Reply to Do you feel that FCPS has your child’s best interests at heart?

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Reply to "Do you feel that FCPS has your child’s best interests at heart?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]FCPS cares about meeting state and federal standards for what public education is supposed to provide. Kids are supposed to graduate having mastered the material that is captured in the SOL, and that is not necessarily hard to do. It is the level of education that kids need to be productive members of society if they don’t go to college.

That is very different than what many parents expect, although I would bet that there are more parents happy with what FCPS provides then who are unhappy with what is being provided.

FCPS will provide the services needed to meet the state and federal mandates for kids with special needs, so keeping kids on grade level where they can. Parents are going to need to look to outside services if they want kids to be more then on grade level because the schools don’t have the mandate or money to provide services to ush beyond that.

FCPS will provide advanced options in the form of AAP, DE, and AP/IB classes but they are not going to be able to meet the needs of super advanced kids in ES. Parents will have to supplement in areas that they think there are weaknesses or where kids are not challenged enough.

I have an 8th grader, he has had some great opportunities. We are happy with the education he is getting. [/quote]

Exactly. This is such a loaded question and I have noticed that many parents who complain have unrealistic expectations of what they expect a teacher/administrator/school/system in public education to do for their child in a specific, isolated incident that only affects them.  There are a number of these instances already mentioned on this thread.

But if you're talking about a systemic service issue, then you have to acknowledge that FCPS is made up of 180,000+ students who all have different backgrounds, abilities and needs.  Their job is to serve them ALL. The system has to function broadly because it is a large system - the 9th largest school system in the country.  So we have systemic policies in place that go beyond the classroom to provide services such as special needs assessment and services, school psychologists in every school, police resource officers in every school for safety, free and reduced lunch programs, ESOL programs, bilingual community liaisons at each school, health insurance options, summer school recovery and enrichment programs, adult education programs, professional development training for teachers, and the list goes on.

I would say that each of the above programs is not purely a "classroom/education" program, but directly supports the students, teachers and families and are all examples of the system "caring" about students and their success.

It's such an entitlement to complain that your child had an issue with a specific student, teacher or administrator and that you tried to be a squeaky wheel to get the issue resolved to your complete satisfaction and if it is resolved with anything less than your complete satisfaction that the entire system doesn't care about your kid.  This forum is FILLED with these types of complainers who then paint the entire system with a brush of being inadequate and uncaring instead of acknowledging that the entire public school system can't be about pleasing one family, but instead attempting to service all equally and equitably.[/quote]

So you don’t value education any more than those who see school as daycare care. [/quote]

Some of us understand that public school is not private school and that means that there are times we are going to have to supplement or support because we cannot expect the schools to meet each child's individual needs. This has always been the case. The loudest voices on this board are people who seem to think that the public schools should bend over backwards to meet the needs of their specific kid and that the school is awful if they don't address their specific grievance.

That said, I do wish that there was more of an attempt to build classes based on ability so that more kids could have their needs meet then is happening today. I think the "inclusion for all" sounds nice in theory but has led to teachers trying to meet too many needs in one classroom and having to focus on the kids who are failing or have already failed and need to be caught up while the other kids get little to know attention.[/quote]

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