World Language transfer request for HS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So if the option has been removed yet the child still wants to take the language course and the course isn't available via FCPS Online or Virtual VA, what are the options for the child? My child is interested in Russian and we are in the Mclean HS district so we weren't thinking of doing this solely to get to Langley (because there's no difference in my mind between the two, except for capacity issues which I don't consider excessive) but my kid really wants to add Russian as a language when he gets to high school. What are the options on this?

My daughter went to Chantilly. They allowed her to take Russian at Nova via dual enrollment. They don't really tell you that this option is available but if you push for it your high school will let you do it. Some kids at Chantilly also take languages remotely at other schools (such as Chinese at Fairfax High School). This may be an option now as well - look into it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language transfer option was removed in the past month. It’s a shame that so many people seem to have abused that option, and now kids who legitimately have an interest in a particular language won’t be able to transfer.

“Abused” that option?
Why is this worse than using the remaining option of IB/AP transfers?

dp. Many kids didn't enroll in the language for which they transferred.

Yes, this.

Or they used the IB option to transfer to an AP school, but only took 1 AP class/year that was also offered at their base school, or switched to easier Dual Enrollment junior and senior year instead of AP.

Freshmen should never be allowed to transfer for AP. There are hardly any AP classes offered to freshmen, and those 1-2 classes could be offered at every school to completely eliminate freshmen AP transfers.

Easier Dual-Enrollment? At our school, those classes are more rigorous and better taught than the AP courses.

Dual is much easier than AP.

It is the bridge between honors and AP.

Uh, no, it’s not.

Sure is is.

But that is a different thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language transfer option was removed in the past month. It’s a shame that so many people seem to have abused that option, and now kids who legitimately have an interest in a particular language won’t be able to transfer.

“Abused” that option?
Why is this worse than using the remaining option of IB/AP transfers?

dp. Many kids didn't enroll in the language for which they transferred.

Yes, this.

Or they used the IB option to transfer to an AP school, but only took 1 AP class/year that was also offered at their base school, or switched to easier Dual Enrollment junior and senior year instead of AP.

Freshmen should never be allowed to transfer for AP. There are hardly any AP classes offered to freshmen, and those 1-2 classes could be offered at every school to completely eliminate freshmen AP transfers.

Easier Dual-Enrollment? At our school, those classes are more rigorous and better taught than the AP courses.

Dual is much easier than AP.

It is the bridge between honors and AP.

Uh, no, it’s not.

Sure is is.

But that is a different thread

DE is an actual college class taught by someone who has at least a masters in his/her subject area
AP is not a college class, though college credit *might* be awarded to students who do well on the AP exam. It is taught by any teacher who takes a one week class over the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language transfer option was removed in the past month. It’s a shame that so many people seem to have abused that option, and now kids who legitimately have an interest in a particular language won’t be able to transfer.

“Abused” that option?
Why is this worse than using the remaining option of IB/AP transfers?

dp. Many kids didn't enroll in the language for which they transferred.

Yes, this.

Or they used the IB option to transfer to an AP school, but only took 1 AP class/year that was also offered at their base school, or switched to easier Dual Enrollment junior and senior year instead of AP.

Freshmen should never be allowed to transfer for AP. There are hardly any AP classes offered to freshmen, and those 1-2 classes could be offered at every school to completely eliminate freshmen AP transfers.

Easier Dual-Enrollment? At our school, those classes are more rigorous and better taught than the AP courses.

Dual is much easier than AP.

It is the bridge between honors and AP.

Uh, no, it’s not.

Sure is is.

But that is a different thread

DE is an actual college class taught by someone who has at least a masters in his/her subject area
AP is not a college class, though college credit *might* be awarded to students who do well on the AP exam. It is taught by any teacher who takes a one week class over the summer.

The DE classes are easier.

Many if not most of the AP teachers also have masters degrees, and are often the best teachers at the school.

If you ask the students and parents, it is fairly well established that DE is easier than both IB and AP classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language transfer option was removed in the past month. It’s a shame that so many people seem to have abused that option, and now kids who legitimately have an interest in a particular language won’t be able to transfer.

“Abused” that option?
Why is this worse than using the remaining option of IB/AP transfers?

dp. Many kids didn't enroll in the language for which they transferred.

Yes, this.

Or they used the IB option to transfer to an AP school, but only took 1 AP class/year that was also offered at their base school, or switched to easier Dual Enrollment junior and senior year instead of AP.

