Honors classes average about 25-30 students. Gen Ed classes are often smaller, but are mostly English learners or students with disabilities.

FYI - private schools open house and application season will start around October if you want to keep your option open

Year-long electives:
Band
Orchestra
Chorus
Spanish (regular and for heritage speakers)
French
German
Latin
Chinese
Dual-language program (for kids coming from Mt Vernon)
AVID (college exploration / study skills for kids who would be the first in their families to go to college)
Reading and math support classes (for struggling students)
EAP (for English learners)

Semester electives:
Speech and drama
Art
Intro to technology (wood shop or tech stuff)
Family and Consumer Science (aka home economics)
Make it Your Business (business skills?)

There may be others, but those are the most common ones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a parent of an ACPS fifth grader. Would love to hear from GWMS parents and teachers about the middle school sports program. Also, how do I find out about sixth grade curriculum? I heard my son's counselor will help him pick courses. He doesn't have a real relationship with her and she doesn't know anything about him as a student. He's currently in AAS and has great teachers. He is in band, wants to do more than one language (is that possible?). What are the requirements and what are the options for electives? I can't find this information online. He heard from his friends in sixth that the counselor wasn't super helpful and started thinking about what he wants to take next year. Kid loves math, but because of ACPS changes to TAG/AAS, he will be in sixth grade math rather than seventh in sixth being a AAS student. I heard that the only option for AAS is honors. Are grades weighted? Do kids in honors who have a differentiated education plan have additional accelerated learning options? I want to hear it all, the good the bad, and the ugly. My kid is the type who really thrives in a smaller class environment so how big are the honors courses? I heard that they are for anyone, not just gifted or high achieving students. Why?

I will try to answer some but not all of your questions.

It is frustrating not being able to find good information about what will be offered in MS. Try this link for some information: https://acps.cleancatalog.net/middle-school-courses

I don't know what changes to AAS you're referring to but I believe that if your son is currently taking AAS for math in fifth grade, he should already be learning what will be offered in Math Honors 6 right now and will be registered for Math Honors 7 in sixth grade. Around December or January of next your, your child's school counselor will start sending out information to families about sixth grade. I think you and your song will have enough time to figure everything out.

I did not hear this first hand from the school counselor but what other parents told me is that they were advised by the counselor that if their child likes to learn, then they should try to take as many honors classes as possible. Honors classes are open to everyone and if a student is struggling, the teachers and middle school counselors will flag this and ask parents and student to consider switching courses.

The honors classes tend to be fairly large. For Math Honors 7, there will be approximately 35 students because there will only be two sections. I don't know how the numbers break down for other honors courses.

As for differentiation in the honors courses, I do not believe there is any. I believe there is no DEP for AAS students as there is in elementary school. I believe that every student in an honors class is expected to do the same assignments and projects. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Grades in honors classes are weighted. Not clear by what amount but here is the grading policy: https://acps.cleancatalog.net/regulations-governing-the-grading-policy

If your child wants to take two languages, there isn't any prohibition against it. They only have two elective courses per semester so if they want to take two languages at the same time, the two languages would be their only electives. As an alternative to taking band as an elective, your child could continue staying involved in band on an afterschool basis - they could audition for and participate in the All City Band.

As far as middle school sports, there are fall, winter and spring intramural sports and starting this year, there are competitive sports where students would be bused to compete with other middle schoolers. There are also many after-school clubs. Information about clubs and sports are publicized on the MS school newsletters so make sure you subscribe to them, read them, and share the information with your middle schooler (they are also broadcast during announcements but students don't always pay attention to the announcements).

This is no longer true. The change the OP is referring to is that TAG/AAS math is no longer accelerated, beginning with this year's cohort of 5th graders. So in 6th grade they'll just be in 6th grade honors math. It's a big and disappointing change.

There is no DEP for AAS kids in middle school. There is only the math acceleration, and even this is going away.

Middle school sports is new this year, so no one can answer any questions just yet about it.

There is not a lot which goes into class selection for middle school. If you are committed to staying in ACPS I wouldn't waste another minute thinking about this.

