Minutes from 9/17/2024 Meeting

HiCap Parents Council

September Meeting

District Office

9/17/2024 - 10 AM - 12 Noon

In Person Attendance: Ashley W, Carson S, Holly M, Terri K, Hong Z, Jenn C, Amity B, Angie H, Elizabeth W, Jenine, Liz P, Mairead

In Person Late: Faustine

Zoom Meeting Attendance: Lyn, Elizabeth R, Veronica W, Stacey B, Alan, Nikhat, Imen, Ekta

Zoom Late: None

Secretary: Liz P.

Zoom Liaison: Holly M

Next meeting date: Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Discussion - Amity Updates

• Seeking test proctors. 

• Training is upcoming on October 9. 

• Testing runs through January. 

• $25/hour. 

• Elementary and middle school test sessions do not exceed 3 hours, but typical commitment is more about 1 hour per test. 

• You sign up on a Google Sheet for slots. Office will reach out if there are slots that need to be filled.

• Classified listing on NSD employment page: https://www.nsd.org/our-district/departments/human-resources/employment/classified-employment

• Platforms

• Pearson platform - NNAT3  (Note: there may be changes to using this system due to new licensing agreements)

• MHS platform - Jack Naglieri has moved his tests to this platform. 

• This platform has the math test for the first grade students. (No more IOWA for this grade level.)

• Riverside platform - Iowa tests

• 2nd through 5th grade skill based tests

• Differentiation: what does this mean?

• Universal design for learning: Giving children different ways to express that learning has happened and they have met standards

• Differentiation is designing different levels and type of learning based on student needs. 

• I-Ready

• Used for both diagnostic and can be used for lessons

• Amity verbally shared data comparing gen ed, EAP, single qualified students that looks at their growth over the year. Not much difference, but we only have one year of data. (Note: Data may be shared with council at a later point)

• Westhill Elementary Update

• Westhill had made a statement that they would not do walk-to-math the weekend before school began

• People reached out to district; district communicated with school; decision was reversed and now Westhill will be walking to math

• Please remember, if the district has communicated something and the school’s rollout is not sitting with you, always say something and reach out!

• Aside: Remember, we don’t want to beat the math love out of children. If you notice your child starting to hate math, it may be a good choice to take an off-ramp (ex. When entering sixth grade).

• Debrief experience for Hong: Sought experience and info from Council. Thankful for Amity quickly addressing the issue.

• Canyon Creek 2nd grade

• Email to parents says only 2nd grade curriculum will be taught for everything except math

• Will children receive enhanced instruction even at a 2nd grade level?

• Curriculum night upcoming; will let us know how it went.
  
  
  

Council Questions/Updates

Action Items

• Do we need better descriptions on our website of what the Integrated model is?

Next month Agenda

• Jenn Carr: Asking teacher about this: What are the differences between the integrated ELA and the self-contained EAP class? [Will report back about this]

• Budget/finance discussion?

• Priorities for the year

• Changes to title for elementary school reps (HiCap Vs. EAP)

Minutes from 6/11/24 Meeting

 HiCap Parents Council

June Meeting

District Office

6/11/2024 - 10 AM - 12 Noon

In Person Attendance: Amity B, Andrea S, Hong Z, Jenine F, Austina D, Allen T, Carson S, Jenn C, Holly M, Liz P, Ashley W, Angie H., Faustine W., Mairéad
Zoom Meeting Attendance: Elizabeth W, Imen H, Veronica W, Terri K, Julienne M, Sudhakar, Elisa, Nikhat R, Ekta

Zoom Late: Karen Smith

Secretary: Liz P.

NEXT MEETING: September TBA

Discussion - Austina DeBonte’s Dissertation and Presentation

• On the NSD website, you can find the assessment information for our specific district

• If folks have questions, refer them to email

• Quotes in slideshow are worth a read. Carson comments that this is might be what is happening at the middle school – we didn’t push hard enough so we are defaulting back into what is comfortable

• “You have to go far enough fast enough not to slide back to where you were before you made the changes. And I think there's a certain level of inertia…that the system has to spin out of, otherwise it gets sucked back to what it always did.” – District Leader 

• With certainty, we can be confident that we are not overidentifying kids at NSD. Other districts throughout the nation would see our identification rates if they did the work

• Doesn’t always feel like NSD teachers have this overview. Example - Skyview teachers are still debating about if all the kids in the advanced classes should be there.

• Comment: The push for integrated classes is coming at a difficult time as the budget is contracting. Teachers are remarking that they need more help to make these classrooms work well. But we can’t give that to them right now.

• Service delivery may be easier in self-contained classroom model

• When researchers see this piece, the common remark is, “Wow, there has been so much success, without very much training and professional development.” And then we can start to imagine what would have been possible with training and development. Open research question.

