Anonymous wrote:17:21 PP here, and I wonder whether there is some method to the madness of which kids who deserve AAP are kept out. My kid who didn't get in scored pass advanced on every SOL, with perfect scores on most, was consistently above grade level in all subjects, got a 99th percentile IAAT, straight As in middle and high school, and 5s on a bunch of AP exams. This kid is one who is very cooperative in the classroom, makes effective use of time, and even in gen ed was generally helpful or kept themselves quietly occupied with reading. I mean, the AART said my kid should have been admitted, and the GBRS was perfect, so it's not like the school sabotaged my kid, but I wonder whether the central committee rejects certain kids that they think would be an asset to the gen ed teacher.

My other kid who got admitted to AAP would have been disruptive and difficult in gen ed, and would not have made the teacher's life any easier.

If people really think this happens then how can we trust the process at all?

17:21 PP here, and I wonder whether there is some method to the madness of which kids who deserve AAP are kept out. My kid who didn't get in scored pass advanced on every SOL, with perfect scores on most, was consistently above grade level in all subjects, got a 99th percentile IAAT, straight As in middle and high school, and 5s on a bunch of AP exams. This kid is one who is very cooperative in the classroom, makes effective use of time, and even in gen ed was generally helpful or kept themselves quietly occupied with reading. I mean, the AART said my kid should have been admitted, and the GBRS was perfect, so it's not like the school sabotaged my kid, but I wonder whether the central committee rejects certain kids that they think would be an asset to the gen ed teacher.

My other kid who got admitted to AAP would have been disruptive and difficult in gen ed, and would not have made the teacher's life any easier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's mostly to help with optics. If the top 10% across all schools is in pool, then around 1400 kids are in-pool. Some number of those kids will be URMs or FARMS. If they let all 99th percentile kids into the pool, they'd probably end up with 1800 kids in the pool, but few or no extra URMs or FARMS kids. This would make the in-pool demographics look worse, even though they'd actually be including more kids and not keeping anyone out.

I think the same is somewhat true for AAP admissions. There is no reason whatsoever to keep kids out who have both high CogAT scores and high achievement scores. Yet, they do. My take is twofold:

By keeping some number of qualified white or Asian kids out of AAP, they're making the demographics look better. As a small example, if 20 Black kids and 80 white/Asian kids are in AAP, it looks better than 20 Black kids and 180 white/Asian kids, even though the exact same number of black kids are being given access.

The other sad reality is that gen ed largely doesn't function without some number of very able kids that the teacher can either ignore or force to act as assistant teachers. My above grade level in all subjects, gen ed DD only had a reading group with the teacher for 15 minutes every second week in a language arts block that was 2 hours per day. The teacher wouldn't have had enough time with the below grade level kids if she didn't have an entire group of kids that she was allowed to ignore. One of the kids in my DD's above grade level reading group spoke fluent Spanish and would constantly be paired with the ESOL kids for projects to act as an assistant ESOL teacher.

The parents of the ignored/assistant teacher delegates should sue FCPS for neglect. We get that they care about kids that won't pass without massive extra attention, but these kids deserve to progress as well.

How on earth could you prove anything? Say your kid has in-pool test scores for your school, is above grade level in all subjects, and has a high teacher rating, but your kid still gets rejected. You then meet with the AART who says that your kid absolutely did deserve to get admitted. You still have no recourse. There is no one from the central office who will meet with you and explain why your kid didn't get in. The only thing you can do is appeal, and if that fails, apply again. You can't prove that your kid deserved to be admitted, because the party line is that the process is holistic and the selection panel of experts determined that your child's needs could be met in gen ed.

Then, you get the gen ed catch-22: Your child consistently gets high scores on iready tests and perfect scores on the SOLs. They can argue that your child is thriving in the gen ed classroom and clearly doesn't need AAP. If instead your child starts falling off in iready and SOL levels, they can argue that your child is not performing at an AAP level and thus doesn't belong. If your kid is the first type, and you can show that the teacher is ignoring your child, it would still be difficult to show neglect. The party line is then that your kid is academically ahead, so the teacher/school/FCPS are doing a great job with your child.

