Reply to FCPS Proposal to close down AAP Centers at Greenbriar West ES and Carson MS

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Reply to "FCPS Proposal to close down AAP Centers at Greenbriar West ES and Carson MS"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Back on topic - please?

So I have one son at LLIV and a daughter starting LLIV next fall.  We looked at both the center and local and decided the local was a happier choice...kids were going to school with other kids in the neighborhood, the local school was closer, and so on.  We couldn't really see any academic advantage to going to the center where there were few, if any neighborhood ties.  Plus the center is a HUGE school and I was worried the kids would get lost.

So at face value I'm inclined to agree with the idea that center schools aren't delivering value relative to the effort required to maintain them.  [/quote]

Not all Centers/LLIV programs are the same across the county, nor are they all delivering services consistently. There are also some smaller populations of AAP LIV kids at their base schools that ARE better served in centers simply because of the number of kids. For instance, one ES might only have 13 LIV qualified students in a grade, which means that this class will have to be filled with LIII qualified students, but also that they will spend their ENTIRE 3-6 grades with the same kids in order to receive services. So for those kids they have the option of a center with a larger peer group and can make that choice. In this case, the centers DO deliver the value for the money. But this is not the case across the county where some schools have 24% of ta particular grade turning up as qualified, or a larger base population. [/quote]

I think that local level IV in most schools is going to cause much more drama in far more areas of the county than the center programs ever could.

What you are going to have now, at most of the schools, is one small class of "smart" kids, and 2-3 classes of everyone else.

The principal placement is going to cause SOOOOO much drama.  Can you hear the non stop complaints of how the queen bee, class mom, Miss PTA kids are all getting into the "smart" class because they volunteer/kiss up/lobby/bug the teachers and the principals?

And this "smart" class is going to be roughly the same 15-24 kids, year after year, and their neighborhood kids are going to wonder why they can't be with their friends, why their friends get to be in that class and they don't, why does the school think their friend (principal placed) is so much smarter than everyone else, especially those kids who were placed by the principal.

The type of complaints you hear from people zoned for the center are going to be magnified 100X, and at every single school in the district.  I can't even imagine the drama when/if this plan goes into play.

The headaches for the teacher and staff, once the placement into the LLIV classes go from an outside committee (center model) vs completely at the discretion of the principal and staff (LLIV model) are just going to be over the top.  I can't imagine the amount of lobbying that is going to occur, especially in situations where there are 6-10 kids qualifying, and the school has to find 10-15 other students to place in the class.  It is not going to be pretty.

Completely eliminating the center model in favor of LLIV at every school will not be the bed of roses that some of you expect it to be.  What will most certainly happen, is that the AAP drama is going to spread at every school across the district, even happy schools, and it is going to be drawn out through the entire year, year after year, instead of just a quick bit of drama when the placement comes out in the spring.

In my opinion, the best idea is a mix of LLIV at places like Haycock where they have dozens of kids qualifying for Level IV placement and where they will likely be able to fill the LLIV class only with kids who qualify, and center schools for the rest of the county.[/quote]

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