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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There's a rather dour assessment of the Lemon Road center in the new AAPAC report:

"When FCPS moved part of the AAP Center from Haycock to Lemon Road the students who were moved were all Providence District students. Consequently, several of the families actually moved so they would be back in Haycock’s attendance area while others decided not to send their children to the Center. Now the Lemon Road Center is far below critical mass of qualified students, which has been identified as 50 per grade at elementary level. This is a possible result when new AAP Centers are opened without considering the factors identified in the AAPAC decision framework."

How important is having a "critical mass" of AAP students, really?  It used to be you'd go to school and there might be a "smart class," and that was good enough if you had a kid who wanted to learn and a good teacher.    [/quote]

I think it is important to have a critical mass - for ES, that is defined as 50 kids - or two classrooms.  It allows for two AAP teachers, and therefore differing perspectives, on how the teaching should go.  They can learn from each other instead of being insular and kings of their own domain.

The problem with the critical mass issue is that the Lemon Road Center only takes in 100% of the kids from Lemon Road, and those who choose to go from Shrevewood or Westgate.  So it is the center or the base school - and the base schools do not have critical mass either!

LR averages less than 9 AAP kids, Shrevewood averages 25 per year and Westgate averages 15 per year.  If they all went to one school you would barely meet the critical mass minimum but of course some Shrevewood and Westgate kids stay at the base school.

If Shrevewood continues its push to retain more of its kids at the base school for LLIV, it is very conceivable that Shrevewood would have a bigger AAP population than the Center.  Shrevewood sent 100% kids - when it did not offer LLIV - then 50% then 25%.  Who knows what next year will bring.

I would not be surprised if LR has more 'principal placed' AAP kids from its own student body in order to fill out the Center seats and make itself look viable.[/quote]

Where does Freedom Hill send their students? It made no sense to make Lemon Road a center and then also allow the other schools to start LLIV programs at the same time. I can't remember that ever happening in FCPS before. They have put AAP centers in smaller or underperforming schools before but then the schools feeding into it, didn't become LLIV programs.[/quote]

50% are at Westbriar AAP; 50% stay in LLIV at Freedom Hill.   [/quote]

Part of what caused the current imbalance at Lemon Road was the initially Westbriar, Stenwood and Freedom Hill, I believe, were slated to go to Lemon Road.  But Westbriar AAP-aspirational parents in particular fought to make Westbriar a center for two reasons.  1. Their kids wouldn't have to be bused to a less desirable neighborhood (they'll claim the distance was too far, but some of the buses from Stenwood and others feeders to Westbriar were taking close to an hour. )  And, 2. So Westbriar would jump to the head of the cue to get a fancy new addition.    It was really kind of sickening, actually.  Basically a bunch of haves, making sure they got what they wanted, while less activist parents at Lemon Road were stuck accepting it as good.  You can bet Westbriar has more than a critical mass of AAP students now.  Actually, Westbriar, like Wolftrap, would be better off being a self-contained LLIV, but then parents would get to brag about the center label.  I[/quote]

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