Reply to Recommendations needed for great FCPS elementary school that is NOT a center school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hunt Valley or Orange Hunt.

Great neighborhoods, great people with smart kids that seemingly could care less about AAP. [/quote]

Wow, the anti-AAP attitude on DCUM is finally becoming, "I want to avoid any chance of my child being in a school with an AAP center even if my child is in general ed." Without regard for the quality of the general ed in that school, or the overall "community feel." Yes, center schools are also community schools with community involvement.

Seriously, OP, look at any school as a whole. AAP students are just kids, and in four years when my child has been in an AAP center I haven't seen the kind of elitism or crazed intensity that DCUM posters constantly claim exists in the kids and the parents. I just never saw it, and I spent a lot of time in the school every week working directly with kids and teachers.

Don't make assumptions about an entire school just because it has a center or Level IV classes, and don't dismiss a school outright for just that reason. You might be denying your child a very good general ed byprogram just because it is under the same roof as a center.[/quote]

No, this is not it. The OP was looking for a non-CENTER, not for mediocrity. Non-center also still may mean local Level IV, and more freedom for the principal and the teachers to provide advanced education to whoever might benefit from it, without the crazy structure imposed from the county. Little known fact that I have come to realize since our school became a "center" this year -- a child in GE at a center school has access to way fewer resources than a child at a school with Local Level IV AAp, or even a school without Level IV resources at all. Most schools will try to maximize education, its just that in a center, that effort seems exclusively focused on the AAP classes. The GE no longer even gets the pull-outs that were standard before. There is no such thing as L3 anymore. And good luck trying to get a principal's ear when concerned about the drop in education level for the GE group. The fact is, the school will get their inflated SOLS, and they cease to care about GE.

In addition, the community is split between the "locals" and the folks outside the neighborhood. Since so many schools already have their own Local Level IV education, those families who came to our center are those who don;t really care for a community, and who have chosen to drive across town just to be in a "center".

So there are really good reasons for actively pursuing a school with local Level IV education, rather than a center. Knowing what I know now, I should have fought tooth and nail against our school becoming a center. It destroyed a wonderful school and will probably ruin the value of our house in proximity of the school.[/quote]

You had me until the last part about ruining the value of your house.  This isn't usually the case.  Usually because of the increase in SOL scores the value of the houses over time increase.[/quote]

I agree, PP.  People are attracted to the center schools because they get 10s on Great Schools (not saying that's a reliable source) because of their test scores, but the super high test scores are because of the concentration of AAP students.  Then they get to the school and complain about the center (unless, of course, their child is in AAP).  I think it increases housing values because people who are looking perceive the school to be better because the center skews the numbers.[/quote]

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