Concerned about lower spending on Regular Kids in FCPS?
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Anonymous
The ones with severe cognitive decencies? Yeah, I'd rather my money not be spent on them in the regular public school capacity. It'd be better spent to create a specific school with therapies to assist them. I'm not talking the ELL/ESL kids or the autistic kids or even the severe behavior issue kids. We have several kids at our ES who are only semi-cognitive with severe CP. They would benefit more from being in a therapy based program vs. just being in gen pop at a public school, which would free up more public school resources. But, those types of private programs cost money, which many families of those kids can't shell out because their kid's medical expenses are already so high, so they are just enrolled in public school. |
Anonymous
Care to back that up with statistics? My knowledge, albeit anecdotal, is that our school system actually is one of the less funded (and more efficiently run) school systems of its type (rich suburban/urban with high percentages of college educated parents). Look at Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey........ |
Anonymous
Two sides to every coin -- my husband and I are also 40. My school was tracked and grouped to put like-ability kids together for reading/writing/math, and it worked out pretty well. High ability kids tracked into honors/AP classes in high school, but electives, PE, etc. were mixed classes. Husband was in a mixed ability classroom and went to school in a rural area without much in the way of advanced classes, and he says he was regularly expected to help peer teach the kids that were having difficulty picking up concepts. He was often bored in school and few teachers tried to differentiate to challenge him. There are upsides to this, but he does resent that his education wasn't challenging and that college was far more difficult for him because he wasn't prepared for the workload and academic rigor. If I had confidence in teacher ability to differentiate, I'd be more open to mixed classrooms, but I don't think that would serve my kid with the IEP who already thinks he's stupid or my AAP kid (guess we're just resource hogs). |
Anonymous
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Congratulations prior poster you are finally realizing how the system works
Free stuff for the poors, special stuff for the rich and/or self segregation The middle class is getting screwed What's ironic is all the limo liberals don't see what the problem is. They are safely tucked away in McLean, Langley, Vienna, etc. And if the schools do start to slip they can afford to pull out for private. At the same time Burke Va is basically middle class central. Robinson and Lake Braddock pyramids are very good and beat most other middle class areas around the country. |
Anonymous
Take your resentments to Loudoun. Your "average" kids won't do any better (in fact, they'll quite likely do worse), but you'll be less resentful and we won't have to listen to you whine. |
Anonymous
It's all about bringing up the bottom. We were the recipients of boundary change that tanked our school in less than five years. The pressure is on to get kids to pass the SOLs. Any type of reading incentives or homework is pretty much shunned. If it can't be accomplished during the school day, forget it because the kids who have involved parents will get ahead. If everybody can't do it, then nobody can. I asked about giving AAP curriculum like literary circle and word study to all and was told most Gen ed kids in our school were not ready. If your kid misses the cut off they're missing out. Expectations are lower when you have high poverty. School board needs to stop concentrating poverty in areas in the eastern and western parts of the county. The school that we received the poverty from had been Title 1 and now has 15% poverty. Why couldn't neighborhoods been split among a few schools? |
Anonymous
We're not limo liberals. Both of us were raised blue-collar, middle-class and by small business owners. We're not from here, and the only reason we stay is for the jobs. We'll leave as soon as we can save enough to get the kids through college and retire. We need the public schools to be good because we can't afford private -- despite living in one of the luxurious jurisdictions listed, our house is one of those original 1950s homes that are oft decried on DCUM as eyesores bringing down the values of their million-dollar homes -- to say nothing of increased medical costs from having a special needs kid. But do go on and tell me more about the system we routinely have to fight to get our kid an appropriate education to which he's legally entitled. I've been too busy trying on my diamond shoes to really dig into it. How can I game the system without moving to Burke? |
Anonymous
Wow, a boundary change took one school from title 1 to just 15% and your school "took in" the whole set of FARms? What school is this? |
Anonymous
| McNair ES. |
Anonymous
That word salad has nothing to do with what I posted. I can tell you aren't from here and grew up middle class. I can say you are playing the system well. Your SPED kid is getting much more services here than wherever you grew up in. |
Anonymous
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Please, your random assortment of generalizations was far less coherent than what I posted. And "wherever [I] grew up in"? -- at least they taught us grammar there. (Rounding it out with an endorsement of Burke was an unexpected surprise, though.)
Playing the system implies we're gaming something to get what we're not qualified to receive or moved here specifically to take advantage. We didn't move here to bleed FCPS dry. We live here, paid taxes for years before we had kids, and then had a kid already in the schools system when diagnosed. Every service and enforcement of IEP provisions is hard fought, it's not like FCPS is handing out quality case managers and services like candy. |
Anonymous
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Umpteen years ago, I graduated from FCPS. Moved away and found my way back due to family, and my husband getting a job in the area.
Anyway, back then, there were FAR more general education students at all levels, ESOL children and illegals abounded (but there were still fewer in total), and AAP, and all of the IEP/504 stuff didn’t exist in the same form. There certainly was Special Ed, but “accommodations” weren’t NEARLY as widespread. FCPS was still considered a world-class school system, and funding issues didn’t seem to be as prevalent. I assume this is the case in school districts across the country. Just changing times, I suppose. |
Anonymous
This is correct. Our schools are grossly underfunded compared to districts with similar income levels. Fairfax just has good propaganda. |
Anonymous
I worked in a title 1 school, and I agree with part of what you say - that it's all about bringing the bottom up, and we pretty much ignored the middle. However, things like Word Study should be there, especially for the lowest students. That's just a good practice. I think the literacy circles are kind of out these days in general. I would seriously question the instructional competence of any school or teachers not using Word Study. I also agree that it's not fair the way low-income kids are concentrated in one school. In my neighborhood, we are that school - 30% ESOL, 30% free and reduced, and all the schools around us are 1%. And if you look at the boundary you can see that the lowest income areas are actually closer to other elementary schools, but the boundaries have been drawn so that they are concentrated only in our school. Something is fishy with that. |
Anonymous
The research is really clear that the kids with the most significant disabilities, including those with multiple disabilities, benefit the most from inclusion. Not to mention, that the school system is obligated to provide FAPE, so would be the one paying tuition at these "therapy based programs" you're imagining. Which would take money from the public school resources. |