OP here. I probably didn't explain myself very clearly despite my long-winded post. I am not saying I think my DC should be in the official advanced math. From what I understand, at our school the advanced math kids are working a grade level ahead same as the kids in full time AAP. I am saying that least year it seemed that they grouped the Gen Ed kids by their math scores such that there was a "strong but just missed advanced math" class (which mine seemed to be in), an "average" class, and a "below average/needs math support" class. So DC is upset that this year their math class seems to be more "needs support" kids and none of the kids from last year's class.

I don't think my kid is suited for advanced math, but I know they would be slowed down by kids who failed the SOL and get extra math support. So it would be nice to know if the Gen Ed classes are moving at different paces or if they're all doing the same thing. It's just odd to me that they told us they were putting kids in math classes based on a test last year, but then this year no such test is happening. Part of why we signed them up for Mathnasium was to boost confidence and prevent them from deciding so young that they are "not a math person", which is what happened to me. So I hate to see them feeling like they are in the "dumb" class now even if it's not the case. Sounds like there is zero consistency across schools, and even within schools.

Anonymous wrote:No idea, nobody at the school will tell me. I want my child to be in advanced math but the school refuses while also refusing to tell me why. I got "we test each kid at the beginning of the school year and yours did not reach the threshold to be in advanced math". When I ask "what test", they won't tell me. When I ask "okay, well then what was the score and what was the threshold score" they "can't disclose that information". It's bullshit and more based on who the PTO parents' kids are.

You may not be able to see the test they use for placement. You can ask what your child scored though. If you feel very strongly you can go to the principal and demand your child be in advanced math then. But is your child really that good at math if they didn’t even test in?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th grade LLIV school (small) - there is I would guess a single digit - low single digit -number of LIV kids, and a few more “advanced math” kids (my DC is one of them, and there was an official email sent home about advanced math at the start of 3rd when they started it + the end of 3rd for 4th grade), and all those kids get math from the AAP teacher, although they are divided between the AAP teacher and one other teacher for the other subjects and only switch for math. This is one of those things that the schools have a lot of leeway on how to do it and it’s going to vary a lot from school to school. You might want to ask on the AAP forum because the “rules” are different at centers if the center is your base school vs. the non-center base schools.

At any rate, I wouldn’t worry about it too much now - you can register your kid for math 7 honors in 7th if his math grades are good, and then Algebra 1 honors in 8th, and they’ll be on a path to take Calculus as a HS senior which is generally what you want for college.

You can, and many do, but it's strange....fcps tells the Gen Ed math kids that it's not advised to enroll in math 7 honors because they will skip a year of math. They don't say, hey if you pick up new math concepts quickly, pass advance your sol, score high on I ready you can consider honors, they continue to actively dissuade these kids...

I suspect this will be or is already changing due to the push for Calculus for everyone in HS. I thought this post was interesting showing when kids take the Algebra 1 SOL, anytime between 6th and 9th grade: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/1287129.page#30604616

In 2023-24, 25 students took it in 6th, 1,829 in 7th, 6,766 in 8th, 5,374 in 9th. Some schools might be discouraging going from regular ES math to Math 7 honors in 7th, but I thought that was the only way to get to Algebra in 8th. Otherwise the standard college prep track that they’re trying to get away from only gets you through Precalc as a senior. https://centrevillehs.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/inline-files/FCPS-Math-Sequence.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th grade LLIV school (small) - there is I would guess a single digit - low single digit -number of LIV kids, and a few more “advanced math” kids (my DC is one of them, and there was an official email sent home about advanced math at the start of 3rd when they started it + the end of 3rd for 4th grade), and all those kids get math from the AAP teacher, although they are divided between the AAP teacher and one other teacher for the other subjects and only switch for math. This is one of those things that the schools have a lot of leeway on how to do it and it’s going to vary a lot from school to school. You might want to ask on the AAP forum because the “rules” are different at centers if the center is your base school vs. the non-center base schools.

