I keep hearing horror stories about student life in FCPS – depression, suicide, self-harm, etc. But FCPS has the answer. Apparently, it’s all the parents’ fault, at least that’s what they tell the parents.

Well, that settles that, doesn’t it? WTF? Not even a teensy bit of blame for the school? I know it’s a complicated problem, but ALL the parents’ fault? Makes you wonder if you can believe the rest of the shit they’re trying to teach you.

As teenagers, you guys don’t have a lot of options, but you do have some. One you may not know about is attending NoVA Community College INSTEAD OF high school. If you are 16 or 17 you can do that. Have your parents file a notice of intent to homeschool:

(http://www.fcps.edu/dss/osp/StudentRegistration/homeinstruction/)

and then register as a dual enrollment student at NOVA (http://www.nvcc.edu/future-students/admissions/current-high-school-students/¬)
and take all your “homeschool” classes at NOVA.

Besides getting out of FCPS, just think how grades from actual college classes will look when you apply to a four-year college! The college gets evidence about how you’ll do in college classes, and best of all, no AP tests!

(For those who say “it’s only a crappy community college,” look at how many VA schools will accept most if not all NOVA classes for transfer credit. They’ll even guarantee admission with a NOVA associates degree if you meet certain requirements (http://www.nvcc.edu/current-students/transfer/Search/GAAAdmission.aspx ) (not easy, but not impossible either.)

Finally, a little off topic, but high school is not the real world - you’ll be out of there soon and able to make your own choices and really start living. Hang on, and if you start thinking maybe you can’t, get help. One local resource is Crisislink:

CrisisLink’s Suicide Prevention Hotline:
(703) 527-4077
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, answered by CrisisLink in D.C. & Northern Virginia:
1-800-273-TALK
1-800-SUICIDE
1-888-628-9454 (en espanol)

or text them: http://crisislink.org/crisislinks-text-hotline/ (text: Need Help to 703-940-0888).

This is a great post. Students and parents need to know that there are options besides the public high schools.

My nephew took the dual enrollment route, graduated from NOVA one year after his peers graduated from high school, went to UVA with 60% scholarship/grant money, and graduated two years later while some of his friends were still waiting for 200-level courses they needed.

Wow, I think this is probably the only useful and awesome, helpful post I've ever seen on here. OP you're amazing, thank you for posting this. I hope someone reads this and takes your advice and succeeds.

thank you, that was very helpful after the week my children had at their FCPS high school. Teachers that bully, death threats, stolen phone, unwanted sexual advances by other students, and slow to respond administration.

Very well said. Should be posted on the walls of our high schools

Great start to bringing the issue of teen suicide out into the public view. Unfortunately there is a long way to go. The county has no idea the number of successful suicides or attempts. I doubt that the police keep records or would release the information to address the issue with the school system.

Bigdog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Great start to bringing the issue of teen suicide
> out into the public view. Unfortunately there is a
> long way to go. The county has no idea the number
> of successful suicides or attempts. I doubt that
> the police keep records or would release the
> information to address the issue with the school
> system.

No, the original post was not about bringing teen suicide into public view. It was yet another in a long line of attempts to take a shot at FCPS. Mental health is a complicated issue, but the OP wants to boil it down to hyperbolic sound bites: "Apparently, it’s all the parents’ fault, at least that’s what they tell the parents" and "Makes you wonder if you can believe the rest of the shit they’re trying to teach you." This is just childish.

There is no reason whatsoever to believe that enrolling troubled children in dual-enrollment courses will prevent suicide. Dual-enrollment classes haver their place, but linking them to suicide preventiion is sheer lunacy.

The problem with fcps is they are rigid, can't think outside of the box, they offer no flexibility for students in need, and there is no accountability whatsoever. Teachers and administrators are never fired, they are simply moved around in the county.

OP's post is great and the plan would work, for some. My problem is, as a community, we are letting fcps off the hook. FCPS does not meet the individual needs of all students. It's a one size fits all school system, unless you are fortunate enough to be in AAP. To their credit, the do offer advanced academics. If a child struggles in any way that child is pretty much left to fend for himself. fCPS will put on a front to appear to help students, but talk to patents and take a closer look, in reality these students are not receiving the support they need. Search Fairfax Underfround for countless stories.

As a taxpayer, it's unfair to keep paying into a broken system. If my kids' need at not met by the county, I see no reason why I should be paying them while I'm forced to pay for private school or community college. Families should get educational credits if fcps does not meet their child's needs.

Very nice post, op. I hope it helps many. It just irks me fcps gets away with horrible unprofessional and unethical behavior year after year, while relishing in their reputation for excellence. And sure, there is excellence in the county, but there is a lot of dead weight, corruption, incompetence, and deception.

The whole thread is pure goober garbage. Teen suicide occurs among students at public schools, at private schools, at junior colleges, among the home-schooled, and among plain old dropouts. Every suicide is individual. There are no generic "warning signs" that can reliably be picked up and acted on in advance. FCPS works actively to promote good mental health among all students and to have resources available for those who ask for help. That's about all they can do.

If you do not think that parents play a very significant role here, you are most definitely a part of the problem.

Bit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a taxpayer, it's unfair to keep paying into a
> broken system. If my kids' need at not met by the
> county, I see no reason why I should be paying
> them while I'm forced to pay for private school or
> community college. Families should get educational
> credits if fcps does not meet their child's needs.

