Why do schools not let mingle gen-ed kids with AAP.

[Anonymous]

DD moved from a LLIV program with 1 AAP class to a center with 3. At the LLIV center, they did mingle, except for core classes (that is, for band & strings, chorus, PE, specials, lunch, recess etc.). For example, kids were assigned to specials based on whether we're also in band, strings or chorus, and not by base class, and the entire grade ate & had recess at about the same time (staggered by class by a few minutes).

In DD's center, the 3 AAP teachers in her grade specialize in math, science & language arts, and the base teacher does social studies. The kids change classes with their base class. In order to make this work, they do have specials, band, strings & chorus, lunch etc. separately. I would prefer if it were not this way, but I see the need from a logistics point of view. And DD has made Gen Ed friends because of her school based scout troop, and neighborhood friends, and school extracurriculars.

In our experience (with a sample size of only 2 schools) this is not an issue of bad intentions or a desire to segregate the kids, but rather the logistics of running a large center with multiple AAP classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I do understand that schools must be keeping kids separate from managing perspective. It is heart aching to see the kids feel that they have a restricted/almost no access in school to the friends that they made in k-2, or they have made in other activities that they do outside of school because they are AAP / Gen Ed or vice versa. i wish the schools could come up with more innovative ways to mingle the kids. I am not trying to say one is superior than other or so. I have respect for both the programs,just wish that outside of the boundaries of academic needs, kids should not have to stay away from each other.

I also think your complaint is school specific. Our AAP center has very few kids coming from the non-AAP part of the center school. There are something like 13 schools feeding into the AAP part of the school. The AAP kids are not pining to sit with "friends" in the non-AAP part of the school. They simply don't know them. And the reverse would be true as well. The non-AAP kids don't know anything about the AAP kids (except for a few kids in each grade who moved over).

I do find it strange that you put the onus on the people who are new to the school and blame them for not interacting with the non-AAP kids and parents. The AAP kids are welcomed by being assigned to the trailers. If anything, the AAP kids have an argument for being treated like 2nd class citizens who aren't yet welcomed into the school!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I do understand that schools must be keeping kids separate from managing perspective. It is heart aching to see the kids feel that they have a restricted/almost no access in school to the friends that they made in k-2, or they have made in other activities that they do outside of school because they are AAP / Gen Ed or vice versa. i wish the schools could come up with more innovative ways to mingle the kids. I am not trying to say one is superior than other or so. I have respect for both the programs,just wish that outside of the boundaries of academic needs, kids should not have to stay away from each other.

I also think your complaint is school specific. Our AAP center has very few kids coming from the non-AAP part of the center school. There are something like 13 schools feeding into the AAP part of the school. The AAP kids are not pining to sit with "friends" in the non-AAP part of the school. They simply don't know them. And the reverse would be true as well. The non-AAP kids don't know anything about the AAP kids (except for a few kids in each grade who moved over).

I do find it strange that you put the onus on the people who are new to the school and blame them for not interacting with the non-AAP kids and parents. The AAP kids are welcomed by being assigned to the trailers. If anything, the AAP kids have an argument for being treated like 2nd class citizens who aren't yet welcomed into the school!

Think about what you've said. 13 schools feeding into one school. First off, that's probably the largest AAP center in the county then. Usually it's about 3-4 schools. Think just for a moment though what that must be like for a neighborhood school to have kids from 13 other schools come in. Perhaps they bought before any redistricting happened and now they have to live with the situation or move. Maybe the AAP population exploded. I have less tolerance for people who bought knowing this would be the case. Yes, if one child is coming into 5th grade, the class should be welcoming before the new child is, but to have 13 schools coming in all excited to start their first year at the school and now the general ed kids have to see their friends who got into the AAP center no longer hanging out with them because of this new distinction and also no mingling because the AAP parents demanded that every class be ability grouped. If you have 13 schools feeding into it, the reason some are in trailers is because the school is TOO BIG! Not because of any AAP/general ed separation. And typically the kids who need the most help such as the younger grades or special needs children would be allocated inside the building. Would you really want the down syndrome outside in a trailer while your kid was inside? I think both sides should be welcoming, but obviously at your school the general ed population is entirely overwhelmed by the AAP population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:23:45, I think there are several posters in that quote.

These were my questions:

As a parent of an AAP child at a center elementary school, how many new friends did your child make at the center who were not in K-2 with them or in AAP? How many of those new kids did you had over to your house during grades 3-5? How about their parents?

