Reply to Not getting into AAP - and being okay with it

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Reply to "Not getting into AAP - and being okay with it"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here...thanks for the replies thus far. I'm not even truly convinced that DC needs a "different learning environment." DC will be successful in his/her current school. Do I think DC could do a bit more? Yes. DC is on grade level with math, and slightly above grade level in reading.

In addition, the brain drain really just pisses me off.  All these great, high performing, wonderful children who are sent to the AAP center... I hate that DC will lose those friendships. [/quote]

You keep mentioning this "brain drain."  Your DC is still left; do you not think there are others still left that are at least as smart as your DC?  Either you think DC will test well enough to get into AAP, in which case have him/her tested, or you don't think so, in which case he/she will remain at the base school among others in a similar boat.  It's not like it's your smart DC alone with a bunch of morons at the base school.  There are plenty of "normal" kids left who are plenty bright but don't have the scores to make AAP.  [/quote]

Perhaps, but the point is also that there are probably kids who have left that are not as smart as OP's kid and that's when you really have to look at this whole AAP segregation thing and think it's a crapshoot.   Better when the program was only for gifted kids.  It made everyone's decision a lot easier.  And it was more fair.   The current system oftentimes rewards squeaky wheels and the pushiest parents.  It's ruining FCPS.  [/quote]

Absolutely true.  And now, even as the Gen Ed classes are dwindling, more and more Gen Ed kids are being pulled out of FCPS by their parents in favor of private schools, directly due to the ridiculous AAP system of segregating students.  My DC told me this week that FIVE of DC's friends from class (Gen Ed) won't be back next year.  Thanks, FCPS, for setting up this stratified system that [b]makes the kids not in AAP feel somehow less than[/b], even if they're perfectly normal, average/above average kids.  Such a shame what has become of what used to be a very good school system that actually had some common sense.[/quote]

I'm sorry this is true at your school, but it's not true at ours, a non-center, LLIV school.  Level 3 kids are lotteried into the Level 4 classroom, and then kids are shuffled again for math (all Level 4 kids take math with students from all classes who tested into advanced math).  DS is in a gen ed classroom and takes advanced math with the Level 4 kids.  I'm not aware that the kids in the non-Level 4 class feel any stigma, or that gen ed classes are dwindling.  To the extent I would want to pull out my kid for private (and I would if money were no object) it's not because he is not in AAP but because the classes are too big and I feel like any kid who is on grade level and doesn't have special needs is basically ignored because teachers have to devote limited resources to kids who are struggling.  Maybe it's different at center schools.

I tend to think where there's a stigma, it's ultimately created by parents -- parents of Level 4 kids who tell their kids they are better than others, and parents of gen ed kids who project their feelings of disappointment onto their kids.[/quote]

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