APS Neighborhood Elementary School- writing assignments and presentations

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

MS/HS teachers routinely read 85 to 150 student essays for each major assignment.



Sure. But they only do English or History, not ALL OTHER subjects like elementary teacher.

That’s probably one paper a semester - let’s say they take 10 minutes a paper. That’s 1500 minutes or 25 hours. So with 1 hour planning period per day, it would take them 5 weeks to grade one assignment.

Sure some teachers work evenings and weekends — far fewer do after pandemic. So something had to give; I’m guessing it’s the time per essay, they whittle it down to a 2 min edit and read and grade, and done in week

One paper a semester? Only grading during their planning period? Two or 10 minutes a paper? That's hilarious. You have no clue.

So you post a lot of questions but not any answers. Please clarify the math of how they get through all those papers? If your answer is long nights and weekends, I’m going to say teachers are as likely to start cutting corners because they are overworked and not given enough support.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP, I think you'll find that the curriculum is the same across APS. So you won't find one school that's doing something drastically different. There may be teachers who are stronger spread out through the county, but I wouldn't pick a school based solely on one terrific teacher somewhere.

Also be aware of who is writing the comments. There are a few that love to pretend like Randolph or Drew are terrible schools to be avoided simply because they draw more heavily from a few enormous subsidized housing complexes. The families I know at these schools are all REALLY happy with the teachers and the school community. They run the gamut from Hispanic families living in apartments, to upper/middle class white families living in SFHs. So if you really want to know about a school, ask the people attending the school. Not the people hiding behind anonymous posting on DCUM (including me!).

I don’t know if you’re referencing a comment of mine but I really wish my kid was in Drew (I don’t know much about Randolph). We are zoned for a school with a pretty low FARMS population and it’s way worse than Drew based on my experience substituting in each school. The behavior of the kids is better and they are also doing a much better job bouncing back from the pandemic as far as test scores go.

I don't know much about Drew but I can tell you that Drew's principal, who was the former vice-principal in my kids school is excellent. We were sad to see her go but happy for her as well!

OP to answer your question, I'm really happy with the new ELA curriculum that APS has rolled out. It is appropriately challenging and knowledge based. For the lower grades APS has made great strides with focusing on phonics and phonemic awareness. I'm not sure if you are aware of the reading wars, but APS's former curriculum was not evidence based. It's new one is. There is also now a renewed focus on writing and I believe it is an issue that the board plans to tackle this year.

My kids school, ATS, assigns homework but I don't think its the norm for most schools in APS. I like it as it reinforces many of the concepts they learned in school. To be honest,

Regarding APS schools, no I don't think all schools are the same. Some schools are clearly better than others. I have heard horror stories about Oakridge for example - the third grade class didn't have a teacher for the entire first half of the year and the substitutes kept changing. There are rampant bullying and behavioral issues. But overall, most elementary schools seem to be quite good. I am more worried about middle school which seems to be a shitshow. High schools seem to be good overall.

PP here and fun fact: we are at oakridge.

Then you should do some digging on why there is not currently an AP at Oakridge…..

comments like this frustrate me so much. Nobody who knows things wants to say anything, either because they think it’s gossipy or because they fear retribution or whatever. If you’re not part of the school version of the whisper network you’re just flying blind.

Regardless, I don’t need to do digging, I really don’t care. Nothing about this could make me dislike the school more than I already do, and I’m considering moving to a different boundary.

Why do you dislike the school so much?

The principal yells at students, teachers, and parents, she never communicates, she blames everyone else for any objective measures of weakness in the school, and she did some really awful stuff to one of my kids. There are so many behavioral issues that it’s really hard for teachers to teach anything, and the teachers can’t really do anything about it. The solution the principal has proposed to close the achievement gap is to give the teachers implicit bias training, and instead of having a quality, trained facilitator so it, they are having some random staff members do it. Kids who are behind aren’t getting pull-out help; instead teachers who have 25+ students with behavioral issues are expected to close the achievement gap by just being less unconsciously racist. Note that about half the teachers are POC.

I’m glad I’m a renter so we have the option of moving next year!

I’ve heard lots of horror stories about the principal there from both teachers and community members. She is made of Teflon apparently

1. Major anger management issues
2. The Teflon has been because she was a fave of Coach Murphy. Hopefully not to continue under Duran.

I’m afraid it already has. Duran has been there for three years and nothing has changed. Seems like the amount of Teflon has doubled.

Maybe a current or — inevitably — next lawsuit will bring some change.

there's a lawsuit???

There are a lot of rumors. The AP was “reassigned” mid year and nobody is buying the reason given. The principal has a long history of run-ins with parents and staff.

One of these days someone is going to record one of her tirades and it will go viral, which will be very embarrassing for APS. I’m amazed it hasn’t happened yet. She is a master of bullying and intimidation.

Somebody tried that years ago. It somehow got buried. Teflon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:



One paper a semester? Only grading during their planning period? Two or 10 minutes a paper? That's hilarious. You have no clue.




So you post a lot of questions but not any answers. Please clarify the math of how they get through all those papers? If your answer is long nights and weekends, I’m going to say teachers are as likely to start cutting corners because they are overworked and not given enough support.

