Reply to CES letters?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "CES letters?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My son (who is Black) was in the 95th percentile on MAP-R at a "focus" school, was placed in the lottery, did not get in the regional CES. Not sure how or if this matches the anecdotes already gathered in this thread.

I'll admit to a little pang because I was in "GT" classes when I was a kid and I have a love/hate relationship with that label. But staying in his home school is probably a better move for him, and I feel confident that his needs will be met. [/quote]

[b]You should appeal this decision. [/b][/quote]

WHY. Why should this parent appeal?

I'm a flaming progressive that would be happy to have race be a consideration, but it's not.

So what is there to appeal? A 95th percentile kid WAS put in the lottery pool, but then wasn't randomly selected? Just like tons of other 90th, 95th and 99th percentile kids, because there are more of them than slots available?

Thus...?[/quote]

I am the parent who was being asked to appeal, and as this commenter noted, I don't have any grounds to appeal. There's simply not enough space for everyone (which is a different issue, but that's the way things are now). My son's school does have the ELC, and he'll also be with friends and teachers who know and love him. I believe there's a sufficient peer group at his school to adequately challenge him. And philosophically, I think there should be more enrichment opportunities as a student's home school, anyway.

(I'd also like to think he'd still have been in the lottery if he went to a "richie-rich" school, but who knows.)

I'm trying to steer myself away from being obsessed with labels (even though I acknowledge that bit of disappointment when I got the letter.) I was happy to throw my information into the mix just for conversation, but this is now a 17-page thread about third graders. The kids that we are talking about (kids who made it into the lottery) are clearly going to be okay whether they get into the CES or not, because their MAP-R scores demonstrate that.[/quote]

You sound nice and reasonable and a great parent, so this isn't personally directed at you, but here's what I don't like about the dismissiveness of "this is a 17 page thread about third graders" and "they're clearly going to be ok" attitude.  You are really lucky that your school has ELC and a peer group.  Our home school does not have ELC and has made it very clear for the past 4 years that enrichment is the very furthest from their priorities.  My son came home a few weeks ago with an ALPHABET connect the dots worksheet.  I have seen my son go from curious, bright, excited to learn, to bored and antsy.  I get really frustrated when people dismiss my concerns with "he will obviously be OK no matter what" because I feel like people define OK as like....will be able to get into a good college?  But I'm not planning college for my 8 year old.  My priority right now is having him educated the way that a typical child gets to be educated every day, just by virtue of their learning style and level.  My kid is "OK" at his home school in the sense that he gets A's without trying, but not in the sense that he is actually learning to do hard things and work through problems.  I think it does a huge disservice to kids to not meet their needs because we assume they will be OK.  They spend the majority of their daily hours in school, and assuming they should be fine with sitting in school year after year not being challenged and not have it affect their wellbeing at all, does not seem right to me.  It sounds like your kid will be fine without CES, so that is really great, but I think some kids might really need it. [/quote]
Thanks for not flaming me. :) I think you sound like a nice and reasonable parent too and what you're asking for is not too much.  I strongly believe that enrichment opportunities should be available at all schools. I didn't know (because I hadn't checked) whether the ELC was at my child's school until I looked it up after posting in this thread. I was disappointed to see how relatively few schools offer it. Just because I think it should be offered to less affluent schools FIRST doesn't mean I think it should be offered to less affluent schools ONLY.

But I feel like trying to "game" the CES system or crack the code of how to get admitted, and fixating on 99th vs 95th percentiles etc isn't going to fix the bigger problem of more kids needing rich curricula where they are. (I'm not saying YOU'RE trying to game the CES system at all, just speaking more broadly.) Then again, this is a thread about CES letters and that's what folks are here to talk about -- no one needs my moderating![/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