Haters Gonna Hate, but Centers are here to stay (with busing)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure why everyone is so upset about the possibility of centers being on the chopping block. If centers get removed from some parts of FCPS and not others, the same people who brag about centers now will be able to brag about local level IV. People will start to look down on centers because everyone will know that only the lower SES areas have centers. Local level IV will be the new in thing that shows you have money and your kid is a genius. All will be back to the correct order in no time.

Best post ever!! And so true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you get rid of centers, Fairfax county will turn into Montgomery county. And we all know how much they suck. Leave the bright kids alone.

Montgomery Cty. has HGCs - you know, for kids who are actually Highly Gifted. Totally different from the silly model FCPS has.

Very true. And PP said to leave the bright kids alone. That's different than highly gifted, as every AAP hater loves to point out. And, let's be honest, FCPS appeals to a lot of parents of bright-not-highly gifted kids because the kids can get a strong and differentiated education, which they can't in MCPS. If your child is bright, but not a genius, the FCPS model is much more appealing. Hence, you know, property values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Probably all very true. But when the "mean ones" are all kept together year after year AND are told that they are in the academically superior class AND, let's face it, often have parents with the same attitude, it creates the perfect storm.

That's a lot of ANDs. It's fair skies at our center. Guess we're lucky.

Not at our center. There are four AAP classes in our child's grade, and these classes are full of the queen bee girls who form tight, impenetrable cliques. No matter how these four classes are mixed, year after year, these girls rule the roost. PP's post exactly describes the atmosphere at our center.

[Anonymous]

^^ most parents moving here with a kid under age 8 are pretty sure there kids are "bright" (AAP material) and much less sure their kids are genius level (MCPS Center level). Reality does not dawn until about... Now, when in pool letters come. Where would you move? Somewhere where you were pretty sure your kid would be AAP, or somewhere where you were pretty sure they would be GE? When we moved with a 2 & 4 year old, this was certainly a big piece of the FCPS vs MCPS decision for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Probably all very true. But when the "mean ones" are all kept together year after year AND are told that they are in the academically superior class AND, let's face it, often have parents with the same attitude, it creates the perfect storm.

That's a lot of ANDs. It's fair skies at our center. Guess we're lucky.

This. We moved, so I ended up with 4 years of LLIV ES and 2 years of Center ES over two kids. Center atmosphere was so much less toxic. I think it's because the LLIV ES had such a small town feel that the PARENT sniping and back biting over who was and was not in AAP was impossible to escape and bled down to the kids. There were actually a couple of GE parents who essentially told DD (not me, my 3rd grader) that she didn't belong in AAP. The Center school draws from a much larger area, and is not nearly as close-knit, which can be a negative, but the gossip and back biting just aren't there. Lots of DDs Center friends come from the AAP pool, but not all, since she is also involved in school wide activates. FWIW, the academics are much stronger at the Center too.

If I could go back and redo, I would have done Center straight through, based largely on the atmosphere. At the time I thought it was best to keep the kids within their community and with the kids in our neighborhood. But the sad reality was that once they hit the AAP class, they were treated like outsiders anyway. (And DC1 was in the first LLIV class at our ES, so it took a year or two for these problems to become evident-- adding LLIV completely changed the character and atmosphere of the school. There was just so much anger and resentment).

I do get why some of the GE parents at the larger Centers have issues-- it must be tough when it looks to your kid with a 125 IQ like half of the class is "smarter" than they are. This does make me think they should move to Centers with only AAP kids. But I will never understand why GE parents would root for LLIV in all schools. It completely destroys any sense of community.

Everything you've described, and more, was an issue at our center. Parents gossiping about who belongs in AAP and who doesn't, snotty parents who are dismissive of parents with GE kids (and the kids themselves), and kids in the GE classes being treated as the "others" (even when the school is their base school!) and inferior to the AAP kids. Centers also destroy any sense of community, since there's such a stark divide between AAP and GE homerooms. Yes, the kids mix during specials, but everyone is well aware of who has what label, and there is a clear sense of superiority from many of the AAP kids. And yes, the kids who were borderline AAP absolutely feel rotten because they know there's no difference between them and most kids in AAP.

