boycotting SOL movement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS's school is a targeted improvement school. They now have targeted SOL study blocks every day. That costs them 10 minutes of class time per real class every day. Some of the parents with LIV kids are protesting by opting out of SOLs. Hopefully the school sees how many kids who normally pass advance are opting out and reverses course. If not, the scores will drop further and we'll get new school leadership.

Buncha jerks.

I'd rather my kid be in geometry or language arts or science for a full class period than prepping for SOLs they have never not gotten a pass advance on.

What is "prepping for SOLs"?

Some schools have intervention blocks. Rather than restricting it to kids who need help, the whole school has a half hour a day of SOL prep. That half hour comes out of real classes.

What makes you think they would be learning something new? Often times at this time of year, the curriculum is finished or finishing up. I’d rather them do SOL prep then start the movies early.

I was a bit surprised to get an email that my kids math class had finished the curriculum 3 weeks ago and was moving to SOL prep. He is in advanced Math working on the 7th grade material. I am not excited by the idea that his class completed pre-algebra with most of the 4th quarter to go. That feels really, really fast to me.

The weekly email this week said the kids in the regular math class were finishing up their last unit and that there were kids who needed to make corrections and retake the last assessment.

The email this week said that they had finished reading their most recent novel and were not moving into SOL prep. The SOL is next week so that timing feels better to me.

This is the first year that I have known of where the kids have seemingly completed the curriculum before the SOL. I am interested to see what they do for the rest of the year.

At our school I believe after they finish math in 6th and take the SOL they move into a practical math unit where they have to work on budgeting. Kids seem to actually like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS's school is a targeted improvement school. They now have targeted SOL study blocks every day. That costs them 10 minutes of class time per real class every day. Some of the parents with LIV kids are protesting by opting out of SOLs. Hopefully the school sees how many kids who normally pass advance are opting out and reverses course. If not, the scores will drop further and we'll get new school leadership.

Buncha jerks.

I'd rather my kid be in geometry or language arts or science for a full class period than prepping for SOLs they have never not gotten a pass advance on.

What is "prepping for SOLs"?

Some schools have intervention blocks. Rather than restricting it to kids who need help, the whole school has a half hour a day of SOL prep. That half hour comes out of real classes.

What makes you think they would be learning something new? Often times at this time of year, the curriculum is finished or finishing up. I’d rather them do SOL prep then start the movies early.

maybe in elementary school. Not in middle school or high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS's school is a targeted improvement school. They now have targeted SOL study blocks every day. That costs them 10 minutes of class time per real class every day. Some of the parents with LIV kids are protesting by opting out of SOLs. Hopefully the school sees how many kids who normally pass advance are opting out and reverses course. If not, the scores will drop further and we'll get new school leadership.

Buncha jerks.

I'd rather my kid be in geometry or language arts or science for a full class period than prepping for SOLs they have never not gotten a pass advance on.

What is "prepping for SOLs"?

Some schools have intervention blocks. Rather than restricting it to kids who need help, the whole school has a half hour a day of SOL prep. That half hour comes out of real classes.

What makes you think they would be learning something new? Often times at this time of year, the curriculum is finished or finishing up. I’d rather them do SOL prep then start the movies early.

I was a bit surprised to get an email that my kids math class had finished the curriculum 3 weeks ago and was moving to SOL prep. He is in advanced Math working on the 7th grade material. I am not excited by the idea that his class completed pre-algebra with most of the 4th quarter to go. That feels really, really fast to me.

The weekly email this week said the kids in the regular math class were finishing up their last unit and that there were kids who needed to make corrections and retake the last assessment.

The email this week said that they had finished reading their most recent novel and were not moving into SOL prep. The SOL is next week so that timing feels better to me.

This is the first year that I have known of where the kids have seemingly completed the curriculum before the SOL. I am interested to see what they do for the rest of the year.

At our school I believe after they finish math in 6th and take the SOL they move into a practical math unit where they have to work on budgeting. Kids seem to actually like it.

That would be wonderful and I would be very happy with that. It would be good for them and practicle uses of math are great to teach.

[Anonymous]

Why is it that whenever a certain party decides to mix “boycott!” with “public schools,”

- invariably it is the children’s education which loses out?

[Anonymous]

Administering SOL tests at the elementary level takes an enormous amount of time and staff resources. There are so many kids with English learner issues or special education issues that need private or small group testing that takes the whole morning for most schools. Every room is used, the library may be closed, the schedules are all upended, and every special ed teacher and IA and warm body is used to get adults to monitor the tests in each room. This means that if your kid is supposed to get special ed services, I can almost guarantee you that they aren’t during SOL month, because there is no time around the testing of multiple groups of kids. The IAs that usually go into rooms to support teachers are not there that month, either, and then retesting happens.

Kids that are generally good students spend hours at some schools doing review packets and going over and over stuff they already know.

Teachers are under great pressure to have students pass, and the tests have absolutely gotten harder.

Meanwhile, Pearson makes tons of money and the district spends tons on tech review crap.

Unless you work in an elementary school, you can’t really understand the impact this whole SOL process has. And when it’s over, there are still weeks left but everyone has mentally checked out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS's school is a targeted improvement school. They now have targeted SOL study blocks every day. That costs them 10 minutes of class time per real class every day. Some of the parents with LIV kids are protesting by opting out of SOLs. Hopefully the school sees how many kids who normally pass advance are opting out and reverses course. If not, the scores will drop further and we'll get new school leadership.

Buncha jerks.

I'd rather my kid be in geometry or language arts or science for a full class period than prepping for SOLs they have never not gotten a pass advance on.

What is "prepping for SOLs"?

Some schools have intervention blocks. Rather than restricting it to kids who need help, the whole school has a half hour a day of SOL prep. That half hour comes out of real classes.

What makes you think they would be learning something new? Often times at this time of year, the curriculum is finished or finishing up. I’d rather them do SOL prep then start the movies early.

I was a bit surprised to get an email that my kids math class had finished the curriculum 3 weeks ago and was moving to SOL prep. He is in advanced Math working on the 7th grade material. I am not excited by the idea that his class completed pre-algebra with most of the 4th quarter to go. That feels really, really fast to me.

The weekly email this week said the kids in the regular math class were finishing up their last unit and that there were kids who needed to make corrections and retake the last assessment.

The email this week said that they had finished reading their most recent novel and were not moving into SOL prep. The SOL is next week so that timing feels better to me.

This is the first year that I have known of where the kids have seemingly completed the curriculum before the SOL. I am interested to see what they do for the rest of the year.

At our school I believe after they finish math in 6th and take the SOL they move into a practical math unit where they have to work on budgeting. Kids seem to actually like it.

But that is not a standard FCPS unit, so the majority of schools won’t do that unit.

[Anonymous]

Standardized, end-of-year tests are important for assessing how well kids learned the year's material. SOLs are useful.