Reid’s new email

[Anonymous]

Kids will make friends wherever they land. Kids also shouldn’t be making the decisions- parents should be taking the lead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids will make friends wherever they land. Kids also shouldn’t be making the decisions- parents should be taking the lead.

Depends on the age. Maybe in ES, not so much in MS and HS.

do you remember what you learned in school or what your test scores were? chances, are you remember your friends and all those memories way more than anything you ever learned in the classroom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids will make friends wherever they land. Kids also shouldn’t be making the decisions- parents should be taking the lead.

Depends on the age. Maybe in ES, not so much in MS and HS.

do you remember what you learned in school or what your test scores were? chances, are you remember your friends and all those memories way more than anything you ever learned in the classroom

To answer question, yes remember what learned and test scores. And yes remember friends that made when transferred to the school. Above poster obviously not a transfer or military kid if thinks can only make friends in ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It looks like ES are the ones that were lowered, a few MS. The alternative HS are the ones struggling.

I am guessing the ESs are all Title 1 or near Title 1.

This. Most of the HSs received a rating of distinguished, which is great news, and the rest of the traditional HSs received on track. The middle school my son went to got on track despite a 50% FARMS rate. The rest of the schools my kids went/go to are distinguished.

The ES situation looks pretty grim though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids will make friends wherever they land. Kids also shouldn’t be making the decisions- parents should be taking the lead.

Depends on the age. Maybe in ES, not so much in MS and HS.

do you remember what you learned in school or what your test scores were? chances, are you remember your friends and all those memories way more than anything you ever learned in the classroom

To answer question, yes remember what learned and test scores. And yes remember friends that made when transferred to the school. Above poster obviously not a transfer or military kid if thinks can only make friends in ES.

+1 same. I remember what I learned vividly. And how well prepared I was for college. I actually don’t remember some of the “friends.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of “off track” and “needs intensive support” at the elementary level.

At the high poverty schools. I would bet the groups struggling are poor Black and Hispanic kids with little support at home.

And, this people, is why they want to redraw the boundaries. It hides the problem rather than fixes it.

This is a common assertion and yet it’s not what is happening with this boundary review.

The initial goals of the boundary review was to try and rebalance some of the high FARMs schools by moving kids from the FARMs schools to a nearby school with fewer FARMs kids and vice versa. The bigger focus was on HS than the ES, ie Lewis and West Springfield and Herndon and Langley. That was dropped pretty quickly because parents saw it coming and immediately raised issues with it. Toss in the election and the school board moved away from that.

Actually, the initial reason this conversation was started was to relieve the overcrowding specifically at Glasgow and Parklawn--which the school board decided they wanted to look at everything rather than address an actual issue. And fun fact--scenario 4 does legit NOTHING to actually fix Glasgow or Parklawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids will make friends wherever they land. Kids also shouldn’t be making the decisions- parents should be taking the lead.

Depends on the age. Maybe in ES, not so much in MS and HS.

do you remember what you learned in school or what your test scores were? chances, are you remember your friends and all those memories way more than anything you ever learned in the classroom

To answer question, yes remember what learned and test scores. And yes remember friends that made when transferred to the school. Above poster obviously not a transfer or military kid if thinks can only make friends in ES.

+1 same. I remember what I learned vividly. And how well prepared I was for college. I actually don’t remember some of the “friends.”

um, ok

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids will make friends wherever they land. Kids also shouldn’t be making the decisions- parents should be taking the lead.

Depends on the age. Maybe in ES, not so much in MS and HS.

do you remember what you learned in school or what your test scores were? chances, are you remember your friends and all those memories way more than anything you ever learned in the classroom

To answer question, yes remember what learned and test scores. And yes remember friends that made when transferred to the school. Above poster obviously not a transfer or military kid if thinks can only make friends in ES.

+1 same. I remember what I learned vividly. And how well prepared I was for college. I actually don’t remember some of the “friends.”

You sound fun

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like ES are the ones that were lowered, a few MS. The alternative HS are the ones struggling.

I am guessing the ESs are all Title 1 or near Title 1.

This. Most of the HSs received a rating of distinguished, which is great news, and the rest of the traditional HSs received on track. The middle school my son went to got on track despite a 50% FARMS rate. The rest of the schools my kids went/go to are distinguished.

The ES situation looks pretty grim though.

But doesn't it say something that when those "grim" elementaries get to middle and high school, things look better? I don't think the current elementary school kids are farther behind than those who were there within the last decade (the current middle and high schoolers). Or do you think those struggling elementary school kids just get lost or are made up for by a larger pool of students in middle and high school?
TBH, that could be the case in our pyramid. My kids' elementary is "off track" but middle is "on track" and high school is "distinguished". All the other elementary schools in our pyramid are "on track" or "distinguished".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like ES are the ones that were lowered, a few MS. The alternative HS are the ones struggling.

