Minutes from 10/27/20 Meeting

  HiCap Parents Council Meeting

via Zoom
October 27, 2020

1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Participants: Amity Butler, Gavin Doyle, Tessa Blocksom, Carson Sanderson, Audrey Kozel, Angie Nancock, Steven Rubenstein, Anja Wade, Nancy Johnson, Stephanie Corrigan, Jasmine?, Austina, Jennifer Herrman, Sean Qu, Terri Kashi, Starks Qing, Lauren Lewis, Cooper Brix, Veronica Webb, Liz Smith

 

Meeting summary Part 1

Hicap Screening and Testing (update from Amity)

Students who are seeing HiCap testing for the first time are those who need to be screened using NNAT3. Students who are already single qualified would be tested with IOWA.

There are 393 students in 6^th and 7^th grades who need to be screened. They can be screened by NNAT3 remotely. The process will be to distribute district devices to those students who do not already have them, as installation of the app for screening is more challenging than distribution of devices.

A similar process was followed last year for online algebra testing.

Old district devices need to be updated to make large scale screening feasible.

Once the process has been shown successful in grades 6-7, the devices can be collected and 5^th graders can be tested.

Currently, screening grades K-4 is on pause. Principals are being queried frequently about when screening will take place.

Services for students single qualified in math (update from Amity)

Fourth and 5th grade math students qualified for HiCap math are either receiving services through the school’s EAP (if available), or through an online program called Ingenuity. Students are seeing a large jump in expectations when jumping up 2 grade levels of math, and it is still more challenging not seeing a teacher every day and learning how to receive online instruction. Amity is receiving feedback from teachers and parents, who have provided great ideas to improve the program.

Austina asked whether and when to invite Cathy Davis, principal of Ruby Bridges, back to provide feedback about the programs they have implemented. There is specific interest in earing how they are utilizing iReady scores and group testing. There was general interest in inviting Cathy Davis back after the first grading quarter has been completed. Hillarie also asked whether other school principals are ever invited to join the meetings. Amity is responsible for inviting principals; ideally, there would be at least 1 principal representative from each level of school (e.g. elementary, middle and high), but it is challenging to get commitments from busy principals or vice/assistant principals.

Amity has access to all of the iReady scores from the district. She is able to ask students to have secondary assessments if she believes the results are inaccurate.

Schoology

Amity sends all Schoology issues to Tracy Malloy, who has the greatest contact with the company providing the program.

Next meeting

Austina suggested the next meeting should be in early December (2-4). Austina asked Amity to follow up with Cathy Davis to find out whether she is available during that week.

Middle school/high school math –

Carson stated she has 2 students doing Algebra 2 this year, one in high school and one in middle school. She stated that while the course content is similar, the policies set by the teachers are vastly different: one teacher allows quizzes to be re-taken for 100% credit, supporting a growth mind set, while the other teacher allows re-takes of quizzes on which students have scored below 75% to be retaken for up to 75% credit. She suggested that there should be some kind of alignment within the district with respect to growth mindset or not.

In addition, at the middle school level, grades are not rounded up, while in high school they are rounded up. Again, this is a place for creation of consistency.  

Documentation of issues at the high school level

Austina created a living document outlining the issues observed at the high school level. The result is a stand alone document pasted below for completeness of the meeting summary:

 

HiCap High School Issues & Concerns

Math

ALL - What is the Math progression for triple jump math students. What classes will be offered to them when they get to high school? And can there be options that are not just more and more calculus.

IHS – IB program won’t allow testing in HL 2 as 11^th graders, and so our double jump or triple jump kids can’t test in the appropriate level of math the year that they actually take the class. Maybe inserting a year of AP Statistics or other math courses *before* IB math would be a better solution, to better align with the IB program?

Science

ALL - Pre-requisites for science are enforced or not enforced in different schools in different ways. WHS allows students to skip intro science classes and go straight to AP classes. BHS requires all pre-reqs for science to be met, even for hicap students. NCHS requires some level of pre-reqs but could be via self-study or an outside course.

IHS, BHS, NCHS – Lack of rigorous science offering for 9^th grade students. Previously, there was a pre-IB Chemistry/Biology class at Inglemoor, but it doesn’t exist anymore. Pre-AP Biology/Chemistry does exist at WHS however, and it seems to work very well to prepare hicap 9^th graders for AP science courses that follow. Why isn’t this pre-IB/AP Chemistry/Biology course offered at all of the high schools?

