December 12, 2023 HiCap Council Meeting Notes
● NEW SECRETARY
○
Holly volunteered to be Secretary for today’s meeting.
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No one volunteered for the role.
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Secretary ideally should be in the room, because it is
hard to take notes from zoom.
○
Discussed creating a sign-up genius and everyone taking
a turn.
---------- DISCUSSION TOPIC
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●
Raising Lifelong Learners Podcast: Episode 86 All About
Anxiety
http://Raisinglifelonglearners.com/episode86
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Is it my
anxiety projecting onto my kid?
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How much
anxiety have I place on my kid?
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Summit
Clinic does a whole psych eval that looks at the whole child and not just one
issue
●
It is
important that we have a wide base of knowledge, because you never know when
you are going to run into with your child or another child.
●
You can be
prepared for when kids have a panic attack, so you are prepared to apply first
aid.
●
Distracting
video: 68 ways to make potatoes.
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Modeling
how to manage my own anxiety and demonstrating my tools, so my kids can see it.
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If a kid
has an anxious tendency, they get more controlling.
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If a kid is
stubborn or tries to limit changes in routine that can be the surface behavior
for anxious kids.
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A lot of
other undiagnosed things have anxiety has an overlap.
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PDA is
pathological demand avoidance and can be a manifestation of anxiety for Autism.
●
PDA is now
being reserved as a Pervasive Drive for Autonomy.
●
Future
reading ideas: neurodiverse affirming approach in general or Porges’ Polyvagal
theory
●
How do you
approach a teacher who has a high level of anxiety and how that impacts the
students?
●
If a child
starts showing high levels of anxiety, it may not always be based on the child,
but may be a change in environment.
---------- AMITY
UPDATES -----------------------------------------
● Integrated model update
○ Presentation at Hollywood Hill
■ 30 people there
■ hosted by the PTA
■ Talking about the plans for next year
■ did not address the report card changes during the
meeting
■ With the integrated model, teachers need to
understand the standards, because the complexity expectations for a child
change across the levels. In order to meet the child’s needs, you need to jump
back and forth to address where a child might exceed standards and need
instruction at a higher level to move forward or need additional support.
■ If a teacher is used to only teaching the advancement
from one grade level standard to the next grade level standard, then they would
be able to teach a child through a years growth of progress if students need to
advance between other standards.
■ We have not yet updated the current report card to
match the Houghton Mifflin curriculum in terms of grade level expectations and
skills.
■ We can not use report cards to measure the roll out
of the integrated model.
■ Our report cards are not currently standards based.
■ I-ready scores are not included on report cards and
are inconsistently included with report cards when they are sent home and
teachers don’t always share it with parents.
■ I-ready could be a useful tool to measure a year's
worth of growth.
■ I-ready has two different tracks and the teacher can
assign i-ready lessons
■ I-ready can get maxed out and not be able to measure
the progress of more advanced students.
■ Worried that teachers and admin are not telling
parents when students have a deficit
● Upcoming scheduled at Moorlands and Sunrise
○ Will be to inform the communities entering the
integrated model next year.
● Survey update - re-explain the survey and the intent
○ Just two admins doing student interviews: 70
completes and another 150 more to do
○ Random sampling of second and third grade students
○ Teachers and schools have raised concerns with
students getting the survey
○ Questions are roughly:
■ Do you have anyone to play with at recess?
■ Does anyone in your classroom have similar interests?
■ Are you happy in your class?
■ What would make your class better?
■ What do you like best about your class?
○ Parent feedback:
■ it takes a year for students to develop friendships
■ their kids just don’t have the social engagement:
need more structured social engagement
○ No data analysis yet. Will do it once all the
interviews are done.
○ 2nd and 3rd grade survey
● PD Update of math held last week
○ we talked about this last week
○ included two chapters on gifted children and how
trauma impacts them
○ for all buildings that have started the integrated
model, the building leads receive this professional development and then they
bring it back and offer it to their building
○ There used to be a huge push for math acceleration in
the district years ago, but now there are some people questioning if we should
accelerate so quickly.
○ talked about:
■ opportunities to engage students at all math levels
for other curriculum in the classroom
■ thinking classroom (share a pan and small group
discussions)
■ lots of additional resources in the curriculum that
can be used as needed
■ discussed math expressions daily routines
● breaking about numbers and putting them together
● explanation of what they are doing in math
● talking about their math
○ Suggestion or resource: bedtime math free app
○ Integrated model feedback: kids struggle with
transitions
○ There a lot of perspectives on homework
■ At the last listen and learn last week: where is the
homework?
