Minutes from 9/17/19 Meeting

HiCap Parent Council Meeting
with Amity Butler
September 17, 2019

10:00 am – 12:45 pm

1. Amity - 2018-2019 Highly Capable Eligibility Process Report, which will be submitted to NSD School Board on Monday
   1. NNAT3 screening results
   2. Low Income based on Free & Reduced Priced Lunch
   3. Final Qualification Decisions probably includes kids who qualified via portfolio review
   4. Question: How many kids qualified but had a score of 94 or less on Naglieri?
2. Amity - Working thru website feedback to fix the problems
   1. Explaining unclear data, including timelines, processes and FAQs
   2. Trying to clarify October 25 date
      1. Want permission as soon as possible because if a child passed thru screening process, not a lot of time between screening and assessment.
      2. Need permission prior to assessment.
      3. Will robocall parents for permission as necessary.
      4. Do not need permission from K parents since all K kids are tested anyway
      5. 1^st and 5^th grade – permission not needed until after screening.
      6. Oct 25 mostly for students new to NSD or whose parents referred children
   3. 7^th grade is still missing on the drop-down list in the referral form
3. Amity - Testing
   1. Proctor training: October 11
      1. Request to inform proctors no music, yoga poses or other distractions.
      2. Clarity on whether kids should guess on the tests.
      3. Amity asked principals for name of para-educator from each school to train as proctor
   2. Screening deadline: October 16. Kids who enroll after October 16 will need portfolio review
   3. Permission form will add first and last name. Entering Student ID is super helpful and saves a lot of time.
   4. Request to send robo-call to parents of single-qualified HiCap kids to complete permission form
   5. Confusion about whether SBA test matters to middle-school kids, and that the results may be used to determine algebra or other placement.
   6. Only test that every child will get this year is I-Ready, 3 times per year: October, January and May/June. Star is teacher and school dependent. SBA will occur in the spring.
   7. Naglieri – Problems with color-blind children. Should add a color-blind checkbox to the permission form
4. Planning to pilot for single-qualifiers math (467) pick a few schools to do online capabilities where students login to work on accelerated math if not already have a program set up in building. Some buildings have something set up, others do not. Will pick schools willing to work with them and teachers. Could be during I-Ready time. Software is Edgenuity. Teacher would become facilitator. Not necessarily giving the lessons. Considering Beast Academy for AAP classrooms. Concerned about instructional component needed for Beast for younger grades. Trying to make this as self-contained as possible for non-EAP teachers. The struggle is every school does things differently. Driven by Katie Byornstad. Designed for credit recovery more than acceleration.
5. MineCraft pilot last year – Does not work on ChromeBooks. Very intensive on teachers to create the worlds to create a good math lesson. But some kids was fun enough that non-HiCap kids would be jealous.
6. Why is walk-to math not a priority at elementary schools? It’s a contractual issue. Scheduling is another issue, especially when there are lots of classrooms for a single grade. Clustering is officially recommended by the district, but not actually implemented by individual schools. Can you hold schools accountable for not implementing the district policies? Is it official policy or just a recommendation? Sometimes it’s a teacher accommodation since a class with some HiCap kids is easier for teachers than no HiCap kids. This is a particular issue at Moorlands, but not unique to Moorlands.
7. EAP sites for next year:
   1. Question about Fernwood EAP classrooms for next year? No idea right now.
   2. Boundary changes are not finalized. October 7 is first meeting of EDTF.
   3. Questions about whether kids at some EAP sites want to stay at current site or move to home schools that now that EAP. Parents are split.
   4. Bear Creek – Anxiety among families. Would like to know where kids will end up. EDTF decision on EAP due by October and GenEd assignments by November.
   5. Parents would love to see consistency of testing and placement. But there are real costs to moving kids around and no way to please everyone who have different priorities: commutes, going to neighborhood school, staying at current school, keeping siblings together, keeping friend groups together, etc.
8. NorthShore Family Partnership
   1. HiCap qualified students are not getting services
   2. Similar to in-school services, but different because NFP has electives.
   3. District provides curriculum to do the work at home
   4. Is there an acceleration option for NFP?
   5. Big question – What is the policy for HiCap kids in NFP?
   6. Should we be adding an NFP rep to the HiCap Parent Council?
9. Middle School AAP
   1. Canyon Park -- Challenge kids and HiCap kids in same classroom. They are teaching a HiCap curriculum but with some selected Challenge kids who “qualified”. Teachers were originally confused about which curriculum to present.
   2. SkyView – HiCap kids are spread around.
   3. Would like to see consistency across middle schools
   4. Leota – Interest in piloting HiCap science curriculum.
   5. All AAP curriculum changes happen by piloting, for all subjects.
   6. Part of the problem is there is no AAP curriculum
   7. Amity will reach out to teachers to see if there is interest in piloting
10. High School
    1. Families have not been informed there is a HiCap class. Not entirely clear there even is a HiCap class.
    2. Woodinville and Bothell have GenEd and Pre-IP English
    3. All 9th grade students are automatically enrolled in Pre-AP English 9, with the exception of 2 HiCap only sections of Pre-AP English, and a small group of Learning Center English students. Inglemoor is doing the same approach, except their course is titled, "Pre-IB English 9.
    4. No idea if curriculum is different
    5. Concern is no communication to families about any of this
    6. No descriptions or syllabus for courses, let alone consistent titles, for parents and students to make informed decisions about which classes to register for
11. Integrating 6^th grade classrooms
    1. Math clustering is not happening
    2. Problem with 6^th graders being in class with 8^th graders

