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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree that black kids will be considered by students to have only gotten in because of their race.  This is a likely result when the administrators say they wish to get more black kids in and change the admissions process to help make that happen.[/quote]

THEY ALREADY ARE TOLD THIS.

This whole thread bothers me so I’m going to say my peace and then be done. I know some will disagree and just skip reading if you hate long writing as I had some time this morning.

My 504 kid at TJ has long since had to put up with the seemingly acceptable attitude from elementary school onward that kids with disabilities/504 at AAP/TJ are “taking up a spot from a more capable student.”  “If they need any accommodations it’s really cheating and unfair!” This needs to be addressed as well. Children without as much access to resources have a higher incidence of 504/IEP’s from a variety of reasons: lack of quality medical care, expense of nutrition, parental exhaustion (2 full time jobs! Fun!), lead paint, divorce, toxic water pipes, disability of the parents causes poverty, the poor apartment complex has “motor cycle Dude” ride in blazing at 2am on school nights. I’m sure my own poverty growing up effected my child. But that doesn’t mean some of those kids aren’t brilliant.

There was a thread on AAP a few weeks ago where parents openly wrote about how IEP/504 kids really didn’t belong in AAP and even now I’ve heard it so many times from parents before they realize who my kid is, it gives me PTSD. 
It’s absolute BS.

As a TJ parent, I think TJ is a school that my kid dreamed about but it’s not without its problems. I’m personally not so happy with the admission changes and would like to see an actual program that allows low-income schools to have interested students obtain the training and knowledge to easily get into TJ. Young scholars spends what about $2 million a year in FCPS budget? (I looked at one point.) I know a teacher as a friend who taught the “Young Scholars” science classes for an elementary school for a few summers. I was shocked when I found out. This person has ZERO stem skills and admits they are  “bad at math.” Like trouble with elementary math “bad at math”. It was basically fun camp and extra income for the teachers in the school. It bothers me that poor parents enrolling are hoping their kids can get some training the kid is likely begging for dreaming of TJ/good collage/STEM stuff. It’s nothing more than knowingly throwing out an ineffective crumb to say “but look we did something” to the lawsuits from the NAACP.

I taught in some real poor schools, like no lightbulbs in the house poor and crack smoking caught in school poor, for years after collage to pay off loans through a federal program. You want to give black/brown/poor kids a REAL chance? Take the $2million Young Scholars money and take the 10 poorest elementary schools and two poorest middle schools in FCPS. HIRE two full time STEM teachers for after school and summer STEM ONLY…..teachers with REAL degrees to teach in EACH chosen school. Student volunteers from TJ are wonderful to help but they have their own homework. A real full time stem degreed teacher, even if carefully selected and young, would be much more effective. $130K with salary and benefits per teacher x12 teachers = $1,560,000 and $440, 000 divided among the 12 schools for supplies, fees, books, ect…$2 million finally effective.

It might take a bit for the parents to see it as a real thing given the past….but word gets around “We had x number of kids have success on 3rd grade Math Kangroo!” Our Science Olympiad team had 3 kids get a medal ! (Success will be lower the first year likely, but those kids are now ROCK STARS on the mourning school announcements. You will be overwhelmed after. Take a day trip with the whole STEM group in May to a STEM thing like NASA. Or, for the first two years purposely do Regional Science Olympiad as a trip to western VA where one of the areas has some other rural poor schools, instead of getting crushed the first year against Longfellow, ect. (By year 3, tables would turn.) Kids get medals and a fun day trip! It’s the learning that matters. Band directors, basket ball coaches, ect do this all the time to build effective programs in areas you would think couldn’t exist.

Those teachers would teach multiple classes after school each day (different math levels based on ability not grade for kiddo math like Math Kangroo to AMC8 to MathCounts to basic training) The could teach Science Olympiad level A&B. (Poor families have no way to volunteer enough parental time/money but it wouldn’t matter the after-after school stem teachers are teaching and running the team…which is done already at many rich schools in FCPS. Kids get tons of basic science training!) These teachers could teach COMPSCI classes from Scratch to ACSL. There are so many ideas.

FCPS won’t do this though because the ugly truth is poor kids (and kids with disabilities) can be even more motivated than lazy rich kids if given access to a real fair shot. For hundreds of years, it’s been a nice pipeline to Harvard for apathetic Junior if Daddy gives lots of money for far too long. TJ and other public schools go down? Private schools and rich kids get the circular wealth pipeline that just started changing… back. (There are highly motivated and grounded rich kids so not everyone obviously.) From what I saw teaching in said very poor area, I had kids waiting 3 HOURS afterschool with the line out the door daily just to get an extra individual lesson and then walk home.  The idea I just typed out won’t fix the inequity between rich and poor/ different races/ ect….But I think just simply taking black, brown, poor kids, and putting them in TJ when they aren’t chosen blindly, won’t be as effective for a few reasons already mentioned above me. I wish so much FCPS would look at my letter, and fix this garbage. It hurts my heart thinking of all the intelligent capable kids who were so talented, just poor or looked down upon for race, sex, disability, ect. I think this idea would work and I’ve DONE IT in a different subject area many years ago. The numbers of black, LatinX, hispanic, single parent households, disabled kids, poor kids, would rise at TJ within two years….and THOSE kids would be very competitive at TJ. A real shot.

Thinks it’s not fair to “give them a handout”?? You never know which kid: male/female, black, white, Asian, American Indian, disabled/abled,  LGBTQ+/ straight will have the next huge idea, and starts millions of new jobs. It doesn’t have to be a ZERO SUM GAME.

It’s not reasonable or fair to say someone isn’t as potentially capable solely based on a of lack of access to knowledge and training.  It is true that at some point it’s hard to get “in the game and compete” and find out if the student hasn’t been given the opportunity though. Where the line for opportunity is and for which areas of jobs and exactly how much the past racial tragedies (I count slavery and the burning down entire areas of black business as a TRAGEDY that creates generations of unjust economic problems.) and how this all contributed to the current inequities is what the big question is.

The amount of Trumpers with the “WOKE” garbage on this thread is awful.

I’ll shut up from here on out.

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