BHS – BHS is not allowing freshmen to take AP classes as a freshman. BHS requires student to take biology and chemistry before they can take AP classes in those subjects. According to course catalog BHS allows students to skip biology to take AP Biology, but parents have been told they could not. There are no 9^th graders registered in AP Bio this year in bothell. There are 9^th graders in chemistry in bothell this year.

English & History

BHS – Gen Ed & Pre-AP English. They are SO different, the level that they are taught at, the expectations are so extremely different. Coming from AAP English in middle school, choosing Gen Ed English in high school was much too easy, stuff he was learning in 3^rd grade. There are no due dates, only suggestions.

NCHS, IHS – Gen Ed English 9 was removed at north creek and inglemoor last year, in favor of having separate hicap sections. HiCap sections of pre-AP English 9 at North Creek happened last year. This year, however, those hicap 9^th grade students were allowed to opt in to pre-AP English 10, and NO hicap section of pre-AP English 9 was offered. However, the content in pre-AP English 10 is a lot darker, and parents were warned it may not be appropriate. There is no HiCap clustering happening, even in the 10^th grade classes. It was not clear to the parents that the only hicap option this year for 9^th graders was skipping to 10^th grade English. Last year’s 9^th grade English hicap cohort was really powerful as a transition from AAP, and lots of disappointment that it didn’t happen this year.

IHS – similar situation at Inglemoor for 9^th grade history, and a separate hicap section was offered last year. Was it offered this year?

IHS – Did Inglemoor offer HiCap English 9 sections this year?

NCHS, IHS – Ripple effect of offering different HiCap courses at North Creek and Inglemoor. We don’t have great ways to identify kids entering in 9^th grade, so this is not fully equitable when we have hicap specific course choices that aren’t available to other students. What if a student is newly enrolled and didn’t participate in earlier district universal screening?

ALL - Choice of content for HiCap students that are sensitive, especially novels for English courses. Very dark content in many of these books that they read. Hard to make that transition for some of our students. Not a balance of topics. Almost all books center on characters dying. And now there are even fewer selections with more limited reading during distance learning. Would like some uplifting books to round out the heavy stuff. Need to keep things content appropriate, not just reading level. During pandemic, particularly tough time to be reading challenging/dark material. Particularly concerning books: “Stuck in Neutral” “Beloved” “Hate List” “This Boy’s Life” “Tangerine”

Syllabus & Course Catalog

ALL – Different philosophy at different schools. North Creek & WHS, if you think that class is a good approach for you, go for it. Other schools there is a paternalism to not allow kids to take those challenges on for themselves.

ALL – Course catalog isn’t accurate with prerequisites, or may show prerequisites that aren’t enforced. 

ALL – Not having syllabi for classes is a big problem. It’s hard to get any concrete information about classes during registration to be able to make an informed decision. No idea about what books/content will be covered, what topics, what pacing. Even curriculum night doesn’t typically cover this, and it’s too late – focus is on grading, not on the actual topics of content.

ALL – Each high school handles summer work differently, whether there is summer work required for that class or nothing at all differs by school and changes year to year. Some schools require kids to notice that there is summer work on a website, but no proactive communication to parents/students. You don’t even know for sure what class your student is enrolled in until after school starts, so how does a kid know for sure which summer work they should be preparing? What if a counselor registers a kid for a more advanced class, but they are unaware of the summer work expectation?

ALL – Inability to transfer courses without taking an F in a class, after the first 10 days of school. This makes registration, course catalog and syllabus issues super important to fix, because once a kid starts taking a class, they are pretty much stuck.

ALL – Who makes decisions about what goes into the course catalog? When do these decisions get made? How does this come about? What role does Amity have? How can HiCap needs be better represented in course offerings & syllabi?

ALL – The “secret decoder ring” problem. You have to ask for certain courses, and yes, kids are allowed to skip certain prerequisites as a matter of course, but it’s not written down anywhere. Some pre-requisites are listed in the course catalog that are rarely enforced, or rarely enforced for HiCap students, but parents/students who want to follow the rules feel bound by what is published in the course catalog and don’t think to ask for an exception. It’s not equitable if you have to ask for an exception, or have to be “in the know” to realize that certain classes are available or are particularly advised. Schools need to make the options visible to HiCap students during registration so they can make informed choices.

ALL - Counselors who are telling students old information, who block students from accessing courses based on pre-requisites, making students need to appeal to the principal to get the courses they need. Not all students know to ask, or parents who are willing to insist. Not all counselors are aware of HiCap students needs and know the course progression. Counselors not encouraging hicap kids to take advanced classes. Some counselors are much better than others at guiding HiCap students. How can we get training to all counselors? Or centralize HiCap students to one counselor who develops expertise in this?

