Reply to Colin Powell Level IV vs GBW Level IV

Forum Index » Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)

Reply to "Colin Powell Level IV vs GBW Level IV"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Powell is a new school, looks better than GBW. 
But, GBW seems very strong at chess, math, science.

Both school has Level IV center now. 
Which to choose? Kid stays in Powell for 3 yrs already, and has close friends from neighborhood. 
He likes Powell, have no idea about new school. 2 weeks to make decision. [/quote]

Colin Powell is a local level IV school - it is not a center.
It has one AAP level IV class per year - they do fill this class with Principal Designees as many level IV kids choose to go to GBW.  Some of these kids leave the class for math.

Having said the above,[b] Powell has a strong AAP curriculum and good teachers[/b].  The [u]4th grade AAP teacher is amazing [/u]- she motivates and challenges the kids from day 1 and they all love her.  She is the best teacher DC has ever had.  I have heard people argue that GBW has excellent teachers as well.  DC is there this year with 3 academic teachers/ and 1 foreign language teacher (FLES) - none of them compare with the 4th grade teacher I mentioned above.  This teacher has also been mentoring the 5th grade teacher and they often work together on projects for both classes.  (We moved DC to the Center for social reasons since ther are several AAP classes for each grade - not sure it helped.)  According to DC, learning was exciting last year - not so this year at GBW.

Among certain groups, you will hear a lot of erroneous information.  I have heard the things mentioned below - they are all incorrect:
- "Colin Powell does not have level IV AAP"
- "Ms. Penney is not an AAP teacher"
- "If you go to GBW, you can definitely go to Rocky Run" 
- "GBW is sooo much better"

(level IV status and AAP center zoning is what determines who can go to Rocky Run - if you live in the CP area you have to be level IV to attend GBW and hence you can attend Rocky Run as things stand now, but you don't have to go to GBW to go to Rocky Run)

Over the last few years, CP has added many afterschool activities.  They don't match GBW in the "academic" ones yet but CP is moving forward in this respect.  If your child already has activities, you wouldn't have time for these clubs anyway.  (ie Math club, Science Olympiad , Chess etc)

GBW is overcrowded - be prepared to have your child miss recess at times because it conflicts with specials or FLES.  The class sizes are large as with most centers.  All of the 4th grade is in trailers this year.  Last year one 3rd grade class was also in a trailer.  After last year's rezoning, CP is actually the smaller school by numbers even though it is much more spacious.

I feel the kids are more nurtured at CP.  GBW seems to want to prepare kids for MS - I wonder what the rush is.  Won't they adjust once they get there?  At GBW they will have more than one teacher starting in 4th or 5th grade.  You really get no feedback from the teachers who are not the homeroom teacher.

Just a few thoughts from a family that has experienced both schools....

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics