On APP specifically, Charlie Mas notes:
I'm having trouble reading the numbers for Washington because they appear to report that some APP students are waitlisted. I don't get that.Shannon asks if "the waitlisted APP kids at Washington [are] those assigned to Hamilton who hope to go to Washington instead." Later, Lori looks at the Lowell/TM numbers and writes:
There are 223 APP students assigned to Thurgood Marshall and 371 assigned to Lowell. That is NOT an equitable split.
They budgeted for 40 kids in 2nd grade APP at Lowell and assigned 75. That's almost twice as many! Grade 3 is somewhat similar (budgeted 58; assigned 83).Another problem is the first grade APP enrollment. Estimated APP 1st graders at Lowell is 38; at Thurgood Marshall it is just 12.
Did the district forget about the large cohort of kids born in 2002-2003 who required the creation of multiple new K classes in North Seattle 2 years ago? Since 2nd and 3rd grade are common entry points for APP, it seems that they should have been able to anticipate somewhat larger enrollment to APP for the upcoming year.
The numbers may suggest that the newly split APP schools -- Hamilton and Thurgood Marshall -- are having trouble attracting and retaining APP families. Is that the case? Why? Do you know families who moved just to switch APP schools or who left APP rather than attend those schools? What were their reasons? And what could be done to improve the situation?
18 comments:
~600 APP Lowell/TM students how much of an increase is that over last year.
Thanks for posting the enrollment links. Is there a single document with these enrollment numbers for all schools, or do we have to troll through each school report individually? Additionally, a PDF file is really hard to crunch - do we have access to the original XLS data?
Likewise, where are last year's data? The Historical Data on the Enrollment Services page is really hard to use - I'ld like to see the breakdown by EACH grade, not just K, 6, and 9 because Lowell only enrolls APP 1 through 5.
Whom can we ask for the full datasets?
Tracy Libros should have all that.
Looking at historical enrollment data for Lowell:
Oct. 1 counts by year
2005 - 493
2006 - 532
2007 - 496
2008 - 543 (year before split)
2009 - 463 (current school year)
And 561 students are assigned for 2010.
Anonymous said...
~600 APP Lowell/TM students how much of an increase is that over last year.
The projections for Lowell & TM APP for 2010/11 add up to 594.
Before the split, I don't recall Lowell ever having an enrollment that high, but it definitely reached the 500s a couple of years, as was just pointed out. That included the Special Ed program which has about 45 kids in it this year.
So it seems to me that overall APP elementary enrollment is up for 2010/11, which is good news in my book, considering all the District has done to the APP schools and program these past two years.
This demonstrates a continued and growing need and support for the program.
I think the numbers for APP this year were around 220 for TM and 300 for Lowell.
So the program is growing in APP north, but not in APP south. I thought one of the reasons for the split was to get more South end families into the program with its more southern location?
Soon (or maybe this year?), Lowell won't have the room to accomodate everyone...so will the district move the N/S border further north next year?
I saw some comments from an APP parent who attended the APP AC meeting, that IF Lowell grows beyond 464 this year (total students) it will cross the threshold to receive additional funding (in excess of student numbers). It was unclear whether this means an Assistant Principal, more library / resource staffing or what.
Anyone know about that?
Gavroche-
The numbers @ Lowell include kindergarten as well as ALO in the 1-5 grades which accounts for the bump in enrollment. What will happen if APP 'North' keeps growing is that the ALO program will suffer and they will keep drawing the boundary lines around Lowell tighter and tighter.
From what I've heard, once you cross 472 funding goes up to accomodate an assistant principal (goodness knows Greg could use the help) and hopefully a full-time librarian etc...but how interesting the district didn't plan for that in the original numbers, hence lots of scrambling for funding and appeals for donations.
The irony is, of course, that one of the reasons offered for the APP split was that Lowell was too crowded.
As Dr. Phil would ask; "How's that working for ya'?"
My daughter is one of those students who is assigned to Hamilton but is leaving the district for private school. One reason is the instability of the math program. The district is not eager to assign students to Albegra 1 in 6th grade because they don't think that there are enough students because of the split to justify an 8th grade geometry class. Other problems include a terribly weak science program where students will probably have the same teacher for multiple years.
Your child is not going to take Algebra1 in 6th grade at private school, probably just pre-algebra. Also, most of the APP 8th graders are taking Geometry so there is no need for justification. Moreover, I heard that Hamilton has the best APP Math teacher.
If you think that there are no issues with the math at Hamilton, you might want to talk to the parents of the current 6th graders who are in math club. Many of them started off in Algebra I and were removed part way through the year despite doing well in the class. The registrar this year says that no 6th grader can enroll in Algebra I. However, some of the current 6th grade parents say that there might be a change in district policy. No, my 6th grader may not be in Algebra I next year at a private school, but I know that she will be more challenged this year than in APP 5th grade. She is at the top of the class and hasn't done any homework the entire year. She is not allowed to work on the APP 6th grade math curriculum this year even though she has already mastered the 5th grade curriculum, so she has spent her math periods at school collecting cans for the food drive and other tasks that are not increasing her understanding of math. There are 30 kids in her APP 5th grade class and many of them need remedial help to be ready for middle school. Am I bitter about it? Obviously, I am, and I do feel like she will be receiving a better education outside of the Seattle Public Schools.
May be, we need to start testing the APP kids in 5th grade whether they still at the APP level: if they need remedial math, then they need to exit the program and go to regular classrooms...
There are 30 kids in her APP 5th grade class and many of them need remedial help to be ready for middle school.
That's a pretty serious accusation to make. If you merely mean that you know of students attending classes at someplace like Sylvan or Kumon, be aware that many families (not ours -- we're too cheap) use those services for math enrichment and extra practice (plus exposure to a more traditional math curriculum), not for remedial work.
By remedial work, I mean needing to review single digit addition and multiplication facts in 5th grade! Most of the class received packets to review these basic skills because they did not have them. Many did not know how to use the algorithm to do multiplication of 2-digit by 2-digit numbers!
At this point, just let me say, YIKES!
So are these kids not being taught in math in their neighborhood school, or is APP not teaching them?
I would think you wouldn't be able to qualify for 5th grade APP if you can't do single digit addition or perform the basic multiplication algorithm. Or has the standard for the top 5% in math fallen this low?
It's the curriculum. The district imposed math is failing neighborhood school kids just as much as APP kids...but the acceleration shows the failings of EDM and CMP sooner. From what I've seen of the CMP texts, strong computation skills aren't necessary.
Unless the teacher goes outside the district curriculum, the basic multiplication algorithm is not taught with EDM and math facts are not drilled to mastery. It's not that the kids aren't capable, they're not being consistently taught. This is district wide.
Also, the MAP test provides an on screen calculator...
Quite a lot of students still have weak computation skills in fifth grade. The addition facts do surprise me, but not the multiplication facts. So far I'm three for three on kids who really didn't internalize the multiplication table until they had to do more complex problems, which is also the way I operated. (And yes, we did try to drill them at home -- Multiplication Rock didn't work, flashcards didn't work, etc., though the exposure may have helped in the long run.) My daughters both had excellent math scores on talent search testing in fifth and seventh grade, though (PLUS and SAT), and my youngest has scored in a similar range on the MAP (hasn't had talent search testing yet). So the problem-solving skills are presumably there.
Helen Schinske
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