Thursday, January 31, 2019

EAP Program Placement

First, a little background. In fall 2018 the Enrollment Demographic Task Force submitted draft boundary changes to ease overcrowding in the north Bothell schools when the new building on the Canyon Creek/Skyview campus and the new elementary school on Maltby are done. The draft proposal included an assumption that EAP students would be serviced at their neighborhood schools. The draft is available here. In general, there are not enough students qualifying for EAP at each grade level at every neighborhood school to fill a classroom, or even split classroom. Thus this assumption seemed incorrect.

In early 2019 the cabinet drafted a proposal about program placement under the new boundaries, including EAP, PACE, and FSA programs. You can see the proposal here. The proposal suggests creating 4 EAP sites (Sunrise, Moorlands, Lockwood, and Canyon Creek) to align with the four NSD regions (East, South, West, and North).

The HiCap Parents Council had mixed feelings about the proposed EAP changes. We have responded to the EDTF and cabinet with the following letter:

Cabinet and EDTF members:
The HiCap Parents Council represents HiCap students and families from the entire school district, both those placed in EAP and AAP classrooms and those receiving services in their home schools, giving us a unique perspective on program placement. We were surprised earlier in the school year when the recommended boundary change draft did not include consideration about program placement, particularly EAP. Thus the cabinet proposal presented in the study session on 1/14/19 was a welcome step towards a more equitable and considered assignment of all students across the district.
However, we do have some questions and thoughts about proposed EAP locations for 2020.
1. Ideally EAP programs would be located in a way that encourages both academic success and community building.
    A. An entire program (grades 2- 5) is preferable to isolated classrooms that change from year to year. This enables EAP teachers to work with a cohort, share information about curriculum and students, and use knowledge gained in one year into the next. This is especially important when bringing new teachers into EAP.
    B. Locations within a feeder pattern are desirable. EAP students do get to know and be friends with neighborhood and other children at their program location, and it is a hardship to be moved from year to year or to go to a different middle and high school from the neighborhood students. EAP students are also split between multiple middle schools. Currently, this isn't avoidable, with fewer EAP locations than middle schools. However, assigning, for example, Maywood Hills students to a Moorlands EAP location (where the neighborhood and other EAP students would be going to Northshore MS and Inglemoor HS while Maywood attends Canyon Park MS and Bothell HS), or the existing assignment of many north Bothell residents (Skyview MS, North Creek HS) to Bear Creek (Timbercrest MS and Woodinville HS) disrupts friendships and community building.
    C. Keeping the above in mind, we would propose outlining a feeder pattern for the EAP sites that at least keeps High School assignments aligned (EAP students should attend an EAP elementary school that goes to the same high school as the neighborhood elementary school they would have attended). Ideally, and thinking long term with the continued growth of the EAP program, a 6 EAP site solution that aligns to the Middle School feeder patterns would be the best, and that would be our strong recommendation.    D. Long-distance EAP assignments cause several negative effects both on a daily basis--long bus rides--and overall--harder to attend before and after school activities, harder to attend PTA activities. The proposed EAP location in North Bothell is a very welcome addition!
    E. Forcing other programs (Lockwood PACE, Wellington PACE) to move in order to realign EAP feeder patterns, especially when these programs consists of many neighborhood families, encourages a negative perception of EAP and inhibits community building.
    F. It has long been a problem that families cannot waiver siblings into EAP schools due to space restrictions. Even when they have been able to waiver a sibling in, the waiver does not include transportation (although transportation is guaranteed for the EAP student). This is a significant equity issue - asking families to manage the overhead of kids in multiple schools is not realistic for many families, and creates equity of access issues. Please consider keeping families together by planning to have space available at EAP locations for sibling waivers and to include transportation for siblings. This keeps siblings together on the bus, in after school care, and at school community activities such as evening science fairs and school plays, making it much more possible for all of our demographic groups to access EAP equitably.
2. The success of relocated programs (such as the 2017 EAP move from Shelton View to Lockwood) and new EAP sites is heavily dependent on appropriate staffing. Having the Shelton View EAP teachers move with the students in 2017 maintained the feeling of community and also helped bring new-to-EAP teachers and existing administrators and specialists up to speed on the needs of the EAP students. If the EAP program is moved from Bear Creek to Canyon Creek and/or Sunrise, the move will be more successful for the students if the teachers are able to move as well. Please encourage existing, established EAP teachers to move to new sites so that there are experienced staff everywhere. It is crucial for there to be an experienced EAP teacher leader at every EAP site.
3. The original EDTF boundary proposals included current and projected enrollment figures for various schools.
    A. What are the proposed feeder patterns for EAP sites and projected EAP enrollment for future years?
    B. The original EDTF proposal assumed that all students were at their neighborhood/home schools. How do the numbers change with choice and EAP students at the program locations instead? These numbers should be published, similar to how we can anticipate a certain number of students to waiver into Inglemoor for the IB program.
    C. How will these proposed program placements alter the suggested boundary changes? Will there be enough room at Canyon Creek EAP in future years with much of the population growth expected in the north region?

