APS: G&T program ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of the problem in APS is the typical North Arlington parent who is highly highly educated themselves and did well in school (at least later on in life) and thus believes their bent towards education and educational success have transmitted to their offspring.

They have trouble accepting their child isn’t gifted amongst their peers — most of whom would probably qualify as gifted outside this ridiculous cohort.

Just look at the number of people posting on these threads about their child’s amazing scores and writing poetry in kindergarten. Blah blah blah.

And now that we are all gifted, no one is. I don’t really fault them but it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yes- especially true in the N Arlington elementary schools. You can pull the SOL scores from the VA Dept of Ed website and see that some of those ES have 99% pass rates on the SOLs, with ~50% advance pass rates. The majority of those advance pass kids are capable of scoring a 120 on the NNAT and/or Cogat, and are likely tagged as gifted. To some extent, APS doesn't need to sort the kids in elementary school, because we've already sorted ourselves into higher-performing and lower-performing schools by where we chose to buy our homes.

I can't believe that someone even wrote this. This is exceptionally racist and classist. There are plenty of not so bright kids in N Arlington who pass SOLs because of tutors and extra help and lots of very smart kids in less wealthy parts of the county who pass SOLs despite many barriers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of the problem in APS is the typical North Arlington parent who is highly highly educated themselves and did well in school (at least later on in life) and thus believes their bent towards education and educational success have transmitted to their offspring.

They have trouble accepting their child isn’t gifted amongst their peers — most of whom would probably qualify as gifted outside this ridiculous cohort.

Just look at the number of people posting on these threads about their child’s amazing scores and writing poetry in kindergarten. Blah blah blah.

And now that we are all gifted, no one is. I don’t really fault them but it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yes- especially true in the N Arlington elementary schools. You can pull the SOL scores from the VA Dept of Ed website and see that some of those ES have 99% pass rates on the SOLs, with ~50% advance pass rates. The majority of those advance pass kids are capable of scoring a 120 on the NNAT and/or Cogat, and are likely tagged as gifted. To some extent, APS doesn't need to sort the kids in elementary school, because we've already sorted ourselves into higher-performing and lower-performing schools by where we chose to buy our homes.

I can't believe that someone even wrote this. This is exceptionally racist and classist. There are plenty of not so bright kids in N Arlington who pass SOLs because of tutors and extra help and lots of very smart kids in less wealthy parts of the county who pass SOLs despite many barriers.

Seriously? You can't? You really don't see the differences between these schools?
I'll grant it points to classism (because poverty and academic achievement does have some correlation); but this was not a racist comment at all. Sure, there are kids in the north who need extra help; but not nearly as many as in our highest poverty schools. So, "plenty of" those "not so bright kids" in a NA school doesn't come close to what you find in most SA schools. The PPP is right - Arlington has sorted itself out quite a bit and both CB and SB intentionally keep it that way....you know....so they can concentrate services where they're needed instead of making them available and easily accessible everywhere.

Low to middling standards to meet + relatively few NA kids "not so bright" + extra tutoring and resources for the majority of students who are already in the middle and above minimal standards = high performing schools with very high pass rates.

Low to middling standards to meet + significantly high proportions of students from poor backgrounds and having to learn English starting out well behind + inability to afford intensive tutoring and fewer resources across the school community = lower and low performing schools with lower and low pass rates.

If you can't - or won't - see that, you are in denial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS no longer supports or invests in gifted education. The provide "resources" teachers can use to differentiate, but teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to differentiate -- and the schools get no more funding for accelerated students. They get funding based on how many meet the benchmark. They are concerned about the lower half, not the upper half. We are done with APS -- long time public school supporters -- but this has become ridiculous.

In your opinion, what would be the ideal school environment for gifted learners in APS? Would you be happier if APS reverted back to pull out groups one time a week for 30 minutes, like they did over 10 years ago? Just curious.

Yes, that would be one option; another would be to segment classes by levels, so that in larger schools, there could be classes designated for more advanced students. Current state is nothing at all. Equity doesn't mean bringing everyone down; it means bringing everyone up.

An even better option would be to create schools that are comparable socioeconomically so that none of our schools have a disproportionate # of students starting significantly behind, without the extra resources to address it, and not demanding so much instructional focus that prevents teachers from moving on with the students who are already at and above standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They NEVER reject it lady.

