Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son received his letter the summer after kindergarten. In the referral letter, I provided brief input - such as his PAL scores. I knew the teacher was also going to refer him. It's funny - now that my son is in 5th grade in Fairfax's AAP program, I have no idea how they truly assess 5 year old kids.

They can't. Tracking kids prior to a minimum of 3rd grade is idiotic. Kids in play-based preschools often end up surpassing standards down the road. BUT--kids that were in Kumon preschool and doing worksheets and memorizing facts appear to be 'gifted' MERELY because there were introduced to material earlier.

That is exactly what the principal said when we went on a kindergarten tour in Arlington and a parent asked. She said it is difficult to differentiate between a kid who is precocious and smart from a well resourced home vs. a kid who is gifted and needs extra support. Giftedness is not just doing things ahead of grade level or “not being bored”.

I don't understand this. If a kid is advanced, does it really matter if it's because they're "truly gifted" or just precious and smart? From everything I've seen, in APS and most other areas, the gifted program is just another form of differentiation, not some kind of special curriculum for kids who have fancy brains. And it's not like kids who are "just" precocious don't need coursework advanced enough to not be bored.

Because it evens out and truly gifted kids blow by early identified not truly gifted.

There are also numerous studies that play based preschool ultimately creates more intelligent kids but those gains aren’t seen until post 3rd grade because they start K not prepped and memorized.

Anonymous wrote:APS is pretty much cogat score.

We have a super high gifted student and their younger sibling aps put in the program at 3rd grade. I guess they assumed they would follow the older child. Until our youngest took cogat; and scores were average. Aps dropped them like a mask at a Trump rally.
They are still kind of bothered by being out of the program- but I could write a letter everyday to aps and it would not make a difference; nor should it IMO.

So, they put the kid in gifted them took them out? Was this recent? I was told once you’re in, you’re in.

APS is pretty much cogat score.

We have a super high gifted student and their younger sibling aps put in the program at 3rd grade. I guess they assumed they would follow the older child. Until our youngest took cogat; and scores were average. Aps dropped them like a mask at a Trump rally.
They are still kind of bothered by being out of the program- but I could write a letter everyday to aps and it would not make a difference; nor should it IMO.

Probably depends on school. Both my kids at a title 1 elem. in S. Arlington were id'd as gifted - I actually don't think they are gifted at all and their test scores were average, but it seemed like they needed at least a few "gifted" kids in each grade to create a cohort, and my kids spoke fluent English and could read on grade level. The bar was low. I gave very short, minimal answers to the parent survey.

Once they were designated "gifted," we noticed absolutely no change in their schoolwork. They sent us a report of gifted services delivered maybe every semester or year, and it basically said nothing. The teachers told me the gifted teacher worked mainly with teachers to differentiate for all students regardless of designation.

So, gifted in our APS experience was nothing special at all and not worth worrying about in the slightest.

Oh, and then you get to middle school, where the only differentiation is math.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son received his letter the summer after kindergarten. In the referral letter, I provided brief input - such as his PAL scores. I knew the teacher was also going to refer him. It's funny - now that my son is in 5th grade in Fairfax's AAP program, I have no idea how they truly assess 5 year old kids.

They can't. Tracking kids prior to a minimum of 3rd grade is idiotic. Kids in play-based preschools often end up surpassing standards down the road. BUT--kids that were in Kumon preschool and doing worksheets and memorizing facts appear to be 'gifted' MERELY because there were introduced to material earlier.

That is exactly what the principal said when we went on a kindergarten tour in Arlington and a parent asked. She said it is difficult to differentiate between a kid who is precocious and smart from a well resourced home vs. a kid who is gifted and needs extra support. Giftedness is not just doing things ahead of grade level or “not being bored”.

I don't understand this. If a kid is advanced, does it really matter if it's because they're "truly gifted" or just precious and smart? From everything I've seen, in APS and most other areas, the gifted program is just another form of differentiation, not some kind of special curriculum for kids who have fancy brains. And it's not like kids who are "just" precocious don't need coursework advanced enough to not be bored.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks all, I wrote something. I know the identification is fairly meaningless, but if they end up clustering the gifted kids in classroom placement next year, I want my kid in the cluster.

So you have received communication from the RTG regarding the test scores? My kid scored high on the test, but we haven't heard from anyone at the school about it.

APS elementary parent of a 2nd grader. We got an email in early January from the Gifted services coordinator asking us to provide acknowledgment and input within 10 days. There was a Google docs survey with 5 or so questions about our child’s creativity and interests. We didn’t have to write the essay questions, but we did have to give permission for them to evaluate our kid. We didn’t even know CogAT scores were available- but when we got the letter we looked in ParentVue and saw them.

I also have an APS second grader. We have yet to receive an email or letter (though cogat scores were very high), but when I was volunteering at the school, i bumped into the RTG, who told me my kid would be referred for gifted.

Both pf my kids were identified GT for different subjects in elementary, but I meber saw any different instruction. Just something parents can brag about.

