Most things are good at this school, but like all schools, there are areas of improvements needed. Check out the underground blogs for parents

http://peelbacktheapple.blogspot.com/
http://kgesteacherratings.blogspot.com/

Immersion is only offered at a few schools, and there is no busing available. It is, therefore, de facto unavailable to 80-90% of FCPS elementary students.

You're saying 90% of FCPS students would have no way to get to school if they got into an immersion program that was not in their base elementary school? Where are you getting that statistic?

I think more than 10% of FCPS students have a stay-at-home parent, or a parent with a flexible enough schedule to do the driving, or a childcare provider who drives, or someone who is willing to carpool to school with them.

There are only 2 magnet elementary schools and 2 math & science focus schools in the district. I guess we should get rid of those, too.

You were initially arguing that some of these programs benefit only a select group of students. My point was that there are lots of programs that benefit only select students, including band & AAP. But now you are talking about

availability

. Immersion is available, it just doesn't work well for some people's schedules. But let's face it, we all have scheduling issues, and the availability of busing is not the only one. It's hard to make a blanket statement that lack of busing makes the program unavailable. For some parents, the immersion school might have school hours that work better for them than their local school's hours. It might be easier to drive than to stay home and wait for the bus each morning. I mean, it sucks for me that my kids are on the latest start time in the County (9:15) so their bus doesn't come until 8:50, which means I can't possibly get to my office in DC until close to 10am if I get them on the bus myself. So I have to get childcare for the mornings. It also sucks that they have a half-day every Monday; I have to arrange childcare for that too because I can't leave work early enough to get home in time for them.

Anonymous wrote:

If hard choices have to get made, immersion programs that de facto benefit only a few kids should get cut in favor of programs/things that can benefit ALL kids, such as band, GT centers, and smaller class sizes.

But you're essentially still arguing your preference for music over foreign language. Band benefits kids who are interested in band; foreign language immersion benefits kids who are interested in learning a language. Lots of kids have no interest in band so I'm not sure how band benefits all kids, other than by being open to all kids in their local schools. Obviously there are enough people interested in immersion that there's a lottery and a waiting list every year, so it's not like nobody is taking advantage of the program despite having to drive their kids to another school.

Of your list, the only thing that benefits every kid is smaller class sizes. AAP Centers only benefit the kids who get in, and they arguably harm the non-Center schools and the highly talented kids in those schools who are not attending a Center, because the Centers take away the best students from the non-Center schools, kids who would be a valuable part of the peer group in the LLIV classes at those schools. There are 13 elementary schools offering immersion and 24 that house AAP Centers - out of 139 elementary schools in the County, so there's not that much of a difference, except for the fact that bussing is available for AAP but not immersion.

Band, if offered at all schools, is AVAILABLE to all students.

Busing is available for AAP, so it is also AVAILABLE to all students (cases where there's a jackass principal who tries to keep all his smart kids in house being the notable exception.)

Immersion is only offered at a few schools, and there is no busing available. It is, therefore, de facto unavailable to 80-90% of FCPS elementary students.

As for these being spared budget cuts, come on, we all know we're going to be arguing this out again in spring 2011, and we all know the FCPS staff/School Board are going to recommend cuts to popular programs to get folks riled up. The conservatives will counter with their belief that there exist 100,000 bureaucrats at Gatehouse whose sole purpose is to fatten the school budget.

Music and foreign language were not part of the budget cuts this year so everyone should chill out!

I agree with 6:40 too but unfortunately those die-hard FLES parents are louder/more vocal and will fight to the death for the immersion programs...at the cost of the rest of the community's kids.

Doesn't everyone fight to keep the programs that are important to them? Parents were largely responsible for saving band & strings from the budgetary chopping block this year.

I agree with 6:40 too but unfortunately those die-hard FLES parents are louder/more vocal and will fight to the death for the immersion programs...at the cost of the rest of the community's kids.