Gee, what a surprise to hear you veer off into that worthless "school choice" bullshit. Just another fucking plea to feed off the taxpayer for your personal decision to send your own useless little twerps off to private/sectarian schools. Well, you can just fuck off with that voucher shit. Your taxes are not tuition. They are your share of the tab for providing free universal K-12 education. You pay whether you have kids or not. You pay whether you take advantage of the system or not. You can choose to handicap your own kids by hiding them away from evolution, global warming, new math, whole word language, diversity, self-esteem, and all those other scary terrible things that liberals push off on everyone, but you will have to pay for such stupidity on your own. Good luck with that.



>
>
> Very nice post, op. I hope it helps many. It just
> irks me fcps gets away with horrible
> unprofessional and unethical behavior year after
> year, while relishing in their reputation for
> excellence. And sure, there is excellence in the
> county, but there is a lot of dead weight,
> corruption, incompetence, and deception.

Really Flimsy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bit Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > As a taxpayer, it's unfair to keep paying into
> a
> > broken system. If my kids' need at not met by
> the
> > county, I see no reason why I should be paying
> > them while I'm forced to pay for private school
> or
> > community college. Families should get
> educational
> > credits if fcps does not meet their child's
> needs.
>
> Gee, what a surprise to hear you veer off into
> that worthless "school choice" bullshit. Just
> another fucking plea to feed off the taxpayer for
> your personal decision to send your own useless
> little twerps off to private/sectarian schools.
> Well, you can just fuck off with that voucher
> shit. Your taxes are not tuition. They are your
> share of the tab for providing free universal K-12
> education. You pay whether you have kids or not.
> You pay whether you take advantage of the system
> or not. You can choose to handicap your own kids
> by hiding them away from evolution, global
> warming, new math, whole word language, diversity,
> self-esteem, and all those other scary terrible
> things that liberals push off on everyone, but you
> will have to pay for such stupidity on your own.
> Good luck with that.

There are many students and parent in this County with documented cases that FCPS has not provided FAPE to their children. fCPS is not teaching reading and spelling skills to all students. FCPS has adopted the guided reading approach to teach reading skills which has been a dismal failure.

If fcps is not providing all children with a free and appropriate public education, why should I pay for it?

Really Flimsy, I suggest you attend some school board meetings and dig a little deeper into fcps. You'll learn what the school presents is a complete facade and propaganda.

I don't know how fcps manages to ride the wave of their former stellar reputation. It's not what it used to be. Maybe it never was.

Thanks for all the supportive comments.

Dual enrollment won’t work for everyone, but at least it’s an option, and high school students don’t seem to think they have a lot of options these days. If a few people who read this thread take advantage of it, great! That’s why I posted.

I re-read my post, and I don’t think I was suggesting that dual enrollment will prevent suicide. I think the problem is more that students either don’t have options or at least perceive that they don’t have options.

When I was a kid, you could drop out of school at 15 or 16. I’m not saying that would have led to a bright future, but you could get a job and maybe get a GED and go to community college. It was a safety valve and gave you an out other than suicide (or self-medicating with drugs or cutting…). Sometimes knowing an option is available helps even if you never use it.

One option that is available today is to take regular classes instead of honors and AP classes. I think that if you pushed FCPS, you might get that suggestion – they provide classes that vary in difficulty to meet the needs of a lot of different students. However, I’ve also hear that the culture in Fairfax and FCPS is one that looks down on people who take this route. That includes parents who push their kids to take more honors and AP classes than they can handle and students who have their self-worth tied up in their grades and their advanced courses, and FCPS that loses bragging rights if they don’t have enough AP test takers.

None of this is first hand – I’d be glad to hear from people who know more.

Students - class choice is largely up to you. Think hard about how many advanced courses to take. A lot of you would be bored if you didn’t take any, and I think it is great that FCPS offers so many advanced options, but if the workload is really stressing you out, drop one or two or all of those courses and find the number that challenges you without overwhelming you. If that means you won’t get into UVA or Tech, so what? Lots of successful people go to lesser known colleges, and not everyone coming out of a top-ranked school will be happy or successful.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with challenging yourself and trying to get into the best school you can. But there is also nothing wrong to going to a college that isn’t as well known. You might actually be happier there.

Look, this is a hugely complicated issue, and I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m sure there are good intentions all around and that no one wants to see teens suffering. But they are.

If you have better / additional suggestions for keeping high school students safe, post them here or share them some other way.

Bit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are many students and parent in this County
> with documented cases that FCPS has not provided
> FAPE to their children. fCPS is not teaching
> reading and spelling skills to all students. FCPS
> has adopted the guided reading approach to teach
> reading skills which has been a dismal failure.

Tell it to the other moms at play-group, Tinkerbell. Small group instruction allows for variable, individualized instruction. One size does not fit all.

> If fcps is not providing all children with a free
> and appropriate public education, why should I pay
> for it?

You AREN'T paying for it. It's FREE -- just as you said. Your job is to pay property and other taxes that the County imposes. Those have nothing to do with whether you have kids at all or how they might end up being educated.

> Really Flimsy, I suggest you attend some school
> board meetings and dig a little deeper into fcps.
> You'll learn what the school presents is a
> complete facade and propaganda.

Kiss off, bitch. You're no more than a low-grade goober-mom.

> I don't know how fcps manages to ride the wave of
> their former stellar reputation. It's not what it
> used to be. Maybe it never was.

We've had some lean years here thanks to the Great Recession right-wingers bungled us into, and also thanks to the state and county gouging FCPS in hard times and then refusing to restore the cuts once the storms have passed. We seriously need immediate and significant revenue enhancement for FCPS or the jewel of the county will simply fall out of its crown.

100% chance the first 7 posts are written by the same person.