"Sue" might be hyperbole here (& of course "holistic" is designed to be bulletproof legally except in cases of disparate harm). The point is that the kids who don't make AAP (& maybe don't need it) still deserve the attention of the classroom teacher and shouldn't be deployed as assistant teachers. They should be met where they are and have an equal opportunity at an education too.

I agree, but at higher needs schools, something has to give. The priority for admin is to get the below grade level kids up to grade level, or at least maximize the number of kids passing the SOL. For the assistant teacher thing, it would again be difficult to prove that it's even happening. My kid's gen ed class had a lot of group projects. All of the kids in the above grade level group were always split up and paired with kids who were multiple grade levels below and really struggling. If the teacher or administration wanted to maximize learning for everyone, the top kids would have remained together and would have been expected to produce a stellar project at their level. That never happened.

I'm petty, but I will laugh when the NMSF lists come out next year, and my kid is there, while likely not a single one of the 30 kids in their grade who were deemed "too gifted to share a classroom" with my kid aren't. The icing on the cake is that my kid only prepped a few hours with a $20 PSAT book from Amazon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's mostly to help with optics. If the top 10% across all schools is in pool, then around 1400 kids are in-pool. Some number of those kids will be URMs or FARMS. If they let all 99th percentile kids into the pool, they'd probably end up with 1800 kids in the pool, but few or no extra URMs or FARMS kids. This would make the in-pool demographics look worse, even though they'd actually be including more kids and not keeping anyone out.

I think the same is somewhat true for AAP admissions. There is no reason whatsoever to keep kids out who have both high CogAT scores and high achievement scores. Yet, they do. My take is twofold:

By keeping some number of qualified white or Asian kids out of AAP, they're making the demographics look better. As a small example, if 20 Black kids and 80 white/Asian kids are in AAP, it looks better than 20 Black kids and 180 white/Asian kids, even though the exact same number of black kids are being given access.

The other sad reality is that gen ed largely doesn't function without some number of very able kids that the teacher can either ignore or force to act as assistant teachers. My above grade level in all subjects, gen ed DD only had a reading group with the teacher for 15 minutes every second week in a language arts block that was 2 hours per day. The teacher wouldn't have had enough time with the below grade level kids if she didn't have an entire group of kids that she was allowed to ignore. One of the kids in my DD's above grade level reading group spoke fluent Spanish and would constantly be paired with the ESOL kids for projects to act as an assistant ESOL teacher.

The parents of the ignored/assistant teacher delegates should sue FCPS for neglect. We get that they care about kids that won't pass without massive extra attention, but these kids deserve to progress as well.

How on earth could you prove anything? Say your kid has in-pool test scores for your school, is above grade level in all subjects, and has a high teacher rating, but your kid still gets rejected. You then meet with the AART who says that your kid absolutely did deserve to get admitted. You still have no recourse. There is no one from the central office who will meet with you and explain why your kid didn't get in. The only thing you can do is appeal, and if that fails, apply again. You can't prove that your kid deserved to be admitted, because the party line is that the process is holistic and the selection panel of experts determined that your child's needs could be met in gen ed.

Then, you get the gen ed catch-22: Your child consistently gets high scores on iready tests and perfect scores on the SOLs. They can argue that your child is thriving in the gen ed classroom and clearly doesn't need AAP. If instead your child starts falling off in iready and SOL levels, they can argue that your child is not performing at an AAP level and thus doesn't belong. If your kid is the first type, and you can show that the teacher is ignoring your child, it would still be difficult to show neglect. The party line is then that your kid is academically ahead, so the teacher/school/FCPS are doing a great job with your child.

"Sue" might be hyperbole here (& of course "holistic" is designed to be bulletproof legally except in cases of disparate harm). The point is that the kids who don't make AAP (& maybe don't need it) still deserve the attention of the classroom teacher and shouldn't be deployed as assistant teachers. They should be met where they are and have an equal opportunity at an education too.