I’m a APS teacher who has worked at multiple APS schools over the past 15+ years. Parent referrals (or teacher referrals) are rejected when there isn’t enough data to support an identification. I’ve seen this happen on multiple occasions.

I can attest that they do get rejected too. My daughter was referred by her teacher in second grade, but since her nnat was borderline (115), she was rejected. Again referred by her teacher in third grade, again rejected. Scored 162 on her cogat in fourth grade, and was referred again. That happened during march 2020 though so no idea if it went through. She is in 8th grade now and my experience was that there isn’t any gt programming in middle school. I asked her math teacher about it, and she said all gifted activities are offered as optional choice activities (to the entire class). So there is limited value to the designation in my experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS no longer supports or invests in gifted education. The provide "resources" teachers can use to differentiate, but teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to differentiate -- and the schools get no more funding for accelerated students. They get funding based on how many meet the benchmark. They are concerned about the lower half, not the upper half. We are done with APS -- long time public school supporters -- but this has become ridiculous.

In your opinion, what would be the ideal school environment for gifted learners in APS? Would you be happier if APS reverted back to pull out groups one time a week for 30 minutes, like they did over 10 years ago? Just curious.

Yes, that would be one option; another would be to segment classes by levels, so that in larger schools, there could be classes designated for more advanced students. Current state is nothing at all. Equity doesn't mean bringing everyone down; it means bringing everyone up.

PP this borders on tracking which is considered racist and essentially boxes kids out from a young age. They're now supposed to be clustering kids identified as GT into groups of no smaller than 10 kids, so that in a given classroom the teacher should have a smaller spectrum across which to differentiate, and enough of an advanced cohort to need that instruction.

A pre-test model could work as well. The key is that then instruction has to actually happen. Not more iPad time or choice activities. Actual real live instruction by a teacher just as the kids who are below standard get. This is part of the failure of APS, high achieving kids are left to their own devices in most cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a young elementary kid in a NA school and am considering whether to apply to private schools in the next couple years. She's happy going to school but consistently says everything is too easy. Like many PPs, all her standardized scores are 99% -- I think last one we got was Naglieri from December, she had a 138. Do private schools differentiate better? I worry they don't, but admittedly haven't visited with this issue in mind (we toured a bunch when she was 2 yrs old for preschool but decided not to apply at that time). If I'm going to have to supplement (or push the school for more difficult work) in either case, I guess I'd rather have school be free.

Many privates, but not all, handle differentiation well. It is fair to ask Admissions “How does the school handle differentiation, a student ahead or behind ?” when exploring private schools. Also, ask which math curriculum and which reading/grammar/spelling curriculum are they using. Catholic schools locally seem to have a very solid curriculum in all subjects, but some DCUM posters think they usually do not handle either slow learners, or genuinely gifted students, very differently than average students,

I was in my local public through lower elementary (after attending a good Montessori from ages 3-K) and learned zero in that public school. I was bored out of my gourd. Part way through elementary, my parents realized I really was not being taught anything new. They moved me to an academically challenging private, even though we could not really afford it. No school is perfect, but I was A LOT happier learning at the private than being warehoused by the local public. I also ended up being much better prepared for college thanks to the private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of the problem in APS is the typical North Arlington parent who is highly highly educated themselves and did well in school (at least later on in life) and thus believes their bent towards education and educational success have transmitted to their offspring.

They have trouble accepting their child isn’t gifted amongst their peers — most of whom would probably qualify as gifted outside this ridiculous cohort.

Just look at the number of people posting on these threads about their child’s amazing scores and writing poetry in kindergarten. Blah blah blah.

And now that we are all gifted, no one is. I don’t really fault them but it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yes- especially true in the N Arlington elementary schools. You can pull the SOL scores from the VA Dept of Ed website and see that some of those ES have 99% pass rates on the SOLs, with ~50% advance pass rates. The majority of those advance pass kids are capable of scoring a 120 on the NNAT and/or Cogat, and are likely tagged as gifted. To some extent, APS doesn't need to sort the kids in elementary school, because we've already sorted ourselves into higher-performing and lower-performing schools by where we chose to buy our homes.

I can't believe that someone even wrote this. This is exceptionally racist and classist. There are plenty of not so bright kids in N Arlington who pass SOLs because of tutors and extra help and lots of very smart kids in less wealthy parts of the county who pass SOLs despite many barriers.

