Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of folks are accusing FCPS of going in this "new direction" for advanced academics with politically charged implications. What else is FCPS supposed to do with changing demographics and dropping socio-economic levels? FCPS is a public school system charged with educating everyone. Fairfax County is at a point of development far beyond the old days of a predominantly wealthy, white population where public education was easy.

There's no easy answer to mixing students vs. separating them, having Centers vs. local AAP. It's a lose-lose situation but the core issue is far beyond what FCPS can address. The issue is class size, space availability, and need for hundreds more specialized teachers and assistants to educate children that have more needs than ever.

Draw lines to more equally distribute kids who require those extra resources

Do you mean busing? Or rehoming families? Boundary lines aren't really the problem.

The county is choosing where to build subsidized and low income housing. Some areas have more than schools can handle and some areas have none.

The county and the school district are two separate entities. They work together or align, sometimes. But they're not the same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of folks are accusing FCPS of going in this "new direction" for advanced academics with politically charged implications. What else is FCPS supposed to do with changing demographics and dropping socio-economic levels? FCPS is a public school system charged with educating everyone. Fairfax County is at a point of development far beyond the old days of a predominantly wealthy, white population where public education was easy.

There's no easy answer to mixing students vs. separating them, having Centers vs. local AAP. It's a lose-lose situation but the core issue is far beyond what FCPS can address. The issue is class size, space availability, and need for hundreds more specialized teachers and assistants to educate children that have more needs than ever.

Draw lines to more equally distribute kids who require those extra resources

Do you mean busing? Or rehoming families? Boundary lines aren't really the problem.

The county is choosing where to build subsidized and low income housing. Some areas have more than schools can handle and some areas have none.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of folks are accusing FCPS of going in this "new direction" for advanced academics with politically charged implications. What else is FCPS supposed to do with changing demographics and dropping socio-economic levels? FCPS is a public school system charged with educating everyone. Fairfax County is at a point of development far beyond the old days of a predominantly wealthy, white population where public education was easy.

There's no easy answer to mixing students vs. separating them, having Centers vs. local AAP. It's a lose-lose situation but the core issue is far beyond what FCPS can address. The issue is class size, space availability, and need for hundreds more specialized teachers and assistants to educate children that have more needs than ever.

Draw lines to more equally distribute kids who require those extra resources

Do you mean busing? Or rehoming families? Boundary lines aren't really the problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - kind of confusing meeting but basically there will now be two AAP classes per grade now with “peer groups” or differentiation within each classroom. General gist is that they want to avail AAP to all who can handle it. I think this is the beginning of moving away from AAP, removing the “us and them” dynamic in schools.

Are you kidding? In a school like Shrevewood it's essentially going to segregate the English learners, hispanic kids, and low performers into two classrooms and the white, asian, and middle eastern kids into two high performing classrooms. It's a TERRIBLE idea.

Someone asked about the potential disparity in he GE homerooms (without the racial references) and the group was given assurances that this wouldn't happen. I think as someone else pointed out they are eventually going to phase out the AAP designation but use the curriculum in varying levels within each classroom based on each child's ability.

I would love to know what they said specifically about this. "Oh we'll make sure that's not going to happen" or did they give specific things they are going to do to ensure it won't happen? I hope they send out more info!

The school is 24% farms (not a perfect proxy for learning level, but not a bad one either). Do they push them into the high performing classrooms and let them slow down the AAPish classes? The other option would be to not put them in those classes, but then the other two classes are suddenly 1/2 farms. I doubt there is a good solution

The solution is that they push them in -- presumably. It won't be a good look otherwise. This is the direction of FCPS and AAP.

I hope this is the route they go - it makes sense. It's not like these children aren't also excellent students, don't have critical thinking skills, etc., they just haven't been given the right opportunities. Not to mention that in many schools, the AAP kids in their tiny little ivory towers would benefit from a little diversity.

Anonymous wrote:Lots of folks are accusing FCPS of going in this "new direction" for advanced academics with politically charged implications. What else is FCPS supposed to do with changing demographics and dropping socio-economic levels? FCPS is a public school system charged with educating everyone. Fairfax County is at a point of development far beyond the old days of a predominantly wealthy, white population where public education was easy.

