HiCap Parents Council
Meeting
via Zoom
August 26, 2020
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
1. Austina
intro two new reps
Steven from Canyon
park and Lisa from Leota
2. Amity
updates on EAP classroom and Sites
a. 5
new EAP sites
b. EAP
classrooms in each site:
continuing sites:
Lockwood: 4
Moorlands: 7
Sunrise: 5
Fernwood: 5
New sites:
Kokanee: 8
Canyon Creek: 10
Hollywood Hill: 3
Ruby Bridges: 4
c. New
hires in Moorlands.
d. Meeting
EAP teachers (once a month). Discussing EAP specific tools for teachers to
share and do the learnings on virtual classroom.
e. Austina
asked if these new EAP sites are permanent. Amity: no plan different.
f.
West region (bothell canyon park) has no sites.
Plan to expand to the west someday.
3. Amity
updates on Soft Start
a. Amity:
thanks to Audrey & Gavin for the charts.
b. Amity:
The goal is to build community the first 3 weeks of school.
c. Amity:
how to build classroom each other make sure kids are important.
d. Nancy:
no academic strain at this time.
e. Austina:
no academic in three weeks, parents might panic.
f.
Amity: want to hear from parents for 2nd
graders, keep families engaged this time, meet needs for parents. Figuring out
how to engage students in the first two weeks.
g. Lauren:
Concerns on this, high school in general, 10 bullets about community building.
North Creek says by Sept. 10 they will focus more on content.
h. Austina:
concern of scheduling issue, logistic issues of elementary parent meetings
i.
Nancy: contact parents (sea saw? etc), email
principals for these concerns.
j.
Liz: Elementary parent meetings are kind of like
WAKids
k. Austina:
parents only worried about scheduling, no concerns about this meeting (with EAP
teachers)
l.
Amity: new EAP students, diagnostic writing
(talk about little), community building
m. Angie:
Sharing survey info: 1000 participants
n. Hillarie: EAP schools only? Angie: Survey
for all hi-cap schools.
o. Jasmine:
High school AAP info in this survey? Angie: Only elementary school and middle
school students in the charts, but there were high school respondents.
p. Austina:
suggestion on reporting high school data per school individually.
q. Amity:
Will do another survey this year.
4. Council
Updates Questions – Summer Events Updates to Amity:
a. Anja:
Northshore Middle School, many students come, asking questions.
b. Carson:
Canyon Creek. 30 or 40 kids for grade 2 or 3. Over 100 parents joined. couple
of EAP teachers come. Bonnie helped answering questions.
c. Gavin:
Lockwood. Events are going on this week. Many students showed up. EAP teachers
showed up as well. Meeting for 1 hour and half for parents meeting.
d. Veronca
Webb: Moorlands. More students come from 2nd grade. Second parents meeting was
planned.
e. Sean:
Ruby Bridges. Principal supported very well. Planning another meeting with EAP
teachers.
f.
Qing Starks: Kokanee. Principal supported very
well. Answered parents questions. Principal hosted all meetings. Kids played
games, i.e. animal games.
g. Steven:
Canyon Park. Worked with Jennifer. 20 parents 21 kdis. Answer them questions,
no principal. Kids talked to each other very excitedly.
h. Orna:
Sunrise. 20 kids, 40 parents, principal supported. Teachers joined as well.
They were so happy to talk to each other. Very impressive in 1st grade and 5th
grade.
i.
John: Fernwood. 5 meetings within 6 days.
Overall there were about 50 parents and 80 kids joined. 4 volunteers with quite
a few planning meetings. One host and two co-hosts for each kids meeting. Co-host
for introducing each other. Another co-host for jumping ropes fun part. Even
some parents played ropes with kids together. Quite a few kids and parents demo
jump ropes in meetings. EAP families whatsapp chat group has about 80 parents
over there. Afterwards, they created grade level EAP families chat group and
talked to each other very excitedly for the coming new school year. Kids are
excited in these meetings. Parents feedback their kids have fun and asked if
there any more such meetings.
5. Questions
for Amity
a. Middle
school AAP classes combined with challenge classes related.
Amity: it is especially prevalent at Northshore Middle and Canyon Park. Setup
data and figure out how big the issue is. Some schools do not follow the rules well.
Austina: it’s been a pattern for several years now
b. How
are we going to handle testing this year?
Amity: Please do signup online by October to participate in testing. Grades 5 can
do online testing. Below grade 5, I am not convinced that online testing can
work. Stay tuned. Younger students will take universal screening for grade 1, possibly
not for kindergarten students this time.
Austina: Wakids? Amity:
Yes. Academic testing from screen for 1st grade kids. From 2 to 4:
referral to test your kids.
c. How
are we going to make accommondations for the single qualified students to offer
them a challenge in their online classroom?
Amity: a few schools have a plan on the way. 8 EAP schools in district. they
run out of classroom limits, unfortunately. Working very hard to come up
secondary plan especially for 4th grade, working on it now. In Moorlands, Nancy
is working very hard. In progress. Math is very particular, after 10 years'
principal. it is very hard to ask a teach to do in classroom. not all teachers
articulate very well. Most schools have not enough rooms to fit them in.
d. What
is hiCap meaning for writing?
Amity: Talk a little bit with EAP teacher this summer. I don't see any
expectation in the middle level. Teachers created their own in English class. They
have no guidance. They may not come up an answer. I need to figure it out this
year. Where do we accelerate this writing? Someone are gifted in writing.
Benchmark curriculum. I'd like to accelerate for grade 4 to 5.
e. How
to make sure HiCap teachers are given the tools they need to teach virtually?
Terri Kashi asked and
clarified this question.
Amity: Slide projector story. No slides at that time. low tech experience. how
projects would be done being talked this summer with EAP teachers? Class based
conversation and school based conversation. Can we do projects at home? Since
parents will go to store. We need to watch out this. We need to engage students
to use online platform. How to do book club? different books in each time.
Might be creative.
Austina: Might parent volunteers be helpful to teachers.
f.
How many hiCap (dual and single) qualified
students have chosen to depart from their assigned schools and either enroll in
NFP or completely leave the district?
Austina: Leota numbers overall decreasing from last year, because district is
re arranged (some kids moved to skyview), but counts are stabe.
Amity: don't want to
over hire for concern of kids leaving. Northshore district 3.0. We will be very
cautious.
g. How
will it be handled when these families choose to come back to the district?
Amity: if they do not
leave multiple years. Concern for kids they might struggle since they lost
their path. 1 year is fine, hopefully. It is hard to keep track.
It's hard to find old
paper from the old building.
6. Ongoing
questions/Concerns:
a. Brain
storming on how to track students’ progress learning in online classroom.
Amity: …high school,
some time book.. whether to give it out one or two or four book every time?
Send physical books to all kids' home at once? or send 2 or 3 to some students
each time?
Group: send one book
home at a time when it’s a series (math books in core focus)
Austina: For middle
schools, no guarantee enough books for every student. Not all kids get printed
copies.
b. Qing:
EAP split class in Fernwood & Kokanee, how will it work?
