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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Actually, it is fair.  Every child is given the same opportunity to qualify for center-based Level IV services based on one of two different test scores.  That's a fact.  The whole purpose of the process is to identify some range of the top scorers.  It's also a fact that that means the majority of children will not meet the threshold for identification and will not be selected for Level IV services.  That doesn't make it unfair.  It's just the nature of the process, which is to identify the top range of students.  The process then goes even further by allowing parents or teachers to refer children who they believe should be considered even though they didn't make the test score cut-offs.  Level IV AAP students are not given the option to switch schools just because they don't like the color of the walls or the playground equipment at their base school; [b]they're given the opportunity to go to a center to an AAP center because that is how FCPS meets the rmandates of Virginia law that requires each school system to identify some top range of gifted students and to provide services that help them reach their potential.[/b]  Given the size and diversity of the school system, I think FCPS does a pretty good job meeting that legal obligation.[/quote]

Regarding the bolded, above - yes, FCPS is mandated by the state to provide gifted services.  They are not, in any way, shape, or form, mandated to provide special center schools for identified students.  Arlington Co. - also mandated by the state to provide gifted services - does so within the walls of each assigned school.  LLIV should be provided at every base school and centers should be a thing of the past.[/quote]

[b]Arlington County is much more homogenous than Fairfax County.  What works in one will not necessarily work in another. [/b] Our FCPS base school has a LLIV program, but the school can't fill even half a class with Level IV-eligible students.  Our center school combines kids from three different base schools (plus the center itself) to make up just one or two classes per grade.  That is why center schools exist.  And that is why LLIV does not work in all schools, even if it does in Arlington County.[/quote]

Arlington County is about as diverse as they come.  Homogeneous?  Not quite.  If they can make it work without the nonsense and divisiveness of centers, then so can FCPS.

At our center, there are three and four AAP classes per grade.  More than the General Ed classes.  [/quote]

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