Anonymous wrote:As I am trying to type up an appeal letter, I have several questions.

What is a high DRA for Fairfax County for a 2nd grader? I googled it and my child’s score was above the next higher grade level, but is that good for Fairfax County?

Has anyone appealed with iready scores? If so, what is considered good for Fairfax County?

For those who have done both cogat and wisc, did your child have about the same scores?

It sounds like parent submitted work samples were important this year. I feel like in the past that wasn’t the case. Any thoughts?

When I was looking over the GBRS, the comments were amazing, but the actual ratings were 3Fs and 1C. It didn’t really seem to fit together. Any thoughts?

Who was on the GBRS form for your kid? Is the 1st grade teacher typically one of the contributors?

Sorry for all the specific questions- I will contact the AART and his teacher to ask, but just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on these. Thanks!

The highest DRA score for a FCPS second grader should be a 38. That's because the FCPS training requires testers to stop after capping out at the end of the next year. The number stands for 3 (third grade) and 8 (8th month). So when you ask what is a good DRA score for a second grader, if your child is above a 30 that's okay, but not amazing because plenty of other kids have a 38 (which is likely higher but the tester is required to stop at 38.)

Anonymous wrote:NP here. My child's Cogat composite was 136. (He was not accepted). We have a WISC from previously, with GAI 125, and subscores are both high and low because of ADHD. Not worth it to submit that WISC, right? Should I try another IQ test, or just appeal based on the Cogat score?

The GAI is only clinically significant if there is a significant spread between the GAI and the WISC. Did the tester write about that in the report? If the WISC result is pretty low, and I assume it's on the lower end as a result of you even mentioning the GAI being 125, the WISC will likely hurt the file.

How old is the WISC and was it submitted with the original denial (since you said you had one from previously, I wasn't sure if the committee saw it yet.)

If the WISC was more than a year old, I'd consider doing another one

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They do not care about your kid's DRA or iReady scores. Get a WISC, and submit it if it's 128 or higher.

Agree. You can be a strong reader but that doesn’t mean you are gifted or showing any gifted characterisitscs. It’s about how the child thinks. WISC will show it if it’s there.

BUT IT ISN'T A GIFTED PROGRAM! Reading level may very well be a better indicator of a child's ability to keep up with the accelerated pace of AAP than a WISC. It's like people on here can't agree whether it's a gifted program or not. FCPS has spoken, it's NOT.

NP here. My child's Cogat composite was 136. (He was not accepted). We have a WISC from previously, with GAI 125, and subscores are both high and low because of ADHD. Not worth it to submit that WISC, right? Should I try another IQ test, or just appeal based on the Cogat score?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They do not care about your kid's DRA or iReady scores. Get a WISC, and submit it if it's 128 or higher.

Agree. You can be a strong reader but that doesn’t mean you are gifted or showing any gifted characterisitscs. It’s about how the child thinks. WISC will show it if it’s there.

Meh. This is a program accepting over 20% of the student body. Your child doesn't need to be gifted to get in. Simply being a good student who is academically advanced should suffice. OP didn't mention CogAT or NNAT scores, but OP also shouldn't expect a significantly higher WISC score. If the CogAT or NNAT were reasonably good, the DRA, iready, and good work samples might be sufficient to show that the child is academically advanced and would be fine in AAP.

tl;dr If OP is one of those 99th percentile CogAT rejects, then OP just needs something for appeal to get a fresh set of reviewers. iready should be fine for this, but I'd submit a letter and work samples too. If OP's kid didn't have a high CogAT, then try the WISC but don't expect a miracle.

Anonymous wrote:They do not care about your kid's DRA or iReady scores. Get a WISC, and submit it if it's 128 or higher.

Agree. You can be a strong reader but that doesn’t mean you are gifted or showing any gifted characterisitscs. It’s about how the child thinks. WISC will show it if it’s there.

They do not care about your kid's DRA or iReady scores. Get a WISC, and submit it if it's 128 or higher.

Anonymous wrote:If your child was having a bad day on CoGAT, was distracted by other students, wasn't feeling well, works better in a quiet space, then sure WISC can be higher than CoGAT.

What's more relevant is that that the WISC is a more reliable predictor of academic success and therefore will likely be trusted more than a CoGAT. I am not saying that prepping has made committees mistrust high CoGAT scores, but that the WISC is a more respected test. (It is also more expensive and harder to administer so the county instead uses the CoGAT.)

The WISC is a true IQ test and is more respected. But in general, the Cogat is more predictive of academic success, possibly because it only tests a few academic abilities instead of many abilities, not all of which are academic, like the WISC. Possibly because of the testing format.

If your child was having a bad day on CoGAT, was distracted by other students, wasn't feeling well, works better in a quiet space, then sure WISC can be higher than CoGAT.

What's more relevant is that that the WISC is a more reliable predictor of academic success and therefore will likely be trusted more than a CoGAT. I am not saying that prepping has made committees mistrust high CoGAT scores, but that the WISC is a more respected test. (It is also more expensive and harder to administer so the county instead uses the CoGAT.)

My child’s WISC was indeed much higher than CoGAT scores. We went to GMU.

I would think if you are submitting a WISC for an appeal, you would want it to be at or above the Cogat

PP here. I mean WISCs done at GMU don't seem to be higher than CogAT scores. It might be different with private psychologists.

Anonymous wrote:My understanding was WISCs were usually higher than CogAts.

My understanding is the opposite. CogATs produce a lot of false high scores. At the very least, CogAT has a standard deviation of 16 and WISC has a SD of 15, so the same percentile ranking on both tests would result in a slightly lower WISC. The only time I've heard that WISCs could be higher is if the child is a divergent thinker who overthinks CogAT problems but can explain reasoning and get credit on the WISC.

For OP's questions: Anything 30 and above should be fine for DRA. The schools aren't consistent in how and when they measure, and the DRA is capped anyway.
You could submit iready scores, but I'm not sure that they would help. If you google search, you should be able to find the grade levels corresponding to the iready scores. I wouldn't even consider using the iready unless the scores were at least above grade level. One of my kids had a much lower WISC than CogAT. The other kid has only a slightly lower WISC. No clue about the work samples or new GBRS. My kid's GBRS committee was the principal, the AART, and the 2nd grade teacher. The 1st grade teacher was not involved.

My understanding was WISCs were usually higher than CogAts.

As I am trying to type up an appeal letter, I have several questions.

What is a high DRA for Fairfax County for a 2nd grader? I googled it and my child’s score was above the next higher grade level, but is that good for Fairfax County?

Has anyone appealed with iready scores? If so, what is considered good for Fairfax County?

For those who have done both cogat and wisc, did your child have about the same scores?

It sounds like parent submitted work samples were important this year. I feel like in the past that wasn’t the case. Any thoughts?

When I was looking over the GBRS, the comments were amazing, but the actual ratings were 3Fs and 1C. It didn’t really seem to fit together. Any thoughts?

Who was on the GBRS form for your kid? Is the 1st grade teacher typically one of the contributors?

Sorry for all the specific questions- I will contact the AART and his teacher to ask, but just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on these. Thanks!