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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The title of this thread says it all.  I’m sorry, but I don’t think parents should have any say as to who is placed in an advanced math class.   There are so kids that actually legitimately meet all of the benchmarks.  [/quote]
Op here— usually I would agree with you but in my specific case being put in a lower math class would have caused significant harm for my son.  His average in math 6 was a 110%, 107%, 100%, and 108% for each quarter respectively.  Obviously math 6 was not challenging enough.  He was sick the day of the sol (recovering from a stomach bug), and scored two points below the cut off.  On his practice sols, he scored a perfect score, a 586, and a 550.  These stats are from his math teacher (I emailed them this past weekend as well).  His math teacher had nothing to do with the recommendation, it was based off him scoring two points lower than the cut off on a test when he was sick.

[b]If you don’t take math as a seventh grader, there are lots of doors that close for you. [/b] You can’t apply to tj.  You can’t do the ib program.  You can’t take intensified science in highschool past freshman year.  That’s a lot of doors to close at twelve, especially if you have a borderline case.  There are ways to “catch up” but those are debatably bad ideas (taking foundational math classes over the summer, homeschooling for a year, etc).

I might be feeding a troll here, but in this case you are just wrong.  It’s a parents job to advocate for their kid, and I do not in any way regret pushing back.  [/quote]
Do you mean algebra or Pre-algebra is required to access those things?[/quote]

Not OP, but OP is completely right in their reasoning for their child and in the progression: https://www.apsva.us/curriculum/mathematics/ (go to secondary then course progression and note that high school is 4 years, not 5 before you come back and say we're wrong). Likewise, doors begin to close if your student does not take a language in 7.

I cannot and do not believe that all of the issues with APS in middle -- or otherwise -- and lack of rigor, kids not being able to read in middle school, gen ed as the default and college prep for a select few... is simply pushy parents. Nor is it on the teachers. It's on APS much higher up. Yes, we parents are all advocates and we send too many emails and make too many demands, but seriously, having a math trajectory that doesn't (a) close out your student to college prep work; and (b) mean you student is bored with straight As isn't a parent problem. We're okay to want our students to be challenged and to learn and to be competitive. We're okay to question if straight As without trying is actually a great learning experience. We're okay to think that test retakes may actually help our students learn when they clearly didn't. We're also okay to acknowledge that teachers cannot do it all in the current environment, to advocate for more teachers and higher pay for those teachers. It's all okay. I know that a certain kind of parent wants to seem cool by not advocating for their student, but that's not in the end a great way to be cool (try pickleball, maybe?). [/quote]

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