Reply to Transfer from TJ to Base HS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why did you accept a spot at TJ in the first place if an uw gpa around 3.8 is making you freak out and want to pull your kid back to base school?  Shouldn't it have been obvious that TJ is going to be a bad fit for parents who want their kids to get all As?[/quote]

The top 1/3rd of Freshman students typically achieve mostly As due to their strong proficiency in advanced math, English, and science from middle school. For them, they are just learning the new material that TJ courses teach. However, for others, particularly the bottom 1/3rd of the Freshman class, the experience can be stressful. They need to first catch up on what they should have mastered thoroughly in middle school, and then delve into the new TJ course material. This double workload leaves little time for sports or extracurricular activities, and put the student in a constant catchup mode. Without an entrance evaluation, it becomes challenging for parents or students to know their readiness for TJ upfront.  [/quote]

So sick of this. The OPs kid had mainly A’s at 2 B+ as a Freshman at TJ. They are doing fine. The student is working hard for a B in chemistry, which, if I understand TJ properly, is essentially an AP class without the AP designation that is normally taken after completing regular Chemistry. It is a hard class. A B in a hard class is fine. Chemistry is the only  class that the OP is calling out, which implies an A in all the other classes.

You want the entrance exam back because it was something that parents could prep their kids for so their kids got into TJ. You don’t like the idea that kids from every MS in the county have a chance to attend TJ because they do not fit the profile of who you think should attend TJ.

The OPs kid is doing fine, I would say well, at TJ. They have an excellent GPA in challenging classes. The student needs to decide if they want to stay at TJ and the parents need to understand that B’s are solid grades even if they are not A’s especially at a school like TJ. The OP is essentially asking “Should I send my kid back the the base where they can get easy A’s and breeze through high school instead of allowing my kid to be challenged even if that means an occasional B.”  That tells me that all that is important to the OP is the grade and not what the child is learning.

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OP and their student are taking a pragmatic approach to their grades, understanding that they are assessed not in isolation but in comparison to their peers for college admissions. Even teacher recommendations may not be as outstanding as those for the top 1/3rd of the class. This situation could have been avoided if there were an objective test assessing students' readiness and depth in math, science, and English. Students are expected to be well-prepared, akin to how Michael Jordan prepared himself before stepping onto the basketball court.[b] Just as little MJ's parents played a crucial role in his preparation, there's a dedicated parent behind every qualified TJ student, diligently fulfilling their responsibilities.[/b] [i] TJ does not have the capacity to provide remedial instruction to unprepared students who require catch-up on middle school material.[/i]
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[b]Re: the bolded - [/b] This is saying the quiet part out loud. You believe that kids whose parents are not engaged in precisely the same way as you are, or might be, should not have access to TJ. And in so doing, you are explicitly tying the success of the kids at TJ to the efforts of their parents when you have NO IDEA if that is the case at all. So in your mind, if a kid simply does not have the parental support that you imagine that they should, they're just out of luck and should not be afforded access to the same opportunities through no fault of their own. That's an ugly mindset to have and it's a bit sad that you exist in an environment where you feel like you can express it openly.

[i]Re: the italicized -[/i] I hesitate to even engage with this sentence because it's so off-base, but I can't let it sit there and marinate in its own sophistry. Whatever instruction TJ is providing to assist students in smoothing over gaps that exist - they manifestly DO have the capacity to provide, because they're doing it. As well they should. On some level, that's called teaching and they've been doing it for years in every single discipline. The LCPS, PWCPS, APS, and FCCPS curricula do not match up perfectly with FCPS', to say nothing of the kids coming from homeschool or private school situations. To suggest that this is somehow a new phenomenon is absurd and betrays a lack of understanding of how TJ has always operated.  There have always been support specialists and even intervention specialists at TJ, and it's not like they hired any more of them when the new classes were admitted. You're just upset that Algebra 2, Pre-Calc, or Calculus in 8th grade isn't a free ticket anymore.[/quote]

Admitting students with gaps in their middle school STEM subjects and then expecting them to catch up to their top-notch peers is an unfair situation for those students. While the top-performing students also get to participate in sports and extracurricular activities, the struggling students find themselves staying up late at night, stressed over seemingly normal homework. Students being subjected to avoidable stress and pressure, when they could have had a more balanced academic and personal life at their base school.

Approximately how many from the bottom 1/3rd drop out and return to base school?  
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When my child was at TJ a number of years ago, [b]there were kids each year who went back to their base schools[/b]. Typically, the kids who left were the ones who were highly prepped and needed constant tutoring to keep up. Sure, they had highly involved parents- who were pushing them hard, whether the kid really cared about being at TJ or not.

And, sadly, yes, those were the kids who never got to do sports or other extracurriculars, because they had to spend a proportion of their after school time with tutors to try to keep up. Their parents had prepped them hard so that they looked like they belonged at TJ, but unfortunately they really did not. Most were happier back at thei base school. 
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[b]Agree, it was the bottom 1 to 2% suffered back then.[/b]  However, since the removal of the STEM evaluation, it is the bottom 1/3rd of students who lack the necessary middle school preparation that are now experiencing difficulties and missing out on extracurricular activities and sports.[/quote]

Again, this is false. Everyone on this board deserves to know that you are spouting nonsense that you have no backup for. [/quote]

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