Freshmen should never be allowed to transfer for AP. There are hardly any AP classes offered to freshmen, and those 1-2 classes could be offered at every school to completely eliminate freshmen AP transfers.

Easier Dual-Enrollment? At our school, those classes are more rigorous and better taught than the AP courses.

Dual is much easier than AP.

It is the bridge between honors and AP.

Uh, no, it’s not.

Sure is is.

But that is a different thread

DE is an actual college class taught by someone who has at least a masters in his/her subject area
AP is not a college class, though college credit *might* be awarded to students who do well on the AP exam. It is taught by any teacher who takes a one week class over the summer.

DE is a community college class, that is taught yo the level of high school students, not university students.

It is a fine option, but easier than AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The other option would be to offer all WL at every high school. This is just as important a reason to seek a pupil placement as IB-AP. I really couldn't care less about going to Langley (it's actually a hassle because I would have to adjust my work schedule to fit this), but my son is set on taking Russian as an additional WL. I don't even know how people are saying take it online. It's not available online to take. Neither FCPS Online nor Virtual VA offer Russian.

There aren't enough qualified teachers to do this. Nor is there enough interest in many of the languages or even students enrolled in the high schools to offer every single language at every single high school. FCPS offers around 3-4 languages at every high school, a few more at the large high schools where the student body and classroom allocation/building size can support more languages.

Usually, every high school has Spanish and French. They will then have a combination of 1-3 additional languages depending on the size of the school, some combination of German, Japanese, Latin, American Sign Language, Farsi, Mandarin, Korean, Russian or Arabic (perhaps more). Most high schools have between 400-650 students per grade. Not even the 600-750 students per grade schools could support a dozen languages. They would not have enough students, teachers or classroom space.

FCPS has somewhere around 55,000 high school students.

They cannot make everything exactly perfect and convenient for all 55,000 high school students.

At some point, you are either going to have to be inconvenienced to get what you want, including paying for private language instruction, taking the language online, moving to a new school pyramid that offers your desired language, or accepting that your kid might have to take one of the other 3-5 foreign languages offered at your high school, which is far more languages than the vast majority of high schools in this country.

In a district this large, not everything can be perfect for every person.

If language transfers are closed, then they are closed.

Work with the solutions you have at your school, pay for private language options, or move.

I agree with everything that you wrote.

I can understand the OP being upset because the change in pupil placing for language is new and very recent. I don’t think they did a good job discussing it or letting people know it was happening. OPs kid could have pupil placed for Russian last year and now cannot. That is annoying and upseting. A kid moving from McLean to Langley is not the kids that people were worried about with the pupil placements. Herndon to Langley, yes.

My concern is that the county is going to restrict world language to only a few at every school in the name of equity. Then do they choose the languages that have immersion programs? Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish and German? Then there are kids who lose out on a variety of other languages that are well attended at their current school.

OP, I get that it sucks for your kid and I am sorry that the option doesn’t exist for them. You might need to look into after school classes or a weekend program or your child might need to wait until college.

I had no idea until I saw it here. Now left wondering what is going to happen to DD. She has three years of language under her belt, and it's not offered online or through Virtual Virginia. Not having at least 4 years of a WL affects college outcomes.

Your daughter is a junior in high school?

Fcps always grandfathers rising seniors when they change things.

She is a sophomore so not grandfathered in through the senior exemption.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language transfer option was removed in the past month. It’s a shame that so many people seem to have abused that option, and now kids who legitimately have an interest in a particular language won’t be able to transfer.

“Abused” that option?
Why is this worse than using the remaining option of IB/AP transfers?

dp. Many kids didn't enroll in the language for which they transferred.

Yes, this.

Or they used the IB option to transfer to an AP school, but only took 1 AP class/year that was also offered at their base school, or switched to easier Dual Enrollment junior and senior year instead of AP.

Freshmen should never be allowed to transfer for AP. There are hardly any AP classes offered to freshmen, and those 1-2 classes could be offered at every school to completely eliminate freshmen AP transfers.

Easier Dual-Enrollment? At our school, those classes are more rigorous and better taught than the AP courses.

Dual is much easier than AP.

It is the bridge between honors and AP.

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language transfer option was removed in the past month. It’s a shame that so many people seem to have abused that option, and now kids who legitimately have an interest in a particular language won’t be able to transfer.

“Abused” that option?
Why is this worse than using the remaining option of IB/AP transfers?

dp. Many kids didn't enroll in the language for which they transferred.

Yes, this.