I am guessing the ESs are all Title 1 or near Title 1.

This. Most of the HSs received a rating of distinguished, which is great news, and the rest of the traditional HSs received on track. The middle school my son went to got on track despite a 50% FARMS rate. The rest of the schools my kids went/go to are distinguished.

The ES situation looks pretty grim though.

But doesn't it say something that when those "grim" elementaries get to middle and high school, things look better? I don't think the current elementary school kids are farther behind than those who were there within the last decade (the current middle and high schoolers). Or do you think those struggling elementary school kids just get lost or are made up for by a larger pool of students in middle and high school?
TBH, that could be the case in our pyramid. My kids' elementary is "off track" but middle is "on track" and high school is "distinguished". All the other elementary schools in our pyramid are "on track" or "distinguished".

It says that eventually those kids drop out of school and are not counted against the other scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like ES are the ones that were lowered, a few MS. The alternative HS are the ones struggling.

I am guessing the ESs are all Title 1 or near Title 1.

This. Most of the HSs received a rating of distinguished, which is great news, and the rest of the traditional HSs received on track. The middle school my son went to got on track despite a 50% FARMS rate. The rest of the schools my kids went/go to are distinguished.

The ES situation looks pretty grim though.

But doesn't it say something that when those "grim" elementaries get to middle and high school, things look better? I don't think the current elementary school kids are farther behind than those who were there within the last decade (the current middle and high schoolers). Or do you think those struggling elementary school kids just get lost or are made up for by a larger pool of students in middle and high school?
TBH, that could be the case in our pyramid. My kids' elementary is "off track" but middle is "on track" and high school is "distinguished". All the other elementary schools in our pyramid are "on track" or "distinguished".

It says that eventually those kids drop out of school and are not counted against the other scores.

I don’t think the dropout rate is super high in FCPS. I think it’s more that the pool of students is larger in MS/HS and the struggling students are just outnumbered by that point. There are also some kids who are just academic “late bloomers” and do better in the upper grades than the lower grades.

[Anonymous]

Curious about something: A lot (not all) of the Distinguished ES are AAP center schools. I'm assuming the schools are taken as a whole, not breaking out AAP kids from GenEd. For parents who have kids at centers that also happen to be their base school, what's your sense of how the school would look without the center kids there? Enough difference to drop to On Track?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of “off track” and “needs intensive support” at the elementary level.

And what exactly will be the result of this designation? Are they actually going to GET the "intensive support" that they need? Or is this rating just another way to dump on our poorest schools?

It shouldn't come as any surprise that the most vulnerable populations need "intensive support" to keep up with their peers. If this designation puts them in line for additional resources, I'm all for it. If it's just another label so that the more well-to-do families can avoid them, well....

Fwiw, I'm a relatively high earner but kept my kids in our local Title 1 elementary school, which is labeled Off Track in this report, because we love the community and the school. The admin and teachers are top notch, but of course there is a large segment of the school population that needs real help. Labeling the school to scare people off doesn't help, but some additional resources really would.

They already get extra support. There are smaller class sizes. There are extra reading and math specialists. There are outreach attempts. I am not sure what the schools can do more than what they are doing.

The issue, that the schools cannot solve, is that the population needing the support needs the support at home but doesn’t have it. Many are not read to as babies or toddlers. Many don’t have the supports to deal with school work sent home. Many are hungry and can’t focus at school. And the schools can’t do anything about that. Society can’t fix homes that don’t value education.

Maybe we need to start holding kids back who are not on grade level in early ES, that seems to be working in Mississippi. But it is not like the schools have not been trying to help the kids out, they have been.

These are the kids most impacted by this crazy calendar where their parents are scrambling for childcare for them every week and they're not getting the routine and repetition they need at the early grades.

I expect Reid to take no responsibility.

+1

Everyone loves to be magnanimous about equity but they also love all their days off and snow days and early release and this sh*t box of a calendar without any consideration that the people it is hurting the most are students who will never enjoy a trip to the zoo or hot cocoa and sledding and a trip to see grandma in London or whatever else the rich folks like to do with all the time off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious about something: A lot (not all) of the Distinguished ES are AAP center schools. I'm assuming the schools are taken as a whole, not breaking out AAP kids from GenEd. For parents who have kids at centers that also happen to be their base school, what's your sense of how the school would look without the center kids there? Enough difference to drop to On Track?

Actually, there are a lot of non-Center ES in the Distinguished category, 28 of the Distinguished ES are not Centers.

There are 3 centers on track, Bull Run, Bush Hill, and Clearview.

There are 3 centers off track, Forest Edge, Lorton Station, McNair Upper.

[Anonymous]

A quick follow on, there are 29 AAP Centers, so there are a majority of the Distinguished ES are not Center schools.