[Anonymous]

I think it's mostly about logistics and not some grand scheme to make the GE kids feel bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also don't understand the ",missed opportunities" of friendship. In that dopey scenario aren't 4th graders missing out on friendships with 3rd and 5th graders because they aren't in the same classes? Aren't kids who live in the same large neighborhood but are split between School A and School B missing out on
friendships?

A child doesn't need to be exposed to 150 kids to make friends. In some small schools there may only be two classes in the grade. Are those kids suffering because there aren't another 50-75 peers at the school?

It really is looking for a problem where there shouldn't be one.

I think the problem is that there's an academic segregation going on at the center schools. So that the GE kids never get to hang out with the academic superstars and the academic superstars never hang out with kids who may be on grade level or even struggling. This makes for a very segregated way of living and was the reason tracking went away in the first place. I think many people are supportive of kids getting lessons at their academic level. What they aren't supportive of is situation in elementary where kids are only with like minded kids whether that's race, intelligence, or parent income level. In high school it makes more sense to specialize because children are figuring out what they want to major in. Can you not understand how a kid who is in GE might think he's too dumb to even hang out with the AAP kids if they are so segregated or an AAP kid thinking the other kids are so dumb they aren't worth hanging out with? That type of attitude stays with people throughout their lives.

Do you just not believe the posts above telling you that AAP and Gen Ed kids do share certain classes and more? Specials, PE, recess, field trips (maybe your school doesn't mix groups for field trips but others do), all-grade activities like the third grade and sixth grade plays at our former center school. My kid is going on a field trip tomorrow in her AAP center middle school and the groups for the day are mixed. Yes, the kids are "segregated" academically for the core academic subjects, since you insist on using that term. That separation into classes based on aptitude and the speed and depth of teaching is the entire point of an advanced academic program. But the schools do mix these in other ways.

You just seem to ignore that fact, and the previous posts giving you other examples. It sounds as if you would prefer no academic differentiation by class, but won't come right out and say it.

As for the sentence in bold above -- that is a huge generalization that manages to stereotype both AAP and Gen Ed kids in a single sentence, the former as superior snots and the latter as woefully considering themselves dumb. Way to insult both groups at once.

There is a topic right also active entitled "Why I hate AAP". I haven't posted once on this and yet there are pages of comments. While it is a stereotype, there are certainly kids on both sides who feel this way hence the reason for the stereotype. Not all of course, but it is still an issue. As a parent of an AAP child at a center elementary school, how many new friends did your child make at the center who were not in K-2 with them or in AAP? How many of those new kids did you had over to your house during grades 3-5? How about their parents?

Ok. Back at you.

As the established student at the school, how many new kids in the AAP program did your chikd reach out to? How many of them did she welcome? Try to get to know? How many names of these new kids did she know?

What about you? How many of the new AAP parents did you welcome to your school? Invite to the PTA meeting? Try to make feel like they were welcome in the commuity?

As someone who moved many times as my life and who now is established in an actual neighborhood and home, I always feel that it is proper manners and common courtesy for tue established folks to be the ones to reach out to and welcome newcomers. Yes, newcomers should be friendly but those already comfortable and established should be the ones extending hospitality.

If your school breeds so much hostility than perhaps you, the established one, is part of the problem.

Change your attitude and show som basic manners and perhaps you will find out that your stereotypes are, with very few exceptions, just that...unfounded stereotypes.

You might...gasp...discover that most of these AAP encroachers are actually quite nice and would love to be welcomed into the school community instead of being shunned, gossiped about and resented.

I find this amusing. Whenever I strike up a conversation with a parent of an AAP child, as soon as they realize my child is in Gen Ed, they completely check out of the conversation. You can actually see the moment when it occurs - it's blatant. So I've lost interest in going out of my way to be friendly to parents who clearly aren't going to reciprocate. Predictably, one of you will say it's just "my imagination". That's because you haven't been on the receiving end of this kind of boorish behavior.

Every single AAP parent? Out of how many? They're not all created equally, you know. Let me guess, the GE parents are "clearly going to reciprocate"? You as biased as the ones you're accusing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The subject says it all,and I am referring to places like Field trip ,lunch,field day etc. That is a torture for all of them.

Wow, lunch, field trip and field day? What specific school doesn't let them mingle? That is just ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school pays lip service to mixing, but the reality is all students have to sit with their class at lunch, so they can't sit with friends in other classes. On field trips, each class divides into groups from that same class, and they have to stay together, so no mingling there either (or on the bus, as kids have to sit with their classes). They are mixed in specials and I think at recess, but that's about it. It makes no sense to keep these kids separate. They're missing out on friendships they would otherwise have made if they weren't segregated into separate classrooms.