Or they used the IB option to transfer to an AP school, but only took 1 AP class/year that was also offered at their base school, or switched to easier Dual Enrollment junior and senior year instead of AP.

Freshmen should never be allowed to transfer for AP. There are hardly any AP classes offered to freshmen, and those 1-2 classes could be offered at every school to completely eliminate freshmen AP transfers.

Easier Dual-Enrollment? At our school, those classes are more rigorous and better taught than the AP courses.

Dual is much easier than AP.

It is the bridge between honors and AP.

Uh, no, it’s not.

Sure is is.

But that is a different thread

DE is an actual college class taught by someone who has at least a masters in his/her subject area
AP is not a college class, though college credit *might* be awarded to students who do well on the AP exam. It is taught by any teacher who takes a one week class over the summer.

DE is a community college class, that is taught yo the level of high school students, not university students.

It is a fine option, but easier than AP.

Snob

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So if the option has been removed yet the child still wants to take the language course and the course isn't available via FCPS Online or Virtual VA, what are the options for the child? My child is interested in Russian and we are in the Mclean HS district so we weren't thinking of doing this solely to get to Langley (because there's no difference in my mind between the two, except for capacity issues which I don't consider excessive) but my kid really wants to add Russian as a language when he gets to high school. What are the options on this?

My daughter went to Chantilly. They allowed her to take Russian at Nova via dual enrollment. They don't really tell you that this option is available but if you push for it your high school will let you do it. Some kids at Chantilly also take languages remotely at other schools (such as Chinese at Fairfax High School). This may be an option now as well - look into it.

OP again. Thank you for this info. The Longfellow counselors didn't mention this to me as a choice. What sucks even more than the abrupt change is that many FCPS schools don't even operate on the same rules. I have an older child at Mclean and I'm being told that my child cannot take Virtual Virginia classes at Mclean because Mclean doesn't "support it". And, then I hear that the same classes are being taken via VVa at other FCPS high schools. It's such a disjointed system. I've read on this board that FCPS should really be split up and I'm starting to agree more and more that it may indeed be warranted. It's a mess.

[Anonymous]

The Virtual Virginia thing has been an issue for a while. Some schools allow VV PE in the summer and some don't, it depends on if the school is willing to have a counselor support it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Virtual Virginia thing has been an issue for a while. Some schools allow VV PE in the summer and some don't, it depends on if the school is willing to have a counselor support it.

You can sign up as a homeschool parent for summer courses and there's no need for a school counselor to be available. Also, I think VV removed the requirement for a school counselor availability for the PE courses. But I agree that the VV course thing is a mess across FCPS high schools. Again, for so much talk about consistency and equity and all the other bs, in practice, FCPS fails miserably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The other option would be to offer all WL at every high school. This is just as important a reason to seek a pupil placement as IB-AP. I really couldn't care less about going to Langley (it's actually a hassle because I would have to adjust my work schedule to fit this), but my son is set on taking Russian as an additional WL. I don't even know how people are saying take it online. It's not available online to take. Neither FCPS Online nor Virtual VA offer Russian.

There aren't enough qualified teachers to do this. Nor is there enough interest in many of the languages or even students enrolled in the high schools to offer every single language at every single high school. FCPS offers around 3-4 languages at every high school, a few more at the large high schools where the student body and classroom allocation/building size can support more languages.

Usually, every high school has Spanish and French. They will then have a combination of 1-3 additional languages depending on the size of the school, some combination of German, Japanese, Latin, American Sign Language, Farsi, Mandarin, Korean, Russian or Arabic (perhaps more). Most high schools have between 400-650 students per grade. Not even the 600-750 students per grade schools could support a dozen languages. They would not have enough students, teachers or classroom space.

FCPS has somewhere around 55,000 high school students.

They cannot make everything exactly perfect and convenient for all 55,000 high school students.

At some point, you are either going to have to be inconvenienced to get what you want, including paying for private language instruction, taking the language online, moving to a new school pyramid that offers your desired language, or accepting that your kid might have to take one of the other 3-5 foreign languages offered at your high school, which is far more languages than the vast majority of high schools in this country.

In a district this large, not everything can be perfect for every person.

If language transfers are closed, then they are closed.

Work with the solutions you have at your school, pay for private language options, or move.

I agree with everything that you wrote.

I can understand the OP being upset because the change in pupil placing for language is new and very recent. I don’t think they did a good job discussing it or letting people know it was happening. OPs kid could have pupil placed for Russian last year and now cannot. That is annoying and upseting. A kid moving from McLean to Langley is not the kids that people were worried about with the pupil placements. Herndon to Langley, yes.

