HiCap Parent
Council Meeting
April 4, 2023
10:00 am – 12:00
pm
Hybrid: In-person & Zoom
1. Austina –
Based on her research, there is a cultural divide between families in EAP and
not in EAP, often EAP kids excluding non-EAP kids but sometimes the other way
around. Elitist. Some parents are very upset about this.
a. Teachers,
administrators and principals are concerned about whether EAP is worth it
because of this dynamic.
b. Primary an
EAP issue it seems vs AAP.
c. School
structure impacts this if EAP students never mix with other classes.
d. Will this
improve with more schools hosting EAP?
e. Putting kids
on the playground together does not necessarily help kids meet each other. Need
something more intentional.
f.
Bear Creek previously implemented “families” that brought together
kids from different classes and grades. Also used at Shelton View and Canyon
Creek in the past.
g. Parents are
generally the problem in terms of creating an elistist attitude among kids.
h. Getting
parents to get outside their circle is difficult.
i.
Playdates could be a good time to talk to families about these
issues.
j.
Bothell HS actually split kids during curriculum night and gave
academic overview to HiCap and clubs and other activities to non-HiCap. Should
not be either/or.
k. Why do many
HiCap parents feel their kids are better off if not in a GenEd classroom? And
what does that say about parents whose kids are still in GenEd?
Discussion Topic – Raising Lifelong Learners
Podcast: Episode 86 All About Anxiety
http://Raisinglifelonglearners.com/episode86
2. Would have been nice if
it had discussed how to recognize your child actually has anxiety, not just
assume you already know.
3. April 27 – Online talk
about anxiety
Amity
Updates
4. Multi-disciplinary
selection team for appeals
a. Only 42 appeals vs 100+ in
previous years
b. Good appeals within reason.
Sometimes scores just don’t match up among tests.
c. Granted 7 re-tests
d. Positive MST experience,
helped by having the Consolidated Program Review (audit) happen recently and
good presentations that answered many questions.
e. Staying within letter of
the law and meeting student’s diverse needs regarding service delivery can be a
very emotional process.
f.
Are we identifying too many students? Pressure could come
from parents or teachers and administrators. Could do better with math for
multi-lingual kids.
5. Transition into our four
new schools
a. Slow in the beginning but
uptick in parent concerns, often from rising 3rd graders who
previously moved to a new school and are now being asked to move back. Parents
are requesting waivers to stay in current school, even though many parents are
happy to come back. Will grant waivers in the next week or two, but difficult
to predict staffing especially given budget deficit.
b. Most waiver decisions are
made based on enrollment issues, not necessarily HiCap. Have to make sure there
is space in all buildings for kids within boundary and trying avoid changing
boundaries again.
c. Transportation will end
when kids are in 5th grade for waiver kids because their home school
will eventually have a 5th grade EAP class, so will not transfer a
waivered 5th grader to a different school if their school has EAP.
Not a huge number of kids affected, but that does not matter to those
individual parents.
6. Waivers
a. Now accepting waiver
requests.
b. Choose to waiver because
of test scores from a particular elementary school or word-of-mouth about the
school. Sometimes friends or school schedules.
7. Service Delivery
a. Biggest challenge right
now.
b. Questions about 2-8, so
middle school is not immune.
c. No more back-filling in
middle schools, meaning non-AAP kids will not be placed in AAP classes in any
middle school next year. Problem if they are then put back into non-AAP classes
afterwards.
d. In part this deals with the
emotional argument about being in HiCap, which is a bigger issue this year than
in previous years, particularly with skimming in middle school.
e. New EAP schools are likely
to use walk-to model for math. Some existing EAP schools may implement walk-to
for 2nd graders. This may mean EAP kids are no longer in a separate
classroom, just separated for math and/or reading. Could help alleviate EAP vs
non-EAP tension. But more work for teachers and may not be the solution. That’s
why this is just a pilot.
f.
Doing a better job identifying kids from marginalized
communities. Identified may more students who qualified for FRPM than last
year. Part of that was reaching out to families and encouraging students to
actually take the test, and having a multilingual assistant speak to parents.
But still large gaps between kids identified for HiCap vs percentages of their
representation in district. Asian students are over-represented in HiCap
relative to percentage of student population.
g. Dealing with service
delivery during a teacher bargaining year also adds to the challenge.
h. School board meetings are
good for learning more about the challenges and drama. HiCap identifications
have increased 400+ percent since universal screening began.
8. Based on direct feedback,
high school students care a lot about block days, marginalized students, clubs
and adulting. Talked about professional development for teachers, communication
about special programs, Naviance, drug-use and even how teachers handle racial
slurs in the classroom.
9. Testing in fall – Naglierri
does not yet have national norms. No decision yet on any changes. Plus budget
considerations if need to pay for both IOWA and Naglierri since IOWA charges
same amount even if only do math or reading, and not both. Naglierri results do
not correlate well to IOWA Math, but do to iReady.
Council
Questions / Updates
10. How was middle school
registration?
a. SkyView did not have HiCap
course numbers listed, only GenEd and Challenge. Told HiCap kids to write it in
and indicate they are HiCap-qualified. Not always space to specify HiCap.
Worked correctly in StudentVue, but paper forms were confusing.
b. Schools could automatically
register HiCap kids for their appropriate HiCap classes to avoid mass chaos at
registrar.
c. Will need to adjust 4th
and 5th grade EAP math to match what middle schools are doing for 6th
and 7th grade math -- taking pre-algebra 1 and pre-algebra 2 so all
kids are ready for algebra by 8th. 4th grade will now do
6th grade math and part of 7th. 5th grade will
have the rest of 7th and 8th grade. 4th
graders are already doing 6th grade math, so it’s just about adding
some 7th grade math too.
Council
Business
11. HPC Budget Treasurer’s
Report - How is fundraising going? Are we able to pay for the insurance now?
a. $533.50 in the bank
b. Received donations from
some families and TimberCrest PTA
c. Not enough to purchase
insurance yet and make it thru rest of year
d. Expecting some matching
money, but has not arrived yet.
e. Request to comment on
Facebook post about fundraising so that it ranks higher in FB’s algorithm.
f.
Suggestion to sell Brown Bear Car Wash tickets as a
fundraiser. But not many Brown Bears in district.
g. Could do a restaurant
partnership – easy but often do not raise much money. Will be organized by
Lynn.
12. Rebuilding websites and
needing approval
a. Do not currently pay for
hosting at BlogSpot.
b. Cost of hosting is $3 per
month. Five different companies to choose from.
c. One benefit is that site
will no longer flip from hcparents.org to hcparents.blogspot.com . Could pay
BlogSpot to change the domain forwarding.
d. But would require manual
html since there would be no content management.
e. Council does not currently
have the budget to take on new expenses, especially without a volunteer to
manage the site. Could look into enhancing the current BlogSpot site.
13. Are we planning to do
Spotlight Awards again?
a. If so, need to do now.
b. Probably not going to
happen.
Ongoing Questions / Concerns
7. MailChimp Subscription - is
there a more cost effective option
o How is Steven’s project to
build this going? – Quick demo of what Steven built so far. Should meet HiCap
needs.
