Reply to Level IV at Fairview vs White Oaks

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We stayed in Fairview for DD and probably will for DS next year, too. Fairview doesn't have Math/Science Olympic either. Having Level III kids in the class is not an issue - you can't tell which are Level 3 or 4 anyway. The only reason we'd consider WO is if classes were significantly smaller.[/quote]

Regards if the class are significantly smaller, it is really depends on the number of students they got. My DD last year class split into two classes in the last minute (on the date of open house!) because one more kid sign up and WO got approval from FCPS to open one more class. So they only have 17 in a class instead of 35! We got many new joiners this year but still only have 21 students. While some grade they only have one class which have around 30 kids! For my prediction, it probably will only has one class for 3rd grade AAP next year? [/quote]

We have a third grader at white oaks this year. With COVID, the numbers were down and the class has 30 kids. I would say compared to our base, Laurel Ridge, the school does not have the sort of warm touch from admin and I won't comment on the teacher beyond saying the AAP curriculum is what it is. If we had local level IV, we would have not moved, but we don't and there's no advanced math until 5th at Laurel Ridge. It is the ONLY Robinson school without local level IV. The class does get a handful from each of the feeders but the bulk are Laurel Ridge kids, it seems. Weirdly, there's like two white oaks kids in the center class.

In some ways, I find the whole AAP thing to be so strange because it is such a big thing in other parts of the county. No one cares here, really. All of the schools are good. Lake Braddock, Robinson and Woodson (our AP pupil placement option) are good. There's no stress or worrying your kid is missing out unless you care about TJ but Lake Braddock as a middle school isn't a big feeder, so you are kind of screwed there, fwiw.[/quote]

I don’t understand why Laurel Ridge does not have a LLIV program or earlier advanced math. It is like they pride themselves on not being big on AAP to the detriment of that subgroup of kids. It would likely reduce the number of kids in immersion, but the school is huge and big enough to support both. [/quote]

It's an immersion school. Two classrooms in each grade are immersion and two classrooms aren't so you run into a space issue and the issue that there's only one classroom available for local level IV. The nutty thing is that the school does do advanced math in 5th, but offers it both in English and Spanish. I think those grades do flexible grouping and shuffle between the four or so teachers classrooms. It's logistically complicated and makes no sense -- which is why the centers were created in the first damn place. The problem is that other schools without special programs then jumped at the opportunity to open local level IV to keep high scoring students and make acceleration available to more base kids. Laurel Ridge is also an ED/Autism center so it takes on a lot of kids with special needs (and honestly does a very good job with those students).

Where we are now? The AAP system in this pyramid is sort of broken. You have a center that houses a single class of third graders and feeds to a different 7-12 secondary and the base of 90 percent of the kids in the center. You have a bunch of base schools except for one running local level IV classrooms feeding into the 7-12 school that 90 percent of that single class of AAP center's kids are zoned for.

The only reason people aren't up in arms is that the schools are all uniformly "good" and kids do well generally, there's little poverty, a sprinkle of people of color, and the most important point is NO ONE CARE ABOUT TJ. So, taking all of those things, you basically end up with White Oaks being another Local Level IV disguised as an AAP center.[/quote]

Curious to know what you mean about TJ. I’m personally not interested for my own kids, but how is that universal for the pyramid?[/quote]

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