Seriously? You can't? You really don't see the differences between these schools?
I'll grant it points to classism (because poverty and academic achievement does have some correlation); but this was not a racist comment at all. Sure, there are kids in the north who need extra help; but not nearly as many as in our highest poverty schools. So, "plenty of" those "not so bright kids" in a NA school doesn't come close to what you find in most SA schools. The PPP is right - Arlington has sorted itself out quite a bit and both CB and SB intentionally keep it that way....you know....so they can concentrate services where they're needed instead of making them available and easily accessible everywhere.

Low to middling standards to meet + relatively few NA kids "not so bright" + extra tutoring and resources for the majority of students who are already in the middle and above minimal standards = high performing schools with very high pass rates.

Low to middling standards to meet + significantly high proportions of students from poor backgrounds and having to learn English starting out well behind + inability to afford intensive tutoring and fewer resources across the school community = lower and low performing schools with lower and low pass rates.

If you can't - or won't - see that, you are in denial.

Here's the racist and classist bit stated again.

There are *lots* of N Arlington kids who are well prepared and well supported, but who just aren't that bright. Of course they can pass SOLs at a high rate with all the help, but doesn't make them smart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS no longer supports or invests in gifted education. The provide "resources" teachers can use to differentiate, but teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to differentiate -- and the schools get no more funding for accelerated students. They get funding based on how many meet the benchmark. They are concerned about the lower half, not the upper half. We are done with APS -- long time public school supporters -- but this has become ridiculous.

In your opinion, what would be the ideal school environment for gifted learners in APS? Would you be happier if APS reverted back to pull out groups one time a week for 30 minutes, like they did over 10 years ago? Just curious.

Yes, that would be one option; another would be to segment classes by levels, so that in larger schools, there could be classes designated for more advanced students. Current state is nothing at all. Equity doesn't mean bringing everyone down; it means bringing everyone up.

PP this borders on tracking which is considered racist and essentially boxes kids out from a young age. They're now supposed to be clustering kids identified as GT into groups of no smaller than 10 kids, so that in a given classroom the teacher should have a smaller spectrum across which to differentiate, and enough of an advanced cohort to need that instruction.

A pre-test model could work as well. The key is that then instruction has to actually happen. Not more iPad time or choice activities. Actual real live instruction by a teacher just as the kids who are below standard get. This is part of the failure of APS, high achieving kids are left to their own devices in most cases.

APS already has GT clusters of ~12 students per class to follow VA guidelines. The entire change would be having the AAC work with classroom teachers to differentiate content for those learners, as opposed to being focused on whole-class enrichment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
APS already has GT clusters of ~12 students per class to follow VA guidelines. The entire change would be having the AAC work with classroom teachers to differentiate content for those learners, as opposed to being focused on whole-class enrichment.

I agree that's where the AAC should be spending their time. But, data shows that clustering in groups according to the policy isn't being implemented across all schools. Teachers assigned GT clusters are also supposed to have a certain number of PD units in teaching gifted kids, but APS doesn't enforce that. They need to start doing so, that way the coordinator can support the teachers but the teachers are themselves already a bit more prepared to educate high ability children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For parents reading this board, newsflash - parents can refer kids for gifted identification. I’d LOVE to hear about any parent whose identification was actually rejected by an APS elementary principal Just so everyone’s aware how stringent the “program” is and how meaningful it is to be identified by APS.

Me! Principal denied the appeal, then we appealed above her and won. The higher-ups in APS seemed shocked by what was going on at that school and they shook up the school's whole gifted program after that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For parents reading this board, newsflash - parents can refer kids for gifted identification. I’d LOVE to hear about any parent whose identification was actually rejected by an APS elementary principal Just so everyone’s aware how stringent the “program” is and how meaningful it is to be identified by APS.

Me! Principal denied the appeal, then we appealed above her and won. The higher-ups in APS seemed shocked by what was going on at that school and they shook up the school's whole gifted program after that.

I love that this story has gone totally Arlington. I posted that you shouldn’t worry about the dumb school labels because you as their parent can control the labeling by doing it yourself. Some idiotic responders seemed to think this wasn’t true and there was a super secret select committee of intensive review that went into getting kids into Arlington's secret society of extra smart gifted kids. And lo and behold we have proof that those posters are no match for Arlington parents who will go above the principal to get their child into this really amazing club. Only in Arlington is all of this utterly wasteful nonsense going on.