Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we all just agree that we hate having AAP Centers?

I can certainly agree with this. They create far too many issues, resentment, and divisiveness.

I can certainly disagree with this as my student does not have a peer group at the base school. (He was subjected to frequent bullying, among other things.)

so a child who just misses the cut off for eligibility in your school has to stay and get bullied? You bought your house around certain school boundaries. But your kid gets the option to leave. Hmmm

Exactly. Complete inequity.

Anonymous wrote:Board to make these decisions. It's representative democracy in action. Also qualified kids have a right under VA law to gifted services. A local community cannot vote to do away with that right-- which would be the effect in many base school of closing centers. Also, does this really make sense: I want FCPS to be required to offer/ teach Swahili (or creationism or swimming or allow for language immersion in every school) there should be a ballot initiate. Welcome the to the 70 page local ballot. Or, as a previous poster said: election law (and I'd add constitutional law).

VA is under no obligation to provide center schools. Qualified students can and should be receiving gifted services in their base schools. No other county in VA provides center schools, nor should they have to.

Anonymous wrote:^^ just re-read and want to clarify: the second paragraph is an add on observation after catching up on this thread. I'm am not accusing the poster I quoted of being nasty, spiteful or troll like.

but the PP POINT wa the "choice" that is given to AAP kids. And others stated that the choice should be eliminated. The poster has a child being bullied in a school they were in and wanted him out. It was great child made it into AAP and had the CHOICE to leave the undesirable school where "he didn't have a peer group". A lot of parents push AAP so their kid get into a more desirable school. That's a problem with the school system.

^^ just re-read and want to clarify: the second paragraph is an add on observation after catching up on this thread. I'm am not accusing the poster I quoted of being nasty, spiteful or troll like.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we all just agree that we hate having AAP Centers?

I can certainly agree with this. They create far too many issues, resentment, and divisiveness.

I can certainly disagree with this as my student does not have a peer group at the base school. (He was subjected to frequent bullying, among other things.)

so a child who just misses the cut off for eligibility in your school has to stay and get bullied? You bought your house around certain school boundaries. But your kid gets the option to leave. Hmmm

It sucks that a child just misses the cut off, but exactly. Her child qualified for a special program. Part of the reason he qualified for the program is a learning style that has statistically high likelihood of being 2e, which is a group of kids that has a very high likelihood of being bullied. And her child stayed in boundary (the AAP boundary) as the school boundary is defined in the FCPS Boundary locator. Google it and plug your address in there. It will spit out 2 boundaries: one AAP, one not. Both are real boundaries, depending on your child's program. And you don't ditch a program almost everyone agrees is needed at some level (whether that is top .5%, 1%, 2%, whatever) because a small number of kids are misidentified or just miss the cut off. And there are frequent complaints from Gen Ed that FCPS overidentifies kids, and should be less willing to take that borderline kid.

Some posters with GE kids on this thread have made really good points that have changed the way I think about the Center school structure. I would note lunate centers, but I see where They can be unnecessary, or even counterproductive in some cases. But a few posters (or maybe even one vocal poster) is so mean and seem to have so little compassion for AAP kids, some of whose parents describe bullying, social isolation, a genuine academic inability to function in a Gen Ed setting and struggles with 2e. And also has so little of actual substance to say. That poster (because I'd like to think it's just one) hurts people raising valid issues by turning open minded AAP parents off. And yes, that person I would characterize as a troll. Because they are not on this board to discuss a real issue in our schools. They only want to belittle others (kids!), presumably to make themselves feel better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we all just agree that we hate having AAP Centers?

I can certainly agree with this. They create far too many issues, resentment, and divisiveness.

I can certainly disagree with this as my student does not have a peer group at the base school. (He was subjected to frequent bullying, among other things.)

so a child who just misses the cut off for eligibility in your school has to stay and get bullied? You bought your house around certain school boundaries. But your kid gets the option to leave. Hmmm

Anonymous wrote:
No matter -- it was a small minority of schools without FDK.

yet, it was every single neighborhood we were considering for moving into a SFH. And this was in the $450K and under price range - we are NOT rich by any stretch.

I know, total aside, but our choices were incredibly limited before that decision was made. Wound up starting our house hunt that following weekend, and got a TH sold, a house purchased and made our move a couple days before our first started K.

Anonymous wrote:

The kindergarten proposal was developed over several years. There was a phase-in approach based on a weighting criteria. They had a list of remaining schools to be switched from half-day to full-day and just worked the remainder of the list.

Elimination of early-release Mondays was changes in staffing and bus runs, not changes in students-attending-selected-school locations.

SB rushed it because an election was coming up. Strauss, especially, was in jeopardy of losing her job. So, she attached herself to the K lobbyists--who, in turn, gave her credit for getting all schools to full day K. Funnily enough, Strauss paid the chief lobbyist for K over $10,000 for campaign help. A little questionable, if you ask me.

No matter -- it was a small minority of schools without FDK.

The kindergarten proposal was developed over several years. There was a phase-in approach based on a weighting criteria. They had a list of remaining schools to be switched from half-day to full-day and just worked the remainder of the list.

Elimination of early-release Mondays was changes in staffing and bus runs, not changes in students-attending-selected-school locations.