All the above applies to every single classroom though, it isn't just the AAP classroom. They need to keep things safe and organized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's mostly about logistics and not some grand scheme to make the GE kids feel bad.

Mclean altered their schedule so that kids have more classes together. They did this for a reason. Yes, they are lucky to have few children who are behind grade level and not all schools can easily do this, but they also did this because they believe mingling will pay off for all children and make their schools more cohesive. They could have just as easily left things the way they were, but they realized changes had to be made for the benefit of the kids, parents, and teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also don't understand the ",missed opportunities" of friendship. In that dopey scenario aren't 4th graders missing out on friendships with 3rd and 5th graders because they aren't in the same classes? Aren't kids who live in the same large neighborhood but are split between School A and School B missing out on
friendships?

A child doesn't need to be exposed to 150 kids to make friends. In some small schools there may only be two classes in the grade. Are those kids suffering because there aren't another 50-75 peers at the school?

It really is looking for a problem where there shouldn't be one.

I think the problem is that there's an academic segregation going on at the center schools. So that the GE kids never get to hang out with the academic superstars and the academic superstars never hang out with kids who may be on grade level or even struggling. This makes for a very segregated way of living and was the reason tracking went away in the first place. I think many people are supportive of kids getting lessons at their academic level. What they aren't supportive of is situation in elementary where kids are only with like minded kids whether that's race, intelligence, or parent income level. In high school it makes more sense to specialize because children are figuring out what they want to major in. Can you not understand how a kid who is in GE might think he's too dumb to even hang out with the AAP kids if they are so segregated or an AAP kid thinking the other kids are so dumb they aren't worth hanging out with? That type of attitude stays with people throughout their lives.

Do you just not believe the posts above telling you that AAP and Gen Ed kids do share certain classes and more? Specials, PE, recess, field trips (maybe your school doesn't mix groups for field trips but others do), all-grade activities like the third grade and sixth grade plays at our former center school. My kid is going on a field trip tomorrow in her AAP center middle school and the groups for the day are mixed. Yes, the kids are "segregated" academically for the core academic subjects, since you insist on using that term. That separation into classes based on aptitude and the speed and depth of teaching is the entire point of an advanced academic program. But the schools do mix these in other ways.

You just seem to ignore that fact, and the previous posts giving you other examples. It sounds as if you would prefer no academic differentiation by class, but won't come right out and say it.

As for the sentence in bold above -- that is a huge generalization that manages to stereotype both AAP and Gen Ed kids in a single sentence, the former as superior snots and the latter as woefully considering themselves dumb. Way to insult both groups at once.

There is a topic right also active entitled "Why I hate AAP". I haven't posted once on this and yet there are pages of comments. While it is a stereotype, there are certainly kids on both sides who feel this way hence the reason for the stereotype. Not all of course, but it is still an issue. As a parent of an AAP child at a center elementary school, how many new friends did your child make at the center who were not in K-2 with them or in AAP? How many of those new kids did you had over to your house during grades 3-5? How about their parents?

Ok. Back at you.

As the established student at the school, how many new kids in the AAP program did your chikd reach out to? How many of them did she welcome? Try to get to know? How many names of these new kids did she know?

What about you? How many of the new AAP parents did you welcome to your school? Invite to the PTA meeting? Try to make feel like they were welcome in the commuity?

As someone who moved many times as my life and who now is established in an actual neighborhood and home, I always feel that it is proper manners and common courtesy for tue established folks to be the ones to reach out to and welcome newcomers. Yes, newcomers should be friendly but those already comfortable and established should be the ones extending hospitality.

If your school breeds so much hostility than perhaps you, the established one, is part of the problem.

Change your attitude and show som basic manners and perhaps you will find out that your stereotypes are, with very few exceptions, just that...unfounded stereotypes.

You might...gasp...discover that most of these AAP encroachers are actually quite nice and would love to be welcomed into the school community instead of being shunned, gossiped about and resented.

I find this amusing. Whenever I strike up a conversation with a parent of an AAP child, as soon as they realize my child is in Gen Ed, they completely check out of the conversation. You can actually see the moment when it occurs - it's blatant. So I've lost interest in going out of my way to be friendly to parents who clearly aren't going to reciprocate. Predictably, one of you will say it's just "my imagination". That's because you haven't been on the receiving end of this kind of boorish behavior.

