Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you said "old level ii" and "old level iii" - has something changed?

I don't think FCPS differentiates levels - as of this year, it's just part time vs. full time. They also updated the FCPS website this year to only show part vs. full time services.

Given the budget cuts to reduce AARTs to part time, this all seems like an intentional decrease in AAP services across the board. My experience is that Level II was useless this past year, and this indicates that FCPS knows it and isn't interesting in improving the situation. Instead, they're shifting full-time services to be more inclusive regardless of academic ability, and they are neutering all other enrichment services.

That's a real problem for those whose kids miss the cutoff for full-time services. It's even more problematic if they keep misusing the HOPE scale to eliminate highly intelligent kids who need more rigor and are not challenged in the regular classroom.

I would love for them to do a better job of providing part-time services, but all signs point to the program gradually fading into obscurity.

Don't love that.

Full time services aren't much to write home about these days. Everyone gets the same Benchmark and math is extensions instead of acceleration.

My kid attends a center school. She is level II AAP for math. She joins the AAP class for math . She is a 5th grader doing 6th grade math.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you said "old level ii" and "old level iii" - has something changed?

I don't think FCPS differentiates levels - as of this year, it's just part time vs. full time. They also updated the FCPS website this year to only show part vs. full time services.

Given the budget cuts to reduce AARTs to part time, this all seems like an intentional decrease in AAP services across the board. My experience is that Level II was useless this past year, and this indicates that FCPS knows it and isn't interesting in improving the situation. Instead, they're shifting full-time services to be more inclusive regardless of academic ability, and they are neutering all other enrichment services.

That's a real problem for those whose kids miss the cutoff for full-time services. It's even more problematic if they keep misusing the HOPE scale to eliminate highly intelligent kids who need more rigor and are not challenged in the regular classroom.

I would love for them to do a better job of providing part-time services, but all signs point to the program gradually fading into obscurity.

Don't love that.

Highly intelligent kids who need more rigor are bored in AAP. Smart kids who work hard and are in AAP are challenged. FCPS needs to return to the model with only 5% of kids in AAP if they want to engage the highly intelligent kids because they are bored in AAP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you said "old level ii" and "old level iii" - has something changed?

I don't think FCPS differentiates levels - as of this year, it's just part time vs. full time. They also updated the FCPS website this year to only show part vs. full time services.

Given the budget cuts to reduce AARTs to part time, this all seems like an intentional decrease in AAP services across the board. My experience is that Level II was useless this past year, and this indicates that FCPS knows it and isn't interesting in improving the situation. Instead, they're shifting full-time services to be more inclusive regardless of academic ability, and they are neutering all other enrichment services.

That's a real problem for those whose kids miss the cutoff for full-time services. It's even more problematic if they keep misusing the HOPE scale to eliminate highly intelligent kids who need more rigor and are not challenged in the regular classroom.

I would love for them to do a better job of providing part-time services, but all signs point to the program gradually fading into obscurity.

Don't love that.

Level II was a joke. A few people seemed to have schools that had a Level II program that was more than extra worksheets but not too many.

Level III was fine for my kid. He had no problem making up the material he missed when he went to the Level III pull out but a good number of kids dropped out of LIII because their parents were not happy that the kid needed to make up the work and that meant homework. Our school held the Level III pull outs pretty frequently, but many schools reported shorter than advertised class meetings and that the pull outs were not held all that often.

Over-all, the early AAP "programs" were a joke that did little for the students. I have heard good things about the Young Scholars program at my kids' school, but you need to be lower income or have an IEP to be invited to join.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you said "old level ii" and "old level iii" - has something changed?

I don't think FCPS differentiates levels - as of this year, it's just part time vs. full time. They also updated the FCPS website this year to only show part vs. full time services.

