HiCap Parents Council Meeting
Reading/discussion today:Talking about Giftedness: The Elephant in the Room
It is important to foster humility and empathy in our kids
Problematic when smartness is partnered with identity
Important to promote the value of everyone, all have their own strengths/weaknesses
Smart doesn’t mean “better”
Each gifted kid is unique; what works for some, in relation to giftedness, may not work for all
Be careful of imposter syndrome - will discuss this topic next time
Amity Updates
Testing and Notification
Testing make-ups are almost done
Probably complete by March 4, 2022
Question about site locations for next year for last year’s expansion schools (Kenmore El., Wellington, Shelton View)
Amity and Angie are getting ready for a staffing meeting the week after break
Meeting is earlier than they’d hope as testing and parent responses aren’t yet complete
High School Catalogs
Might not all be released, but they’re getting there
NCHS catalog has been published
WHS catalog has been published
Added a 2 semester long course for triple jump math
Aligned for CHS (College in the High School) credit
Courses are Calculus 3 and differential equations
Adds yet another new math pathway chart
Myriam asks which steps were taken to get to the current point with the catalog and who was involved, e.g. were teachers involved in writing descriptions?
Sounds like department heads were involved but maybe other teachers are not aware of this work
Fear of teachers not buying into the cultural change (to align the offerings at all comprehensive high schools and have catalog entries that accurately reflect the depth, content, and work required for classes) if they weren’t involved in creating course descriptions
STEAM: looking at new curriculums
William and Mary math curriculum, Beast Academy, science curriculum
No mention of writing curriculum, but they gave Amity a list
Would explore curriculum for HiCap and others, especially to help those would come from disadvantaged backgrounds
Austina asked question of Amity and Nancy Johnson (Moorlands Principal): what is happening for dyslexia screening
Have completed screening for K & 1, but not 2nd grade
Letters for K-1 are getting ready to go out
Some 2nd graders for whom teachers or parents expressed concerns have been tested
Probably won’t test 2nd grade full scale this year
Plan is being implemented in stages
If parents have a specific concern, they should reach out to school
Nancy’s opinion: we are checking boxes and doing our best to make sure of our plan and we will grow the program next year
Austina reminded group that dyslexia is so hidden in the HiCap population and is often not caught until these students reach the “performance cliff” when academic talents cannot overcome the work required which often happens in middle or high school
HiCap kids will likely look average on these screens
Might need to consider scores along with something like Naglieri scores
HiCap kids will get whole words, but not the phonological awareness or nonsense words, though averaged scores will appear normal
Council Updates
Updates on Council Priorities/Work groups
Audrey on Professional Development (PD)
Going to try to meet on Friday morning 02/18/22
Watch for email verification
Terra on Curriculum
Need more volunteers to look at curriculum to review
Reaching out to 5 dyslexia pieces, but they are not as robust as hoped
Hillarie is looking more at science/social studies
Many are looking for a comprehensive curriculum, but don’t think this exists
Might reach out to larger community to get help with work
Nothing says that work groups need to be made up only of HCP council members
What is important is council leadership to report progress back to HCP
Questions on advancement versus enrichment
There seem to be more requests for enrichment
Enrichment is not usually found in a textbook
Suggestion to look at what PACE does for enrichment; sometimes PACE already shares these programs with the rest of the community of the schools at which they are based
There have been small efforts to have a specific HiCap curriculum
These were before Amity’s time
Junior grade books
Socratic technique in 4th/5th grade
There is a little in Middle School
Some of these stuck
Myriam on High school
Myriam asks for the help of middle and elementary school reps
It might seem that high school is very far away, but it isn’t
Myriam started trying to figure outh these issues when her oldest child was in 6th grade, largely because she went to school in another country
Request of high school reps
Go back to email thread of requests from 2-3 years ago and summarize the change requests for next year
No more changes this year as the catalog has “gone to print” and registration will begin after midwinter break
Suggestion to hold this update until we see BHS’s catalog and also have time to analyze exactly what has changed this year (with the new course descriptions)
Please reach out to Myriam if you want to join in with this work as we will need more new people to keep it going
If you go to NCHS website ➞ click on Academics ➞ click on Course Catalog ➞ click on View Course Catalog it takes you to last year’s catalog: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vPTzBpsUXnAKmFMARnSzMSxZWpbyosnvuPEiJb77f0U/editlast year you get the old catalog
Myriam went to Counseling ➞ Course Registration ➞ Course Catalog on the side right hand side and was able to get the current course catalog: https://docs.google.com/document/d/191FEweWYAtUJzOIS7Z0HqMR213xuG0e5ioHYriNWRNk/edit#heading=h.2et92p0
(I was able to replicate both of these paths when trying to enter the previous two bullet points correctly on 02/28/22, so not everyone is seeing the correct course catalogs yet)
BHS Registration site says the catalog won’t be out until after registration is due
Financial update from Lauren
Balance $1,429.90
Usually spend about $110/month
May need more since we haven’t budgeted for teacher awards (see later discussion for details)
May need to plan some fundraising in the fall
May want to ask PTA’s now ask they are thinking about next year’s budgets
This can happen if someone takes it on
Believe that individual reps should talk to their constituent PTA(s)
Veronica will dig up and update the PTA request letter that Jasmine Fry drafted last spring and share it with the council
Last year’s suggested donation was $50
How do we talk about gifted kids? How do we talk to our PTAs?