Every single AAP parent? Out of how many? They're not all created equally, you know. Let me guess, the GE parents are "clearly going to reciprocate"? You as biased as the ones you're accusing.

Are you ever going to answer my question on how many GE friends your child made in 3rd-5th?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I do understand that schools must be keeping kids separate from managing perspective. It is heart aching to see the kids feel that they have a restricted/almost no access in school to the friends that they made in k-2, or they have made in other activities that they do outside of school because they are AAP / Gen Ed or vice versa. i wish the schools could come up with more innovative ways to mingle the kids. I am not trying to say one is superior than other or so. I have respect for both the programs,just wish that outside of the boundaries of academic needs, kids should not have to stay away from each other.

I also think your complaint is school specific. Our AAP center has very few kids coming from the non-AAP part of the center school. There are something like 13 schools feeding into the AAP part of the school. The AAP kids are not pining to sit with "friends" in the non-AAP part of the school. They simply don't know them. And the reverse would be true as well. The non-AAP kids don't know anything about the AAP kids (except for a few kids in each grade who moved over).

I do find it strange that you put the onus on the people who are new to the school and blame them for not interacting with the non-AAP kids and parents. The AAP kids are welcomed by being assigned to the trailers. If anything, the AAP kids have an argument for being treated like 2nd class citizens who aren't yet welcomed into the school!

Think about what you've said. 13 schools feeding into one school. First off, that's probably the largest AAP center in the county then. Usually it's about 3-4 schools. Think just for a moment though what that must be like for a neighborhood school to have kids from 13 other schools come in. Perhaps they bought before any redistricting happened and now they have to live with the situation or move. Maybe the AAP population exploded. I have less tolerance for people who bought knowing this would be the case. Yes, if one child is coming into 5th grade, the class should be welcoming before the new child is, but to have 13 schools coming in all excited to start their first year at the school and now the general ed kids have to see their friends who got into the AAP center no longer hanging out with them because of this new distinction and also no mingling because the AAP parents demanded that every class be ability grouped. If you have 13 schools feeding into it, the reason some are in trailers is because the school is TOO BIG! Not because of any AAP/general ed separation. And typically the kids who need the most help such as the younger grades or special needs children would be allocated inside the building. Would you really want the down syndrome outside in a trailer while your kid was inside? I think both sides should be welcoming, but obviously at your school the general ed population is entirely overwhelmed by the AAP population.

Not PP. My understanding, from reading this board and looking at FCPS information, is that the centers with many feeder schools are no larger than other center schools, but instead take a smaller number of children per feeder school. I wouldn't guess that a school with a large number of feeder schools has a gen ed population entirely overwhelmed by the AAP population, any more so than other center schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also don't understand the ",missed opportunities" of friendship. In that dopey scenario aren't 4th graders missing out on friendships with 3rd and 5th graders because they aren't in the same classes? Aren't kids who live in the same large neighborhood but are split between School A and School B missing out on
friendships?

A child doesn't need to be exposed to 150 kids to make friends. In some small schools there may only be two classes in the grade. Are those kids suffering because there aren't another 50-75 peers at the school?

It really is looking for a problem where there shouldn't be one.

I think the problem is that there's an academic segregation going on at the center schools. So that the GE kids never get to hang out with the academic superstars and the academic superstars never hang out with kids who may be on grade level or even struggling. This makes for a very segregated way of living and was the reason tracking went away in the first place. I think many people are supportive of kids getting lessons at their academic level. What they aren't supportive of is situation in elementary where kids are only with like minded kids whether that's race, intelligence, or parent income level. In high school it makes more sense to specialize because children are figuring out what they want to major in. Can you not understand how a kid who is in GE might think he's too dumb to even hang out with the AAP kids if they are so segregated or an AAP kid thinking the other kids are so dumb they aren't worth hanging out with? That type of attitude stays with people throughout their lives.

Do you just not believe the posts above telling you that AAP and Gen Ed kids do share certain classes and more? Specials, PE, recess, field trips (maybe your school doesn't mix groups for field trips but others do), all-grade activities like the third grade and sixth grade plays at our former center school. My kid is going on a field trip tomorrow in her AAP center middle school and the groups for the day are mixed. Yes, the kids are "segregated" academically for the core academic subjects, since you insist on using that term. That separation into classes based on aptitude and the speed and depth of teaching is the entire point of an advanced academic program. But the schools do mix these in other ways.