Yes. This is the answer. They spend long nights and weekends. Sometimes, they may be able to grade during class while students are working, because older students don't need as much moment-to-moment supervision. But it is hard work and long hours. And yes, maybe some of them cut corners. But if you are same person who above said that ALL THEY DO is teach English or Social Studies, and thinks that MS/HS teachers don't work hard, think again.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m trying to learn about the neighborhood elementary schools in Arlington. I’ve been browsing this forum and I gather that there are generally no textbooks or homework (other than light reading) and that it can vary quite a bit from there.

Can anyone describe what kind of writing your child is doing in elementary school? Are there in-school writing assignments? Do they have clubs like student newspaper or book clubs? Are there book reports? Are there drama classes or other opportunities for public speaking or presentations?

It sounds like it’s a whole new world compared to when I went to school! Grateful for any feedback. Most of what I see on this forum are complaints.

We left APS to go private - although there was a lot of writing done in DD's class, there was hardly any correction by the teacher (grammar/punctuation/sentence structure/spelling). It seemed that the teacher was focusing on creativity of content, but neglected proper writing techniques. This went on for two consecutive grades.

That’s always been my concern — when do teachers have time to read 30 kids essays?

OP here. Are there really 30 kids in ES classrooms? It looks like they top out at 24 in all the reports I could find.

Well our kindergarten has 27 kids so that seems optimistic

Last year planning factor (not max) WERE 26/26/28/28/30/30. But for 2023 they apparently went down to 24/24/26/26/28/28.

Planning factors don’t line up with reality. 35% of classes were over planning factors. My 4th grader has 30 kids. They hire based on enrollment in March even though schools always have net gains by beginning of school year. They need to reduce planning factors even more so we can end up with more reasonable class sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m trying to learn about the neighborhood elementary schools in Arlington. I’ve been browsing this forum and I gather that there are generally no textbooks or homework (other than light reading) and that it can vary quite a bit from there.

Can anyone describe what kind of writing your child is doing in elementary school? Are there in-school writing assignments? Do they have clubs like student newspaper or book clubs? Are there book reports? Are there drama classes or other opportunities for public speaking or presentations?

It sounds like it’s a whole new world compared to when I went to school! Grateful for any feedback. Most of what I see on this forum are complaints.

We left APS to go private - although there was a lot of writing done in DD's class, there was hardly any correction by the teacher (grammar/punctuation/sentence structure/spelling). It seemed that the teacher was focusing on creativity of content, but neglected proper writing techniques. This went on for two consecutive grades.

That’s always been my concern — when do teachers have time to read 30 kids essays?

OP here. Are there really 30 kids in ES classrooms? It looks like they top out at 24 in all the reports I could find.

Well our kindergarten has 27 kids so that seems optimistic

Last year planning factor (not max) WERE 26/26/28/28/30/30. But for 2023 they apparently went down to 24/24/26/26/28/28.

Planning factors don’t line up with reality. 35% of classes were over planning factors. My 4th grader has 30 kids. They hire based on enrollment in March even though schools always have net gains by beginning of school year. They need to reduce planning factors even more so we can end up with more reasonable class sizes.

Not sure what good this is going to do when APS can't even keep teachers. After how horrible APS admin and parents have treated teachers, why should they stay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m trying to learn about the neighborhood elementary schools in Arlington. I’ve been browsing this forum and I gather that there are generally no textbooks or homework (other than light reading) and that it can vary quite a bit from there.

Can anyone describe what kind of writing your child is doing in elementary school? Are there in-school writing assignments? Do they have clubs like student newspaper or book clubs? Are there book reports? Are there drama classes or other opportunities for public speaking or presentations?

It sounds like it’s a whole new world compared to when I went to school! Grateful for any feedback. Most of what I see on this forum are complaints.

We left APS to go private - although there was a lot of writing done in DD's class, there was hardly any correction by the teacher (grammar/punctuation/sentence structure/spelling). It seemed that the teacher was focusing on creativity of content, but neglected proper writing techniques. This went on for two consecutive grades.

That’s always been my concern — when do teachers have time to read 30 kids essays?

OP here. Are there really 30 kids in ES classrooms? It looks like they top out at 24 in all the reports I could find.

Well our kindergarten has 27 kids so that seems optimistic

Last year planning factor (not max) WERE 26/26/28/28/30/30. But for 2023 they apparently went down to 24/24/26/26/28/28.

Planning factors don’t line up with reality. 35% of classes were over planning factors. My 4th grader has 30 kids. They hire based on enrollment in March even though schools always have net gains by beginning of school year. They need to reduce planning factors even more so we can end up with more reasonable class sizes.

Not sure what good this is going to do when APS can't even keep teachers. After how horrible APS admin and parents have treated teachers, why should they stay?

I agree with you somewhat. Most teacher (myself included) mostly are upset with admin and syphax bs. Parents (at our ES at least) are very supportive. We don’t post these extra positions though until after school has started which is basically impossible to hire. Starting in April or May would be much better. My spouse teaches in HS and issues there involve admin failure to impose consequences. Kids cut class because zero impact on grades. Yes they may get a detention if it’s chronic but the no consequences in name of equity is doing real damage. Parents need to call for change and get cell phones out of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a parent who can tell me about writing at Discovery? We will be moving to that boundary by next fall.

Beautiful building. Teaching isn’t evidence based. I would avoid it.