Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are only in preschool and we are new to the area. I think it would be great if each pyramid stayed in its own school pyramid that offered AAP.

I grew up in a school district that was considered strong. We had 6 elementary schools that rolled up to one middle school and one high school. I would LOVE if that was the case here in FX county.

With the exception of TJ, I think kids should attend their zoned public school pyramid.

How did the talented and gifted program work in your "strong school district?" Did you simply have pull-outs or did you have full-time talented and gifted classrooms? If your elementary school had a small number of students in the full-time classroom, did your strong school district have the budget $ to sustain such a small classroom size?

We had full time honors classes in junior high and high school. In elementary school, there were gifted classes (math and english only I think) and we also did pull outs for other enrichment extracurriculars.

I don't know anything about the budget since I didn't think about that when I was a kid. The area was an affluent suburb.

So the talented and gifted program in your "strong school district" was not as extensive as the program options in FCPS. Therefore, you would "LOVE" if that was the case here.

Yes, I would like it if my kids went to the same middle school and high school as the other kids in the neighborhood.

I eventually went to Harvard and many of my classmates went to Penn, Dartmouth, Yale, etc. If you were an "average" honor/AP student, you went to UMich, NYU, BU, etc. Our school was well regarded and many people moved to the area for the strong school district.

I'm familiar with those types of small affluent districts. We moved here from one and that move was a mistake. Some people here consider any school district that runs academics without a big AAP/GT busing as inferior.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are only in preschool and we are new to the area. I think it would be great if each pyramid stayed in its own school pyramid that offered AAP.

I grew up in a school district that was considered strong. We had 6 elementary schools that rolled up to one middle school and one high school. I would LOVE if that was the case here in FX county.

With the exception of TJ, I think kids should attend their zoned public school pyramid.

How did the talented and gifted program work in your "strong school district?" Did you simply have pull-outs or did you have full-time talented and gifted classrooms? If your elementary school had a small number of students in the full-time classroom, did your strong school district have the budget $ to sustain such a small classroom size?

We had full time honors classes in junior high and high school. In elementary school, there were gifted classes (math and english only I think) and we also did pull outs for other enrichment extracurriculars.

I don't know anything about the budget since I didn't think about that when I was a kid. The area was an affluent suburb.

So the talented and gifted program in your "strong school district" was not as extensive as the program options in FCPS. Therefore, you would "LOVE" if that was the case here.

PP here. I do not like the way the kids are split up in elementary school, junior high school and high school here because of AAP.

In our zoned school district, the AAP kids get sent to a center in 3rd grade. That elementary AAP center then splits into 2 different middle school AAP centers, which feeds into 2 different high schools. I believe a significant percentage of students goes to Thomas Jefferson from those 2 middle schools. I would prefer if all the elementary AAP students would attend the same middle school and high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are only in preschool and we are new to the area. I think it would be great if each pyramid stayed in its own school pyramid that offered AAP.

I grew up in a school district that was considered strong. We had 6 elementary schools that rolled up to one middle school and one high school. I would LOVE if that was the case here in FX county.

With the exception of TJ, I think kids should attend their zoned public school pyramid.

How did the talented and gifted program work in your "strong school district?" Did you simply have pull-outs or did you have full-time talented and gifted classrooms? If your elementary school had a small number of students in the full-time classroom, did your strong school district have the budget $ to sustain such a small classroom size?

We had full time honors classes in junior high and high school. In elementary school, there were gifted classes (math and english only I think) and we also did pull outs for other enrichment extracurriculars.

I don't know anything about the budget since I didn't think about that when I was a kid. The area was an affluent suburb.

So the talented and gifted program in your "strong school district" was not as extensive as the program options in FCPS. Therefore, you would "LOVE" if that was the case here.

Yes, I would like it if my kids went to the same middle school and high school as the other kids in the neighborhood.

I eventually went to Harvard and many of my classmates went to Penn, Dartmouth, Yale, etc. If you were an "average" honor/AP student, you went to UMich, NYU, BU, etc. Our school was well regarded and many people moved to the area for the strong school district.