You just seem to ignore that fact, and the previous posts giving you other examples. It sounds as if you would prefer no academic differentiation by class, but won't come right out and say it.

As for the sentence in bold above -- that is a huge generalization that manages to stereotype both AAP and Gen Ed kids in a single sentence, the former as superior snots and the latter as woefully considering themselves dumb. Way to insult both groups at once.

There is a topic right also active entitled "Why I hate AAP". I haven't posted once on this and yet there are pages of comments. While it is a stereotype, there are certainly kids on both sides who feel this way hence the reason for the stereotype. Not all of course, but it is still an issue. As a parent of an AAP child at a center elementary school, how many new friends did your child make at the center who were not in K-2 with them or in AAP? How many of those new kids did you had over to your house during grades 3-5? How about their parents?

Ok. Back at you.

As the established student at the school, how many new kids in the AAP program did your chikd reach out to? How many of them did she welcome? Try to get to know? How many names of these new kids did she know?

What about you? How many of the new AAP parents did you welcome to your school? Invite to the PTA meeting? Try to make feel like they were welcome in the commuity?

As someone who moved many times as my life and who now is established in an actual neighborhood and home, I always feel that it is proper manners and common courtesy for tue established folks to be the ones to reach out to and welcome newcomers. Yes, newcomers should be friendly but those already comfortable and established should be the ones extending hospitality.

If your school breeds so much hostility than perhaps you, the established one, is part of the problem.

Change your attitude and show som basic manners and perhaps you will find out that your stereotypes are, with very few exceptions, just that...unfounded stereotypes.

You might...gasp...discover that most of these AAP encroachers are actually quite nice and would love to be welcomed into the school community instead of being shunned, gossiped about and resented.

I find this amusing. Whenever I strike up a conversation with a parent of an AAP child, as soon as they realize my child is in Gen Ed, they completely check out of the conversation. You can actually see the moment when it occurs - it's blatant. So I've lost interest in going out of my way to be friendly to parents who clearly aren't going to reciprocate. Predictably, one of you will say it's just "my imagination". That's because you haven't been on the receiving end of this kind of boorish behavior.

Every single AAP parent? Out of how many? They're not all created equally, you know. Let me guess, the GE parents are "clearly going to reciprocate"? You as biased as the ones you're accusing.

Are you ever going to answer my question on how many GE friends your child made in 3rd-5th?

Should have noted in my earlier post that I'm not the prior poster.

[Anonymous]

It isn't the responsibility of intellectually gifted children to "set a good example" or to make other children feel better about themselves by "mingling."

When I was a kid, they took all the gifted kids in our district and put them at the same school. It was heaven for us. Most of us had been bullied at our previous schools for being nerdy know-it-alls and only caring about boring/weird stuff. When they brought us all together, we could finally be ourselves and we finally had real friends. All of us were so much happier, and our non-GT peers did not miss us.

Of course, my district didn't have an inflated GT program with parents paying tutors and coaches to get their kids in. You were either truly gifted, or not. I can see where Ffx's AAP program comes off as elitist because the rich and powerful parents so often lobby to have their kids included when they don't really belong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The subject says it all,and I am referring to places like Field trip ,lunch,field day etc. That is a torture for all of them.

Wow, lunch, field trip and field day? What specific school doesn't let them mingle? That is just ridiculous.

Ours does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It isn't the responsibility of intellectually gifted children to "set a good example" or to make other children feel better about themselves by "mingling."

When I was a kid, they took all the gifted kids in our district and put them at the same school. It was heaven for us. Most of us had been bullied at our previous schools for being nerdy know-it-alls and only caring about boring/weird stuff. When they brought us all together, we could finally be ourselves and we finally had real friends. All of us were so much happier, and our non-GT peers did not miss us.

Of course, my district didn't have an inflated GT program with parents paying tutors and coaches to get their kids in. You were either truly gifted, or not. I can see where Ffx's AAP program comes off as elitist because the rich and powerful parents so often lobby to have their kids included when they don't really belong.

I disagree. I think it's EVERYONE's responsibility to "set a good example". I haven't heard many comments about AAP parents being turned off by general ed parents. Only that they're in trailers which is outside any parent's control. I would also argue that for elementary, you were given both a disservice by your old school not addressing the bullying and by your new school not giving you any contact of people who had interests other than academics. How do you even know if your non-GT peers missed you? Anyway, the typical AAP student is just as likely to also be the star soccer player as they are to be a nerd, so your example doesn't really make sense in many instances these days.