I feel that dividing kids into AAP/non-AAP does no one any good and only serves to perpetuate stereotypes on both sides. Offering an AAP curriculum to any child able to do the work would be the common sense solution; not segregating them into two very similar groups and labeling them. The homerooms themselves should be mixed and the kids just rotate into and out of whichever group is appropriate for them at the time. It's such a simple solution, I can't believe FCPS has wasted all these years with the current system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you get rid of centers, Fairfax county will turn into Montgomery county. And we all know how much they suck. Leave the bright kids alone.

Montgomery Cty. has HGCs - you know, for kids who are actually Highly Gifted. Totally different from the silly model FCPS has.

actually fcps has a larger population of gifted

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you get rid of centers, Fairfax county will turn into Montgomery county. And we all know how much they suck. Leave the bright kids alone.

Montgomery Cty. has HGCs - you know, for kids who are actually Highly Gifted. Totally different from the silly model FCPS has.

actually fcps has a larger population of gifted

Surely you're not implying that the many kids in AAP are actually "Highly Gifted"? Because that would be completely ludicrous and laughable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Karen Garza's budget for next year contains no cuts to AAP Centers or associated transportation (or anything else). It increases teacher compensation and decreases class size.

Condolences to the AAP haters who have been stalking this board for months salivating over the prospect of Centers being dismantled. Not gonna happen. Period. Done. Moving on....

+1

The only democratic school board member got voted out in the last election was publicly against AAP center. And he got replaced by a member who is a strong supporter for AAP center and TJ.

Having a strong AAP program is good for your property value, quality of living, and good preparation for your kids in case you want to go private in high school.

+1 AAP is great for the whole county and, yes, property values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Karen Garza's budget for next year contains no cuts to AAP Centers or associated transportation (or anything else). It increases teacher compensation and decreases class size.

Condolences to the AAP haters who have been stalking this board for months salivating over the prospect of Centers being dismantled. Not gonna happen. Period. Done. Moving on....

+1

The only democratic school board member got voted out in the last election was publicly against AAP center. And he got replaced by a member who is a strong supporter for AAP center and TJ.

Having a strong AAP program is good for your property value, quality of living, and good preparation for your kids in case you want to go private in high school.

+1 AAP is great for the whole county and, yes, property values.

This. Some GE parents of ES aged kids zoned for Center schools may hate AAP, but they are a vocal minority (whose property values are almost certainly helped by their local ES being a GS 9 or 10). Everyone else in Fairfax County wins with AAP Centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you get rid of centers, Fairfax county will turn into Montgomery county. And we all know how much they suck. Leave the bright kids alone.

Montgomery Cty. has HGCs - you know, for kids who are actually Highly Gifted. Totally different from the silly model FCPS has.

actually fcps has a larger population of gifted

Surely you're not implying that the many kids in AAP are actually "Highly Gifted"? Because that would be completely ludicrous and laughable.

Or so we're told on this board so often it's become part of the background noise, as unsurprising and innocuous as a humming fan. And don't call PP Shirley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you get rid of centers, Fairfax county will turn into Montgomery county. And we all know how much they suck. Leave the bright kids alone.

Montgomery Cty. has HGCs - you know, for kids who are actually Highly Gifted. Totally different from the silly model FCPS has.

actually fcps has a larger population of gifted

Surely you're not implying that the many kids in AAP are actually "Highly Gifted"? Because that would be completely ludicrous and laughable.

Or so we're told on this board so often it's become part of the background noise, as unsurprising and innocuous as a humming fan. And don't call PP Shirley.

Okay, mom of 2 in AAP, but let's be fair here. "Highly gifted" is generally defined as an IQ of 145 or more, which occurs in approximately one out of every 750 kids. Even if FCPS has more gifted or highly gifted kids than average, it's fair to say that if 16-17% of a given grade of kids are in AAP, the vast majority of these are not "highly gifted."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Know why parents freak out about entry into AAP? Several reasons. One being that the program is so bloated that it's embarrassing for some parents to be excluded.

