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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]ATS doesn’t follow a different curriculum, and yes, they use iPads in the classroom.

One benefit of homework is that parents catch when their child isn’t grasping a concept, and can work on it at home. There’s no surprise at the end of the year that your child was struggling.

At the end of the day, it’s still a public school with large class sizes. If you can afford it, there are many private schools in the area that are far superior.

Also, ATS crossed the threshold this year to become a Title 1 (high poverty) school. Only time will tell if they can remain one of our higher performing elementary schools.[/quote]

ATS didn’t cross some threshold. The demographics didn’t suddenly change. Arlington changed the way title 1 eligibility is calculated. That’s it.[/quote]

Yes, agree.

I think its sort of unspoken that ATS has drawn from the under performing South Arlington schools and to a lesser extent from minority families in North Arlington uncomfortable with the mostly white elementary schools for which they are zoned.   Most (white) families dominating the North Arlington zones prefer their neighborhood schools which are filled with the thing that ATS parents tout: involved parents who engage with the school.  [/quote]

Arlington is filled with super involved parents who engage with the school. That’s not the type engagement that ATS parents tout. ATS parents are engaged not with the school but specifically with academics. You won’t find hundreds of parents volunteering with the PTA. What you will find is hundreds of parents caring about what their kids are learning in class, helping them with their homework, and demanding that their kids have more challenging work. [/quote]

Seriously?  Get over yourself.   [/quote]

No the PP who i am responding to should get over him or herself. People keep making claims about ATS parents which simply aren’t true. ATS’ PTA keeps begging for volunteers. ATS parents are simply not that great in volunteering. They aren’t super engaged when it comes to organizing activities for the school (though there is a small dedicated group that does). They are engaged with making sure that their kids do their homework and care when their kid comes home with a lower grade. [/quote]

This same thing is true in neighborhood elementary schools.  They are often begging for volunteers and there are maybe a half dozen in the grade doing most of the work.  I've been at two elementaries and have friends with kids in others. If you really think at neighborhood schools none of the parents care about a kid's academics, that's not the case.  
[/quote]

Where do I say that neighborhood school parents don’t care about academics? I am saying that ATS parents as a demographic care specifically about certain things with respect to academics that other parents and that’s what distinguishes the way they are engaged with the school. They care about homework. They care about grades. As a group, they wanted ATS to continue with the grading system even though the rest of APS schools abandoned it. They generally as a group want their kids to have homework and lots of it. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in the school. Otherwise they are not more engaged in the school than parents of neighboring Tuckahoe for example or let’s say Cardinal. Arguably they are actually less engaged. For example I dropped the my kids off and picked them up their first day of school. Nothing special was going on. It was like every other day. Then I went to with my kids to pick up their friend from Cardinal along with her parents (which ends after ATS ends). Cardinal parents put a lot of effort in making the first day of school special. We didn’t do that in ATS. [/quote]

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