Minutes from 11/13/24 Meeting

HiCap Parents Council

November Meeting

District Office

11/13/2024 - 10 AM - 12 Noon

In Person Attendance: Amity, Ashley, Angie, Carson, Allen, Terri, Mairead, Faustine and Elizabeth

In Person Late:

Zoom Meeting Attendance: Liz P, Terra, Hong, Veronica, Jen, Mairead

Zoom Late: Elisa, Holly (11:30)

Secretary: Liz P.

Zoom Liaison: Mairead

Next meeting date: Tuesday, December 10th 10 AM - 12 Noon

Reading: The Class Ceiling

• Great article in pointing out the need and how many HiCap kids there are

• Lacking on the how-to for teachers

• How do we get teachers and community members on board that there is a great need and that HiCap education is basic education.

• HiCap kids need study skills.

• What about enrichment versus acceleration? Article is about acceleration moving forward. Maybe there is a need for more depth?

• “Differentiation is a PROACTIVE approach though, not reacting to just challenges AFTER they arrive, but DESIGNING learning experiences with individual differences in mind from the beginning. Teachers need to anticipate variance among learners and plan strategies that address those needs before they become barriers.” - Terra

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Discussion - Amity Updates

• HiCap Middle School Task Force

• Letters going out to selected committee members.

• First step will be orienting these new members so everyone is starting off with the same basis.

• Already combating the idea that we are overidentifying students

• There are parents who are still stuck in the stigma. There are parents who think this is all about test prep

• How can the HiCap Council interact with this taskforce? ACTION ITEM

• CMAC field testing?

• 5th to 6th grade math path

• Amity: Seems like the issue is communication, not the jump.

• Maybe can have notification in ParentVue

• The issue could also be late identification (students identified as 5th grader)

• Many families do not say this is just a communication issue. This is an issue of whether the triple jump is appropriate for all families.

• Can we change the middle school registration form?

• Amity: I cannot unilaterally alter the registration forms. These are unique to each school and are then funneled through cabinet.

• Data shared about math grades 

• Lots of students are using tutors, so please do not use this as our only metric to determine success of program

• Elementary Reps could be more involved in helping families with math selection.

• What does it mean for classes later?

• What does it mean for high school transcripts?

• Can we engage some college counselors to understand how this impacts acceptance rates?

• Side Note on tutoring

• In Asian culture, many elementary students are being tutored NOT because they are struggling, but because some families want to advance their kids as far as possible.  

• There are students that are struggling though and do engage with tutors

• And the dynamic often switches in high school. Tutoring at that level often is to guarantee a good grade for transcripts.

• Elementary HiCap ELA

• 2nd grade students will be graded on a 2nd grade level. These students are not receiving 3rd grade curriculum.

• However, parent conferences are coming up. Parents can ask, “How is my HiCap designated child receiving education that fits their needs” and “how is HiCap ELA different than for GenEd students even if the curriculum is the same?”

• Amity encourages families to ask these questions. Teachers should be able to answer this (ex. Rigby readers).

Council Questions/Updates

• How can we engage families to share more of their stories or invite them to meetings?

• Library, coffee shop

• Start with all families rather than broken up by region

• Maybe start with an evening zoom one?

Action Items

• Amity: How can HiCap Council be a part of the Task force? Can we offer readings? Can we join in a meeting or a day when we discuss parent experiences?

• Elementary Reps: Please educate 5th grade parents about their math choices

• Mairead & Faustine: They will start the process of planning a meetup for HiCap families

Next month Agenda/Meeting

• Faustine had an unanswered question. Curious about the distinction between the district and schools with the PTA. (Ex. PTAs seem to not get opportunities to talk to families at school events). How is this at other members’ schools? What are the “rules” about these separations?

• How are we rolling out the information from our supplemental meeting? Working Groups? How do we get started?

