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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
FCPS Boundary Review Updates
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Anonymous
DP. All three of my FCPS students took Algebra as 9th graders and all three had excellent college admissions results. Who is it who keeps insisting students have to take Algebra in 6th grade for college application purposes? So, so stupid. |
Anonymous
+100 |
Anonymous
Pre covid, FCPS used to allow 5th graders in AAP to take the IAAT upon teacher recommendation to qualify to take Algebra in 6th grade. Those students who qualified would go to the middle school for first period Algebra 1, then take a short bus back to the AAP elementary school for the rest of the day. My kid had around a half dozen classmates who did this in 6th. They were brilliant in math. |
Anonymous
The superintendent? |
Anonymous
No one should be stuck at an IB school without transfer options, nor should some schools be allowed to offer languages that kids at other schools have no ability to access. |
Anonymous
Disagree on the languages |
Anonymous
Of course you do. Inequitable access sits well with you. |
Anonymous
No one is insisting on Algebra for all 6th graders. There are a small number who could handle the class but they are rare. It would be nice if there was a process to ask for a child to be considered for those of us who have kids that could have handled the class but their ES doesn't discuss the option. Mine could have handled the class but no one at his school ever talked to us about it and we decided that it was socially better for him to stay in 6th grade math. He is doing just fine in Algebra 1 H in 7th. Reid's goal is for Algebra in 8th grade to be a viable option across the County. She is ignoring the fact that Algebra in 8th grade is already the norm at most of the MS, the exceptions are the MS with high FARMs and ELL. This should not be a surprise to anyone. If you look at the Algebra SOL numbers from across the county, you will see that something like 75% of the MS kids will take Algebra 1 by 8th grade. There is nothing wrong with taking Algebra in 9th grade, I did just that and graduate with only 3 years of math and did just fine in college and grad school. I am not pretending that my path was normal in the 90's, it wasn't, and it would be less normal today. Still, there are plenty of good colleges that a student taking Algebra in 9th grade can attend and they can be perfectly successful in college and the like. There is research that shows that completing Algebra in 8th grade, or younger, tends to be tied to better educational outcomes. I would guess that same research shows that attendance and participating in classes is tied to better educational outcomes. That said, it seems to be something that Reid is fixated on, and she seems to not want to say that the only schools that this is not the norm at are schools like Poe. |
Anonymous
Curious - are you currently zoned for an IB zone but attending another for AP? I wonder if this is what they are assessing when they state “assessing everyone back at their home schools?” |
Anonymous
I agree on IB but disagree on the languages. There are areas of the county that have a higher concentration of people with the same ethnic heritage and teaching their heritage language makes sense. I am not sure that offering Hindi at every school is necessary but I am sure that there are schools were Hindi would be greatly appreciated. I am guessing that Japanese Immersion and Korean Immersion emerged where they did due to a concentration of Japanese and Korean speakers. The only school I have heard singled out as a target school for a language is Langley with Russian. I know some kids from SLHS transfer to Oakton for AP and Japanese but that is a pretty small number. I don't get the impression that language is used as a reason to justify transfers that often. Every school should offer Spanish and French. Chinese is not likely to be offered at too many schools because it is such a hard language too learn. I know Carson had it on the books last year at the MS but it was cancelled due to low enrollment. I think it would be good to offer ASL at every school. It is a great language class for kids who struggle with languages, and it would be meet a need in society as a whole. |
Anonymous
If a language is offered at one high school but not another then kids should continue to be able to pupil place into those schools for instructional access. If that isn’t going to be allowed in the future then the foreign language options at every high school should be the same. |
Anonymous
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I don't understand all the difficulty around languages. I went to a rural Virginia school and took Latin back in the 90's. It was broadcast via satellite TV and the librarian recorded it for me to watch. I had to call the teacher in her office if my name was called on in class that day.
With the internet and things like zoom I don't understand why any language can't be offered electronically today. We certainly shouldn't be pupil placing kids to different schools for it. |
Anonymous
This is likely a solution for those wanting to transfer--if it is that important, it seems like online would be worth it to you. Weed out those wanting to transfer for a different reason, but using that as an excuse. |
Anonymous
They could put all the language classes in the FCPS Online Academy. |
Anonymous
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Get rid of IB.
Problem will be solved. Or, at least it will be better. If all those students using it as an excuse to go to a "better" school, there will be a decent cohort of successful students and the base school will be better. And, the enrollments will be more evenly distributed. Will it solve all problems? NO. |