Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op tell us what competition she does. I want to enroll my kids.

Also what school is she in? Thanks

I’m also curious about this, because RSM won’t take kids until 4th grade for competition math, no exceptions. For Math Kangaroo, it looks like there are only two DC sites and one is a public school, but I assume the other is some afterschool competition set up. (Although, honestly, it looked like they didn’t do much better than a public school kids.) Maybe there’s a suburbs option other than RSM?

Not OP, but we drive out to the burbs to AoPS. I’m not sure what level they start true competition math but my 1st grader is in Math Level 2 and they have hosted some national class-level competitions that are fun. Unlike RSM they place students by exam irrespective of grade/age. We like it a lot. I came to this thread with a similar question as OPs and am finding some useful info. Thanks

I really wish AoPS would open a site somewhere in DC. I can't quite bring myself to make the drive to Vienna, though I know my child would enjoy it. CTY is opening a summer day camp site near DC this year (at Woods Academy) and I hope to enroll him in one of the math courses, so at least there is that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op tell us what competition she does. I want to enroll my kids.

Also what school is she in? Thanks

I’m also curious about this, because RSM won’t take kids until 4th grade for competition math, no exceptions. For Math Kangaroo, it looks like there are only two DC sites and one is a public school, but I assume the other is some afterschool competition set up. (Although, honestly, it looked like they didn’t do much better than a public school kids.) Maybe there’s a suburbs option other than RSM?

Not OP, but we drive out to the burbs to AoPS. I’m not sure what level they start true competition math but my 1st grader is in Math Level 2 and they have hosted some national class-level competitions that are fun. Unlike RSM they place students by exam irrespective of grade/age. We like it a lot. I came to this thread with a similar question as OPs and am finding some useful info. Thanks

Anonymous wrote:OP WHAT MATH COMPETITION DOES SHE DO? WE ARE ALL ASKING.

OP here - they are through Georgetown STEAM.

The relative lack of differentiation in DCPS is why a lot of parents move their kids to MCPS, APS or Fairfax as they get older…

Anonymous wrote:I was amazed how little information traveled with the kid to the next teacher. When my DD entered K, I realized the K teacher has not been given anything by the PK4 teacher. So I reached out to the K teacher asking what the advanced reading options were. She offered that DD could do phonics with the 1st graders. I provided the PK4 teacher's dibels data showing 3rd grade level. Very surprised that doesn't travel with the kid!

I have found that my kid needs to "prove himself" every year, typically through iReady scores.

OP WHAT MATH COMPETITION DOES SHE DO? WE ARE ALL ASKING.

Anonymous wrote:I was amazed how little information traveled with the kid to the next teacher. When my DD entered K, I realized the K teacher has not been given anything by the PK4 teacher. So I reached out to the K teacher asking what the advanced reading options were. She offered that DD could do phonics with the 1st graders. I provided the PK4 teacher's dibels data showing 3rd grade level. Very surprised that doesn't travel with the kid!

Between PK and K there is often not a ton of communication beyond identifying kids who are not ready for K-level work so the school can set up programs to help them.

However, we found that the info does start to travel with the kid starting in K. We have a kid who really leaped ahead in reading at K. She was maybe a little above grade level coming into K (could already read basic texts) but by the end of that year she was reading 3rd/4th grade chapter books and it grew from there. The school was definitely aware and each year had a gameplan in place even before we met/spoke to the new teacher to facilitate. In 1st, there was another very advanced reader in her class and the teacher used centers time (while other kids were rotating) to do small group lessons with them, and also provided opportunities for them to work on reading comp (they would do "reading reports" based on reading they were assigned to work on in lieu of the phonics work other kids were doing). It was great and more than I expected. In second she started doing pullouts to a group of advanced readers from multiple grades, with one of the APs, three times a week. This was wonderful because instead of going into a 4th or 5th grade classroom and having to join a group of older students, it was a mixed age group of kids who were advanced readers and they would read books or excerpts together, discuss them, and do small assignments on them.

Again, this was set up without us having to push. They knew they had some advanced readers in the school and sought ways to meet them where they were at. Also there are way more assessments once kids get to K in DCPS (beginning of year, middle of year, end of year) and more tracking of progress. So teachers become very aware of who the advanced kids are and communicate with teachers in other grades about it. IME it also clearly influences class assignments, though in that respect not always in the way you want (they do not always cluster advanced learners together, sometimes they spread them out, which can be good for the school but not always best for the individual learner, it depends).

