14:21- yes, we are across the pkwy and I was curious about Dogwood. I'm glad you are having a positive experience with the admin and like the K teacher. I need to call them to find out when the open house is for upcoming kindergarten. It would be great to meet some kids in his grade. We'll have to figure out a way to meet up.

14:21 again, Dogwood is where my younger son goes. We have been very happy with the administration,and I adore my son's K teacher. She is really top notch. My neighborhood (SW) is just across the parkway from you. We are walkers though Happy to connect if we can find a way, I will have a dd starting K there next year as well, and my neighborhood has at least 10 rising K next year.

14:21- may I ask which school your K student goes to. My DS will be going to K next year and your description sounds like my neighborhood (PF). I've been interested in learning more about the base school and finding some neighborhood friends for my DS to ride the bus with.

I have two children at two schools in FCPS (older one on opt out of neighborhood school for NCLB). In any case, ds 1 attended a higher performing school, at least as far as test scores. The differentiation we saw K-2 was with regard to reading group/reading assignments, not much with math (this may be different in younger grades now, he is in 4th in AAP LLIV). Class sizes were always large (29-30 the last two years, 25 for K). The AART is there 2 days a week, so is spread thin. High parent involvement.

Ds 2 attends our neighborhood school (neighborhood school brought up test scores, so no longer has to offer school choice), which is a historically lower performing school, and is also a Young Scholars school due to its Title I status. Just in K so far, we have noticed reading differentiation, as well as math. In addition, he was identified and is pulled out weekly for Young Scholars (taught by AART), and the AART also comes in weekly for science lessons with his whole class. The AART is there full time. He is in a class of 18. Low parent involvement.

I think it varies greatly from school to school, even at schools with active parents.

There has also been a shift in our neighborhood to choosing to stay at the base school (we are in one of a few SFH neighborhoods that feed into the school). I am sure there will be issues that we will need to deal with, but thus far, we have seen much greater differentiation at out lower performing neighborhood school. I am sure a big part of this is the very wide discrepency in socio-economic status, and the fact that the students do come in with greatly varying abilities. I think this actually promotes less "teaching to the middle".

Well last time I checked I paid quite a lot for my house outside of McLean too. Not sure why FCPS feels this area of the county deserves special treatment.

Anonymous wrote:Again seems McLean gets a better education than the rest of the schools in FCPS due to parent pressure I can only presume. My child was a strong reader going in and has not progressed much at all and has done very few 1st grade math work.

Yes, many of the McLean schools are heads and shoulders above what you get elsewhere. There is a reason why the homes are so expensive in these schools districts Spring Hill, Chesterbook, Churchhill, Haycock - just an amazing education. Kent Gardens and Franklin Sherman are decent, probably on more on par with the Vienna schools.

That's great that parents are happy, and I don't mean to take away from that, but I don't think time/money math worksheets are first grade level. I think they're K level. As for reading, it seems no one really knows what causes the "switch to flip" and the kid starts reading. But my experience with Spring Hill, while overall good, is not such that they can turn an ok reader into a Magic Tree House reader. But I'm glad it happened for pp's K boy.

Again seems McLean gets a better education than the rest of the schools in FCPS due to parent pressure I can only presume. My child was a strong reader going in and has not progressed much at all and has done very few 1st grade math work.

I have been very pleasantly surprised. Our local school (Spring Hill) has a nice balance of play and academics. Our DS went into Kindgarten reading okay, but by no means was a strong reader. He is now able to read the Magic Treehouse books solo. The math offerings at Spring Hill has also been quite good. He is definetly doing first grade level math worksheets, telling time, counting money, etc. I was really nervous about how they were going to implement full-day K, but the teachers seem to have really taken advantage of he extra time to give this year's class of kids a leg up.

We have a child in K this year and I feel I was misled by the new advanced math curriculum information shown by FCPS which says that 1st grade standard work will be offered in kindergarten if a child is ready. It wasn't at our school. I hope this gets cleared up by the time our next child starts kindergarten or else they should back off of what they state is available at the schools.

I would echo the PP (except for the K-1 classroom PP - that was not our experience). I was very concerned with my DC going in to K that she would be bored or not 'working at full potential', but she had a great year. I still felt like I needed to make sure DC had lots of interesting things to do at home - and supplement with educational outings, summer programs, piano, etc....

My child was in a K-1 classroom which consisted of 10 kindergartners and 10 first graders. In K, the advanced children would do the 1st grade work and in first they were pulled out for special math groups. They always had access to a wide range of books for various reading levels.
K-1 is a great option if your school offers it. It's really nice to have the same teacher and half your class staying the same over two years. They can hit the ground running on the first day of first grade. Also, it's nice for kids to form bonds with kids in other grades.
Most importantly, my child loved the class and learned to love school during those two years.

At our school, once the teacher tests the kids using DRA Word Analysis in the fall (usually by late October), they will put each kid into a Guided Reading Level. Then, starting around Thanksgiving, the kids start bringing home a book (every time they finish the last one) to read from their Guided Reading Level as "homework." For advanced readers, these books are quite boring even when you're placed in a high level. In math, the kids all do the same worksheets and activities, but the more advanced kids are encouraged to do additional problems on the back of their completed worksheets. Unfortunately, that's about all the differentiation that exists in KG, but in 1st grade there is much more.

Mostly language arts differentiation -- reading groups, writing, sight words, spelling. Some K students were still learning sounds of letters and others were reading chapter books, so the groups were formed in those language arts areas. We also had some math differentiation, but not as much as in language arts.

If you have had an advanced child in K, what does your school do to accommodate them? Yes, I know most of K is for socio-emotional learning but I'm trying to understand academics. TIA.