HiCap Parents Council
March
Meeting
District
Office
3/5/2024
- 10 AM - 12 Noon
In Person Attendance: Carson S, Ashley W., Austina, Liz P, Jen C., Terra, Amity, Liz P.
Zoom Meeting Attendance: Veronica W, Faustina, Julienne, Angie H, Elizabeth W., Sean Q., Kungpern W., Vanita D.,
Zoom Meeting Late Arrivals: Imen, Elisa, Holly M, Karen S., Nikhat
Secretary: Liz P.
NEXT
MEETING: Tuesday, April 16th
Discussion
●
None this month.
●
If you have recommendations,
please send to Carson.
●
Next month may look at middle
school HiCap courses and value of having HiCap students in differentiated
classrooms.
Amity
Updates
●
Regional meetings are complete.
-
Amity feels they went well and
were a good use of time.
-
There were no surprising
questions.
-
Zoom meeting will be posted. Amity
will let us know when it is posted.
-
Maywood and Wellington were
pushing to start Hicap services next academic year. This will not happen due to
items that need to be completed (construction, planning related, etc.). (Note:
New CFO and new fiscal process requires changes like these to begin in December
at the latest.)
●
Professional Development
○
Recent Session for ELA
■
One teachers from each school
where integrated program is; about 15 educators
■
These educators were not EAP
teachers in the past
■
A positive session where teachers
reported rich conversations in the classroom and being impressed by what the
students are contributing to discussion (high level than anticipated)
○
When the teachers can work
together as a grade level team, they seem to function best
○
There is no one way that schools
are approaching this (in regards to if teachers are partnering, working as a
grade level team, etc.). It depends on number of kids that need to be served,
how many classrooms are in the grade in general, etc.
○
Lockwood ex. from Jenn C: teachers
are reporting that they love the rollout. Second grade team is considering
dividing into quartiles (so additional differentiation beyond just EAP &
Gen Ed; 4 levels).
■
Amity notes that individual school
differences are ok, SO LONG as HiCap students continue to receive the services
they need to to prepare them for middle school. (Amity is working with
Lockwood.)
●
Rolling PD over the next several
years. All new integrated schools will get 4 sessions of professional
development. Schools that received PD this year will get 2 sessions next year.
○
Different schools are requesting
different topics for PD.
○
Currently, the PD focus has been
digging into curriculums that NSD already has so they can be used fully and
HiCap kids can be better served.
●
Final Testing Thoughts/Feedback
○
Spacing out the testing sessions continues
to be an issue in some cases.
○
Would be good for schools to have
backup IPads that are charged.
○
School needs to provide at least
30 minutes buffer before the end of the test and the end of the school day.
(Ex. Kokanee was giving proctor pressure to get students back to the classroom
to pack up and get final notes from teacher, etc.)
○
Riverside could be installed on
all IPads
■
Angie: Riverside reports that the
browser version on Chrome & IPads is actually more stable than the app
version. (Note: We could create a QR Code).
■
We have Riverside for at least 1
more year.
○
Test proctoring is a paid
position. Office starts getting proctors ready in the fall.
○
Process for training could be
better. Even when proctor is placed with a mentor proctor, they are often
assigned to different rooms.
●
Multidisciplinary Selection Team
(MST)
○
Coming up on the 13th.
○
45 appeals that will be reviewed
this year
○
To appeal, student must have
passed screening test (and they did not meet standards on IOWA)
○
Vast majority will not get
decision overturned
○
Best items to submit for review
would be a letter about an extenuating circumstance (ex. Grandparent died on
day of test) or test scores that show extreme anomaly.
○
Results should be available to
families by the 22nd
●
Middle School Services
○
For at least ten years,
conversations have been happening at middle schools regarding wanting different
service delivery for HiCap students
○
Does the Hicap Council have a
position about middle school AAP classes?
■
No, not officially. But something
related from the past would be saveourchallenge.blogspot.com
■
Alternative view available from amle.org
○
Skyview Middle School (feeds into
North Creek)
■
Already have some differences
about their service delivery. Generally, they are advocates for having a
spectrum of learners in each classroom.
■
Out in front for wanting to change
service delivery in ‘24 - ‘25 academic year. Met with District Officials and
were told No. Came back and still wanted to make a change. They were instructed
by Superintendent Tolley to write a briefing paper.
■
Proposals: 1 - HiCap students
would be clustered in integrated classrooms; 2 - Do away with AAP for science
and social studies
■
Goal for educators to have
balanced classrooms
■
Amity suggests caution with
further changes in middle schools as there have been many changes at this level
for years.
■
HiCapCouncil may want to start
learning more so we can ultimately take a position on this. Sean, Skyview MS
rep, is interested. Ashley and Liz P. have offered to have discussion with
interested parents. Asked that Amity supply info for April Discussion
question/article.
Council
Questions/Updates
●
“It feels like there is a lot of
pressure for 8th grade students in the highest math track to retake Algebra
II/Trig when whey get to high school (unless, as stated to one class “they have
a high A and the teacher’s recommendation to move on.) They were also told that
College in the High School classes are equivalent to AP courses and that they
should not take an AP class and a CHS class concurrently during their freshman
year. (So they shouldn’t take Precalc 1 & 2 along with something like AP
Physics 1 or AP World History.) Doing so requires students and parents to sign
something equivalent to an acknowledgement of going against medical advice.”
●
“Concerns that some families/staff
are having more challenges with the adjustment to PreAlgebra 1 & 2.”
○
There have been big changes to the
program/curriculum and elementary educators and families could be facing new
challenges.
○
It is essentially required for
teachers to be teaching math every single day.
○
Hicap Council’s position has
always been communicating to parents that if your child qualifies for a spot in
HiCap, you should strongly consider accepting it. But this should ve revisited
given the math leap. It may not be best to recommend students who qualify in
fifth grade to join the accelerated math (2 ½ year jump, essentially),
particularly without working outside of the classroom to catch up.