There's no easy answer to mixing students vs. separating them, having Centers vs. local AAP. It's a lose-lose situation but the core issue is far beyond what FCPS can address. The issue is class size, space availability, and need for hundreds more specialized teachers and assistants to educate children that have more needs than ever.

Draw lines to more equally distribute kids who require those extra resources

Lots of folks are accusing FCPS of going in this "new direction" for advanced academics with politically charged implications. What else is FCPS supposed to do with changing demographics and dropping socio-economic levels? FCPS is a public school system charged with educating everyone. Fairfax County is at a point of development far beyond the old days of a predominantly wealthy, white population where public education was easy.

There's no easy answer to mixing students vs. separating them, having Centers vs. local AAP. It's a lose-lose situation but the core issue is far beyond what FCPS can address. The issue is class size, space availability, and need for hundreds more specialized teachers and assistants to educate children that have more needs than ever.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - kind of confusing meeting but basically there will now be two AAP classes per grade now with “peer groups” or differentiation within each classroom. General gist is that they want to avail AAP to all who can handle it. I think this is the beginning of moving away from AAP, removing the “us and them” dynamic in schools.

Are you kidding? In a school like Shrevewood it's essentially going to segregate the English learners, hispanic kids, and low performers into two classrooms and the white, asian, and middle eastern kids into two high performing classrooms. It's a TERRIBLE idea.

Someone asked about the potential disparity in he GE homerooms (without the racial references) and the group was given assurances that this wouldn't happen. I think as someone else pointed out they are eventually going to phase out the AAP designation but use the curriculum in varying levels within each classroom based on each child's ability.

I would love to know what they said specifically about this. "Oh we'll make sure that's not going to happen" or did they give specific things they are going to do to ensure it won't happen? I hope they send out more info!

The school is 24% farms (not a perfect proxy for learning level, but not a bad one either). Do they push them into the high performing classrooms and let them slow down the AAPish classes? The other option would be to not put them in those classes, but then the other two classes are suddenly 1/2 farms. I doubt there is a good solution

The solution is that they push them in -- presumably. It won't be a good look otherwise. This is the direction of FCPS and AAP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - kind of confusing meeting but basically there will now be two AAP classes per grade now with “peer groups” or differentiation within each classroom. General gist is that they want to avail AAP to all who can handle it. I think this is the beginning of moving away from AAP, removing the “us and them” dynamic in schools.

Are you kidding? In a school like Shrevewood it's essentially going to segregate the English learners, hispanic kids, and low performers into two classrooms and the white, asian, and middle eastern kids into two high performing classrooms. It's a TERRIBLE idea.

Someone asked about the potential disparity in he GE homerooms (without the racial references) and the group was given assurances that this wouldn't happen. I think as someone else pointed out they are eventually going to phase out the AAP designation but use the curriculum in varying levels within each classroom based on each child's ability.

I would love to know what they said specifically about this. "Oh we'll make sure that's not going to happen" or did they give specific things they are going to do to ensure it won't happen? I hope they send out more info!

The school is 24% farms (not a perfect proxy for learning level, but not a bad one either). Do they push them into the high performing classrooms and let them slow down the AAPish classes? The other option would be to not put them in those classes, but then the other two classes are suddenly 1/2 farms. I doubt there is a good solution

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - kind of confusing meeting but basically there will now be two AAP classes per grade now with “peer groups” or differentiation within each classroom. General gist is that they want to avail AAP to all who can handle it. I think this is the beginning of moving away from AAP, removing the “us and them” dynamic in schools.

Are you kidding? In a school like Shrevewood it's essentially going to segregate the English learners, hispanic kids, and low performers into two classrooms and the white, asian, and middle eastern kids into two high performing classrooms. It's a TERRIBLE idea.

Someone asked about the potential disparity in he GE homerooms (without the racial references) and the group was given assurances that this wouldn't happen. I think as someone else pointed out they are eventually going to phase out the AAP designation but use the curriculum in varying levels within each classroom based on each child's ability.

I would love to know what they said specifically about this. "Oh we'll make sure that's not going to happen" or did they give specific things they are going to do to ensure it won't happen? I hope they send out more info!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It honestly doesn’t. Mine had a CogAT of 138. She’s smart. She’s not gifted. She has a friend who had a perfect score on the NNAT. Also not gifted. The gifted kids I know (handful) that have taken the CogAT scored in the 150s (without any prep). You’d probably need to use IQ tests to identify most of them.
I have a friend elsewhere in the country, whose daughter was screened for gifted services after she was identified by her teachers. They don’t have this sort of let’s give everyone an ability test and call it done approach, and since the screening test is an IQ test, is much more likely to actually identify giftedness.

