Twain, Hughes, South County are all MS AAP centers with less than 300 kids. Glasgow is an example of a low-regarded/low scoring/high FARMS MS with an AAP center that still has 375+ kids... and they are doing well (based on test scores).

Facts... not scare tactics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one has suggested there aren't AAP kids in the Falls Church HS pyramid.

Of course there are some, but FCPS typically has acted to ensure there are critical masses of kids at AAP programs. That's why the AAP center at Twain also pulls from Key and Hayfield, the AAP center at Glasgow also pulls from Holmes and Poe, etc.

You seem to be in denial about the changes that FCPS effected at Jackson and Thoreau. Thoreau just received a major renovation. Its LLIV program is thriving and stands to grow with the addition of students from OES, MWES, and MRES. Conversely, with these changes, one thing we know for sure is that both the GenEd population and Jackson overall will have higher concentration of poverty. The OES and MRES AAP kids are likely to switch over to Thoreau because those schools are already split feeders to Oakton and Madison, and Thoreau primarily feeds to Madison. And, even though MWES feeds only to Oakton, those parents have heard others in their community argue Thoreau makes far more sense for their kids than Jackson because of its Vienna location, "time to stop the gerrymandering," and so on.

This will not happen overnight. But it will happen with a few years. Jackson will end up majority FARMS, and with a smaller AAP program that sends relatively few kids to TJ. Thoreau will be an AAP center in all but name and, quite possibly, overcrowded. All because the School Board representatives with ties to that area - particularly Palchik, Hynes and Keys-Gamarra - put the interests of Oakton and AAP families above those of Falls Church and GenEd families. If that prospect makes you unhappy, you need to replace them, not pretend that little will change. Because we have already seen that movie in FCPS, and that is NOT how it works out.

Cry me a river. The schools should be based on proximity! Gerrymandering was and is, sadly, too real! Surprisingly the “liberals“ are all for it in this area when it comes es to school boundaries. Get over it!

MWES AAP feeds to Thoreau, Jackson, Frost, Rocky Run and Lanier. It’s quite unfair for the MWES aap kids who are at base to keep getting the short end of the stick. Honestly, it’s like they were nomads all through until high school.

Anonymous wrote:No one has suggested there aren't AAP kids in the Falls Church HS pyramid.

Of course there are some, but FCPS typically has acted to ensure there are critical masses of kids at AAP programs. That's why the AAP center at Twain also pulls from Key and Hayfield, the AAP center at Glasgow also pulls from Holmes and Poe, etc.

You seem to be in denial about the changes that FCPS effected at Jackson and Thoreau. Thoreau just received a major renovation. Its LLIV program is thriving and stands to grow with the addition of students from OES, MWES, and MRES. Conversely, with these changes, one thing we know for sure is that both the GenEd population and Jackson overall will have higher concentration of poverty. The OES and MRES AAP kids are likely to switch over to Thoreau because those schools are already split feeders to Oakton and Madison, and Thoreau primarily feeds to Madison. And, even though MWES feeds only to Oakton, those parents have heard others in their community argue Thoreau makes far more sense for their kids than Jackson because of its Vienna location, "time to stop the gerrymandering," and so on.

This will not happen overnight. But it will happen with a few years. Jackson will end up majority FARMS, and with a smaller AAP program that sends relatively few kids to TJ. Thoreau will be an AAP center in all but name and, quite possibly, overcrowded. All because the School Board representatives with ties to that area - particularly Palchik, Hynes and Keys-Gamarra - put the interests of Oakton and AAP families above those of Falls Church and GenEd families. If that prospect makes you unhappy, you need to replace them, not pretend that little will change. Because we have already seen that movie in FCPS, and that is NOT how it works out.

Cry me a river. The schools should be based on proximity! Gerrymandering was and is, sadly, too real! Surprisingly the “liberals“ are all for it in this area when it comes es to school boundaries. Get over it!

Can you tell me what the stock market will do? You sure do have a crystal clear vision of the future!

The point is that even without any Oakton or Madison kids (accepting your gloom and doom for the sake of argument), Jackson will still have a viable AAP center. Period. That said, you are just making things up at this point in saying that no Oakton or Madison kids will choose Jackson.

You are bound and determined to expect the worst, and even then you are dismissing the actual facts == that there are plenty of AAP kids to sustain a strong center within the Falls Church pyramid kids. 300 kids (in two grades) is a plenty strong MS AAP center.

