Reply to The difference btw the AAP class and the General Ed class

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Reply to "The difference btw the AAP class and the General Ed class"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^I am speaking from personal experience.  It wasn’t an advanced class but a class only offered at the school virtually.  It was a simple “Sorry, it’s filled.” They gave my kid two other completely unrelated options that would fit in his schedule.  It’s about what fits in, not what you want at that point.  We certainly weren’t demanding a class spot and bus transportation.  Lesson learned, we are already researching other virtual options outside of FCPS for next year.

[b]I firmly think they need to stop the transportation for AAP centers and one of mine went through AAP but stayed at the base school.  There are so many other things to spend the money on.[/b]  [/quote]

No way they’re going to do this. It’s an equity issue. You’d basically be excluding all the kids whose parents don’t have the resources to drive them every day. [/quote]

Okay. But there are centers that have every school with a Local Level 4. For example, every school that sends to Westbriar has a Local Level 4. Why should we be bussing kids when they can get a Level 4 class at their own school?[/quote]

The argument is that the Center schools allow for more classrooms so that the kids can be mixed up every year, just like the Gen Ed classes are shuffled every year. It is better for socialization for kids to have a larger cohort of kids and gives room to keep kids who clash apart.

I think the solution is that you have Advanced Math and Advanced LA in every school. Maybe it is Advanced Math and Science and Advanced LA and Social Studies since there are overlapping skill sets in the classes. Allow kids to move classes based on their areas of strength. Since many schoolshave 3 or more classrooms for each grade, you should be able to keep classes balanced in size and skill set. It would allow more kids to be challenged in their areas of strength. For even larger schools you would end up with 2 advanced classrooms for each of the areas.

The fluidity would be good for all kids and you wouldn’t have to worry about the cohort issues. You could also adjust the kids in each group annually so that kids who start to advance later in ES. It would also allow kids who were on the cusp and are struggling to be moved back into a group that works for them. You also remove the designation and hence the competitive aspect of LIV, that is ridiculous. LIII goes away, since there is Advanced LA, which allows the AART to do more with the LII type kids in K-2 and to provide support for the truly gifted kids who need more then Advanced Math or LA provides.

And you get rid of the Centers and busses and relieve over crowding at some of the Center schools. [/quote]

+100
I've been wishing they would do something like this for years.  
DP[/quote]

This was how my podunk ES did it in the 80's in of those open concept schools.  And by golly it worked.[/quote]

But this is tracking which is deemed Inequitable. There should be some sort of testing to determine who gets what but my suspicion is that it will be ignored. Fcps has already called out the low numbers of POC and low income in AAP and the goal is to even it out.  [/quote]

DP.  Isn't AAP simply tracking as well - but on a much greater scale?  In fact, sorting very young kids into two groups at age 7 is the very definition of tracking.  Flexible grouping would allow ALL children to progress at the pace that is right for them - moving up when ready, moving down when the work is too challenging.  AAP - and especially center schools - are blatant segregation.  [/quote]

Segregation and tracking are two different words.

And unfortunately, the state of Virginia requires a gifted program and this is how FCPS implements theirs.  So they have cover from your attack of tracking and segregation.  [/quote]

Except that it's not a "gifted" program and they very deliberately do not call it one.  And it is the very definition of segregation.[/quote]

FCPS is absolutely guilty of segregation, but that is accomplished by pyramid boundaries. I wouldn't fault AAP for that. If anything, AAP Centers are a temporary way out for capable kids that are stuck in hyper-segregated ES/MS zones. [/quote]

BS. Our Level IV center had equal numbers of kids in AAP and in gen ed. That's not gifted or more capable kids . . . it's separating kids out for very little reason, creating division and stereotyping, and is just unnecessary[/quote]

I can assure you that the kids in Level IV aren't there for "very little reason." [b]They are the higher-performers who have proven that they can handle a faster, more advanced workload[/b]. If your kid can't, they can't, and there's nothing wrong with it. The problem with "creating division" comes from parent responses, not kid perceptions.[/quote]

Hahahahahaha, jokes on you, PP.[/quote]

You wish. Truth hurts.[/quote]

You do know that in any given LLIV class, 1/3 or more of the class has been pushed in because otherwise they wouldn't have enough kids to form an entire class, right? And that some of those kids are getting pull outs because they can't handle advanced math? I have two kids in AAP. One of them is principal placed and we have a twice a week tutor for math so that he can stay in. We'll do honors for middle school.

