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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]we're one of the thousands of DC parents thinking of moving to the burbs for middle school. Problem is that we will have missed all the gifted/sorting/tracking whatever the systems are for putting kids into accelerated or non-accelerated tracks if we move between 5th and 6th grade. We have  twins--one child who seems pretty strong in math, although it's too early to tell if that means anything, and another who seems to be doing fine. They score well on standardized assessments but neither seems to be stick out as being super smart.

My question--anyone here move after 5th grade? If so, in your experience, are Arlington or Fairfax (or if you looked at them for contrast, Montgomery County) schools better for letting kids be placed accurately if you aren't there during the year? Are you hopelessly shut out of any magnet programs and therefore unlikely to get into such programs in high school? MoCo seems to have some amazing programs but if you're one of the 100 kids across the county who gets in that's great, if not, you are out of luck.

Thanks![/quote]

Fairfax's AAP (Advanced Academic Program), goes away after 8th grade. However, students can still select Honors level classes in 7th and 8th grade without the "AAP" designation.  In HS, everyone self selects their classes and the AAP kids are all mixed with the non- AAP kids.  You can't really tell who was AAP or not at that point (you can tell who are the super smart kids but that doesn't always correlate to AAP designation).  The exception to all of this is math and that is determined by what whatever level they are.  They don't need to have the full AAP designation to take the higher level math classes.  IME, math is the only class you really want to be able to place appropriately until HS- until then the Honor's classes are fine.  Some people have their child take Geometry in the summer if they think they need to accelerate.  This usually done the summer after they take Algebra 1(Honors).  It is not recommended for a student to take one of the Algebra classes over the summer. [/quote]

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