Given the budget cuts to reduce AARTs to part time, this all seems like an intentional decrease in AAP services across the board. My experience is that Level II was useless this past year, and this indicates that FCPS knows it and isn't interesting in improving the situation. Instead, they're shifting full-time services to be more inclusive regardless of academic ability, and they are neutering all other enrichment services.

That's a real problem for those whose kids miss the cutoff for full-time services. It's even more problematic if they keep misusing the HOPE scale to eliminate highly intelligent kids who need more rigor and are not challenged in the regular classroom.

I would love for them to do a better job of providing part-time services, but all signs point to the program gradually fading into obscurity.

Don't love that.

Anonymous wrote:you said "old level ii" and "old level iii" - has something changed?

I don't think FCPS differentiates levels - as of this year, it's just part time vs. full time. They also updated the FCPS website this year to only show part vs. full time services.

you said "old level ii" and "old level iii" - has something changed?

It seems very school specific. I asked our AART and was told level 2 is in classroom language arts and/or math and level 3 is out of classroom language arts/math. Frustrating that there’s no differentiated science or social studies. 😒

Level ii means your child is meant to get extra enrichment in one or more core subject areas.

For math, this means getting pulled into the Level IV classroom for the accelerated math program. If your child is not yet old enough for accelerated math in that school (which starts in 3rd for some schools and now apparently in 5th for other schools), it's basically meaningless. No pullouts. Nada.

For all other subjects, it's similarly meaningless. Your child's classroom teacher is meant to give differentiated instruction that provides a higher level of challenge/rigor for the students in Level II for each subject. But we all know that in a classroom of 25 kids, differentiated instruction is a fairy tale.

Level III is about critical thinking, and generally means you get a once-a-week pullout into the Level IV classroom for some Socratic Seminar style learning.

Anecdotally, our 3rd grader was identified for level ii math, reading, and science this year after the level iv rejection (despite her high test scores, due to a really bad HOPE). Since accelerated math isn't offered until 5th grade in our school, this mean she got a few extra math worksheets and that was it for math.

However, her teacher really pushed writing on her for all other subjects, so instead of doing the little worksheets the rest of the class did, our kid wrote essays and graphic novels about the subject matter. She loved it, and I think it was best-case scenario for the options on the table this year. Her teacher also started sending her into the Level IV classroom everyday during their free-time. This was not related to Level III (that was a separate pullout that she was not offered). Just something her teacher had her do as she noticed that our girl needed more. And again, it was a good experience for our kid. And then I think a grand total of 2 times, the AART teacher pulled her out with a small group for some advanced math. I'm not sure those two isolated pullouts were all that impactful, but she had fun, I guess?

So what I'm telling you is that Level II is entirely dependent on the teacher you are assigned. Some of them are going to do nothing, and some will do what they can (while they are also trying to learn to teach a brand new curriculum to a classroom of 25 kids some of whom have much higher needs than your child).

I think they removed the levels and it's just full time vs. part time. My child was in part time this year and just got pull outs with some critical thinking exercise for a couple hours one day per week.

Anonymous wrote:I think it's the four core content areas (Language Arts, mathematics, social studies, and science).

+1. Not sure how they do any of those other than math though. My level IV/full-time kids had friends push in for math, but never anything else.

My child is math Level II, absolutely no differentiation whatsoever. I'm pushing hard for advanced math next year.

This seems to vary a lot by school, but from our experience Level II was just in-class differentiation (pull outs at some schools) in LA or Math. Level III was a once a week pull out that was a critical thinking class. I believe the current "part time" is equivalent to the old LIII. Advanced Math still exists as its own thing, starting in 3rd at some schools and 5th at others.

I think it's the four core content areas (Language Arts, mathematics, social studies, and science).

I *think* the difference between subject specific advanced academic differentiation (old level ii) and part time services (old level iii) is advanced instruction in one vs more than one academic content area. Does anyone know what those academic content areas are? I was previously thinking the choices for level ii were either math/science or reading/language arts, but more than one of those would be everything. So what is part time potentially covering?