Anonymous wrote:Our principal says she keeps a list of parent requests for principal placement/guest status and considers that while making her decision for who to place in temp local level iv.

And totally agree, have heard it goes over very poorly to take an aggressive stance or claim child is bored in Gen ed. Look for times they are outliers: ie, whole class had to repeat a math test except your child, your child is in a small reading group for above grade level books etc

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One final consideration for those planning to ask for principal placement. If you think your child was initially rejected by the committee for low HOPE/GBRS, bear in mind that those scores were derived by your principal/AART/teacher. The school has already determined for themselves that your child is not a good fit for AAP by issuing those scores. Asking the principal to essentially reverse their decision and principal place is rolling a rock up a hill. I am not saying you should not ask for principal placement if your DC has low HOPE, I am just saying you will need to go into that meeting with evidence for why the school’s assessment is wrong. And of course you should also appeal.

The problem is we don’t know what a low Hope score is. There are academic components where my child got always and almost always for most then social components where they got nevers. That does not mean the child isn’t one of the strongest students in the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I asked for my DC to be principal placed in a non-center school that has a robust local IV (AAP kids are pulled out together for the core subjects.) I was waiting for the appeal decision and was covering all my bases in case the appeal was rejected.

In short, the principal said no. He said my child’s score on some internal school specific test were not high enough. I did not even know such a test had been given. It turns out it is a test full of third, fourth, and fifth grade math questions. The only way my kid would know how to answer was if they had been accelerating in Kumon or some such outside class when they were only in second grade. We had not been doing that type of enrichment, but if we had, I have no doubt my DC would have done great because they are exceptionally strong in math.The test was basically just a mechanism for the principal to use an excuse to turn down all/most of the parents who probably ask him to principal place their child. Naturally, the whole thing is very untransparent so it is impossible to know if the principal applies the same standard to every kid.

At the end of the day DC got in on appeal and is thriving in AAP. I am still a little peeved that the system really seems to have been built to keep a very smart AND hard working kid out of AAP, but thankfully me and my spouse kept pushing and turned in a really great appeal packet using the information on this board.

So bottom line - if you think your kid needs to be in AAP keep pushing every angle you have.

What was in your appeal packet?

We took an all of the above approach. We did the WISC test, and the score was nearly identical to the COGAT and into the 99th percentile. We also submitted new work samples. A math one where we had DC do math questions from a worksheet and show their work, and a writing one where we had DC write a story. We also wrote an appeal letter (about 1.25 pages) where we emphasized the characteristics of our child that demonstrated why they needed AAP, with specific examples. Note we did not frame the letter along the lines of “DC is so smart,” which is already evident in the test scores, but rather the letter was written from the perspective of why DC needed AAP and their development would be hampered without it. We were also very humble and polite in tone and tried to address the committee as partners in DC’s education with only the best intentions.

Anonymous wrote:One final consideration for those planning to ask for principal placement. If you think your child was initially rejected by the committee for low HOPE/GBRS, bear in mind that those scores were derived by your principal/AART/teacher. The school has already determined for themselves that your child is not a good fit for AAP by issuing those scores. Asking the principal to essentially reverse their decision and principal place is rolling a rock up a hill. I am not saying you should not ask for principal placement if your DC has low HOPE, I am just saying you will need to go into that meeting with evidence for why the school’s assessment is wrong. And of course you should also appeal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I asked for my DC to be principal placed in a non-center school that has a robust local IV (AAP kids are pulled out together for the core subjects.) I was waiting for the appeal decision and was covering all my bases in case the appeal was rejected.

In short, the principal said no. He said my child’s score on some internal school specific test were not high enough. I did not even know such a test had been given. It turns out it is a test full of third, fourth, and fifth grade math questions. The only way my kid would know how to answer was if they had been accelerating in Kumon or some such outside class when they were only in second grade. We had not been doing that type of enrichment, but if we had, I have no doubt my DC would have done great because they are exceptionally strong in math.The test was basically just a mechanism for the principal to use an excuse to turn down all/most of the parents who probably ask him to principal place their child. Naturally, the whole thing is very untransparent so it is impossible to know if the principal applies the same standard to every kid.

At the end of the day DC got in on appeal and is thriving in AAP. I am still a little peeved that the system really seems to have been built to keep a very smart AND hard working kid out of AAP, but thankfully me and my spouse kept pushing and turned in a really great appeal packet using the information on this board.

So bottom line - if you think your kid needs to be in AAP keep pushing every angle you have.