SB rushed it because an election was coming up. Strauss, especially, was in jeopardy of losing her job. So, she attached herself to the K lobbyists--who, in turn, gave her credit for getting all schools to full day K. Funnily enough, Strauss paid the chief lobbyist for K over $10,000 for campaign help. A little questionable, if you ask me.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The kindergarten proposal was developed over several years. There was a phase-in approach based on a weighting criteria. They had a list of remaining schools to be switched from half-day to full-day and just worked the remainder of the list.
[/quote]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/back-to-school-in-northern-virginia/2011/09/02/gIQAt55b5J_story.html

[quote]The county began offering full-day kindergarten in its neediest schools during the late 1990s. In 2006, the School Board planned an aggressive expansion into every school.

Then the economy collapsed. Tight budgets forced school officials to increase class sizes and make a series of painful cuts. The expansion of full-day kindergarten came to a halt, leaving 36 schools in the county’s more affluent areas without the full-day option.

“It really was an equity issue,” said board member Jane K. Strauss (Dranesville), whose district included many schools without the full-day program.

Students in the half-day classes were required to learn the same material as their full-day peers. Teachers crammed spelling and subtraction lessons into the allotted hours, leaving little time for exploration, play and questions, said Katy Trinh, a kindergarten teacher at Orange Hunt.

“A lot of times we only had five minutes for snack. I told the kids to chew-swallow, chew-swallow, chew-swallow,” she said, laughing. “Now we can kind of slow things down a little bit.”

Last year, a group of Fairfax parents led a lobbying effort for full-day kindergarten in all schools. They circulated a petition, organized rallies and showed up in droves to testify at public meetings.

Although this year’s budget is hardly roomy, that outpouring helped persuade the School Board to vote in favor of extending full-day kindergarten to the remaining schools for about $7.8 million, mostly for additional teachers.[/quote][/quote]

My MS DC was in the middle of this and (1) this was a multi year phase in, just like the MS LLIV program and (2) there was no redistricting involved w/the K Changeover, which dI'd not need boundary studies which takes time. Not only would center students need to change, but the deficit would need to be made up with base school kids. Doing this county wide will take time and community comment on what will be Several options. This is is expensive, and takes time, community meetings & input for each school, etc. they would almost do 1-2 centers per year, just as there are with MS LLIV. That program, btw is proceeding deliberately, on a 5-7 year schedule, and without lots of pushback.

Anonymous wrote:The kindergarten proposal was developed over several years. There was a phase-in approach based on a weighting criteria. They had a list of remaining schools to be switched from half-day to full-day and just worked the remainder of the list.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/back-to-school-in-northern-virginia/2011/09/02/gIQAt55b5J_story.html

The county began offering full-day kindergarten in its neediest schools during the late 1990s. In 2006, the School Board planned an aggressive expansion into every school.

Then the economy collapsed. Tight budgets forced school officials to increase class sizes and make a series of painful cuts. The expansion of full-day kindergarten came to a halt, leaving 36 schools in the county’s more affluent areas without the full-day option.

“It really was an equity issue,” said board member Jane K. Strauss (Dranesville), whose district included many schools without the full-day program.

Students in the half-day classes were required to learn the same material as their full-day peers. Teachers crammed spelling and subtraction lessons into the allotted hours, leaving little time for exploration, play and questions, said Katy Trinh, a kindergarten teacher at Orange Hunt.

“A lot of times we only had five minutes for snack. I told the kids to chew-swallow, chew-swallow, chew-swallow,” she said, laughing. “Now we can kind of slow things down a little bit.”

Last year, a group of Fairfax parents led a lobbying effort for full-day kindergarten in all schools. They circulated a petition, organized rallies and showed up in droves to testify at public meetings.

Although this year’s budget is hardly roomy, that outpouring helped persuade the School Board to vote in favor of extending full-day kindergarten to the remaining schools for about $7.8 million, mostly for additional teachers.

Anonymous wrote:they got the kindergarten proposal through pretty damn quick, which was a pretty big change.

as was the elimination of the mini-mondays.

The kindergarten proposal was developed over several years. There was a phase-in approach based on a weighting criteria. They had a list of remaining schools to be switched from half-day to full-day and just worked the remainder of the list.

Elimination of early-release Mondays was changes in staffing and bus runs, not changes in students-attending-selected-school locations.

they got the kindergarten proposal through pretty damn quick, which was a pretty big change.

as was the elimination of the mini-mondays.

Anonymous wrote:The way the program is administered is subject to change. Why is it a 2 year process for this and not other changes?

How come new centers were opened in a year?

Honestly, just curious - not being argumentative.

Boundary change studies & impact analyses, development of a proposal, publication of proposed changes, community input, making a decision, informing redistricts students well before the end of the school year so schools are students can make adjustments. Each step takes time. Some (Like publishing proposed changes and community responses, have statutory periods and can't be rushed. And no one wants to tell a school or student about changes after the school year when most of the staff has changed. Every step takes time.

Anonymous wrote:The way the program is administered is subject to change. Why is it a 2 year process for this and not other changes?

How come new centers were opened in a year?

Honestly, just curious - not being argumentative.

It is one thing to change things at one center or open another. It is another thing to change large swaths of the program.