Anonymous wrote:No one has suggested there aren't AAP kids in the Falls Church HS pyramid.

Of course there are some, but FCPS typically has acted to ensure there are critical masses of kids at AAP programs. That's why the AAP center at Twain also pulls from Key and Hayfield, the AAP center at Glasgow also pulls from Holmes and Poe, etc.

You seem to be in denial about the changes that FCPS effected at Jackson and Thoreau. Thoreau just received a major renovation. Its LLIV program is thriving and stands to grow with the addition of students from OES, MWES, and MRES. Conversely, with these changes, one thing we know for sure is that both the GenEd population and Jackson overall will have higher concentration of poverty. The OES and MRES AAP kids are likely to switch over to Thoreau because those schools are already split feeders to Oakton and Madison, and Thoreau primarily feeds to Madison. And, even though MWES feeds only to Oakton, those parents have heard others in their community argue Thoreau makes far more sense for their kids than Jackson because of its Vienna location, "time to stop the gerrymandering," and so on.

This will not happen overnight. But it will happen with a few years. Jackson will end up majority FARMS, and with a smaller AAP program that sends relatively few kids to TJ. Thoreau will be an AAP center in all but name and, quite possibly, overcrowded. All because the School Board representatives with ties to that area - particularly Palchik, Hynes and Keys-Gamarra - put the interests of Oakton and AAP families above those of Falls Church and GenEd families. If that prospect makes you unhappy, you need to replace them, not pretend that little will change. Because we have already seen that movie in FCPS, and that is NOT how it works out.

Exactly

No one has suggested there aren't AAP kids in the Falls Church HS pyramid.

Of course there are some, but FCPS typically has acted to ensure there are critical masses of kids at AAP programs. That's why the AAP center at Twain also pulls from Key and Hayfield, the AAP center at Glasgow also pulls from Holmes and Poe, etc.

You seem to be in denial about the changes that FCPS effected at Jackson and Thoreau. Thoreau just received a major renovation. Its LLIV program is thriving and stands to grow with the addition of students from OES, MWES, and MRES. Conversely, with these changes, one thing we know for sure is that both the GenEd population and Jackson overall will have higher concentration of poverty. The OES and MRES AAP kids are likely to switch over to Thoreau because those schools are already split feeders to Oakton and Madison, and Thoreau primarily feeds to Madison. And, even though MWES feeds only to Oakton, those parents have heard others in their community argue Thoreau makes far more sense for their kids than Jackson because of its Vienna location, "time to stop the gerrymandering," and so on.

This will not happen overnight. But it will happen with a few years. Jackson will end up majority FARMS, and with a smaller AAP program that sends relatively few kids to TJ. Thoreau will be an AAP center in all but name and, quite possibly, overcrowded. All because the School Board representatives with ties to that area - particularly Palchik, Hynes and Keys-Gamarra - put the interests of Oakton and AAP families above those of Falls Church and GenEd families. If that prospect makes you unhappy, you need to replace them, not pretend that little will change. Because we have already seen that movie in FCPS, and that is NOT how it works out.

Agreed. Most of my DCs friends from LJ AAP are from LA or MW-one or two were from OES.

Even if over a period of years,

* the Oakton pyramid AAP kids decide to stay with their Oakton non-AAP counterparts (which I actually don't think will happen b/c they don't mix much at the ES center level) and

* the Madison pyramid AAP kids decide to stay with their Madison non-AAP peers (at TMS)...

you seem to think there aren't AAP kids IN THE FALLS CHURCH pyramid. There are. There are plenty of them. They will still be going to Jackson's AAP center.

As it has been for the past four years, there are some Madison AAP kids who chose to leave Madison pyramid knowing that there will be only a small group of kids that go on with them to Madison from LJ. Yet, they still choose it.

For a variety of reasons, some Oakton pyramid kids and some Madison pyramid kids will still choose Jackson. They are used to seeing themselves as separate from the rest of the school (i.e .AAP is separate from the base school in ES).

Some AAP kids choose not to go to Hughes MS and instead, stay at Herndon MS to stay within the pyramid. It's not because they see Hughes as inferior. They simply don't want to start over socially in 9th grade. Same is true on the other side of the county with Hayfield and Twain. Some AAP kids from Hayfield pyramid ditch Twain AAP so they can get connected with the group they will be with for HS.