Fill out the parent input or don’t. It’s not going to make the UVA application any better.

Point about AsFS is exactly right. DC scored perfect on NNAT2 and way ahead in academics, was denied a GT spot. They were “too full.” Full of what, I said to myself in my head.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s nonsense. They use the scores. You can’t lobby for your kid to be gifted. It’s very frustrating to the gifted administrators because that’s exactly what many parents do. Buy the scores are the scores.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Your kids obviously didn't attend ASFS.

But, seriously, it doesn't even matter down the road. The bogus parent-identified GT has zero correlation to success in high school/MS and on the SATs and ACTs. I had a Valedictorian at a private (that only has ONE valedictorian) and he wasn't put in GT, even though he had the scores because the pull out spots were filled by first grade from the families that started lobbying in Kindergarten. The kid used to do the entire group projects for the GT kids that never could do their homework and would fake sick on test or project day because they were unprepared.

Yes that ASFS principal is crooked as the come. She basically sells the GT spots. Why APS hasn’t fired her butt is beyond me.

Anonymous wrote:Do teachers ever refer students who didn’t score highly on the tests? My daughter was absent the day her class did the NNAT test and then made it up over recess another day. According to her teacher, she is well above grade level in reading and math - her teacher said she came into 1st reading on a 4th grade level and similar for math. No coaching or classes, she basically taught herself to read at 4 and was reading chapter books in K. But she didn’t do very well on the test. I don’t want to push for her to be in the gifted program if she isn’t gifted, but given how far ahead she is, I don’t want her to miss out on enhanced learning based on one test. My other kids were always right on grade level and it never occurred to me to seek out extra services.

I think so. My son scored well on the NNAT but not high enough for the automatic referral -- he was around 85%. But his teachers have consistently relayed he is ahead, especially in reading and math, and said he'd benefit from additional services. With that said, we have not seen any referral and based on what I've heard, I don't think it makes that much of a difference for the day-to-day (he's in 1st grade). I'm confident they'd recommend him clustered with other similar-level children for 2nd grade when they make those end of year recommendations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son received his letter the summer after kindergarten. In the referral letter, I provided brief input - such as his PAL scores. I knew the teacher was also going to refer him. It's funny - now that my son is in 5th grade in Fairfax's AAP program, I have no idea how they truly assess 5 year old kids.

They can't. Tracking kids prior to a minimum of 3rd grade is idiotic. Kids in play-based preschools often end up surpassing standards down the road. BUT--kids that were in Kumon preschool and doing worksheets and memorizing facts appear to be 'gifted' MERELY because there were introduced to material earlier.

That is exactly what the principal said when we went on a kindergarten tour in Arlington and a parent asked. She said it is difficult to differentiate between a kid who is precocious and smart from a well resourced home vs. a kid who is gifted and needs extra support. Giftedness is not just doing things ahead of grade level or “not being bored”.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks all, I wrote something. I know the identification is fairly meaningless, but if they end up clustering the gifted kids in classroom placement next year, I want my kid in the cluster.

So you have received communication from the RTG regarding the test scores? My kid scored high on the test, but we haven't heard from anyone at the school about it.

APS elementary parent of a 2nd grader. We got an email in early January from the Gifted services coordinator asking us to provide acknowledgment and input within 10 days. There was a Google docs survey with 5 or so questions about our child’s creativity and interests. We didn’t have to write the essay questions, but we did have to give permission for them to evaluate our kid. We didn’t even know CogAT scores were available- but when we got the letter we looked in ParentVue and saw them.

Do teachers ever refer students who didn’t score highly on the tests? My daughter was absent the day her class did the NNAT test and then made it up over recess another day. According to her teacher, she is well above grade level in reading and math - her teacher said she came into 1st reading on a 4th grade level and similar for math. No coaching or classes, she basically taught herself to read at 4 and was reading chapter books in K. But she didn’t do very well on the test. I don’t want to push for her to be in the gifted program if she isn’t gifted, but given how far ahead she is, I don’t want her to miss out on enhanced learning based on one test. My other kids were always right on grade level and it never occurred to me to seek out extra services.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks all, I wrote something. I know the identification is fairly meaningless, but if they end up clustering the gifted kids in classroom placement next year, I want my kid in the cluster.

So you have received communication from the RTG regarding the test scores? My kid scored high on the test, but we haven't heard from anyone at the school about it.

Yes, I received an email from the school level teacher. They are probably all sending at different times.

Anonymous wrote:My son received his letter the summer after kindergarten. In the referral letter, I provided brief input - such as his PAL scores. I knew the teacher was also going to refer him. It's funny - now that my son is in 5th grade in Fairfax's AAP program, I have no idea how they truly assess 5 year old kids.

They can't. Tracking kids prior to a minimum of 3rd grade is idiotic. Kids in play-based preschools often end up surpassing standards down the road. BUT--kids that were in Kumon preschool and doing worksheets and memorizing facts appear to be 'gifted' MERELY because there were introduced to material earlier.