Disappointed about CES
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Anonymous
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My kid is a high performer in his school (which has very smart kids in general). His MAP scores and grades are great (all As and 99 percentile). He says he is quite bored with the 3rd grade material so I was hoping he would make it into CES but he didn't. We didn't send him to any prep classes - did get him one of those COGAT books to work on and he seemed to do great. But now I am regretting not helping him prep further - I am really conflicted about it because on the one hand, I know some kids who are smart but not really gifted but did a lot of prep and got in. On the other hand, maybe prepping them to get in defeats the purpose of CES!
The question I have is how do you get your kids in local school to be competitive in middle and high school if there is such a gap in instruction right from grade 4 between them and the CES kids. I keep reading on these boards how much work the 5th grade kids do in CES --- can some of the parents whose kids didn't make it to CES but got into magnets in middle/high school and/or got into top colleges comment? I am actually surprised I am feeling bad about this but it may be because my kid is feeling some sting of the rejection. |
Anonymous
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OP, don't sweat it. The screening test is super short. A couple of questions can make a huge difference. Even with a ton of prep, the outcome could have been the same, and you would have wasted a much higher percentage of your life.
When my older child went to CES, the kids who stayed back at the home school really had a chance to shine. They get more enrichment and their material gets more challenging, too. I feel like they miss some of the fun CES bells and whistles - like play performances, and the like. Maybe this is because the home schools are too busy bringing up the bottom performers. I tend to think, however, it is more a matter of poor curriculum that undervalues creativity. |
Anonymous
| OP, I get it. I had no idea people prepped for these tests. And honestly my kid does so well in school that it didn't even occur to me. Meanwhile, he seems to not be understanding how to take the test and I'm guessing some basic preparation would have helped a lot. But from what I understand the math curriculum is the same at both CES and home school (assuming your kid does compacted math) and obviously the CES kids are doing more advanced humanities stuff and group work, but I don't feel like my kid will be "behind" them by 6th grade. |
Anonymous
| Op it stings I get it. My oldest was waitlisted and my youngest just got in. It seems so unfair that a well deserving child be left out of what seems like a good opportunity. The alternative however isn’t as bleak as it may seem now. Make sure you continue to enrich your child at home, making sure they have a good work ethic. It could be at an instrument or a sport. Many of these CES kids will be back for Middle school and many non CES kids get accepted into MS magnets. Your kid will be fine. Know that |
Anonymous
| Keep in mind, OP, that if you are in the Bethesda/Potomac catchment, very few of the CES kids now go on to magnet MSs. The great majority return to the home schools. They may be a bit ahead in humanities but, as others have said, the math and science curricula are the same. If you've been following the CES threads, it's also clear that they have major gaps in writing instruction that parents need to fill in. I would focus on that, and perhaps asking your DC to think more deeply and critically about any humanities assignments (just in conversation) in 4th and 5th. Honestly, there's not that much more to it than that. But I'm sorry, I know it's disappointing. |
Anonymous
| OP here. Thanks for the comments. One quick question - how are they going to be evaluated for enrichment in the local school? Do they use the COGAT Screener? |
Anonymous
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I’m sorry, op. I don’t have kids in the DMV area. As an outsider it seems insane to do this to kids.
I was never selected for the gifted program in elementary school. It wasn’t much. Like an hour pullout once a week where there did cool projects. I remember it bugging me a lot. Not because I was jealous, but because I didn’t understand the arbitrary criteria for admission. (It was initiated by parent referral. I later learned this.) But it didn’t consume me. I ended up taking an IQ test in my late teens and scoring well above gifted, but at that point it didn’t matter. I had already outscored everyone on the SAT in my high school. I might have been a little eager to prove myself in the end! |
Anonymous
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OP, if it's any consolation, it's not like the CES programs are feeders into the MS magnets, at least based on what the principal at our DC's CES ES said before the beginning of this school year. The number of kids who made it from the program to a MS magnet dropped precipitously under the new selection criteria. Whether that changed for next year's 6th grade classes I have no idea, but the principal's point was to not expect your kid to be selected into a MS magnet. At least that's what I took out of it.
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Anonymous
| I have same concerns as OP. I am less worried about the title of being in CES or Magnet. Rather how do I give them at least some of the opportunities they are getting in these advanced programs? MOCO curriculum is just not rigorous enough in some cases. |
Anonymous
They look at everything--Cogat, MAP scores, and grades. |
Anonymous
This. OP, I have a kid in the CES and it’s good, but not the most amazing thing in the world. It’s somewhat teacher dependent, and your kid may have a good experience in 4th grade anyway. And, very few kids from the CES are attending the MS Magnet. Even the ones who got in are choosing to skip it. And very few even actually got in! MCPS doesn’t do enough enrichment for higher achieving kids in lower ES. It’s crappy, but your kids will be fine. |
Anonymous
I feel your pain, and wish more seats were made available. At home school, your kid with all 99% performance will be definitely place in compact math and the enriched literacy program for reading/writing that is new this fall.
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Anonymous
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I have one child who got in to the CES, and one who didn’t. None are profoundly gifted and since we’re in Bethesda, I really don’t want my kid spending 2-3 hours daily in a carpool or school bus. They have other things to do. |
Anonymous
I was referring to the middle school magnets. |
Anonymous
| There are many smart kids and very few slots. It makes no sense that MCPS doesn't have a gifted classroom in each elementary school. You supplement at home. 4th grade compacted math picks up but everything else is school specific. |