Those who are choosing Jackson (from what I have observed) choose it b/c they are happy with the quality of the AAP part of the school.... and they aren't concerned with whatever is happening in the base part of the school. I think that will continue for a long time.

In a LL4 program like OES, AAP kids may be more socially connected with the non-AAP kids from OES -- which may motivate them to go to MS together. In a center program like MWES, the AAP are not socially connected to the non-AAP kids at all (unless they live on the same street). I don't think those AAP kids care where their non-AAP peers are going to MS. They are socially connected within the AAP kids and they are more likely to stay together at LJ.

Anonymous wrote:The shift in preference won't all happen in one year, particularly given the timing of the decision this year. It will manifest itself over a longer period, but the end result is that the LJ AAP program won't be as strong as it was, and the Thoreau LLIV program will be comparable to an AAP center.

If the posters claiming this will have no impact on the AAP program at LJ can point to a single instance where FCPS kids who had a choice between an AAP center at a high-poverty school and a comparable LLIV program at a low-poverty school primarily or overwhelmingly opted for the AAP center, because it was called a "center" and had a longer track record as such, I'd be very interested. It certainly won't involve a middle school AAP program, and the situations at the elementary school level seem to point in the opposite direction. For example, there aren't many Floris ES AAP kids attending the AAP center at lower-income McNair ES, or kids from Silverbrook ES attending the AAP center at lower-income Lorton Station ES. It does look like a fair number of Clermont ES kids attend the AAP center at lower-income Springfield Estates ES, so that arguably portends well for Jackson, but that seems to be more the exception than the rule (and even that may change now that Clermont offers LLIV).

This. It's not rocket science. It's obvious.

The shift in preference won't all happen in one year, particularly given the timing of the decision this year. It will manifest itself over a longer period, but the end result is that the LJ AAP program won't be as strong as it was, and the Thoreau LLIV program will be comparable to an AAP center.

If the posters claiming this will have no impact on the AAP program at LJ can point to a single instance where FCPS kids who had a choice between an AAP center at a high-poverty school and a comparable LLIV program at a low-poverty school primarily or overwhelmingly opted for the AAP center, because it was called a "center" and had a longer track record as such, I'd be very interested. It certainly won't involve a middle school AAP program, and the situations at the elementary school level seem to point in the opposite direction. For example, there aren't many Floris ES AAP kids attending the AAP center at lower-income McNair ES, or kids from Silverbrook ES attending the AAP center at lower-income Lorton Station ES. It does look like a fair number of Clermont ES kids attend the AAP center at lower-income Springfield Estates ES, so that arguably portends well for Jackson, but that seems to be more the exception than the rule (and even that may change now that Clermont offers LLIV).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct. A large percentage of the Louise Archer 6th graders are headed to Jackson.

Hasn't that always been the case with LA - AAP goes to LJ (with a choice of TMS) and then on to Madison while Gen ED goes to TMS then on to Madison? If nothing has changed this year at LA, I would expect past behavior to continue.

Absolutely not the case, historically, at LA. This year seems to have produced a bumper crop of kids heading to LJ. Wonder why

This happened last year, too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct. A large percentage of the Louise Archer 6th graders are headed to Jackson.

Hasn't that always been the case with LA - AAP goes to LJ (with a choice of TMS) and then on to Madison while Gen ED goes to TMS then on to Madison? If nothing has changed this year at LA, I would expect past behavior to continue.

Absolutely not the case, historically, at LA. This year seems to have produced a bumper crop of kids heading to LJ. Wonder why

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct. A large percentage of the Louise Archer 6th graders are headed to Jackson.

Hasn't that always been the case with LA - AAP goes to LJ (with a choice of TMS) and then on to Madison while Gen ED goes to TMS then on to Madison? If nothing has changed this year at LA, I would expect past behavior to continue.

Of course, past behavior at LA would continue if nothing has changed. But the changes at both Thoreau (redistricting, expansion of enrollment) and Jackson (higher poverty rates and greater gap between the GenEd and AAP populations) change the dynamics for students who have the option to choose between schools.

Anonymous wrote:Correct. A large percentage of the Louise Archer 6th graders are headed to Jackson.

Hasn't that always been the case with LA - AAP goes to LJ (with a choice of TMS) and then on to Madison while Gen ED goes to TMS then on to Madison? If nothing has changed this year at LA, I would expect past behavior to continue.

6th grade AAP, that is. Base school students all go to Thoreau.