• Professional development for teachers – 100 clock hours every 5 years; most certificates expire in June. 15 has to be STEM. Portion needs to be equity hours. Compared to neighboring areas, NSD provides more clock hours. NSD is also an approved clock hour provider.

• WAETAG is another provider and it specializes in HiCap kids. They often offer free webinar hours.

• NAGC 24 Conference will also offer clock hours.

• “What if teachers believed that their fundamental purpose in schools was to help students identify, develop, and refine their personal strengths and interests? Rather than trying to standardize all students to have no perceived weaknesses or differences, arguably an impossible goal, what if the goal of education was actually not to remove weaknesses, but to maximize strengths?” - Page 370

Amity Updates

• District is reorging and downsizing a bit. Amity’s role will change, but will still include Accelerated Models.

• Graduating HiCap Senior Student survey. 

• Some of these are kids that would have started at Bear Creek then separated all over the place for middle schools. Some kids went to three different elementary schools.

• The answers really are all over the place. Still need some coding to see trends.

• Some of the kids love being pushed while others did not. There is no one program delivery that will ever serve every kid. 

• We will receive copies of it with the names removed.

• MHS - Jack Naglieri’s newest assessments

• 1st and 2nd grade students will move to Naglieri quantitative test for next year instead of taking the IOWA math test during second assessment phase.

• It has national norms now

• IOWA reading test will remain

• We think that the youngest learners cannot prep for this test. We want to test them on their aptitude, not test their discrete skills. 

• Older kids will need those discrete skills to jump in later.

• NNAT 3 will go to the Naglieri Non Verbal. This is for the universal screen for 1st and 5th grade.

• Will be announced on website in August.

• Data from Integrated Model

• Data pull won’t happen until June 14

• Parents survey

• Complete. NSD will send it out.

• Playdates won’t be announced through Amity’s office.

• Frank Love Elementary conversation

• ELA feels a little more nebulous

• Teachers have resources K-6, it is all digital. Each teacher does have a hard copy of their own grade level.

• This was a whole new curriculum for the teachers this year. So they are adjusting to that. 

• Best PD is when Andrea meets with teachers by grade level and shows examples and walks them through.

• Andrea is creating pacing guides for each grade level. K is drafted and out to teachers for feedbacks.

• Could we include Art Docent program in Reading Remakes (Andrea will share resource)

• Teachers can borrow Rigby readers from other teachers, so they could pull high level books.
  
  

Council Questions/Updates

• Skyview Middle School principal is leaving. They will be interviewing for new principals soon. Taking input now!

• Elementary math complaints for 4 & 5 grade.

• Start coding email [HPC Board] at subject of email

• Schedule your playdates. More information by email.

Voting

Ekta - Northcreek Feeder Pattern - Voted in for 1 year.

Minutes from 5/7/24 Meeting

HiCap Parents Council Meeting

May 7, 2024

Discussion topic

• Emily Kircher Morris podcast- This particular podcast seemed focused on getting buy-in from teachers and encouraging them that they can do it a little bit at a time. The podcast itself was surface-level in terms of details on UDL (universal design for learning). 

• Can be tricky to challenge hicap kids–how to motivate them to push themselves? Are they going for the grade? Diving deep on a topic because they love it?

• Most transformative part of UDL is the “free-form” accommodations (use any material, demonstrate mastery in any way, etc.) BUT this is very difficult for a teacher to pull off. Tough to have all these materials readily available. 

• Helpful for 2E kids, esp those who don’t have a diagnosis. This is an equity issue since not all kids who need a 504/IEP will ever get one. 

• NSD does this better than we sometimes think: 1:1 devices, tech in the classroom, sound systems in every classroom. District is working on policies surrounding things like AI, etc. 

Amity updates

• No WAETAG this year, but NAGC will be in Seattle Nov 21-24! They have a parent day on Saturday 11/23. $50 for the entire day. There will be opportunities for parent volunteers-volunteer by manning a table for half the day, and go to the conference for the other half day. 

• MHS testing: will have to check and make sure iPad data gets recorded properly even if the device sleeps. Naglieri does not seem to have provision for giving a test one grade ahead. Had some small test administration issues–iPads lock after only 2 mins, would be good if we could force through the 5 minute wait, would be nice if there was a kiosk app or if the screen locked on the test. 

• Angie checked–all 14 1st graders from FLE had scores submitted so the 2 minute time out did not appear to lose any data. 

• MHS verbal: attempting to test thinking/reasoning skills, not reading. Some of the pictures did have cultural background knowledge required. For the remaining pilot test sessions we will try to pilot the quantitative and nonverbal, instead of quantitative and verbal. 

Middle school update-Skyview request to change AAP classes for science and social studies

• Skyview teachers have adjusted their briefing paper. It will go through one more edit and then go to the superintendent. 

• Whatever happens, we need to be prepared to work with the model and address concerns respectfully. We will do better to listen to all sides. 