Minutes from 10/2/24 Meeting

HiCap Parents Council

October Meeting

District Office

10/02/2024 - 10 AM - 12 Noon

In Person Attendance: Ashley W, Carson S, Mairead, Amity B, Elizabeth W, Liz P

In Person Late:

Zoom Meeting Attendance: Terri, Allen, Veronica, Karen, Lyn, Holly, Elisa, Beth R, Ekta, Sean Q, Hong, Iman, Jenn C, Nikhat

Zoom Late: 

Secretary: Liz P.

Zoom Liaison: Mairead

Next meeting date: Tuesday, November 5th at 10 AM

Guest Speaker: Dr. Craig Foster, Director of Research and Evaluation

• Speaking on I-Ready data and HiCap students

• The way data is analyzed is to compare students to themselves over a year

• The data on HiCap students shows that students compared in the 2022-2023 year vs 2023-2024 showed no significant difference. It was also segmented out by the schools, grade levels, and their type of service delivery,

• His conclusion: Service Delivery did not matter 

• Can we clarify and say, “Service delivery does not affect academic outcomes for Gen Ed and HiCap students”?

• This means that GenEd kids don’t appear to have a boost; HiCap students don’t appear to have a drop

• Could we look at the students who moved from self contained to integrated classrooms?

• Lots of data, lots of variables

• Might not be the priority

• Amity will look at how many students and consider if this is a good population to look at

• Remember, NSD is always looking at this type of data.

• There has been some Social-Emotional data gathered, including the big project Amity did last year interviewing students from throughout the district

• Study sessions where more district data is reviewed can be viewed on the district page. Here is the September session.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hcYwMWqtO0

Discussion - Amity Updates

• Professional Development day yesterday

• All day. ELA morning, Math in afternoon.

• Attendees: Canyon Creek, Fernwood, Lockwood, Elementary - 3rd grade teachers. About 20 people in the room. Will receive 15 clock hours.

• Reviewed lots of information on integration, scheduling, Thinking Classrooms (including activity)

• More PD days coming for other groupings of teachers (including some mid-year with Emily Kircher-Morris)

• Ultimate goal: All kids receive an appropriate level of challenge in a safe environment, so they can meet those challenges later in life.

• HiCap Task Force Applications and Dates

• Charge of this task force will primarily be Middle School

• Begin in November - October 2025

• Tuesday evenings, 5 - 7 pm

• Goal of 30 people - 8 teachers (2 4th/5th grade), 4 administrators, 6 parents, 2 counselors, 4 high school students, family engagement specialist, Andrea (curriculum)

• Can we have at least 1 person be a HiCap Council member?

• End result will be a recommendation made to Superintendent

• Skyview

• Skyview Middle School last year wanted to integrate kids in science and social studies. There was resistance to this.

• Ultimately, changes did happen this year to science and social studies. The classes are integrated. However, the HiCap kids’ school schedules are being listed as “HC” even though the class is integrated.  

• Children’s screening and assessment dates?

• 1st grade families: Screen by teacher in classroom during school day. 9/19 - 10/11. Date and time determined by school and teacher. 

• Everyone else plus 1st grade: Do not know dates of testing until 1 week before. We need to wait until the referral deadline 10/11. This determines how many kids need testing, how many proctors, etc. 

• See Elizabeth’s HiCap Office letter below for more information.

Council Questions/Updates

• Spring 2024 HiCap Survey Results

• Biggest difference is ELA satisfaction in an integrated classroom. Also, slight decline in satisfaction and related questions for integrated classrooms.

• Terri will try to set up a meeting at East Ridge, from where we received good feedback about the ELA model. Ashley will attend.

• Fundraising need is high

• Amazon Smile?

• Mairead will send ideas from the chat over to Carson.

• NAGC logo needs to be promoted. Must include official logo. 

Action Items

• Mairead - NAGC graphic for newsletter, social, and website; will send fundraising information over to Carson

• All: Please send priorities: what went well, what needs improvement

• All: please send headshots if you haven’t!

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

Next month Agenda/Meeting

• Potential reading for next month: The Class Privilege article from Amity

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)