I agree!! Have a program for the truly gifted.
Let the rest of the kids opt in/out of aap.
Current cut offs capture bright kids, not gifted. Many bright children (including my own) benefit from parents who place emphasis on advancing their child through out of school exposures and a culture of learning. This is likely most parents who come to this forum. The truly exceptional kids are not the ones scoring a Cogat of 132. I do not know the truly gifted cut offs, but would agree with 150+.

Also agree. It's funny that people with relatively bright kids want so desperately to be put into classrooms with the truly gifted kids to get all the benefits of being surrounded by students of higher-caliber, but they don't want the modest general ed kids to be around their own kids!

Classism and segregation continues on well into this century...

The way the system was designed was to give the "truly gifted" kids a cohort of kids to fill out the class. As a parent of a "truly gifted" kid, I'm glad that he's able to have a cohort of 3 AAP classes that are switched up each year, rather than only being a single small class of similarly truly gifted kids for 4 years.

In this case, they should stick with Centers and send only truly gifted kids to centers or do what most other school districts do and have one day or a half day every week dedicated to gifted and talented stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It honestly doesn’t. Mine had a CogAT of 138. She’s smart. She’s not gifted. She has a friend who had a perfect score on the NNAT. Also not gifted. The gifted kids I know (handful) that have taken the CogAT scored in the 150s (without any prep). You’d probably need to use IQ tests to identify most of them.
I have a friend elsewhere in the country, whose daughter was screened for gifted services after she was identified by her teachers. They don’t have this sort of let’s give everyone an ability test and call it done approach, and since the screening test is an IQ test, is much more likely to actually identify giftedness.

I agree!! Have a program for the truly gifted.
Let the rest of the kids opt in/out of aap.
Current cut offs capture bright kids, not gifted. Many bright children (including my own) benefit from parents who place emphasis on advancing their child through out of school exposures and a culture of learning. This is likely most parents who come to this forum. The truly exceptional kids are not the ones scoring a Cogat of 132. I do not know the truly gifted cut offs, but would agree with 150+.

Also agree. It's funny that people with relatively bright kids want so desperately to be put into classrooms with the truly gifted kids to get all the benefits of being surrounded by students of higher-caliber, but they don't want the modest general ed kids to be around their own kids!

Classism and segregation continues on well into this century...

The way the system was designed was to give the "truly gifted" kids a cohort of kids to fill out the class. As a parent of a "truly gifted" kid, I'm glad that he's able to have a cohort of 3 AAP classes that are switched up each year, rather than only being a single small class of similarly truly gifted kids for 4 years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It honestly doesn’t. Mine had a CogAT of 138. She’s smart. She’s not gifted. She has a friend who had a perfect score on the NNAT. Also not gifted. The gifted kids I know (handful) that have taken the CogAT scored in the 150s (without any prep). You’d probably need to use IQ tests to identify most of them.
I have a friend elsewhere in the country, whose daughter was screened for gifted services after she was identified by her teachers. They don’t have this sort of let’s give everyone an ability test and call it done approach, and since the screening test is an IQ test, is much more likely to actually identify giftedness.

I agree!! Have a program for the truly gifted.
Let the rest of the kids opt in/out of aap.
Current cut offs capture bright kids, not gifted. Many bright children (including my own) benefit from parents who place emphasis on advancing their child through out of school exposures and a culture of learning. This is likely most parents who come to this forum. The truly exceptional kids are not the ones scoring a Cogat of 132. I do not know the truly gifted cut offs, but would agree with 150+.

Also agree. It's funny that people with relatively bright kids want so desperately to be put into classrooms with the truly gifted kids to get all the benefits of being surrounded by students of higher-caliber, but they don't want the modest general ed kids to be around their own kids!

Classism and segregation continues on well into this century...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think parents in this area are obsessed with AAP. Kids will be gone even if they are not in AAP.
Selection process is holistic but test scores and GBRS are the main ones. Reading is important but done kids do become advanced readers in 3rd and 4th grade.