If only it actually worked that way. DD got in for fifth and had the easiest, least stressful years of elementary in fifth and sixth

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's mostly to help with optics. If the top 10% across all schools is in pool, then around 1400 kids are in-pool. Some number of those kids will be URMs or FARMS. If they let all 99th percentile kids into the pool, they'd probably end up with 1800 kids in the pool, but few or no extra URMs or FARMS kids. This would make the in-pool demographics look worse, even though they'd actually be including more kids and not keeping anyone out.

I think the same is somewhat true for AAP admissions. There is no reason whatsoever to keep kids out who have both high CogAT scores and high achievement scores. Yet, they do. My take is twofold:

By keeping some number of qualified white or Asian kids out of AAP, they're making the demographics look better. As a small example, if 20 Black kids and 80 white/Asian kids are in AAP, it looks better than 20 Black kids and 180 white/Asian kids, even though the exact same number of black kids are being given access.

The other sad reality is that gen ed largely doesn't function without some number of very able kids that the teacher can either ignore or force to act as assistant teachers. My above grade level in all subjects, gen ed DD only had a reading group with the teacher for 15 minutes every second week in a language arts block that was 2 hours per day. The teacher wouldn't have had enough time with the below grade level kids if she didn't have an entire group of kids that she was allowed to ignore. One of the kids in my DD's above grade level reading group spoke fluent Spanish and would constantly be paired with the ESOL kids for projects to act as an assistant ESOL teacher.

The parents of the ignored/assistant teacher delegates should sue FCPS for neglect. We get that they care about kids that won't pass without massive extra attention, but these kids deserve to progress as well.

How on earth could you prove anything? Say your kid has in-pool test scores for your school, is above grade level in all subjects, and has a high teacher rating, but your kid still gets rejected. You then meet with the AART who says that your kid absolutely did deserve to get admitted. You still have no recourse. There is no one from the central office who will meet with you and explain why your kid didn't get in. The only thing you can do is appeal, and if that fails, apply again. You can't prove that your kid deserved to be admitted, because the party line is that the process is holistic and the selection panel of experts determined that your child's needs could be met in gen ed.

Then, you get the gen ed catch-22: Your child consistently gets high scores on iready tests and perfect scores on the SOLs. They can argue that your child is thriving in the gen ed classroom and clearly doesn't need AAP. If instead your child starts falling off in iready and SOL levels, they can argue that your child is not performing at an AAP level and thus doesn't belong. If your kid is the first type, and you can show that the teacher is ignoring your child, it would still be difficult to show neglect. The party line is then that your kid is academically ahead, so the teacher/school/FCPS are doing a great job with your child.

"Sue" might be hyperbole here (& of course "holistic" is designed to be bulletproof legally except in cases of disparate harm). The point is that the kids who don't make AAP (& maybe don't need it) still deserve the attention of the classroom teacher and shouldn't be deployed as assistant teachers. They should be met where they are and have an equal opportunity at an education too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's mostly to help with optics. If the top 10% across all schools is in pool, then around 1400 kids are in-pool. Some number of those kids will be URMs or FARMS. If they let all 99th percentile kids into the pool, they'd probably end up with 1800 kids in the pool, but few or no extra URMs or FARMS kids. This would make the in-pool demographics look worse, even though they'd actually be including more kids and not keeping anyone out.

I think the same is somewhat true for AAP admissions. There is no reason whatsoever to keep kids out who have both high CogAT scores and high achievement scores. Yet, they do. My take is twofold:

By keeping some number of qualified white or Asian kids out of AAP, they're making the demographics look better. As a small example, if 20 Black kids and 80 white/Asian kids are in AAP, it looks better than 20 Black kids and 180 white/Asian kids, even though the exact same number of black kids are being given access.

The other sad reality is that gen ed largely doesn't function without some number of very able kids that the teacher can either ignore or force to act as assistant teachers. My above grade level in all subjects, gen ed DD only had a reading group with the teacher for 15 minutes every second week in a language arts block that was 2 hours per day. The teacher wouldn't have had enough time with the below grade level kids if she didn't have an entire group of kids that she was allowed to ignore. One of the kids in my DD's above grade level reading group spoke fluent Spanish and would constantly be paired with the ESOL kids for projects to act as an assistant ESOL teacher.