Ask for a HiCap liaison on the PTA board if there isn’t already one; add it to the letter with the donation request
Frame: welcome events to welcome hicap kids in our school community
Mention work done on high school common course catalog
For families who declinedEAP polacement for 2021-22: Whe do they get to change their choice for 2022-23?
Amity shared that they sent out a message 3 weeks ago via Blackboard email
They do ask families annually
Families were supposed to respond by last Friday (02/11/22), but they will still accept
If families are waffling on their decision, Amity requests that we advise them to say yes now because we need to know the maximum number of student that might join EAP to plan staffing for next year
Parent who asked the question hadn’t seen this email
HiCap Teacher Awards
Goal for meeting is to come up with a plan and vote to approve it
Feedback on the nomination form shared before the meeting
Would like to gather nominator’s email addres to avoid double submissions
You can select multiple rolse
Should include general education as an option for elementary
Why are 9 awards listed?
Doesn’t need this many but leaving options for discussion
Thought was to give list a list to help suggest qualities of teacher nominees
Do we even want to have nominators choose awards? May be better for them to just nominate and for council to assign the best award
Should be careful with complex language, e.g. pedagogy, so that families who speak foreign languages or may have had less education are not excluded from the process
Austina suggested reducing awards to three categories
EAP Teacher Excellence Award
Elementary Neighborhood School HiCap Award
AAP Teacher Excellence Award
Others would like to see an award added for high school
Could give multiple people the same award if it feels right
Don’t want to infringe on existing PTA awards
Golden Acorn, Golden Apple, Outstanding Educator Award
These awards are recommended by the Northshore Council PTSA, but not every PTA has to award them
To give a PTA award, PTA much donate money to State PTA and then they get SWAG or certificate or such to give the awardee
All the money that the PTA’s pay for the award is given to a scholarship fund
Some PTA’s might choose not to give these awards because of the financial requirement
Thought our award would just be for bragging rights
Might get a badge that could be used on Linked-in like the ones seen on credly.com
Might give a certificate
Administration concern (Nancy Johnson, Moorlands Principal, and Amity): we don’t want to creat an unintentional divide between the teachers of HiCap and teachers of general education
Veronica shared that she knows this divide exists and is even perceived by parents
Maybe instead, we should encourage families to share these kudos with teachers directly
Also have general education teachers who go above and beyond
Does adding an award for them help with the concern over the divide?
If only HiCap families nominate, Nancy Johnson didn’t feel including gen ed teacher this way would prevent causing the rift
Intention of suggested award was really meant to be more like Dr. Reid’s highlights
Goal was to help information transfer of best practices
Nancy shares such stories/highlights in her staff newsletter, but they don’t get awards
Suggestion to instead survey parents and kids (rather than nominations) and present resultant output as a powerpoint + animation
Does it help if we change the wording from “award” to “recognition” or “spotlight”?
Concern that there is a perception that it isn’t good to be directing more resources to highly capable students
Suggested wording change: instead of “nominate”
“Share your story;’ this seems to lack power
What is the right word?
Recognize
Highligh
Applaud a teacher
Want to add “spotlight” as a question so people will read it and understand all of the categories
One teacher per submission
Thus, they really need to know what school the teacher is in
For high school: don’t need to limit to academic teachers but still want HiCap in the name of the award
Where we landed
Asking for a teacher who made a difference in your HiCap kid’s life
Award is digital badge and maybe a certificate
We don’t want to upstage PTAs
Symbolic recognition may be better than a physical award, e.g. gift card
How do we share this?
Send out an e-mail
Put it on Facebook
Amity might send it out to staff if that seems appropriate
How do we decide? Who decides?
We want a teacher who is currently teaching
Maybe a team from council?
Carson and Stephanie volunteered to help during the meeting
Others interested should contact Terri and Imen
Sort through stories
Present suggestions at a HCP meeting
Council will vote on the results
Motion to spotlight teachers as proposed in this section made by Lyn Trier and seconded by Audrey Kozel
Motion passed with caveat
Finalizing spotlight form to spotlight successes of staff
Final form will be shared and reviewed by HCP via email