And secondly, the obvious public nature of "Centers." It's easy to drop it into casual conversation how smart your child is if he/she doesn't go to the neighborhood school.

Get rid of centers, pare the program from the gigantic ego trip it's become to a real G/T program, and move on.

It is silly to make a bad decision just because some parents are embarrassed, feel left out, and get their feeling hurt easily.

I don't think getting rid of centers in areas with enough kids for local level IV is a bad decision,. It's a decision that makes sense based on budget constraints, and emotions on both sides should be irrelevant.

And anyone who doesn't think that this is what will eventually happen in these areas is kidding themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Karen Garza's budget for next year contains no cuts to AAP Centers or associated transportation (or anything else). It increases teacher compensation and decreases class size.

Condolences to the AAP haters who have been stalking this board for months salivating over the prospect of Centers being dismantled. Not gonna happen. Period. Done. Moving on....

+1

The only democratic school board member got voted out in the last election was publicly against AAP center. And he got replaced by a member who is a strong supporter for AAP center and TJ.

Having a strong AAP program is good for your property value, quality of living, and good preparation for your kids in case you want to go private in high school.

+1 AAP is great for the whole county and, yes, property values.

BS

This. Some GE parents of ES aged kids zoned for Center schools may hate AAP, but they are a vocal minority (whose property values are almost certainly helped by their local ES being a GS 9 or 10). Everyone else in Fairfax County wins with AAP Centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Know why parents freak out about entry into AAP? Several reasons. One being that the program is so bloated that it's embarrassing for some parents to be excluded.

And secondly, the obvious public nature of "Centers." It's easy to drop it into casual conversation how smart your child is if he/she doesn't go to the neighborhood school.

Get rid of centers, pare the program from the gigantic ego trip it's become to a real G/T program, and move on.

It is silly to make a bad decision just because some parents are embarrassed, feel left out, and get their feeling hurt easily.

I don't think getting rid of centers in areas with enough kids for local level IV is a bad decision,. It's a decision that makes sense based on budget constraints, and emotions on both sides should be irrelevant.

And anyone who doesn't think that this is what will eventually happen in these areas is kidding themselves.

I don't think a lot of people are against this. They understand for instance that Chesterbrook really doesn't need to send their kids to Haycock and Great Falls really doesn't need to send their kids to Colvin Run. Where I think the anti-AAP parents go awry is when they bring up eliminating AAP entirely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Know why parents freak out about entry into AAP? Several reasons. One being that the program is so bloated that it's embarrassing for some parents to be excluded.

And secondly, the obvious public nature of "Centers." It's easy to drop it into casual conversation how smart your child is if he/she doesn't go to the neighborhood school.

Get rid of centers, pare the program from the gigantic ego trip it's become to a real G/T program, and move on.

It is silly to make a bad decision just because some parents are embarrassed, feel left out, and get their feeling hurt easily.

I don't think getting rid of centers in areas with enough kids for local level IV is a bad decision,. It's a decision that makes sense based on budget constraints, and emotions on both sides should be irrelevant.

And anyone who doesn't think that this is what will eventually happen in these areas is kidding themselves.

I don't think a lot of people are against this. They understand for instance that Chesterbrook really doesn't need to send their kids to Haycock and Great Falls really doesn't need to send their kids to Colvin Run. Where I think the anti-AAP parents go awry is when they bring up eliminating AAP entirely.

Or saying that there should be no admission criteria for AAP. If I think my kid can handle it, they should be admitted. Ask a MS honors teacher how that works out.

But in general, I agree. I'm in an area where my local ES could support a full AAP class, and I'd rather my kids attend the neighborhood school. But so many parents opt for the Center that the LLIV class has less than 10 Level IV kids a year. So the Center it is. But, I do think FCPS is heading there long term, starting with MSs at Cooper, Thoreau, Franklin and Irving. My money would be one a slow phase in of ESs after that.