The parents of the ignored/assistant teacher delegates should sue FCPS for neglect. We get that they care about kids that won't pass without massive extra attention, but these kids deserve to progress as well.

How on earth could you prove anything? Say your kid has in-pool test scores for your school, is above grade level in all subjects, and has a high teacher rating, but your kid still gets rejected. You then meet with the AART who says that your kid absolutely did deserve to get admitted. You still have no recourse. There is no one from the central office who will meet with you and explain why your kid didn't get in. The only thing you can do is appeal, and if that fails, apply again. You can't prove that your kid deserved to be admitted, because the party line is that the process is holistic and the selection panel of experts determined that your child's needs could be met in gen ed.

Then, you get the gen ed catch-22: Your child consistently gets high scores on iready tests and perfect scores on the SOLs. They can argue that your child is thriving in the gen ed classroom and clearly doesn't need AAP. If instead your child starts falling off in iready and SOL levels, they can argue that your child is not performing at an AAP level and thus doesn't belong. If your kid is the first type, and you can show that the teacher is ignoring your child, it would still be difficult to show neglect. The party line is then that your kid is academically ahead, so the teacher/school/FCPS are doing a great job with your child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

My understanding is that AAP is supposed to ensure kids who have enrichment needs in their school are getting them.

However, my question is, if this is true, how did the old system work to ensure this? A school-specific in-pool cut off makes sense but a county-wide one does not, as the latter would surely lead to some schools being overrepresented in the review process, no?

Can someone who has been in FCPS for a while help me understand? Is it that the goal of AAP has changed overtime or is it that the approach was misaligned with the goal and has become more aligned? (or something else entirely?)

We moved from a high farms area to low farms area. My child went to an AAP center where some schools only sent 1-2 kids to AAP in old system. When we moved to UMC neighborhood, about 30-40 kids would get into AAP from the grade. Kn the new system, the poorer school would have at least more kids screen and more kids in AAP.

We were at a MC/UMC ES where only a few kids left for the Center each year, most of the kids stayed at the base school. Why? Parents were not all that concerned about AAP and preferred to keep their kids at the base school with their siblings and friends. It could be that the FARMs kids at the low income school stayed at their base school because it was easier for their parents and/or their parents were not informed on what their kid would get by moving to the Center.

It is my impression that the parents at the low SES schools desperate to get kids to the Center are parents of MC/UMC in the area who are trying to get out of the high FARMs school without having to move. I know three families where this was the case and two families that moved in between K and First grade because they saw what school was like at a Title 1 ES. The Teachers were working hard, the Principal was great, and their MC kid who had attended a good pre-school and had parents who had been reading to them from birth received very little attention from the Teacher. The parents did not want them to be the advanced kid in the class and spend their day working solo. My friends who waited for AAP were pretty desperate by Second grade.

+1. This is our family. We love our neighborhood, but the base school is challenged with the number of ESOL kids and that is where the resources go. Our kids have easily made it into the pool (& hopefully AAP). But students with average NNAT & CogAT scores in the 140's belong in the pool regardless of their SES or neighborhood when FCPS is admitting 15-20% to AAP. If classroom performance is out of whack with test scores, that will come out later when the fuller review occurs.

Anonymous wrote:It's mostly to help with optics. If the top 10% across all schools is in pool, then around 1400 kids are in-pool. Some number of those kids will be URMs or FARMS. If they let all 99th percentile kids into the pool, they'd probably end up with 1800 kids in the pool, but few or no extra URMs or FARMS kids. This would make the in-pool demographics look worse, even though they'd actually be including more kids and not keeping anyone out.

I think the same is somewhat true for AAP admissions. There is no reason whatsoever to keep kids out who have both high CogAT scores and high achievement scores. Yet, they do. My take is twofold:

By keeping some number of qualified white or Asian kids out of AAP, they're making the demographics look better. As a small example, if 20 Black kids and 80 white/Asian kids are in AAP, it looks better than 20 Black kids and 180 white/Asian kids, even though the exact same number of black kids are being given access.