I went to Harvard for undergrad, too. What year were you there? I crossed the river for my Masters and did my PhD at CMU.

I want my kids to not just get full-time honors classes in middle school as honors classes are open enrollment and have been (arguably) watered down. Perhaps you are not aware of this since you have preschoolers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are only in preschool and we are new to the area. I think it would be great if each pyramid stayed in its own school pyramid that offered AAP.

I grew up in a school district that was considered strong. We had 6 elementary schools that rolled up to one middle school and one high school. I would LOVE if that was the case here in FX county.

With the exception of TJ, I think kids should attend their zoned public school pyramid.

How did the talented and gifted program work in your "strong school district?" Did you simply have pull-outs or did you have full-time talented and gifted classrooms? If your elementary school had a small number of students in the full-time classroom, did your strong school district have the budget $ to sustain such a small classroom size?

We had full time honors classes in junior high and high school. In elementary school, there were gifted classes (math and english only I think) and we also did pull outs for other enrichment extracurriculars.

I don't know anything about the budget since I didn't think about that when I was a kid. The area was an affluent suburb.

So the talented and gifted program in your "strong school district" was not as extensive as the program options in FCPS. Therefore, you would "LOVE" if that was the case here.

Yes, I would like it if my kids went to the same middle school and high school as the other kids in the neighborhood.

I eventually went to Harvard and many of my classmates went to Penn, Dartmouth, Yale, etc. If you were an "average" honor/AP student, you went to UMich, NYU, BU, etc. Our school was well regarded and many people moved to the area for the strong school district.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are only in preschool and we are new to the area. I think it would be great if each pyramid stayed in its own school pyramid that offered AAP.

I grew up in a school district that was considered strong. We had 6 elementary schools that rolled up to one middle school and one high school. I would LOVE if that was the case here in FX county.

With the exception of TJ, I think kids should attend their zoned public school pyramid.

How did the talented and gifted program work in your "strong school district?" Did you simply have pull-outs or did you have full-time talented and gifted classrooms? If your elementary school had a small number of students in the full-time classroom, did your strong school district have the budget $ to sustain such a small classroom size?

We had full time honors classes in junior high and high school. In elementary school, there were gifted classes (math and english only I think) and we also did pull outs for other enrichment extracurriculars.

I don't know anything about the budget since I didn't think about that when I was a kid. The area was an affluent suburb.

So the talented and gifted program in your "strong school district" was not as extensive as the program options in FCPS. Therefore, you would "LOVE" if that was the case here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are only in preschool and we are new to the area. I think it would be great if each pyramid stayed in its own school pyramid that offered AAP.

I grew up in a school district that was considered strong. We had 6 elementary schools that rolled up to one middle school and one high school. I would LOVE if that was the case here in FX county.

With the exception of TJ, I think kids should attend their zoned public school pyramid.

How did the talented and gifted program work in your "strong school district?" Did you simply have pull-outs or did you have full-time talented and gifted classrooms? If your elementary school had a small number of students in the full-time classroom, did your strong school district have the budget $ to sustain such a small classroom size?

We had full time honors classes in junior high and high school. In elementary school, there were gifted classes (math and english only I think) and we also did pull outs for other enrichment extracurriculars.

I don't know anything about the budget since I didn't think about that when I was a kid. The area was an affluent suburb.

Anonymous wrote:My kids are only in preschool and we are new to the area. I think it would be great if each pyramid stayed in its own school pyramid that offered AAP.

I grew up in a school district that was considered strong. We had 6 elementary schools that rolled up to one middle school and one high school. I would LOVE if that was the case here in FX county.

With the exception of TJ, I think kids should attend their zoned public school pyramid.

How did the talented and gifted program work in your "strong school district?" Did you simply have pull-outs or did you have full-time talented and gifted classrooms? If your elementary school had a small number of students in the full-time classroom, did your strong school district have the budget $ to sustain such a small classroom size?

My kids are only in preschool and we are new to the area. I think it would be great if each pyramid stayed in its own school pyramid that offered AAP.

