Reply to King Abdullah Academy Closing: FCPS Buy for HS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ideas that would be helpful and I can see as a good use of a smaller space.

1) SPED school with space for kids with behavioral issues and more serious academic interventions. 
2) IB school. There are people who really like IB, a decent number, create an IB high school  and let those kids attend that school. Revert every other HS to an AP school
3) ELL school. A school with specialized programs for kids who are learning English. The current put a 2nd grader who speaks no English into an all English speaking classroom model isn’t working for anyone.

Essentially, there are programs that would work far better if the services were concentrated at a location and the entirety of the staff was devoted to addressing those issues. There would be more support for the students and for the Teachers/Admin/Staff.

2E kids can take Honors, AP, and IB classes. Plenty do. I get that it isn’t easy, I was a 2E kid in honors classes and it was a fight to get me into the classes while retaining services. I get it but we need spaces for kids with more serious issues and specialized programs so the kids get the help they need and we can more easily remove disruptive kids from the classroom, especially in ES. There are kids at home waiting for private placements because FCPS doesn’t have a program for them and there are not enough private schools that are not warehouses to take the kids.

My guess is that the IB would be the easiest to do because cuts at the Department of Education are going to royally screw over SPED programs and ELL is a political minefield, never mind that there are a good chunk of ELL kids who are here legally and are not Hispanc. 
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The land was supposed to be for the mythical western high school to alleviate Chantilly et al. but powerful people at other schools have helped FCPS drag its feet so that the domino effect would not burst their bubble and their personal plans.[/quote]

I would guess that they need to do some serious construction in order to get it to a large enough HS. I also thought that they allowed the Saudi’s to use the land because it was too small for a HS. The existing buildings could be used quickly to handle some of the programs in need of expansion and a home that would be valuable to the County immediately. Some of the outbuildings could be converted for other programs that are needed.

If it was used for an IB school you would bring in kids interested in that program and relieve schools that are over crowded or close to being over crowded. It would free up space in some existing HS. It would also allow all HS to have AP programs, which would reduce the number of student transfers.

The current ELL system is not working. I have no idea why there are some people who think that mainstreaming kids who have no knowledge of English is a good idea. We sure are not seeing evidence of those kids learning English or doing well in school. Maybe we need to look at why. Maybe placing kids who are new to the culture and the language in a regular classroom is not working and we need to do something different.  [/quote]

Mainstreaming kids with no knowledge of the native language works all over the world, everywhere, quite effectively.

As anyone who has raised kids overseas

My teen was able to get completely fluent in reading and writing in an asian language in one year overseas using the full immersion method.  I spent summers overseas as a kid and within a couple of months was able to communicate quite effectively.   My neighbors kids did local elementaey school when stationed in Europe and were fluent by Christmas, having spoken zero of the host language when they arrived.

The issue is that FCPS does not actially do a full immersion method.

We give so many ESL supports for such an extended period of time, down to providing every document in every language,  that there is no reason for the students to actually learn the language well, unless they are very motivated to do so.

If we actually did full immersion in English, those elementary kids would be fluent in one year.

Our "niceness" and "compassion" are greatly disadvantaging those ESL kids.[/quote]

You clearly know nothing about ESL in the school system.  There is no native language support for kids during the day, unless they are in a dual immersion program.  Occasional documents sent home (the ones no one reads anyway) are available in every language.  However, the ELL students who don't learn English quickly are the ones whose parents have little to no education, no books, no money, no educational resources, and no academic skills in any language, including their own.  Your kids did well overseas because you are an educated family and your kids were probably well-educated for their ages when they arrived in said country, and then continued to receive support at home, both academic and material (plenty of food and necessities).  As an ESL teacher I had students arriving in upper elementary grades who not only couldn't speak English, but were living in abject poverty with parents who could barely read, and who had had little to no education in their home country prior to arriving.  I even had kids who couldn't read at all - not one letter - in any language.  Please keep your ignorant opinions to yourself.[/quote]

I am only saying what I see with my own eyes.

The ESL kids are not full immersion here in FCPS
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