Minutes from 1/9/2018 Meeting

1/9/18 Hicap meeting

Screening

• Screening window opened 1/8. 4-5 classrooms administered screening tool. 8 minutes -24 minutes. Agreement with Pierson happened on Friday afternoon. Logins sent to schools on Monday. Majority starting end of this week or start of next week. Colorblind student got a black and white version of the test.
• Parents will be notified of results: families of students moving on will be notified. Not sure if or how others will get the results.
• Email sent to parents: technical problem with sending, so they sent twice to each email for each child in k-8.
• Principals and teachers should tell students/parents when screening will occur. 31^st is last day
• Chromebook or laptop for administering naglieri screening
• 3 practice questions and 2 visuals of kids using the trackpad they do with teacher before screening. If teacher sees kid is struggling with the technology, they can order a paper copy of the test for that child. Teachers were also allowed to help with technology if child told them the answer.
• Will do analysis of currently HiCap designated versus non-designated.

Move onto ITBS

• Holistic students move on regardless
• 85% on screener moves on
• Single content area students move on regardless
• Deadline for accepting ITBS is ASAP

Private school testing

• Where will these kids be screened?
• Decided it will be done at Admin center. 60 families signed up for this screening
• 5 dates reserved for this testing. Max of 30 screened at once
• Found out on website, email to HIcap office, contacted schools to ask, we mentioned it on facebook
• New to Northshore testing will hopefully happen Before school starts in September, either in spring or in August.
• Northshore networks had to sign up to screen. They got the info, but had 5 or less sign up

Tuesday march 6 is next meeting. Feb 5^th is info night Info night

• Will be videoed by NSD. Will have Spanish interpretation headsets. 6:30-7:30 bothell high performing arts center.
• Families will be notified if they are going on for assessment. Will need to get permission at the info night.
• Feb 2^nd – Group of hicap people will help Kim get names for permission for info night. 11-12noon.

FAQ

• Updated on the website. Content is there. Technology to make it more user friendly will happen later
• questions bonnie collected have been answered on FAQ
• Where are the transportation question FAQ? Carolyn?

HiCap Team

• Teachers, specialists, office representation,
• Info to be sent on Friday to principals and certificated teachers. 16 member team most likely
• Deepen and broaden knowledge of hicap issues. Revising policy and procedure 2190(?), reviewing and recommending on eligibility process, reviewing program models, curriculum, assessments and materials.
• Through end of next year to make recommendations to Dr. Reid and Dr. Ford.
• Need 2 parents for the team. Looking for elementary person and a secondary person. Jan 26 is form interest deadline. Tim Brittel will select representatives as well.
• Not looking at student representation at this time.
• First meeting set early February 13^th. Content will be same as presentation to SEMAC.
• Multidisciplinary team will decide if Torrence creativity can be a sole indicator for HiCap, or other factors as well.
• Looking at curriculum for creatively eligible students. Will this be a secondary path? Or will be included in standard?

AAP survey going out on Friday

• Students in 6-7^th grade at AAP sites. Asking if they would like to remain at AAP site or transfer to neighborhood school for AAP? Are parents interested in this? Preliminary conversations and data gathering.
• Not held to how they answered this survey. They can choose differently later.
• Communicate that if they transfer to neighborhood school it will be the same standard at an aap school. Assure parents that Heather Miller will ensure that the standard is the same at every school.

Feb 2^nd 11-1 meeting: first part is info night prep, 2^nd part is brainstorm for skills, background for hiring, and challenges in the 8-9^th grade transition.  March 6^th at 10 Jen will send

• letters to us – holistic and single content ,
• form for her advisory team,
• survey going out on Friday – may have transportation phase out in a year or 2

Jen likes chocolate, caramelos, gummy bears 😊 Jen leaves   HiCap Council only

• Jan 20^th at brightwater $99. Lots of amazing speakers better than a national conference. Lunch is included.
• Would the PTA want to sponsor a new hicap teacher to go to this conference? 6.5 clock hours
• Need to put it on facebook: how to advocate for your individual kids’ needs.
• Need a survey of 8^th/9^th kids on high school transition

            Jeff Sherwood and Laura Poolman join the meeting How does Northshore hire the HiCap teachers?