It is not a challenging school. I don't think it's as bad as some folks (including myself) expected it to be so far as student behavior, but my kid never has homework and his test scores are slowly declining. He got all As though last year in all "honors" classes.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a parent of an ACPS fifth grader. Would love to hear from GWMS parents and teachers about the middle school sports program. Also, how do I find out about sixth grade curriculum? I heard my son's counselor will help him pick courses. He doesn't have a real relationship with her and she doesn't know anything about him as a student. He's currently in AAS and has great teachers. He is in band, wants to do more than one language (is that possible?). What are the requirements and what are the options for electives? I can't find this information online. He heard from his friends in sixth that the counselor wasn't super helpful and started thinking about what he wants to take next year. Kid loves math, but because of ACPS changes to TAG/AAS, he will be in sixth grade math rather than seventh in sixth being a AAS student. I heard that the only option for AAS is honors. Are grades weighted? Do kids in honors who have a differentiated education plan have additional accelerated learning options? I want to hear it all, the good the bad, and the ugly. My kid is the type who really thrives in a smaller class environment so how big are the honors courses? I heard that they are for anyone, not just gifted or high achieving students. Why?

I will try to answer some but not all of your questions.

It is frustrating not being able to find good information about what will be offered in MS. Try this link for some information: https://acps.cleancatalog.net/middle-school-courses

I don't know what changes to AAS you're referring to but I believe that if your son is currently taking AAS for math in fifth grade, he should already be learning what will be offered in Math Honors 6 right now and will be registered for Math Honors 7 in sixth grade. Around December or January of next your, your child's school counselor will start sending out information to families about sixth grade. I think you and your song will have enough time to figure everything out.

I did not hear this first hand from the school counselor but what other parents told me is that they were advised by the counselor that if their child likes to learn, then they should try to take as many honors classes as possible. Honors classes are open to everyone and if a student is struggling, the teachers and middle school counselors will flag this and ask parents and student to consider switching courses.

The honors classes tend to be fairly large. For Math Honors 7, there will be approximately 35 students because there will only be two sections. I don't know how the numbers break down for other honors courses.

As for differentiation in the honors courses, I do not believe there is any. I believe there is no DEP for AAS students as there is in elementary school. I believe that every student in an honors class is expected to do the same assignments and projects. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Grades in honors classes are weighted. Not clear by what amount but here is the grading policy: https://acps.cleancatalog.net/regulations-governing-the-grading-policy

If your child wants to take two languages, there isn't any prohibition against it. They only have two elective courses per semester so if they want to take two languages at the same time, the two languages would be their only electives. As an alternative to taking band as an elective, your child could continue staying involved in band on an afterschool basis - they could audition for and participate in the All City Band.

As far as middle school sports, there are fall, winter and spring intramural sports and starting this year, there are competitive sports where students would be bused to compete with other middle schoolers. There are also many after-school clubs. Information about clubs and sports are publicized on the MS school newsletters so make sure you subscribe to them, read them, and share the information with your middle schooler (they are also broadcast during announcements but students don't always pay attention to the announcements).

Anonymous wrote:ACPS doesn’t offer middle school sports.

The Alexandria SB passed a line item to fund middle school sports for the 24-25 school year. If you are on the GWMS and FHMS newsletters, you'll see the information about the sports. (Swimming and Diving in the Fall. Basketball in the Winter. Track and Field in the Spring.)

ACPS doesn’t offer middle school sports.

As to your very good question about why anyone can get into an honors class, you could look at it as stemming from a policy that all children can succeed and deserve that opportunity, or an ACPS attempt to inflate their honors enrollment numbers. I think it’s both.

An important thing to know about ACPS in general is that “honors” is usually actually the name for the regular classes. The classes known as the regular, on-grade-level courses are actually below grade level. I hope your experience will be the exception, but mine has been one of lowering expectations for the so-called “honors” courses.

I'm a parent of an ACPS fifth grader. Would love to hear from GWMS parents and teachers about the middle school sports program. Also, how do I find out about sixth grade curriculum? I heard my son's counselor will help him pick courses. He doesn't have a real relationship with her and she doesn't know anything about him as a student. He's currently in AAS and has great teachers. He is in band, wants to do more than one language (is that possible?). What are the requirements and what are the options for electives? I can't find this information online. He heard from his friends in sixth that the counselor wasn't super helpful and started thinking about what he wants to take next year. Kid loves math, but because of ACPS changes to TAG/AAS, he will be in sixth grade math rather than seventh in sixth being a AAS student. I heard that the only option for AAS is honors. Are grades weighted? Do kids in honors who have a differentiated education plan have additional accelerated learning options? I want to hear it all, the good the bad, and the ugly. My kid is the type who really thrives in a smaller class environment so how big are the honors courses? I heard that they are for anyone, not just gifted or high achieving students. Why?