Thank you for your attention to these considerations,
The HiCap Parents Council
council@hcparents.org
http://www.hcparents.org

A district website with some of the boundary information is available here: https://www1.nsd.org/2020boundary

Monday, January 28, 2019

Minutes from 1/15/2019 Meeting

Kindergarten

  • Completed testing process – Naglieri, WA Kids
  • District team met on Friday – set qualification thresholds
  • Thursday – holistic services notified – email and robocall
  • Permission is required
  • Friday – email for rest of families not qualified yet – data
  • Backpack mail will go out next week
  • Thresholds will be posted on website on Thursday
  • Appeals process posted Thursday
  • Services start right now
    • Details in letter for what services are
    • Also on website

Grades 1-7

  • Assessment and communication
  • Families emailing every email in hicap, so multiple people are working on the same issue…slowing things down
  • Wait 5 business days for a response from hicap dept
  • 4106 moving forward to assessment. Email, 3 robocalls, backpack mail
  • DNQ letters have not gone out yet – STAR data wasn’t in district data system when they did the analysis. Stopped DNQ letters to wait for STAR data. 35 more families qualified with this new STAR data. (mostly 3rd grade families affected)
  • Some people didn’t get email, but did get robocall. They just marked these kids as accepted
  • Can re-send the email because of custody issues, can re-send with email on file only. Update email on file to get letters re-sent with link to accept testing
  • Link is individualized, don’t forward link
  • General hicap questions go to the hicap@nsd, escalation should go to Jbenson@
  • “Choose 1 email, send one time, wait 5 business days for a response”
  • IOWA – next grade ahead is literally next grade ahead
  • Went to technology and asked about putting data into ParentVue. Lucy is getting permissions to put the data into ParentVue. STARR, IOWA, Naglieri, IRR will all be put into ParentVue.
  • Family outreach liaisons are calling families that haven’t responded to give yes/no for assessment
  • Permission is due by Friday at 4pm to test. If no permission, they will have portfolio review in the spring, no makeup testing.
  • If you received a robocall then your permission is due Friday.
  • Single subject will go forward with assessment, need to give permission
  • Teachers didn’t read, review, generate hicap letter in backpack mail. Check with hicap website for info on hicap, teachers don’t have all the info.
  • About 500 have not given permission.
  • DNQ will go out next week still processing data

  • IOWA is online this year, establishing accounts for last few months with Houghton Mifflin

  • 21 proctors trained, webinar training on how to proctor online test. Doing lots of practice on how to proctor with the new system
  • Lead proctors plus their team will be assigned to each region (N,S, E, W)
  • Self paced session (grades 2+), headphones and on their own
  • 1st graders are proctor lead, proctor reads directions
  • About 40 minutes per test (reading & math)
  • Starting Friday, Sunrise and 3 other elementary schools will start testing with all proctors in team.
  • May be a 1-2 week delay with testing because of technology, but scores come back in 24 hours, so it shouldn’t delay the final dates – last year they had to wait for paper scoring
  • 504 or IEP kids will not be in the same group, will get extended time or whatever accommodations they should get
  • Maybe council organize a parent info night about 2E kids and the law about 504 and iep in hicap
  • May need to review timeline for eligibility process listed on website, but it may be ok
  • Hicap website not sending the emails to subscribers if website has been updated – jen will check with technology to see if it works or if it can be fixed
  • Results may or may not be back before middle school counselors go to elementary schools and kids register, but Jen is placing, so families shouldn’t worry
  • Dually qualified students can be in-school but be able to jump into EAP at any time in the future

Website

  • If a person goes to the website most important info is at:
    • Eligibility and testing on left side bar – timeline, change address to get info
    • Current students – screening and assessment for each grade
    • Screening threshold – percentile for moving forward in each test
    • Non-enrolled students – process for getting tested
    • Instruments – IOWA, naglieri etc
    • NNAT3 overview
    • Assessment – explanation about permission, proctors, IOWA
    • Appeals process – updated on Thursday 1/17

EAP and grading

  • Different approaches to EAP grading
    • Guidance around standards
    • Application of 4,3,2,1 for EAP – memo sent to teachers
    • Jen meeting with EAP teachers to help with report cards
    • Maybe look at the Presidential Academic Fitness award and give guidance to EAP teachers

2020 EAP/AAP school placements – Study session 1/14/2019 document released

  • Program adjustments for 2020/2021 year
  • EDTF looking at overcrowding at north end schools
  • Recommendation for boundary adjustments
  • Jen is not leading this work – provided input but isn’t a decision maker here
  • EAP designated schools accessible throughout district
  • New Canyon creek north region EAP program
  • Lockwood will be West region site
  • Move all woodmore EAP to Moorlands
  • East region will move to Sunrise from Bear Creek
  • Thoughtful with new qualifiers and may put them into the new sites to minimize transitions from school to school if it works with numbers
  • Ones currently in program may want to move early; this may or may not be possible
  • Joe Haberman at EDTF is contact to ask about considerations for this proposal
  • EDTF can answer transportation questions

Tuesday 2/12/2019 10am for next meeting