At any rate, I wouldn’t worry about it too much now - you can register your kid for math 7 honors in 7th if his math grades are good, and then Algebra 1 honors in 8th, and they’ll be on a path to take Calculus as a HS senior which is generally what you want for college.

You can, and many do, but it's strange....fcps tells the Gen Ed math kids that it's not advised to enroll in math 7 honors because they will skip a year of math. They don't say, hey if you pick up new math concepts quickly, pass advance your sol, score high on I ready you can consider honors, they continue to actively dissuade these kids...

I don’t know how things are now because our base school added level 4 a couple years ago. But when my DD was that age, a couple years before that, the base school absolutely did advanced math for non-level 4 kids in that school. And not only that, they had multiple of those kids meet the bar to take algebra in 7th grade. So, your school has chosen to do things this way.

With that said, if your kid isn’t advanced on the sol and maybe the teacher didn’t recommend them, they may be where they should be. Which is fine!

I think if your base school is not a center there's more of a chance of getting advanced math. If your base school is a center and you were not one of the chosen ones in second grade, it's less likely that there will be room for you.
I mean, we knew kids who were doing outside of school enrichment for math above grade level and they were still in gen Ed math

No idea, nobody at the school will tell me. I want my child to be in advanced math but the school refuses while also refusing to tell me why. I got "we test each kid at the beginning of the school year and yours did not reach the threshold to be in advanced math". When I ask "what test", they won't tell me. When I ask "okay, well then what was the score and what was the threshold score" they "can't disclose that information". It's bullshit and more based on who the PTO parents' kids are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4th grade LLIV school (small) - there is I would guess a single digit - low single digit -number of LIV kids, and a few more “advanced math” kids (my DC is one of them, and there was an official email sent home about advanced math at the start of 3rd when they started it + the end of 3rd for 4th grade), and all those kids get math from the AAP teacher, although they are divided between the AAP teacher and one other teacher for the other subjects and only switch for math. This is one of those things that the schools have a lot of leeway on how to do it and it’s going to vary a lot from school to school. You might want to ask on the AAP forum because the “rules” are different at centers if the center is your base school vs. the non-center base schools.

At any rate, I wouldn’t worry about it too much now - you can register your kid for math 7 honors in 7th if his math grades are good, and then Algebra 1 honors in 8th, and they’ll be on a path to take Calculus as a HS senior which is generally what you want for college.

You can, and many do, but it's strange....fcps tells the Gen Ed math kids that it's not advised to enroll in math 7 honors because they will skip a year of math. They don't say, hey if you pick up new math concepts quickly, pass advance your sol, score high on I ready you can consider honors, they continue to actively dissuade these kids...

I don’t know how things are now because our base school added level 4 a couple years ago. But when my DD was that age, a couple years before that, the base school absolutely did advanced math for non-level 4 kids in that school. And not only that, they had multiple of those kids meet the bar to take algebra in 7th grade. So, your school has chosen to do things this way.

With that said, if your kid isn’t advanced on the sol and maybe the teacher didn’t recommend them, they may be where they should be. Which is fine!

Anonymous wrote:4th grade LLIV school (small) - there is I would guess a single digit - low single digit -number of LIV kids, and a few more “advanced math” kids (my DC is one of them, and there was an official email sent home about advanced math at the start of 3rd when they started it + the end of 3rd for 4th grade), and all those kids get math from the AAP teacher, although they are divided between the AAP teacher and one other teacher for the other subjects and only switch for math. This is one of those things that the schools have a lot of leeway on how to do it and it’s going to vary a lot from school to school. You might want to ask on the AAP forum because the “rules” are different at centers if the center is your base school vs. the non-center base schools.

At any rate, I wouldn’t worry about it too much now - you can register your kid for math 7 honors in 7th if his math grades are good, and then Algebra 1 honors in 8th, and they’ll be on a path to take Calculus as a HS senior which is generally what you want for college.

You can, and many do, but it's strange....fcps tells the Gen Ed math kids that it's not advised to enroll in math 7 honors because they will skip a year of math. They don't say, hey if you pick up new math concepts quickly, pass advance your sol, score high on I ready you can consider honors, they continue to actively dissuade these kids...