My concern is that the county is going to restrict world language to only a few at every school in the name of equity. Then do they choose the languages that have immersion programs? Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish and German? Then there are kids who lose out on a variety of other languages that are well attended at their current school.

OP, I get that it sucks for your kid and I am sorry that the option doesn’t exist for them. You might need to look into after school classes or a weekend program or your child might need to wait until college.

I had no idea until I saw it here. Now left wondering what is going to happen to DD. She has three years of language under her belt, and it's not offered online or through Virtual Virginia. Not having at least 4 years of a WL affects college outcomes.

Your daughter is a junior in high school?

Fcps always grandfathers rising seniors when they change things.

DP. My daughter also is in 3rd year of WL and is a freshman, due to having participated in immersion in ES. But college admissions wants 4 years of 1 WL, all taken during the HS years. It isn’t just rising seniors affected by this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So if the option has been removed yet the child still wants to take the language course and the course isn't available via FCPS Online or Virtual VA, what are the options for the child? My child is interested in Russian and we are in the Mclean HS district so we weren't thinking of doing this solely to get to Langley (because there's no difference in my mind between the two, except for capacity issues which I don't consider excessive) but my kid really wants to add Russian as a language when he gets to high school. What are the options on this?

My daughter went to Chantilly. They allowed her to take Russian at Nova via dual enrollment. They don't really tell you that this option is available but if you push for it your high school will let you do it. Some kids at Chantilly also take languages remotely at other schools (such as Chinese at Fairfax High School). This may be an option now as well - look into it.

OP again. Thank you for this info. The Longfellow counselors didn't mention this to me as a choice. What sucks even more than the abrupt change is that many FCPS schools don't even operate on the same rules. I have an older child at Mclean and I'm being told that my child cannot take Virtual Virginia classes at Mclean because Mclean doesn't "support it". And, then I hear that the same classes are being taken via VVa at other FCPS high schools. It's such a disjointed system. I've read on this board that FCPS should really be split up and I'm starting to agree more and more that it may indeed be warranted. It's a mess.

If she is at Lingfellow, then she is not a sophomore but an 8th grader picking freshman classes?

Then your solution is very easy.

She simply starts a new language at her zoned high school, McLean, when she begins high school in 9th grade.

She will end up with 4 years of one language for her college applications.

This is completely a non issue if she is currently an 8th grader at Longfellow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So if the option has been removed yet the child still wants to take the language course and the course isn't available via FCPS Online or Virtual VA, what are the options for the child? My child is interested in Russian and we are in the Mclean HS district so we weren't thinking of doing this solely to get to Langley (because there's no difference in my mind between the two, except for capacity issues which I don't consider excessive) but my kid really wants to add Russian as a language when he gets to high school. What are the options on this?

My daughter went to Chantilly. They allowed her to take Russian at Nova via dual enrollment. They don't really tell you that this option is available but if you push for it your high school will let you do it. Some kids at Chantilly also take languages remotely at other schools (such as Chinese at Fairfax High School). This may be an option now as well - look into it.

OP again. Thank you for this info. The Longfellow counselors didn't mention this to me as a choice. What sucks even more than the abrupt change is that many FCPS schools don't even operate on the same rules. I have an older child at Mclean and I'm being told that my child cannot take Virtual Virginia classes at Mclean because Mclean doesn't "support it". And, then I hear that the same classes are being taken via VVa at other FCPS high schools. It's such a disjointed system. I've read on this board that FCPS should really be split up and I'm starting to agree more and more that it may indeed be warranted. It's a mess.

If she is at Lingfellow, then she is not a sophomore but an 8th grader picking freshman classes?

Then your solution is very easy.

She simply starts a new language at her zoned high school, McLean, when she begins high school in 9th grade.

She will end up with 4 years of one language for her college applications.

This is completely a non issue if she is currently an 8th grader at Longfellow.

Not the OP but it is an issue because they just changed the rules on language transfers and have not advertised that change clearly. Kids had been allowed to pupil place for languages up to this year. OPs DD wanted to take Russian, which required a change. It might not be a huge issue for some people but it sounds like the child was really interested in this language. Yes, the kid can take a different language but I am sure that is a disappointment to the child and the family.

[Anonymous]

Join the club. Our school doesn’t offer French. Kid wants French.

I’m thankful the school offers three choices though.