I was amazed how little information traveled with the kid to the next teacher. When my DD entered K, I realized the K teacher has not been given anything by the PK4 teacher. So I reached out to the K teacher asking what the advanced reading options were. She offered that DD could do phonics with the 1st graders. I provided the PK4 teacher's dibels data showing 3rd grade level. Very surprised that doesn't travel with the kid!

Anonymous wrote:No schools should be allowing any children to skip grades just because an entitled parent thinks they have the right to demand it. Schools need to stop caving in to these insane requests. They would never even entertain this at a school in wards 7 or 8. Your skin color doesn’t make you anymore deserving of having a demand approved than a black parent who might be economically disadvantaged.

I'm at a Ward 8 school that has moved children up. in one case, the parent asked about better programming for their student and the admin reviewed all of the student's current and past data and felt skipping was the appropriate next step. It's not an insane request. It just might not be an appropriate answer for all students.

Parents should not assume how much the teacher or administrator readily knows a student's academic standing -- especially at the beginning of the year when assessment data can be slow to get to the current teacher/school. I wish more Ward 7 or 8 families who recognize their children can handle advanced work in the younger grades would make more demands. I absolutely believe that would lead to more rigorous work overall and better middle school performance later. Do it early before a child with significant potential has it dulled out of them from years of substandard, below level work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No schools should be allowing any children to skip grades just because an entitled parent thinks they have the right to demand it. Schools need to stop caving in to these insane requests. They would never even entertain this at a school in wards 7 or 8. Your skin color doesn’t make you anymore deserving of having a demand approved than a black parent who might be economically disadvantaged.

Our DCPS actually twice pushed us to skip our kid and we said no. They warned us that they wouldn’t be able to entirely accommodate kid as a result, but we thought a socially happy kid was more important and not worth risking. This is just to point out that it’s not always pushy parents.

We had a similar experience. School suggested it, child said no.

Anonymous wrote:DD is in her second week of third grade, and for the third year in a row her iReady scores fell between three and five years above grade level - 570s in Math and 680s in Reading. The iReady chart puts both scores in the sixth-grade range since it is the highest classification for third graders, but if you move down the chart both scores fall into eighth-grade ranges. (She does competition math once a week, which is why she knows higher math.) It's not just that she is a good test-taker; the scores are consistent with her writing and the books and other materials (mainly history and science magazines) she reads outside of class.

With the exception of one teacher who was willing to hand out extra math worksheets, the school -- and to my understanding, DCPS in general -- does not like to differentiate among the materials distributed to students. And obviously they don't have AAP. Given all of that, would I be out of line to ask whether it makes sense to move her up a grade / have her attend certain subjects with fourth graders? Has anyone had experience with that in DCPS? I think it's important to note (and maybe this is the only thing that matters!) that when it comes to maturity and executive functioning, she is 100% a third grader.

Tell me more about “competition math” for a 3rd grader. My DD is above grade (not as much as yours) in math and I’d love to encourage it.

Anonymous wrote:No schools should be allowing any children to skip grades just because an entitled parent thinks they have the right to demand it. Schools need to stop caving in to these insane requests. They would never even entertain this at a school in wards 7 or 8. Your skin color doesn’t make you anymore deserving of having a demand approved than a black parent who might be economically disadvantaged.

Our DCPS actually twice pushed us to skip our kid and we said no. They warned us that they wouldn’t be able to entirely accommodate kid as a result, but we thought a socially happy kid was more important and not worth risking. This is just to point out that it’s not always pushy parents.

Anonymous wrote:Op tell us what competition she does. I want to enroll my kids.

Also what school is she in? Thanks

I’m also curious about this, because RSM won’t take kids until 4th grade for competition math, no exceptions. For Math Kangaroo, it looks like there are only two DC sites and one is a public school, but I assume the other is some afterschool competition set up. (Although, honestly, it looked like they didn’t do much better than a public school kids.) Maybe there’s a suburbs option other than RSM?

Op tell us what competition she does. I want to enroll my kids.

Also what school is she in? Thanks

Anonymous wrote:No schools should be allowing any children to skip grades just because an entitled parent thinks they have the right to demand it. Schools need to stop caving in to these insane requests. They would never even entertain this at a school in wards 7 or 8. Your skin color doesn’t make you anymore deserving of having a demand approved than a black parent who might be economically disadvantaged.

On a per-kid basis, the lack of appropriate academic options for low income kids in DC is a much bigger problem, since the parents are less likely to be able to supplement or do private school.