When I moved here, in my early 20s, my earnest co-workers said that I should move to Fairfax County when I had kids, for the GT program. This was in DC. AAP is well-known throughout the region and lots of families move here for it, including us.

I'm continually surprised at how oblivious the school board is to this. I mean, I've realized over the years that parts of the FCPS administration is openly hostile towards AAP and is trying to get rid of it. I thought the school board would have known better. But they don't.

It goes both ways. When I was pregnant with my first one of my co-workers we call “Tiger Mom” was prepping her kid for tests and even had the dad take the younger kid on vacation for a week so her older child would have no distractions during test week. That sealed the deal for us on moving to Arlington. As two former “gifted kids”, we wanted no part of the AAP competitiveness for our own kids. According to these boards, my kid’s unprepped CogAT would be considered high and yet he has peers on his level in his “regular” classes and is happy and doing great. I don’t get the Lake Wobegone obsession in FFX of making sure everyone knows all the kids are above average or creating a caste system within the schools.

Arlington has its own problems and we can't afford a house in a good arlington school district, but I agree with you on the segregation by test score issue. It's ridiculous. My DD is at the age where the AAP mean girls have started to exclude friends who are not in their class from outside activities (some of these girls are in sports, scouts, etc together, and have known each other since preschool, it's sad).

I think that this is a school culture issue. My daughter is at a not particularly well regarded center. The kids are all friends with each other. During recess, they play together. For specials, they're in mixed groups. I have heard discriminatory nonsense out of kids at other schools, but not this one.

I think combining for specials and recess/lunch is a big deal. The more some kids are kept away from others, the more screwed up the school culture will get

The solution is do not send your child to center school. Opt for local level IV schools.

It's not that simple. For one thing, our base school does not have a LLIV. Even if it did, given the choice between that and the center, I would choose center, because the administration is terrible. It wasn't until DD was in 4th grade that they even started offering in-class differentiation earlier than 5th grade. I'm still on the email list from the base, and am lucky to get maybe an email a month or two, whereas current school is much more communicative. When COVID hit, the center school did a pretty incredible job of holding meetings, keeping the community together, and informed. Her center school also pulls kids from a *much* more diverse body, so her overall school experience is much better at the center. There are tangible reasons to choose one over the other.

As further proof that the base school sucks, my new neighbor, whose kids are in gen ed, ended up sending her kids to the center, after one of her kids was relentlessly bullied, and the administration was slow walking the response. From what she says, the bully hadn't just targeted her kid, and was physically violent, and the school did nothing. Their kids are so much happier where they landed, although they had to leave their friends and move to a school in the middle of the school year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - kind of confusing meeting but basically there will now be two AAP classes per grade now with “peer groups” or differentiation within each classroom. General gist is that they want to avail AAP to all who can handle it. I think this is the beginning of moving away from AAP, removing the “us and them” dynamic in schools.

Are you kidding? In a school like Shrevewood it's essentially going to segregate the English learners, hispanic kids, and low performers into two classrooms and the white, asian, and middle eastern kids into two high performing classrooms. It's a TERRIBLE idea.

Someone asked about the potential disparity in he GE homerooms (without the racial references) and the group was given assurances that this wouldn't happen. I think as someone else pointed out they are eventually going to phase out the AAP designation but use the curriculum in varying levels within each classroom based on each child's ability.

Some parent will do the math and then complain to gate house if the GE class rooms are loaded with ESOL and special needs kids.

I think they're going to steer clear of this. As posted in another forum on here, other ES's are moving in this same direction.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - kind of confusing meeting but basically there will now be two AAP classes per grade now with “peer groups” or differentiation within each classroom. General gist is that they want to avail AAP to all who can handle it. I think this is the beginning of moving away from AAP, removing the “us and them” dynamic in schools.

Are you kidding? In a school like Shrevewood it's essentially going to segregate the English learners, hispanic kids, and low performers into two classrooms and the white, asian, and middle eastern kids into two high performing classrooms. It's a TERRIBLE idea.

Someone asked about the potential disparity in he GE homerooms (without the racial references) and the group was given assurances that this wouldn't happen. I think as someone else pointed out they are eventually going to phase out the AAP designation but use the curriculum in varying levels within each classroom based on each child's ability.

Some parent will do the math and then complain to gate house if the GE class rooms are loaded with ESOL and special needs kids.