The other sad reality is that gen ed largely doesn't function without some number of very able kids that the teacher can either ignore or force to act as assistant teachers. My above grade level in all subjects, gen ed DD only had a reading group with the teacher for 15 minutes every second week in a language arts block that was 2 hours per day. The teacher wouldn't have had enough time with the below grade level kids if she didn't have an entire group of kids that she was allowed to ignore. One of the kids in my DD's above grade level reading group spoke fluent Spanish and would constantly be paired with the ESOL kids for projects to act as an assistant ESOL teacher.

The parents of the ignored/assistant teacher delegates should sue FCPS for neglect. We get that they care about kids that won't pass without massive extra attention, but these kids deserve to progress as well.

Don’t conflate in-pool with being accepted into LEVEL IV. I don’t understand the obsession with in-pool designation. If you know enough about the process and care enough to be here complaining about the pool cutoffs, then you know you should parent refer regardless and that the pool designation is just not that meaningful.

It's mostly to help with optics. If the top 10% across all schools is in pool, then around 1400 kids are in-pool. Some number of those kids will be URMs or FARMS. If they let all 99th percentile kids into the pool, they'd probably end up with 1800 kids in the pool, but few or no extra URMs or FARMS kids. This would make the in-pool demographics look worse, even though they'd actually be including more kids and not keeping anyone out.

I think the same is somewhat true for AAP admissions. There is no reason whatsoever to keep kids out who have both high CogAT scores and high achievement scores. Yet, they do. My take is twofold:

By keeping some number of qualified white or Asian kids out of AAP, they're making the demographics look better. As a small example, if 20 Black kids and 80 white/Asian kids are in AAP, it looks better than 20 Black kids and 180 white/Asian kids, even though the exact same number of black kids are being given access.

The other sad reality is that gen ed largely doesn't function without some number of very able kids that the teacher can either ignore or force to act as assistant teachers. My above grade level in all subjects, gen ed DD only had a reading group with the teacher for 15 minutes every second week in a language arts block that was 2 hours per day. The teacher wouldn't have had enough time with the below grade level kids if she didn't have an entire group of kids that she was allowed to ignore. One of the kids in my DD's above grade level reading group spoke fluent Spanish and would constantly be paired with the ESOL kids for projects to act as an assistant ESOL teacher.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong end of the of the telescope.
There is a cutoff (it's usually the 98th percentile or higher on both tests, if you didn't make the cutoff with one score in the 99th percentile, it's probably because you were below the 98th percentile on one of the tests) that is objectively applied to everyone.
But there are some schools where there aren't enough kids making the cutoff to fill even one class so to fill those spaces, they lower the cutoff for those schools.
They aren't applying a higher standard to your kid. They are applying a lower standard to kids from crappy schools.

The cutoff at the richest school in the county is not higher than the cutoff at Greenbriar west with a 20% FARM rate. But the cutoff starts to drop when you have a school where half the kids are ESL and 2/3rds are FARM students.

If you want that lower cutoff, you have to attend a crappier school.

Or you can just do a parent referral.

PP, can you share where the info in bold comes from? Because unless there is misinformation in the "in pool" thread: that parent's kid in Lake Braddock pyramid reported the child had 138 on NNAT and 136 on CogAT and didn't make the pool. Both these scores are in the 99th percentile.

I don’t think the info in bold is consistent with the top 10% criteria. I know a kid last year with close to 140 cogat who didn’t make it to pool in our base school. For Braddock, Sangster is really competitive so it’s likely that the PP’s kid goes there

Is Sangster that competitive at the K-2 level, though, or more particularly because of the large AAP cohort in 3-6? I'd be interested in how big the gap really is between the base community and the neighboring schools - my guess is it's not as significant as you think.

I know AAP kids in three different grades at Sangster and for those classes, at least when they started third grade, the majority of their classes come from Sangster. The same thing cannot be said about White Oaks, another center that in the Braddock pyramid.