■ There is a wide spectrum of homework expectations
across the district and teachers struggle to meet those expectations.
○ The level of math here vs elsewhere is different in
different countries. Some countries expect a higher level in math than we
expect here.
○ If elementary kids don’t get homework, then they may
struggle with homework when they get it later in their schooling.
● Senior Survey Questions
○ Hicap has been doing the senior survey for 3 years
and usually gets about 30 responses. Historically, it’s been sent in late May
after exams.
○ Admin wants the survey questions. They want to review
to consider and possibly make suggestions to modify the questions.
○ Plan to send out in April this year in the hopes that
we will get more responses.
○ Staff asks: How many kids drop out of EAP accelerated
pathway by grade 10?
■ To address this concern, we need data that shows that
the accelerated pathway is not harming students.
● Testing update
○ Thank you, proctors! There is a lot of running around
and getting the tests done. Thank you!
○ There will be makeup tests in May.
○ The math took longer than expected.
○ Test scheduling is challenging:
■ Don’t schedule during recess
■ Don’t schedule during specialist
■ It varies greatly based on building and their level
of coordination.
○ How does the information about when the testing is
done get to parents? The hicap testing timeline is posted on the website.
Additional timeline info needs to be done at a school or classroom level.
○ HiCap admin sent clear explanations to schools about
which students need to take the additional screening and which ones don’t for
various other reasons including that they already qualified based on the SBA.
○ Students in 2, 3 and 4, need to be referred (parents
can do this) to Hicap to be considered for screening.
○ We don’t post makeup test dates.
● Regional presentations for next year’s students: Feb
6, 7, 13, & 15 all from 6-7pm
○ Feb 6th: East
○ Feb 7th: South
○ Feb 13th: North
○ Feb 15th: West
○ The East region will not be on the 13th.
○ These sessions will be on zoom and recorded.
○ There are four to allow for enough time for parents
to ask all their questions and address any feeder pattern questions.
○ Will send a Hicap newsletter
○ Will introduce the hicap council at the beginning of
the meeting.
○ It’s helpful for parents to know of another parent
they can talk to or ask questions of.
● What will happen to a qualifying 2nd grader in a
school without EAP classrooms? They will get bussed to their local EAP program.
● 2024-25 School Year Integrated Classroom plans for
each school
○ Arrowhead, East Ridge, Frank Love, Kokanee, and
Westhill: Grades 2 and 3 will roll up Grade 4 (last year's 3rd graders)
○ Canyon Creek, Fernwood, Kenmore, Lockwood: Grade 2
will roll up Grade 3 (last year's 2nd graders)
○ Hollywood Hill, Moorlands, Shelton View, Sunrise will
begin with Grade 2
We may add the following schools in the future, but
not at this point in time.
○ Cottage Lake, Wellington, Woodmoor, Maywood Hills,
Crystal Springs, Woodin will continue to feed into other schools for highly
capable services.
○ Ruby Bridges has already integrated at all grades.
●
Amity will have increased scope of
responsibilities next year (MTSS, Multi-language learners, CTE, etc). She is
still trying to figure out how her team will scope to the new workload.
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COUNCIL QUESTIONS/UPDATES -------------------------------------
●
Middle school & high school math club
○
You don’t need to be an expert to run a Math
Club.
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At the high schools Math clubs are ASB led.
○
When teachers run a coordinated program across
the district, you get 100 kids showing up and trying out for 20 pots on the
club.
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Students need to have the problem solving
ability that you can develop in Math Club
○
The sports coaches have a union, so they get a
coordinated plan setup ahead of the year.
○
I want the kids to feel challenged and have fun
with Math.
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Middle schools don’t consistently have it.
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WA state has a Math league.
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Math Olympiad is an option that some Middle
Schools like Leota’s PTA have done.
○
Northshore does not have standardization across
the district on academic clubs
●
Northshore Council PTSA Advocacy:
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---------- COUNCIL BUSINESS
-------------------------------------
●
In which areas do we want to focus our advocacy?
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What things do we want to see happen?
---------- ONGOING
QUESTIONS/CONCERNS -------------------------------------
Austina is giving a Bear Creek talk on how to help reluctant writers
As we are moving to integrated classrooms, how does that impact our
summer meetup plans?
Include the Northshore Council PTA Advocacy info in a Hicap newsletter
going out the first week of January.
