I liked it and it worked very well. Some students were moved during the year, but not many.

Great, but what's your point related to eliminating AAP busing and centers? Those students only go into those classes when there's room in the AAP class and then people get upset because those non level 4 students are hand picked at the discretion of the teacher and principal verses having a set metric like a testing score. It's not a system that can be used across the county without some better parameters for placing kids.

The parameters should be: the kids that test the top 1-2% in both NNAT and COGAT. The rest should stay at the base schools and be grouped by subject based on their abilities. End of story!

GBRS scoring by teachers should be eliminated.

First, the majority of AAP kids are in the top 1-2% of the nation. Second, how would that help anything? Do a scenario of a high level, medium level, and title 1 school.

The majority of the AAP kids ARE NOT in the top 1-2%. It's closer to 10-15%. Then maybe the cut off should be the top 1% or even IQ over 140-145.

The problem will always remain. No matter what the cut off is - the parents of the children that JUST missed the cut off will be upset. If AAP became that restrictive (hard requirement of 140 or over) then we'd have a group up in arms about being more inclusive and taking more factors (ie GBRS, parental input etc) into account to get a broader picture of the child's abilities/needs.....which is what we have now.

Sadly, because of these parents and the schools current system, they are really hurting the kids that are in this range and the ones that really need an actual gifted program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I liked the flexible grouping our LLIV did AAP in 3-6. The Level IV students were in AAP for all four core classes. The Level III students were in the AAP core classes for which they qualified and in Gen ED or SPecial Ed for the core subjects in which they qualified for those. It made for more mixing during the class changes and kids were not necessarily stuck with the same kids in all four classes regardless of where they stood.

This was for the entire year though correct? If so, it's not flexible grouping. Your principal hand picked some kids to attend AAP core classes because there was space and probably did so party to make class sizes more even. This is different than flexible grouping which is often grouping of children on a monthly basis.

Okay, whatever it is called, I liked it and it worked very well. Some students were moved during the year, but not many.

Great, but what's your point related to eliminating AAP busing and centers? Those students only go into those classes when there's room in the AAP class and then people get upset because those non level 4 students are hand picked at the discretion of the teacher and principal verses having a set metric like a testing score. It's not a system that can be used across the county without some better parameters for placing kids.

The parameters should be: the kids that test the top 1-2% in both NNAT and COGAT. The rest should stay at the base schools and be grouped by subject based on their abilities. End of story!

GBRS scoring by teachers should be eliminated.

First, the majority of AAP kids are in the top 1-2% of the nation. Second, how would that help anything? Do a scenario of a high level, medium level, and title 1 school.

The majority of the AAP kids ARE NOT in the top 1-2%. It's closer to 10-15%. Then maybe the cut off should be the top 1% or even IQ over 140-145.

County no. But the top 3% nationally is about 10% in FCPS.

I strongly disagree with getting rid of the GBRS. I would rather get rid of the testing -- which is largely ignored in the process.

If you limit it to 145, there would be 18 kids county wide (ok, we are smarter than average, so maybe we are looking at 100 kids). We are at 2 standard deviations above national norm, or 1.5 over norm, which means 1 in 7.

Exactly, then you woild only need one ES program county wide and the rest could be done in the schools. For schools, where there isn't a quorum for a class, the students could take math with the next grade up and then in 6th grade the special ed teacher could take the class as a pullout. that is how my DC's small FCPS did it and it worked fine.

YES!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I liked the flexible grouping our LLIV did AAP in 3-6. The Level IV students were in AAP for all four core classes. The Level III students were in the AAP core classes for which they qualified and in Gen ED or SPecial Ed for the core subjects in which they qualified for those. It made for more mixing during the class changes and kids were not necessarily stuck with the same kids in all four classes regardless of where they stood.

This was for the entire year though correct? If so, it's not flexible grouping. Your principal hand picked some kids to attend AAP core classes because there was space and probably did so party to make class sizes more even. This is different than flexible grouping which is often grouping of children on a monthly basis.

Okay, whatever it is called, I liked it and it worked very well. Some students were moved during the year, but not many.

