Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can read how many AAP eligible kids are at each school on dashboard and in the school profiles. It's not a secret at our school. The principal tells the parents the number.

When DC started LLIV in 3rd grade it was a big secret. One lady asked several times how many kids were level IV eligible for that year at the AAP orientation and the Principal would not say. I think the lady just wanted to know if there were enough kids to make a critical mass at the base school. (Though that didn't really matter as most went to the Center anyway.) Didn't know about dashboard back then. Did see it last year and wasn't sure it was accurate - but then again what do I know?!

Part of the reason I say Dashboard is not accurate is because of the classsize. The avg size of the 4th grade class was definitely higher than what was reported - by 4-7 students.

Anonymous wrote:You can read how many AAP eligible kids are at each school on dashboard and in the school profiles. It's not a secret at our school. The principal tells the parents the number.

When DC started LLIV in 3rd grade it was a big secret. One lady asked several times how many kids were level IV eligible for that year at the AAP orientation and the Principal would not say. I think the lady just wanted to know if there were enough kids to make a critical mass at the base school. (Though that didn't really matter as most went to the Center anyway.) Didn't know about dashboard back then. Did see it last year and wasn't sure it was accurate - but then again what do I know?!

You can read how many AAP eligible kids are at each school on dashboard and in the school profiles. It's not a secret at our school. The principal tells the parents the number.

Anonymous wrote:Our school is the same - the LLIV class is the largest even though it has less than 50% level IV kids. Doesn't seem to make sense, does it?

How do you know this?

Our school is the same - the LLIV class is the largest even though it has less than 50% level IV kids. Doesn't seem to make sense, does it?

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the LLIV class has less than 15 kids because the principal will not infill. Then the Gen Ed classes have in the mid-twenties. That seems sort of ridiculous to me.

Interesting, our LLIV class last year was at 29, even though the other classes dropped to the low 20's when we reached the max and got another teacher in 5th Grade. I am unsure of what % of the students are Center Eligible, but I asked the principal why LLIV was not equalized with the other classes (perhaps moving some non-eligible into some of the now smaller classes), and she felt that they could not pull anyone who had been in the class the prior year, doing the AAP work, even if not center-eligible. In her defense, she was an interim principal, who stayed on when our principal did not return from maternity leave.

My one gripe about LLIV though is that with only one class per grade, there can be some real social problems. I am thankful they are mixing the 6th graders for Specials this year, which they had not done in the past (except for side-by-side PE classes). I think that though our LLIV children are rotating teachers, they will all travel together still for core subjects. Curious how that works out with regard to what is really AAP beyond Math. Would that mean all the 6th grade teachers are endorsed for AAP, or in the process?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school just fills in the class with non-Center eligible students. (But our school has a very small number of Center eligible students overall.)

This makes no sense for your school to have a LLIV class.

LLIV should be placed at the schools that send a large number of kids to AAP. If the school has enough center eligible kids to consistently fill an entire class, then they should keep them at the school and do LLIV.

The schools that have small numbers of center eligible kids should not have a LLIV. Those kids should be sent to a center school.

I agree. But look at the schools that have Local Level IV and have small numbers of Center eligible students.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/99K2BT016C29/$file/c_Level%20IV%20demographics%20data%20by%20school.pdf

Annandale Terrace 7
Braddock 6
Cameron 9
Clermont 11
Glen Forest 11
Little Run 9
Mason Crest 14
Washington Mill 8

And yet our base school ships 40 kids per grade a half hour away to a center that doesn't want them all because our base school principal doesn't want LLIV.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school, the LLIV class has less than 15 kids because the principal will not infill. Then the Gen Ed classes have in the mid-twenties. That seems sort of ridiculous to me.

Having classes in mid-twenties still seems pretty decent.

Yes, but doesn't it seem a little odd to give the kids that are the quickest, the smallest ratio, while the ESOL, SN and others have many more students per teacher. It's odd.

Without at least half a class in AAP, how can these schools have a LLIV program? It seems you would need at least 60-100 students in AAP to teach at a similar level to a center. What does Annandale Terrace do with 7 AAP student spread across 4 grades?