I agree with the poster who said parents in McLean would rather have a lower teacher student ratio than FI program-not all McLean parents of course.

If hard choices have to get made, immersion programs that de facto benefit only a few kids should get cut in favor of programs/things that can benefit ALL kids, such as band, GT centers, and smaller class sizes.

But you're essentially still arguing your preference for music over foreign language. Band benefits kids who are interested in band; foreign language immersion benefits kids who are interested in learning a language. Lots of kids have no interest in band so I'm not sure how band benefits all kids, other than by being open to all kids in their local schools. Obviously there are enough people interested in immersion that there's a lottery and a waiting list every year, so it's not like nobody is taking advantage of the program despite having to drive their kids to another school.

Of your list, the only thing that benefits every kid is smaller class sizes. AAP Centers only benefit the kids who get in, and they arguably harm the non-Center schools and the highly talented kids in those schools who are not attending a Center, because the Centers take away the best students from the non-Center schools, kids who would be a valuable part of the peer group in the LLIV classes at those schools. There are 13 elementary schools offering immersion and 24 that house AAP Centers - out of 139 elementary schools in the County, so there's not that much of a difference, except for the fact that bussing is available for AAP but not immersion.

Anonymous wrote:And if the immersion program for your preferred language is 40+ minutes away, you either have to have a SAHP or a really understanding workplace. End result, these programs benefit the kids living near these schools; in Kent Gardens' case, it benefits a bunch of rich McLean kids. (I live in Vienna, and I'd be complaining about this at Vienna Elementary.)

If hard choices have to get made, immersion programs that de facto benefit only a few kids should get cut in favor of programs/things that can benefit ALL kids, such as band, GT centers, and smaller class sizes.

Whatever.

Most of the parents at McLean would be happy to get rid of the FI program and lower the student teacher ratio.

Anonymous wrote:I still think the immersion should be a PTA sponsored program. Especially in a place like Mclean where the parents can more than afford to keep it going. In my opinion, music is much more important.

Get a clue. A lot of the FI students are from out of boundary. Not all McLean parents have their kids in FI.

Anonymous wrote:Whether you agree or not, immersion is, in fact, open to all FCPS students. Look at the FCPS website for the list of schools that offer it and the lottery application procedures. As I said, it's similar to AAP in that the program is housed in certain schools but it pulls in children from all the schools.

The difference between immersion and AAP, however, is that children get bussed to AAP schools if their school doesn't have it. For language immersion, there is no busing. I live in Vienna, too, and really wanted my child to do a language. But there is no school in Vienna that offers a language immersion program. The closest ones are either Kent Gardens in McLean, Laurel Ridge in Fairfax or Lake Anne in Reston. But each would take 20+ minutes to drive my child to school and then 20+ minutes back. I have another child in preschool in Vienna, and it would be unfair to make her drive 40 minutes plus each morning to take her sister to school.

So I do think AAP is different than language immersion in that regard. But then again, Fairfax County schools aren't "fair" to everyone. Some schools get full-day kindergarten and others don't. That's not fair either.

And if the immersion program for your preferred language is 40+ minutes away, you either have to have a SAHP or a really understanding workplace. End result, these programs benefit the kids living near these schools; in Kent Gardens' case, it benefits a bunch of rich McLean kids. (I live in Vienna, and I'd be complaining about this at Vienna Elementary.)

If hard choices have to get made, immersion programs that de facto benefit only a few kids should get cut in favor of programs/things that can benefit ALL kids, such as band, GT centers, and smaller class sizes.

Whether you agree or not, immersion is, in fact, open to all FCPS students. Look at the FCPS website for the list of schools that offer it and the lottery application procedures. As I said, it's similar to AAP in that the program is housed in certain schools but it pulls in children from all the schools.

There are several immersion programs at schools all over the county, not just French at KG. And the admissions are via a lottery.

I don' t know if I agree that it is open to kids from every school. I think the majority of kids that get in from other schools either are native speakers or have some previous french language experience.