I grew up in a school district that was considered strong. We had 6 elementary schools that rolled up to one middle school and one high school. I would LOVE if that was the case here in FX county.

With the exception of TJ, I think kids should attend their zoned public school pyramid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate to tell you, PP. Even if they move other kids out of LA, I wouldn't plan on them adding the kids form Marshall Road back in. It's overcrowded.

That's what they show in their proposal, so we'll just wait and see.

Not the poster to whom you're responding, but I don't think FCPS has released a proposal for specific schools yet. The Task Force has calculated the number of AAP students who come from elementary schools within specific HS pyramids. It doesn't mean all those students will end up at the same AAP centers, at least not within the next year or so.

I agree with the poster who suggested that, in the short term, the most likely thing to happen is that some students will get moved out of Archer and Haycock to a new center at a Marshall feeder, but this begs the question as to what school in the Marshall pyramid could accommodate those students by the fall of 2013. Most of the Marshall feeders are projected to grow more rapidly than the Madison and McLean feeders over the next five years, and that's before a new AAP center is opened.

Anonymous wrote:I hate to tell you, PP. Even if they move other kids out of LA, I wouldn't plan on them adding the kids form Marshall Road back in. It's overcrowded.

That's what they show in their proposal, so we'll just wait and see.

I hate to tell you, PP. Even if they move other kids out of LA, I wouldn't plan on them adding the kids form Marshall Road back in. It's overcrowded.

Marshall High School does need its own center. Right now Stenwood, Freedom Hill and Westbriar, which are all in the Marshall High School Pyramid get sent to Louise Archer in the Madison pyramid, while Marshall Road Elementary which is in the Madison pyramid and is very close physically to Louise Archer gets sent to Mosby Woods in the Oakton pyramid. Ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:The issue is that both Lemon Road and Westgate are split feeders between 2 high school pyramids, but they are both technically in cluster 2. So moving these kids out of Haycock and assigning them to a Marshall pyramid AAP center will align them with their cluster, but not their pyramid.

Actually, "technically" both Lemon Road and Westgate are in the Marshall pyramid in Cluster 2, even though Lemon Road physically sits in the McLean district. They just happen also to be "split feeders" that send some kids to Longfellow/McLean as well as Kilmer/Marshall.

There are variations of this all over the county right now. Thoreau MS is a split Madison/Marshall feeder that is part of the Madison HS "pyramid" in Cluster 2, but physically sits in the Marshall district. I've never understood why Thoreau's boundaries weren't the same as Madison's, and Kilmer's boundaries weren't the same as Marshall's, but a former Vienna resident used to claim that people assigned to Kilmer and Madison would pitch a fit if FCPS tried to reassign them to Marshall. Maybe that wouldn't be such a big deal now that Marshall's test scores and "ratings" are up there with Madison's.

Anonymous wrote:I thought the suggestion was to align them better with the high school pyramids. Some clusters need more than one center and McLean is one of them.

Yes. That's why one, two, or even three AAP Centers are designated by pyramid.

http://fcag.org/documents/level_iv_task_force_recs/level_iv_ctr_enr_clu.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving the Marshall/Cluster 2 kids out of Haycock would allow the Kent Gardens kids to return to Haycock.

This is an interesting issue. They claim they are moving our kids out immediately because of the severe overcrowding. If they move the KG kids back in, the reduction is rather small and doesn't help the overcrowding. Janie Strauss claimed at the Haycock meeting that she does not support bringing the KG kids back, but that's what's on the task force plan. So who are they lying to? Is this about overcrowding or pyramid arrangement or something else entirely? There is a hidden agenda here and I can't quite figure it out.

Colvin Run is a split feeder with some in the Langley pyramid and some in Mclean. Great Falls and Forestville AAP go to Kilmer in the Marshall pyramid for MS AAP. Longfellow in the mclean pyramid got an addition and gets all the Langley AAP kids who otherwise would go to Cooper except for the Kilmer group. Perhaps there will be base school boundary changes so all are in pyramid. Or double decker trailers at a place like Cooper.