We are not a Center school, I don't know if center schools have to add in other kids to balance out the class sizes or not, but I wonder if their AAP kids get advanced math pull outs, too. [/quote]

Your experience is skewed by how a LLIV class works. At a center school, no additional principal-placed students are added to the classroom (most centers pull in students from 2 other schools, in addition to the base). My child is in grade 5 and there have been no pull-outs, only teacher swapping for different subjects. There are two AAP classes in his grade. [/quote]

Aren't they trying to put LLIV in most schools now, though? So this is only going to become more common?[/quote]

Students currently have the option to go to the center or stay at LLIV. IME, the center is the best opportunity for full-time immersion into the program. A lot of people want to see centers dissolved but there hasn't been a plan announced for that as of yet. I think it would be met with a lot of resistance.[/quote]

DP.  Yet another example of FCPS preaching "equity" but not actually practicing it.  Kids with AAP in their base school should not get a choice of switching to a center - period.  Either one or the other.  Gen Ed kids have no such choice presented to them - they are stuck in whatever school they are assigned.

I think center schools should definitely be dissolved, especially if LLIV is offered at all base schools.  They are redundant, wasteful, and inequitable (to speak FCPS language  :roll: ).[/quote]

No, they should not do away with centers. When my kid went, only 8 from our Title 1 school went to the center. I know of a few more who opted to stay in language immersion but 8 out of appr 150 kids went. Approx. less than 10% were found center eligible. There were less than 20 students in the one AAP class at the center for that grade level. All the feeder schools are Title 1 as well. In these cases, it's better to cluster the students at the center.[/quote]

Wouldn’t make a difference in the new “cluster model” where 3-5 AAP kids are put in a regular classroom.

I agree with you that self contained classrooms are preferable, but I think they are fading away. All the new LLIV programs are “cluster model”. My child’s base school had 19 kids center eligible who wanted to stay at the base and they split them into 5 classrooms.[/quote]

I teach in one of these classrooms and I’d prefer if the kids were out of the class. It’s one more level to plan. When they finish early, I have to create another activity for them. Sometimes, they become talkative/disruptive, affecting my ability to help the kids who really need the 1:1 attention because their 3 grades below in reading and/or math. [/quote]

It amazes me that parents of gen ed high-performers on here want to add yet another layer of planning onto teachers. Next they'll be complaining that only the kids below grade level and the kids above grade level (formerly AAP) are getting all the attention, and kid (now mid-level) is still being ignored.

To the PP, it doesn't make any sense to divide 19 kids across 5 classrooms. It's like they opted out of the program entirely instead of LLIV clustering.[/quote]

Parents of gen Ed high performers know their kids are ignored regardless. Bringing in more kids near the top of the class at least gives them more of a cohort. I’d prefer aap be it’s own thing and the kids at the bottom have their own classes too, but that will never happen[/quote]

Genuinely asking, why is it better for your child to be middle of the pack versus top of the gen ed classroom? If the top performers are moved back into the regular classroom, it pushes everyone down. What am I missing?[/quote]

The top of the class is more likely to little to no time with the teacher. Even if the still get no time with the teacher, the group of two that gets ignored my turn into 5 or 6 which then gives the kids a cohort.  [/quote]

But now those 5-6 students are sitting there together not being enriched together. Your argument makes no sense. Now 6 students don’t get attention from the teacher versus 2?[/quote]

This. If you have a class of 28 with 5 above grade level, they can be left to their own devices. If that 5 turns into 10, then they are getting some attention now [/quote]

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