What was in your appeal packet?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I asked for my DC to be principal placed in a non-center school that has a robust local IV (AAP kids are pulled out together for the core subjects.) I was waiting for the appeal decision and was covering all my bases in case the appeal was rejected.

In short, the principal said no. He said my child’s score on some internal school specific test were not high enough. I did not even know such a test had been given. It turns out it is a test full of third, fourth, and fifth grade math questions. The only way my kid would know how to answer was if they had been accelerating in Kumon or some such outside class when they were only in second grade. We had not been doing that type of enrichment, but if we had, I have no doubt my DC would have done great because they are exceptionally strong in math.The test was basically just a mechanism for the principal to use an excuse to turn down all/most of the parents who probably ask him to principal place their child. Naturally, the whole thing is very untransparent so it is impossible to know if the principal applies the same standard to every kid.

At the end of the day DC got in on appeal and is thriving in AAP. I am still a little peeved that the system really seems to have been built to keep a very smart AND hard working kid out of AAP, but thankfully me and my spouse kept pushing and turned in a really great appeal packet using the information on this board.

So bottom line - if you think your kid needs to be in AAP keep pushing every angle you have.

What was the test?

Anonymous wrote:I asked for my DC to be principal placed in a non-center school that has a robust local IV (AAP kids are pulled out together for the core subjects.) I was waiting for the appeal decision and was covering all my bases in case the appeal was rejected.

In short, the principal said no. He said my child’s score on some internal school specific test were not high enough. I did not even know such a test had been given. It turns out it is a test full of third, fourth, and fifth grade math questions. The only way my kid would know how to answer was if they had been accelerating in Kumon or some such outside class when they were only in second grade. We had not been doing that type of enrichment, but if we had, I have no doubt my DC would have done great because they are exceptionally strong in math.The test was basically just a mechanism for the principal to use an excuse to turn down all/most of the parents who probably ask him to principal place their child. Naturally, the whole thing is very untransparent so it is impossible to know if the principal applies the same standard to every kid.

At the end of the day DC got in on appeal and is thriving in AAP. I am still a little peeved that the system really seems to have been built to keep a very smart AND hard working kid out of AAP, but thankfully me and my spouse kept pushing and turned in a really great appeal packet using the information on this board.

So bottom line - if you think your kid needs to be in AAP keep pushing every angle you have.

Anonymous wrote:I asked for my DC to be principal placed in a non-center school that has a robust local IV (AAP kids are pulled out together for the core subjects.) I was waiting for the appeal decision and was covering all my bases in case the appeal was rejected.

In short, the principal said no. He said my child’s score on some internal school specific test were not high enough. I did not even know such a test had been given. It turns out it is a test full of third, fourth, and fifth grade math questions. The only way my kid would know how to answer was if they had been accelerating in Kumon or some such outside class when they were only in second grade. We had not been doing that type of enrichment, but if we had, I have no doubt my DC would have done great because they are exceptionally strong in math.The test was basically just a mechanism for the principal to use an excuse to turn down all/most of the parents who probably ask him to principal place their child. Naturally, the whole thing is very untransparent so it is impossible to know if the principal applies the same standard to every kid.

At the end of the day DC got in on appeal and is thriving in AAP. I am still a little peeved that the system really seems to have been built to keep a very smart AND hard working kid out of AAP, but thankfully me and my spouse kept pushing and turned in a really great appeal packet using the information on this board.

So bottom line - if you think your kid needs to be in AAP keep pushing every angle you have.

Anonymous wrote:I asked for my DC to be principal placed in a non-center school that has a robust local IV (AAP kids are pulled out together for the core subjects.) I was waiting for the appeal decision and was covering all my bases in case the appeal was rejected.

In short, the principal said no. He said my child’s score on some internal school specific test were not high enough. I did not even know such a test had been given. It turns out it is a test full of third, fourth, and fifth grade math questions. The only way my kid would know how to answer was if they had been accelerating in Kumon or some such outside class when they were only in second grade. We had not been doing that type of enrichment, but if we had, I have no doubt my DC would have done great because they are exceptionally strong in math.The test was basically just a mechanism for the principal to use an excuse to turn down all/most of the parents who probably ask him to principal place their child. Naturally, the whole thing is very untransparent so it is impossible to know if the principal applies the same standard to every kid.

At the end of the day DC got in on appeal and is thriving in AAP. I am still a little peeved that the system really seems to have been built to keep a very smart AND hard working kid out of AAP, but thankfully me and my spouse kept pushing and turned in a really great appeal packet using the information on this board.

So bottom line - if you think your kid needs to be in AAP keep pushing every angle you have.