Grading

ALL - Official high school grading scales are subtly different between different teachers and different schools. Some teachers allow retaking tests, others don't. Some teachers allow regaining full credit for retakes or late work, some only part credit, some not at all. Some teachers round up from 92.9 to an A and others don't. If a kid stumbles in their math progression, sometimes these practices can have long term impact in discouraging a student from pursuing math. Furthermore, middle school doesn’t always follow the high school grading practices, which is important when so many high school math courses are commonly taken in the middle school years. Are we taking a growth mindset approach with grading, or not.

Overall

ALL – It’s a rough transition for HiCap students coming from a cohort-based AAP environment to the high school environment where they will not only be mixed with the overall school population, but may often be placed in classes with upperclassmen, sometimes as the only freshman or a very small group. Having some way to better transition HiCap students from AAP to the high school environment would be desirable. The HiCap Pre-AP English 9 class sections at IHS and NCHS worked very well for this. Why were they discontinued? Should this practice be expanded? It doesn’t have to be English. A Hicap 9^th grade pre-AP Bio/Chemistry class could also serve this purpose.

ALL - Are there any parent & student surveys about whether classes and course availability is working for HiCap students? This would be a powerful way to figure out what is/isn’t working. A student survey of hicap high school students would probably be the most actionable. Note that this year’s senior class is the first HiCap cohort that started in 2^nd grade and had the full sequence of AAP through middle school.

ALL – Schools with different philosophies & very different course offerings, and lack of ability to be able to switch between schools make this an equity issue. If the program in your neighborhood high school isn’t a fit for your particular student, you’re stuck, because waivers aren’t available anymore. This used to be much more fluid with kids able to move between schools if needed.

ALL - Making sure classes offered in middle school are appropriate for the trajectory into the high school. In particular, in writing and reading comprehension, if the plan is for freshmen to jump straight into 10^th grade English, are our hicap kids actually prepared for that level of English from middle school, and the volume of reading material? Whether they’ve been appropriately prepared in AAP for a serious science lab course in high school.

ILHS – Differentiation for HiCap kids at Innovation Lab is proving to be super challenging and not happening well yet. Growing pains.

ALL – Pandemic specific issue with kids needing to do self-teaching if they really want to be ready for AP exams this year.

HiCap Feeder Pattern 2020-2021

For the 2020-21 school year, EAP sites have largely been aligned with middle school feeder patterns (with the exception of the Canyon Park Middle School elementary feeder schools all of which lack space to host an EAP site) and already identified EAP students are being reassigned to EAP sites in the new alignment.

Spring 2020 HiCap Parent Survey Results

Minutes from 09/30/20 Meeting

 HiCap Parents Council Meeting

via Zoom
September 30, 2020

10:00 am – 12:00 pm

1. Austina introduction

16 people attended today.

2. Amity updates on assessment & screening plan for this year

1. Universal screening possibilities(K, 1, and 5)

2. Grade levels to refer: 2, 3, 4, 6, 7

3. October 16 is the referral deadline

4. Amity: started assessment screening plan. Difficulty is from dominant vendors. Based on age levels. Grade 5 is universal online assessment. Tech challenge is from remote online assessment. Kiosk app take over your chrome book. This make one not be able to use your chrome book. This is good for in school assessment. But it is horrible to do test at home remotely. Since we cannot monitor settings at home remotely. We cannot watch students. We cannot upload or download. Tech team is working on this. Network or switching gear to zoom is pretty complicated. We are brainstorming on how to do this remotely. Options later in different stages. 

5. Amity: younger students are not comfortable to come to the site. Move as far forward as possible. We do have plans to fix this, but no solutions so far.

6. Amity: for grade 2 ~ 4, I need to know the number who wants to be referrals.

7. Austina: what kind of ad to send emails to community for this referral?

8. Amity: robo call is very similar to last year, Oct. 16 is the deadline. Older kids do not get robot calls.

9. Lisa B.: what if parents don’t know if they should or should not refer?

10. Amity: they can always refer.

11. Lisa B.: send to emails to parents, interested or not.

12. Amity: encourage them to refer.

13. Hillarie: how they qualifying students through screening for IOWA assessment (what achievement level on i-Ready or other screening tools)?

14. Amity: NNAT3, i-Ready. NNAT 95% percentile or i-Ready 85% for math and reading. I-ready only for 85%. When parents refer, if kids auto get screening. if being referred, parents will be asked permission to get the second test area.

