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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I noticed at our high ses school that many kids would transfer in to aap from other less rigorous schools where it is likely much easier to get in. How is that fair? [/quote]
[b]
First of all, it’s a county wide program. The cutoffs are the same everywhere. [/b]

Second, it may be that they were not happy at their center because it wasn’t rigorous enough, and the children were not being served.

[/quote]

First, you're wrong. [b]They moved to local school based in-pool cutoffs 2 years ago. [/b]At our high SES center school, for example, the in-pool cutoff is 140+. At many other schools, including those that feed into our center, the in-pool cutoff is much, much lower. 2+ years ago they have county-wide in-pool cutoff that was typically 132, which made sense, given that it's a countywide program that travels with you to whatever school you attend. [/quote]

This is news to me. Can you please provide a link?[/quote]

Local Building Norms

The universal screening referral is an example of using local building norms as one element to identify students who may need AAP services. Using local building norms, students are compared to students at their local building to find the top students within the school. This approach aligns with the FCPS focus on identifying differentiation needs rather than labeling students as gifted.

Several benefits are realized when local building norms help identify students for differentiated instruction through the AAP continuum of services:

Allows consideration of local school context to find top students who may not have an academic peer group in their current setting, and
    Captures a more accurate representation of talent and instructional needs across all schools.

Learn more about local building norms
.

Using local building norms may mean that some students will have a universal screener referral from their school with comparatively lower scores than students from another school that has higher test scores overall.  That is how local norming is calculated. However, there is also a national norm component for the universal screener referral.  With national norms, students are compared to test scores nationally.

It is important to remember that being in the universal screener referral pathway is not an advantage in the screening process. Whether from a universal screener referral or from a referral, the same process follows  -- a portfolio for holistic review and consideration for eligibility is created at the local school and is submitted to a central screening committee for consideration. The parent/staff referral pathway is easily accessible and creates a fair opportunity for screening. 
Pilot Program for Local Building Norms

The 2021-22 SY is the second year that the district is using local building norms in addition to national norms in determining the second grade universal screener referral.

In the 2020-21 SY, the use of local norms was piloted in 106 elementary schools. As expected, results showed the practice had some positive effect, particularly in Title I schools, with regards to ensuring students from historically underrepresented groups were considered for full-time AAP (level IV) services. Since the positive results of the successful pilot year, FCPS began using a local building norm component in all FCPS elementary schools when determining the universal screener referral group.

Use of local norms alone will not close gaps, but combined with other strategies, it can improve equity.

The pilot program also showed no negative effects to using local building norms since the referral pathway continues to be a well-utilized pathway for consideration.

A team of four researchers affirmed and advocated for use of local building norms in the screening and identification process in an external program review that took place during the 2019-20 SY.  Since referrals are the primary pathway for screening consideration, researchers said the use of local norms in the universal screening referral process would be a “low risk/high reward strategy” that would likely lead to more equity in FCPS AAP identification. More detailed information, including a memo from researchers advocating for the use of local building norms

, is available on FCPS Board Docs.

https://www.fcps.edu/academics/academic-overview/advanced-academic-programs-aap/advanced-academic-programs-aap-level-iv
[/quote]

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