Don’t worry about ES.

4th grade LLIV school (small) - there is I would guess a single digit - low single digit -number of LIV kids, and a few more “advanced math” kids (my DC is one of them, and there was an official email sent home about advanced math at the start of 3rd when they started it + the end of 3rd for 4th grade), and all those kids get math from the AAP teacher, although they are divided between the AAP teacher and one other teacher for the other subjects and only switch for math. This is one of those things that the schools have a lot of leeway on how to do it and it’s going to vary a lot from school to school. You might want to ask on the AAP forum because the “rules” are different at centers if the center is your base school vs. the non-center base schools.

At any rate, I wouldn’t worry about it too much now - you can register your kid for math 7 honors in 7th if his math grades are good, and then Algebra 1 honors in 8th, and they’ll be on a path to take Calculus as a HS senior which is generally what you want for college.

Our base school is also a center. They talk a big game about meeting each kid where they are at, but my kid was in Gen Ed math and was very bored. We had teachers tell us their strength is math, we've had teachers tell us they should have been in advanced math. Based on our experience I'm pretty sure that push in advanced math did not exist for my kids grade...
I asked if ever noticed other kids leaving for math or pushing in the aap room and kid said no. Was frustrated that there were kids in aap full time struggling with the math, if they did proper groupings by what the kids are demonstrating they could do there would have been a lot more happy kids if they could have swapped for math.

Our school did advanced math based on: 1st teachers kids who were pupil placed 2nd: SOL score 3rd:balancing boys and girls. there was only two math classes so clearly 50% of the grade was not "advanced"

Then they made the regular math kids feel like they were dumb. They would say things like "you are in the class that is right for you," when actually it was really a random placement.

Your kid didn’t even pass advance the grade level math SOL. Why would you expect him to be in the higher math group?

Our center does Level IV (advanced) math for kids in AAP and those that receive Level III math services. Every other class is “regular” math.

My kid is in fourth AAP. In both 2nd gen ed and 3rd AAP, the groupings did not seem to be based on ability because each group rotated to the same stations.

I have a 6th grader at an AAP center school who is neither in full time AAP nor advanced math. I have never been able to understand the math groupings -- or if they even group by ability -- at our school. DC started at the school in third grade and they were in a math group with a few kids who needed extra help (according to DC someone would come in to help these kids, I assume due to an IEP). Before starting in FCPS, DC attended a non-FCPS school where the math was not very strong -- so I kind of assumed DC was placed in a "low" math class. DC has seemed to steadily improve in math, partly thanks to enrolling in Mathnasium. At the beginning of last year (5th grade) the teachers had all the kids take a math test and placed them into math groups based on this test. DC was in a class with some kids who had been in advanced math the previous year and no kids who needed extra help, so DC guessed that they were maybe in one of the higher groups (which made sense to me). Now this year the teachers have not mentioned giving any sort of test, and DC is back in a math class with some kids that need extra help and hardly any kids who were in their math group last year.

DC earned all 4s in math on their report card last year and came super close to pass advanced on the math SOL. I do not talk to DC about where they stand in comparison to other kids in math, and just encourage them to do their best. I have kept any guessing about math groups over the years to myself. But of course kids notice these things even if parents don't make a big deal. The only reason I sort of care now is DC is upset thinking they are in a "dumb" group for math, presumably because they think they were in one of the higher groups last year and the makeup of this year's group is quite different.

Does your ES group kids by math ability? It's weird to me that they said nothing about doing this in 3rd or 4th grade, then explicitly said they were grouping them in 5th, and now it seems like they are not again. Could the groupings have gotten messed up due to some kids being pulled to take algebra this year? DC mentioned that some kids are taking it. Are the only true groupings "at grade level" and "above grade level" in terms of the curriculum and pacing? I just want DC to be appropriately challenged and continue to make progress heading into middle school. I try not to bother teachers and worry that asking this kind of question will make it seem like I am questioning their judgment. How is ES math handled at your school? Do you get any info regarding whether or not they are grouped by ability, and do different classes work at different paces?