Friday, September 28, 2018

Minutes from 9/27/2018 Meeting

9/27/2018: First HiCap Meeting with Old and new reps Austina, Angie Y, Angie H, Laurie, Jennifer Spanton, Bonnie, Myriam, Rob, Sylvia, Allison, Lauren, Lisa B, Veronica, Xioying, Brenae (later)

Austina: Expectations for Conduct in HiCap Council meetings
  • Member of a non-profit, we have duties – Care (make careful decisions), obedience to laws, Loyalty to group (needs of group above personal needs)
  • Have good behavior:
    • Council has a good open relationship with admin. Admin will ask council for advice and will tell us things not yet published. Keep non-public info confidential until it is released by Admin
    • Be pragmatic and non-emotional during meetings. Not appropriate to discuss your own kid at these meetings. No losing temper in this room. News is not always good, but we have to work within the group.
    • We are trusted by the admin with confidential info, we don’t want to lose that trust
  • Have 3 positions unfilled
    • North Creek Feeder
    • Sunrise Elementary
    • Kenmore Middle School
    • What do we want to do with open spots? Bylaws say we can appoint a representative with majority vote of the Directors
    Jen, Lucy, and Bill Bagnall Arrive
  • Open positions:
    • Directors will reach out to potentials
  • Updates
    • This Evening will have a k-12 hicap advisory team meeting
    • Continue to meet for rest of the year
    • Add parent members to the advisory team to increase diversity
    • Looking for Hispanic or latino parents to join team. If we know anyone, send to Jen
    • Kindergarten:
      • State says within first 3 months must identify and start services
      • Stay in current classroom and teacher is notified and will administer holistic services
      • Carry holistic designation till end of 1st grade then will retest
      • Identification process will start soon and be finished by end of October. WA kids will be part of the process, jen will tell us rest of process later after telling cabinet.
    • New to northshore: may have joined last spring, spring, fall.
      • All new family enrollment packets contain hicap info. Before school, families can give documentation about past test scores, letters about hicap programs they were in. District team convened weekly to review info from student. Offered designation based on test scores from previous schools.
      • Screening from April to august for those without previous scores, programs
      • All kids will participate in winter process with other kids – ospi will let district know if anything else is needed for screening, testing for new families. 800 new families total.
      • Still looking at families who didn’t ask to test.
      • Email jen with questions. Surya answers the phone in hicap, goes through the emails and responds. Include student # to expedite response.
    • Partnership with Jonathan Plucker – president of national association of Gifted
      • Interested in analyzing data for screening and testing
      • Austina, Lucy, Jen talked on phone with Jonathan. We are giving him public info right now. Anonymized data is what he would get.
      • We are first district in nation to take on process of testing all kids for equity purposes.
      • He will look at our data to see if the process was necessary. Is there a way to do same thing with less cost – money and student time.
      • He will look at students with high Naglieri scores but didn’t meet ITBS or SBA scores. What is it in the system that didn’t allow them to academically achieve? What demographics? What were roadblocks we put in place and how can we take those down and help them to succeed?
      • Preliminary info will give him info to help us figure out what to do for the 18-19 school year process.
    • HiCap Cadre
      • MS and Elementary teachers – one per school - 18 members so far
      • In July, people went to Edufest conference
      • Bring Jen info from building level
      • One issue is report cards and grading – want it to be consistent across district
      • Teachers can talk to the Cadre member to bring info to Jen
      • Jen gives info to cadre who delivers info to teachers in their building
      • Cadre engage in PD and design PD for colleagues in NSD
    • Nancy Hertzog gave a talk this week
      • About Advanced learners, HiCap designated and non identified
        • Projects, problem based learning, etc. techniques for all classrooms
        • K-8 teachers attended
      • People from Curriculum and Instruction attended. TOSAs attended and will deliver some info to teachers
    • What kind of communication is going out to all NSD parents about this training and PD?
      • Jen will work with communications to create a periodic newsletter that gets put on website, given to buildings for their newsletter, building websites, maybe a one way facebook page, twitter.
      • Will work on ways to push info to families
    • Math
      • Elementary in class model: math services offered currently aren’t same as EAP peers in most buildings.
      • Haven’t solved problem but are making progress
      • EAP world: getting training for new curriculum in mid October with ongoing sessions of training. All 4-5 EAP teachers will get this middle school core focus math trainings
      • IN class teachers: Students would be clustered (no minimum number for a cluster yet) in their classroom with hicap peers. Tenmarks will be purchased for these students through Algebra II. Teacher monitored and moderated. Have to get approval, then students will get it.
      • Tenmarks will go away at end of this year. Partnering with Microsoft to get another online solution for these kids after this year.
      • Pre-assessments will tell teachers if kids would benefit from daily lesson in classroom as well as online tool.
      • HIcap office can see usage report for each kid on the back end
      • What is the consequence for buildings who are not clustering? Ask principal. Parent can contact asst super if principal isn’t clustering.
      • At middle school, will HC designated students be with only HC kids or mixed with Challenge? Depends on the building. Lucy and Jen are doing analysis to see what has occurred in each school.
      • Group of principals are joining Jen to figure out how to offer inclass students correct standards in math. How can 2nd grade kid get 3rd grade math? Maybe walk to math, maybe something else.
      • Myriam recommends teachers aren’t gatekeepers to student progressing in Tenmarks and other software solutions.
Analysis of data – This is public and sharable – see handout for charts and graphs
  • 26% of students assessed moved on to further testing
  • 600+ students added to program
  • 15000 assessed
  • 95th percentile cut off, same as previously, no lowering of standards
  • Appeals: no lower standards for appeals. 250 appeals
  • MST held to initial thresholds
  • Of 600+ qualified. 30% have special designation. ELL, low income, Special Ed, 504, IEP
  • Racial background: have work to do here to increase percentages
  • Low income was also not a high percentage of passing rate
  • In program kids: 18% of current kids would not have passed naglieri
  • Looking at additional screener. Not just Naglieri
  • Looking at an inclusive definition of creativity – not just drawing to assess
  • 40 students qualified through Torrence pathway…out of 3k
  Admin leave Laurie motioned , Sylvia seconded money to buy new name tags for new members Jennifer will talk to Toni and order these name tags Finances ok till about January because of donations. Will need to fundraise to keep going after that
  • Someone has volunteered to help with fundraising
  • We can rekindle the SEPAC fair, sell stuff, etc. ?
  • Can PTA give grants or budgeting for EAP/AAP events?
  Duties of directors – read from bylaws to see what is required Austina will add everyone to hcparents email list Everyone will send a headshot to Angie for the website Volunteers for the executive board – president, VP, secretary, treasurer
  • No one new volunteered to be on the board
  • Is executive board willing to serve again?
  • Jennifer moved to keep executive board, Lauren seconded, Unanimous vote to vote in board
  • Austina is president
  • Laurie is VP
  • Kristi is Treasurer
  • Angie is secretary
Appointment of people to empty positions:
  • Will ask people and ask them to fill out nomination form online
  • They need to fill out the form by next Friday oct 12th then Hicap board will vote at next meeting