Great, but what's your point related to eliminating AAP busing and centers? Those students only go into those classes when there's room in the AAP class and then people get upset because those non level 4 students are hand picked at the discretion of the teacher and principal verses having a set metric like a testing score. It's not a system that can be used across the county without some better parameters for placing kids.

The parameters should be: the kids that test the top 1-2% in both NNAT and COGAT. The rest should stay at the base schools and be grouped by subject based on their abilities. End of story!

GBRS scoring by teachers should be eliminated.

First, the majority of AAP kids are in the top 1-2% of the nation. Second, how would that help anything? Do a scenario of a high level, medium level, and title 1 school.

The majority of the AAP kids ARE NOT in the top 1-2%. It's closer to 10-15%. Then maybe the cut off should be the top 1% or even IQ over 140-145.

County no. But the top 3% nationally is about 10% in FCPS.

I strongly disagree with getting rid of the GBRS. I would rather get rid of the testing -- which is largely ignored in the process.

If you limit it to 145, there would be 18 kids county wide (ok, we are smarter than average, so maybe we are looking at 100 kids). We are at 2 standard deviations above national norm, or 1.5 over norm, which means 1 in 7.

Exactly, then you woild only need one ES program county wide and the rest could be done in the schools. For schools, where there isn't a quorum for a class, the students could take math with the next grade up and then in 6th grade the special ed teacher could take the class as a pullout. that is how my DC's small FCPS did it and it worked fine.

So your solution is to have a center program (sole center school like TJ or imbedded in a typical school like the current center program?) that has a slightly higher cutoff (instead of the top 3% of scores in the nation, limit it to 99% plus a min. GRBS score) and then for all the rest of the kids allow them to take advanced math with the grade above (if they test high enough at the beginning of the year? How is their grouping determined? How does a school schedule this?) and ability group in the classroom for the rest of the core subjects based on some month pretest (how is this done?). Do I have that right? Basically eliminate LLIV except for centers, eliminate LLIII, and just keep LLII differentiation in the classroom.

If this is done, what does it accomplish in terms of budget? In terms of helping teachers to teach and students to learn? Would center schools still get bussing? Would the non-center kids have to be transferred somewhere else? For the kids at the base schools, how do you see the budget reduced for them? Would you see a removal of the AART teacher or do you still see them at base schools? Looks like additional testing is required yearly to put these non-center kids into above grade math classes and teacher resources wouldn't be allocated till after the beginning of the school year when the kids had been tested for math. Differentiation for other classes per your scenario is very vague.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I know what is required. I was stating my opinion on what I believe the system should look like. What is your point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you get rid of testing?

And stick with just the GBRS? wow.

I am saying with the degree of test prep, the tests do not tell much; they take time away from education. GBRS is a long term average, testing is a 1 day measurement. Sick kid=low score.

The variations in teacher ability to identify "highly gifted kids" is so profound that it's very unreliable.

If it were up to our kids' 1st grade teacher, my kid with a 150 IQ would have had a very low GBRS and our kid with a 135 IQ would had a 16 GBRS. She had no idea what she was talking about. One kid is a genius who doesn't care about grades and the other kid is a smart, high achiever who is a super great listener and rule follower. Due to testing, the school and 2nd grade teacher got it right, but I can't imagine this is always the case.

I think the way they do it now with looking at the GBRS, the test scores, etc. is just fine. I think they need to do more testing beyond the NNAT and the CogAT. I was talking to a friend and she said that in her school, they are encouraging all the parents to do a referral because the test scores will not arrive before the deadline. I like that a lot. Parents should provide more input regardless of the test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you get rid of testing?

And stick with just the GBRS? wow.

I am saying with the degree of test prep, the tests do not tell much; they take time away from education. GBRS is a long term average, testing is a 1 day measurement. Sick kid=low score.

The variations in teacher ability to identify "highly gifted kids" is so profound that it's very unreliable.

If it were up to our kids' 1st grade teacher, my kid with a 150 IQ would have had a very low GBRS and our kid with a 135 IQ would had a 16 GBRS. She had no idea what she was talking about. One kid is a genius who doesn't care about grades and the other kid is a smart, high achiever who is a super great listener and rule follower. Due to testing, the school and 2nd grade teacher got it right, but I can't imagine this is always the case.