15. Hillarie: what if failed in Allowed to take Iowa.

16. Amity: 1st graders, two screeners: i-Ready, 85% percentile. 95%NNAT, enrolls, remains this year.

17. Austina: Either NNAT3 score is high or i-ready score is high for 1st grader, then quality. 

18. Amity: what they need is to get to qualify.

19. Tessa: previous score, grade 1, 85%, take test again?

20. Amity: yes.

21. Lisa B: Was this the question about out of district kids? 

22. Amity: smallest number of students on auto mailing students. Don’t have dates, check website…

23. 10/26 deadline?

24. Amity: yes.

25. Austina: same referral form this year?

26. Angie: squash together, it does not matter which one to take, NNAT or non-NNAT forms.

27. Austina: Parents send referrals to, deadline 10/16. Any more question on assessment screening.

28. Angie: it does not matter to fill in wrong forms.

29. Austina: Can we have only one form?

30. Angie: next year.

31. Amity: after referral, parents have to get permission for kids to get test. it takes long. Some illegal guardian had such referral, this is why we have two forms.

32. Carson: two forms make me nervous. Need to be clear which one is correct.

3. Amity Updates on Middle school AAP & Challenge

1. Terri: grade 7 has assessment 8? 

2. Austina: not all schools handle assessment differently.

3. Cooper Brix: 2 schools did.

4. AUstina: not all schools. Real question is how to do universal screening for grade 8?

5. Terri: my daughter qualified math last year. Qualified English this year. Need science, since she did not pass, she cannot take high cap class.

6. Cooper: science depends on math class.

7. Austina: Ingmoor takes English and History. North creek has 1 high cap class, English 9.

8. Lauren: Ap Capstone, higher level English. North creek has hard time to take AP Capstone. So they take 2 English programs this year.

9. Lauren: Experimental year, two pre ap English section for high cap students. goal is to fix ap capstone problem. new and continue changing.

10. Myriam Juritz: it depends on where you are living. More general comments: should it be clear direction for schools to follow certain rules? Each build is doing different thing.

11. Cooper: concern on high school year, across the board. not participate, not every student has the same path. lots of path for them to take. their options are limited for where they live.

12. Angie Hancock: high schools are never the same.

13. Angie: different in law

14. Myriam Juritz: lot of facilities for program, not always the same. Core or basic, chemistry, biology, English. opportunity for students to enroll are still different.

15. Liz Smith: separate again, I don't like this idea. They are in their own class, not in the community anymore.

16. Austina: whole lots of kids mix for kids, legitimately. different groups, different requirements.

17. Stephanie Corrigan: English is not my son's favorite. Feel math is so easy. ...Email to teacher...

18. Myriam Juritz: No consistency, lucky or unlucky to get the classroom. get to know what you are into. Need consistency and clear understanding on what you get into.

19. Stephanie: social, talk to kids, free period. quite a few kids don’t like English, pre AP.

20. Ausina: contact to Principal, flexibility to drop.

21. Stephanie: don’t know if my son will change, he focuses on math and science.

22. Cooper: English has the variation when stuck. AP, agenda. great conversation to ask for more transparency.

23. Lisa: gone to the AP English, easy for him. big jump from ap English to agenda

24. Cooper: addressing progression in high school.

25. Austina: Amity, can we ask high school Principal to be aware of this?

26. Amity: Yes, we can always ask.

4. Amity Updates on Single Qualifier plan

1. Amity: most families have been contacted, offering async model to Sunrise. Class size, limited, 4th grade single qualifier for math. Async plan for curriculum, hiring teachers. Oct. 6 show parent, given 5th … 180 students. opportunity to be served … using async model. accelerate 4th...

2. Austina: this is huge news, consistent plan for 4th students to get what they usually do not get. Amazing recap the plan, students happen to be in can join. For others in other school group into small...

3. Tessa: continue this program once kids come back to school?

4. Amity: yes, next year, not this hybrid mode. at least two years commitment.

5. Tessa: when to start another?

6. Amity: asking principal, Oct 2nd. collecting this week, contact list, invite parents to the session.

7. Austina: availability for parent, move neighborhood to school. Use this as decision make.

8. Stephanie: plan for 2,3 grade?

9. Amity: for 2,3rd grade, I am stretched. Kokanee follow up next year. Other buildings do not necessarily happen this year. Not sure the async model for younger students in school.

10. Staks: happens in … school.

11. Austina: Not trouble for everybody.

12. Austina: test plan for online assessment easier and feasible.

13. Amity: challenge, looking into situation, canyon park, not perfect. a few students are… new principals are struggling. North shore school...