• Detracking and equitable identification of hicap are working from the same foundational principle: kids are capable of more than we think, if we can figure out how to remove their “ceiling”

• If NSD allows Skyview to change models, other middle schools will likely follow. 

Looking ahead

• Next year Amity will be executive director of teaching and learning with responsibilities to oversee HiCap, curriculum and instruction, MTSS, career and technical education, ELD, assessment, instructional technology. She will no longer have a regional assignment. Regional assignments have been consolidated to two: one for south and west, one for east and north, and one doing all the high schools. 

High school math

• 112 10th or 11th graders (mostly 11th graders) will be in calc BC across the districts (minus IHS since they have a different structure with IB)

• College credit may not actually be that valuable at this level. Many future STEM majors will have to retake anyway. Better to offer the challenge rather than holding back because we can’t figure our a way to get them college credit. 

End of year data

• 65 students have responded to the senior survey, almost double the total from last year!

• Elections will open tomorrow. Last chance to inform Carson if you want to finish out your two year term but have not yet updated the spreadsheet. 

• Maybe schools that still pull families from outside their boundaries could still host a playdate council sponsored playdate, and the council could also do four regional playdates. We would need volunteers to spearhead these regional playdates. 

Minutes from 4/16/24 Meeting

Council Notes

Middle School Updates

•   “Evidence Base for Advanced Learning Programs” reading is based on the Skyview Middle School request for changing

•   Austina: “De-tracking” removing tracks (i.e., low performers/remedial tracks); education has moved away from this in recent years; not only does this improve low performers, it can improve the situation for high performers; however, research is very mixed (mixed together there is a small positive effect)

•   Does Skyview Middle meet the law the state is required to provide? Does not seem to at this point. Changing curriculum does not solve behavior problems; HiCap students who are not motivated may do the minimum required

 

Amity Updates

•   Senior survey

-    Angie put results in a Jot form; Amity would like to send this out district-wide in the next few weeks

-    Added a question: “what was the highest level of math you took in HS?”

-    Provided to seniors with a HiCap designation

-    Questionnaire needs to be edited; it is a bit long; need to look at responses from past surveys, perhaps low response questions could be eliminated

•   State is transitioning grant process

•   Discussion regarding PD for staff; should PD be offered for parents/community?

 

 

Council Questions/Updates

•   Skyview meeting updates:

-    Amity asked for a briefing paper from Skyview, was given a presentation:

•   Skyview does not understand what HiCap/district does (the presentation was very one-sided); Amity asking Skyview to re-evaluate pros and cons, making sure they are fully developed representing multiple view points

•   Not a “listening” session; select data provided: believe acceptance criteria changed in 2018 and too many students are identified as HiCap; want to continue backfilling classes (not in the current CBA)

•   Carson’s question to Skyview teachers: how is what you’re proposing different from what you’re requesting?

-    Conversation should focus on curriculum decisions not student numbers (i.e., backfilling)

-    Curriculum needs to focus on scaffolding 2E and gifted students who may not be motivated to do HiCap-level work

-    Next steps: Amity and Melissa Riley will meet with Skyview to rework their briefing paper/presentation; possibly form a task force to evaluate all the shifts in middle school in recent years; HiCap subcommittee to create a position statement

•   Concerns about Edgenuity adequately preparing students for SBA testing:

-    SBA scores will reflect who is using Edgenuity and who is not

-    Terra concerned that the compressed math curriculum may not provide enough repetition to build foundational skills

-    Last year, 62% got 4s, 29% got 3s (91% meet or exceed grade level)

•   Large HiCap math class sizes (34 students at FLE):

-    School will have to decide what to do on a case by case basis

•   Future of NSD HiCap:

-    Seattle Public Schools has been in the news recently; negative reception

-    Bellevue and Lake Washington districts are contemplating changes

Council Business

•   Elementary play dates:

-    What is the value? If students aren’t transitioning to HiCap schools, why are certain students invited and not all? Cost?

•   Value is not based on the school but rather the cohort of parents; strong value in building parent community

-    PTAs push back about this being exclusive/insular

-    Change to district-wide rather than school-specific gatherings? Regional?

-    Perhaps make play dates inclusive, everyone is welcome, but the topic will be HiCap

-    Could have value in middle school meet-ups, more for parents

-    Woodmoor, Maywood, Wellington, Crystal Springs, Cottage Lake still have students that move to a HiCap school; value in meeting other families doing the same

-    Create a survey to ask NSD community about play dates and whether it is good for parents, kids, or both?

•   Annual financial audit: Terra and Becky to complete

•   Upcoming election:

-    Communications, voting can be separated and led by different people; timeline is 10 days for nominations and 10 days for voting; meet offsite to transition positions

-    Holly will be the Election Chair: manage nomination forms and tally votes

-    Meeting to be scheduled week of June 3rd; survey to be sent out to decide the date

-    Elections will begin in May; possibly send into to PTA for increased distribution