I think the way they do it now with looking at the GBRS, the test scores, etc. is just fine. I think they need to do more testing beyond the NNAT and the CogAT. I was talking to a friend and she said that in her school, they are encouraging all the parents to do a referral because the test scores will not arrive before the deadline. I like that a lot. Parents should provide more input regardless of the test scores.

+1

Kids are more than just test scores.

[Anonymous]

So in conclusion, the materials the state and FCPS uses are just fine. It's just the cutoff might need to be a little higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I liked the flexible grouping our LLIV did AAP in 3-6. The Level IV students were in AAP for all four core classes. The Level III students were in the AAP core classes for which they qualified and in Gen ED or SPecial Ed for the core subjects in which they qualified for those. It made for more mixing during the class changes and kids were not necessarily stuck with the same kids in all four classes regardless of where they stood.

This was for the entire year though correct? If so, it's not flexible grouping. Your principal hand picked some kids to attend AAP core classes because there was space and probably did so party to make class sizes more even. This is different than flexible grouping which is often grouping of children on a monthly basis.

Okay, whatever it is called, I liked it and it worked very well. Some students were moved during the year, but not many.

Great, but what's your point related to eliminating AAP busing and centers? Those students only go into those classes when there's room in the AAP class and then people get upset because those non level 4 students are hand picked at the discretion of the teacher and principal verses having a set metric like a testing score. It's not a system that can be used across the county without some better parameters for placing kids.

The parameters should be: the kids that test the top 1-2% in both NNAT and COGAT. The rest should stay at the base schools and be grouped by subject based on their abilities. End of story!

GBRS scoring by teachers should be eliminated.

First, the majority of AAP kids are in the top 1-2% of the nation. Second, how would that help anything? Do a scenario of a high level, medium level, and title 1 school.

The majority of the AAP kids ARE NOT in the top 1-2%. It's closer to 10-15%. Then maybe the cut off should be the top 1% or even IQ over 140-145.

The problem will always remain. No matter what the cut off is - the parents of the children that JUST missed the cut off will be upset. If AAP became that restrictive (hard requirement of 140 or over) then we'd have a group up in arms about being more inclusive and taking more factors (ie GBRS, parental input etc) into account to get a broader picture of the child's abilities/needs.....which is what we have now.

Sadly, because of these parents and the schools current system, they are really hurting the kids that are in this range and the ones that really need an actual gifted program.

You really think the students who scored 135-139 hold back the kids 140 and up? Nah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So in conclusion, the materials the state and FCPS uses are just fine. It's just the cutoff might need to be a little higher.

Why? The "cutoff" is merely to create the 2nd grade pool.

Screening files are created by the school's AART for all students (a) who are in the 2nd grade pool and (b) for all students with referrals.

This year, it appears at least several schools are recommending parents submit a completed referral form ("The AAP Level IV Referral due date is Friday, January 15, 2016. This due date may arrive before ability test results, therefore parents of children in grades 2-6 should plan to submit a referral if you wish for your child to be screened for Level IV services.").

Therefore, there will likely be more students in (b).

Making a cutoff test score higher will have some but likely little effect on the number of screening files created by the AART.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So in conclusion, the materials the state and FCPS uses are just fine. It's just the cutoff might need to be a little higher.

Why? The "cutoff" is merely to create the 2nd grade pool.

Screening files are created by the school's AART for all students (a) who are in the 2nd grade pool and (b) for all students with referrals.

This year, it appears at least several schools are recommending parents submit a completed referral form ("The AAP Level IV Referral due date is Friday, January 15, 2016. This due date may arrive before ability test results, therefore parents of children in grades 2-6 should plan to submit a referral if you wish for your child to be screened for Level IV services.").

Therefore, there will likely be more students in (b).

Making a cutoff test score higher will have some but likely little effect on the number of screening files created by the AART.

The overall AAP percentage seems to have come down to earth the last several years, at least compared to the huge current sixth grade class. I'm wondering how a surge of referrals apparently encouraged this year will affect the process and number of children selected.