14. Austina: Unfortunately every year we have such discussion. Some schools do not follow the guidance

5. Amity Updates on How is online learning going? Schoology?

1. Amity: online learning. I need to learn perspective from different levels. Since I am more exposure to elementary teachers. How are your kids going in these school? I’d get better perspective for elementary kids.

2. Stephanie: 1grader, 8zooms a day. e lock, go to schoology, get him to each zoom, pretty draining. tasks. overall, it's going on well. 9am ~ 3 pm a day.

3. Tessa: 1grader as well, his schedule has a lot async learning happening. challenge to schoology back and forth. 5 grader in EAP. he can manage zoom by himself. he has whole long tracking list. A biggest challenge for him.

4. Carson: Kindergarten parents, teacher give assignment, the log out. kids was not dealing this well. some parent may want more zoom time to talk to teachers. balance. third grade works better. break after 45 minutes class. 5th grade works pretty well. Virtual learning is harder.

5. Liz: 4th grader. timer. what time to come back. having flexibility to have break. break would be very helpful. middle schooler, 6 grader, put it on the board.

6. Anja: struggle to keep tracking the assignment. no colored code. 4th grader, zoom long, async meeting, very hard to track her async learning, agree with Carson, students do auto managing,

7. Lisa B: 2 6 graders. the so star is very slow. one is very strong in math, not in English. both agree they are not challenged.

8. Austina: Confirm, AAP in middle school? Right.

9. Lisa B: Yes, she find it incredibly easy. concern, social aspect. boy always get into any class room. how to connect with other kids? how to socialize and get to know each other? I agree teachers to emphaszie. good practice for them to learn. They do have some work.

10. Lisa B: Leota.

11. Carson: 1 year in middle school, age for kids, different schedules for different building. This fall, cannot advisory any more. I cannot understand kids not important any more what they is supposed to be before. frustrated.

12. Terri Kashi: My son feel ignoring him, teacher told him to calm down, getting to you. He got so frustrated. Really frustrating. 6 grader.

13. Liz Smith: Teachers told to download from the website. They don’t take the question on class, just ask to back to video.

14. Cooper Brix: we cannot see assignments.

15. Austina: who is seeing schoology is so long coming with assignment? exactly, all assignment. no easy way to see they are done or not. Schoology is supposed to be the way to manage clearly.

16. Cooper Brix: Schoology concern should be the top priority.

17. Myriam Juritz: Teachers should, they said not submit, they change setting, now everything cleared and showing submitted. is this schoology issue?

18. Austina: Reordered for submission of all assignments in schoology.

19. Austina: Yes, it is way too long to manage

20. Myriam: Session is recorded, recording helps us. High schooler, need planner. Middle  schooler, waiting for planner.

21. Stephanie: Wednesday, save me my mental health. Have break.

22. Carson: AAP summer homework bumped me.

23. Steven: 4th grader, teacher is really great. 8 grader, he just watching any way.

6. Council questions / updates:

1. Cooper Brix: AP take science.

2. Lauren: It doesn’t have to be full chemistry.

3. Cooper Brix: Skip biology and take AP.

4. Carson Sanderson: Principal, not offered to everybody. PST.

5. Lauren: PSAT works for this winter.

6. Austina: Teacher organization running for teachers. pay... national conference. send emails to our committy, we should contain these links.

7. Staks is volunteer to work on pictures.

8. Carson: How to contact them? separate 3rd math from 2nd math.

9. Liz: Could you ask principal to put this on the newsletters?

10. Austina: How we send emails to EAP parents, what is the plan?

11. Carson: If people have single subject qualifier group, learn more about next steps.

12. Amity: At least one families, I responded, single qualifier. asking question, if there is way to build community to talk together. Another social setting.  Good one to be considered.

13. Austina: How to do it? A giant email list probably. a lot of different way. somebody need to be there to push this forward.

14. Amity: This is reason I broke math to regions.

15. Carson: Who represents single subject.

16. Austina: Audrey Kozel is Working on this, did not define the job being asking. connection to reach out, working on Carson she is willing.

17. Hillarie Windish: I am willing to do this, happy to support all students.

18. Austina: Four of you, + Carson come up a plan and talk next meeting.

19. John: One of my single qualifier families complain the math assignment to their kid is so easy compared to other schools. I am so glad to see we are working on tackle this problem. Single qualifier families will be happy to see this progress.

20. Amity: John, thank you.