• Jeff: No special requirement to teach HiCap wrt certificates and endorsements. Specialty endorsement to add a certificate. Whittworth offers this endorsement.
• Have a HiCap job pool on website. A few applicants. One has a Whittworth endorsement for Gifted ed.
• Have not tracked the endorsement, not required, offered widely.
• Historically pull from elementary ed pool. Some have experience with HiCAp. Ask about interest in HiCap when applying.
• Don’t have a way to search pool to look for hicap experience other than the interest check box.
• We are looking for teachers all the time in all content areas.
• We can fill a hicap classroom with any K-8 teacher, so haven’t looked for hicap specific teachers
• Austina: There are degrees that specialize in gifted education, masters and phd programs.
• Steve: Need to draft the job posting specifically geared to hicap
• Laura: do job fairs in Tacoma, Spokane, 12 throughout the year. Hold one at NSD as well in January. Post to professional orgs, universities, social media.
• Angie: are you actively looking for teachers of color? There may be a feeling that NSD isn’t a place for teachers of color. How do we actively change that perception?
• Jeff: It’s been a focus to increase diversity of applicant pools. Doing outreach, redoing parts of our application process. Changing recruiting materials. Market for teachers is more competitive than ever. Need to use the systems we have to gather the information we can use. Growing list of shortage areas. Word of mouth is best way to recruit. More out of state applicants, working on WA certification, Can advertise with national organizations, need to change the perception that NSD isn’t diverse
• Toni: Look at schools with diverse populations for your recruiting. Let the recruitment office at HBCU and other diverse schools know Northshore is looking for teachers of color
• Jeff: Block grant from northwest university to help paras get their certificates. Paras are a more diverse group of staff. How do we find WA residents who have left the state for historically black schools but want to come back?
• Making enrollment projections now for next year. Make guess about how many elementary teachers they need, shuffle contracted staff first before may, and then hire in march – may.
• Helen: Can parents be involved in the hiring of HiCap teachers?
• Jeff: Parents haven’t been involved in the hiring process for teachers historically. We can have a conversation around the early hiring of teachers. Do we need to focus on hicap teachers? Leave it up to the building administration and parent community on whether having a parent on the hiring committee works for them.
• Can do central hiring for hicap teachers to ensure quality if needed

    Heather Miller and Dave Wellington

• Heather: helpful to get a list of specific skills needed for hicap classes. Reassignment of current staff is usually what happens. Will share with principals when they are making that assignments. Feb 2^nd meeting 11-1pm. Second half will be talking about this list for Heather.
• Helen: is there additional training for teachers who volunteer for hicap assignments?
• Heather: Jen has training for this. Ongoing professional dev happens as well.
• Jen: committee can also look at this pd aspect for recommendations.
• Laurie: how will the transition from Middle to high work for aap students and teachers response to that?
• Heather: Can be more specific to help teachers and principals with the aap transition to high school.
• Jen: work on that at next meeting as well.
• Austina: move from a contained cohort environment to a individual model in High school. Is this by design or is there something we can do to help this transition.
• Bonnie: Can middle schools and high schools have a single counselor that knows the needs of hicap students
• Lisa: how do parents who are shy about talking to the teacher/principal raise issues that occurs with their kid?
• Dave: Have individual parents talk to the principal about issues.
• Austina: what do we do about teacher quality issues when there is only one EAP or AAP teacher for that school for that grade/subject? Great hicap teachers understand the social emotional quirkiness of these kids. Deescalation techniques are essential for this population
• Laurie: kids don’t know how to study. Need to have that taught as well, need to be challenged to learn how to study.
• Jen: need to know what PD those teachers need to be a good hicap teacher. Team will help with that kind of thing
• Toni: don’t forget to include librarians, pe teachers, music teachers in this PD. They need to know these kids need different de-escalation techniques as well.
• Kristi: Some schools put a few EAP kids in each science class…those teachers need to know about these kids as well. Kids in these classes need to know this as well.
• Bonnie: perception by teachers and admins that hicap is a pressure cooker high pressure environment. Not encouraging kids to sign up