If you look at the actual data the number of classes goes from 4 in 2nd grade to 6 in 3rd. Three of those third grade classes are AAP. Roughly 2/3 of the AAP program at Sangster is from outside Sangster. My kid is there now and the AAP class is definitely a mix from all the feeder schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

My understanding is that AAP is supposed to ensure kids who have enrichment needs in their school are getting them.

However, my question is, if this is true, how did the old system work to ensure this? A school-specific in-pool cut off makes sense but a county-wide one does not, as the latter would surely lead to some schools being overrepresented in the review process, no?

Can someone who has been in FCPS for a while help me understand? Is it that the goal of AAP has changed overtime or is it that the approach was misaligned with the goal and has become more aligned? (or something else entirely?)

We moved from a high farms area to low farms area. My child went to an AAP center where some schools only sent 1-2 kids to AAP in old system. When we moved to UMC neighborhood, about 30-40 kids would get into AAP from the grade. Kn the new system, the poorer school would have at least more kids screen and more kids in AAP.

We were at a MC/UMC ES where only a few kids left for the Center each year, most of the kids stayed at the base school. Why? Parents were not all that concerned about AAP and preferred to keep their kids at the base school with their siblings and friends. It could be that the FARMs kids at the low income school stayed at their base school because it was easier for their parents and/or their parents were not informed on what their kid would get by moving to the Center.

It is my impression that the parents at the low SES schools desperate to get kids to the Center are parents of MC/UMC in the area who are trying to get out of the high FARMs school without having to move. I know three families where this was the case and two families that moved in between K and First grade because they saw what school was like at a Title 1 ES. The Teachers were working hard, the Principal was great, and their MC kid who had attended a good pre-school and had parents who had been reading to them from birth received very little attention from the Teacher. The parents did not want them to be the advanced kid in the class and spend their day working solo. My friends who waited for AAP were pretty desperate by Second grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

My understanding is that AAP is supposed to ensure kids who have enrichment needs in their school are getting them.

However, my question is, if this is true, how did the old system work to ensure this? A school-specific in-pool cut off makes sense but a county-wide one does not, as the latter would surely lead to some schools being overrepresented in the review process, no?

Can someone who has been in FCPS for a while help me understand? Is it that the goal of AAP has changed overtime or is it that the approach was misaligned with the goal and has become more aligned? (or something else entirely?)

We moved from a high farms area to low farms area. My child went to an AAP center where some schools only sent 1-2 kids to AAP in old system. When we moved to UMC neighborhood, about 30-40 kids would get into AAP from the grade. Kn the new system, the poorer school would have at least more kids screen and more kids in AAP.

At the end of the day, the new system likely achieves the goals of both systems. All gifted kids will get services, and kids who are advanced in their current school environment will get services.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The in pool scores for higher SES school is significantly higher than lower SES schools. It seems like FCPS is trying to keep students from wealthier schools from accessing AAP. Students scoring in the 99th percentile are not “in pool” at some elementary schools. I can understand lowering the “in pool” requirement for schools that traditionally have less AAP students; but it makes absolutely no sense to try to keep students scoring in the 98th/99th percentile from accessing A
The Advanced Academic Program.

FCPS is trying to “dumb down” the higher performing high schools by lowering the academics for students starting in 3rd grade. Less kids in AAP will mean lower I-ready/SOL scores, less kids taking advanced math in middle school, overall less prepared students for AP/DE classes in high school.

My understanding is that AAP is supposed to ensure kids who have enrichment needs in their school are getting them.

However, my question is, if this is true, how did the old system work to ensure this? A school-specific in-pool cut off makes sense but a county-wide one does not, as the latter would surely lead to some schools being overrepresented in the review process, no?

Can someone who has been in FCPS for a while help me understand? Is it that the goal of AAP has changed overtime or is it that the approach was misaligned with the goal and has become more aligned? (or something else entirely?)

We moved from a high farms area to low farms area. My child went to an AAP center where some schools only sent 1-2 kids to AAP in old system. When we moved to UMC neighborhood, about 30-40 kids would get into AAP from the grade. Kn the new system, the poorer school would have at least more kids screen and more kids in AAP.