Post Amity Discussion

12. Missing By-Law signatures and pictures on website
13. High school
    1. We should try to communicate early about registration issues
    2. Website has tips for Bothell and Woodinville HiCap registration
    3. Nothing for Inglemoor or North Creek
    4. Suggestion for parent education night
14. Discussion about Naviance as a schedule planning tool, particularly for college
15. Suggestion for high school guidance counselors to have all HiCap students instead of assigning them by last name
    1. Not a priority
    2. Could cause issues within schools
    3. Not enough support
16. Priority for Dr. Reid and HiCap Board is developing curriculums for single-subject HiCap, EAP and AAP. That will help with consistency among teachers and schools.
17. Discussion about non-academic criteria for identifying HiCap kids, such as creativity. But creativity is not always an indicator of HiCap.
18. Concerns about English class novels all being about death and conflict.

Minutes from 8/27/19 Meeting

HiCap Parent Council Meeting
with Amity Butler
August 27, 2019

10:00 am – 12:25 pm

1. Introduction by Amity Butler

Title = Director of Accelerated Models & Programs

Reports directly to Dr. Reid

2. Other major re-organizations? Student Services, e-learning vice principal
3. Amity’s background overview
4. Parent council rep introductions
5. Scheduling
   1. Tuesdays 10 am – 1 pm
   2. Tuesday, September 17
   3. Tuesday, October 22
   4. Tuesday, November 19 – Look at scheduling later meetings
   5. Tuesday, December 10
6. District is currently working on last-minute appeals. Transportation is a challenge. Some kids with dual qualification that were receiving in-class services are now being offered EAP services, but no established procedure for that. Transportation and sibling waiver challenge. Next year, will send a letter to all families March 1 to ask them to decide by March 15 whether to switch from home-school services to EAP to avoid last-minute chaos. Parent should email hicap@nsd.org for appeals.
7. Support and training for new teachers – Amity will be meeting with EAP teachers 4 times per year. 9/30 is the first planned meeting, during the school day. 33 EAP teachers total. 7 new to EAP or new to district. Will put together slides from Austina’s presentation for EAP teachers to share with parents at curriculum night.
8. Amity met and spoke with EAP teachers, especially how to teach 4/5 split, especially math and for students new to EAP. Going to accelerate and try to fill in the gaps for new kids if necessary, but figure they tested it and should be fine.
9. i-Ready – New online assessment tool. K-5 students will all be tested at beginning of school year. Maybe middle school. Will take between 40-90 minutes depending on student. For reading and for math. Will be given 3 times per year. Will show teacher growth data on each child. Adaptable test, but unclear how far beyond grade level questions will go. Unclear if EAP kids are being tested at grade level or EAP level.
10. EAP Class Sizes – Look “pretty good” and was considered with waivers. Waiver list that was denied “was huge”. Close to max capacity at every location.
11. Shelton View concerns have been addressed. The 2 new EAP teachers will be going to training on Bainbridge Island. Retired EAP teacher as mentor can help. Can be difficult especially for 4/5 split: middle school registration, different middle schools, 5^th grade camp. Ask parents to be patient and supportive. They need to hook up with other 5^th grade teachers.
12. Transportation – Have a proposed plan to streamline for next year. When newly qualified families get school assignment in March, they want transportation form to be ready. Do existing families need to fill out transportation form every year? Transportation needs to know about music. After-school transportation also an issue, but not EAP-specific. More communication department issue than transportation. Will look into letting communication department take over the forms.
13. Busing can still be 90 minutes for some EAP kids. West Hills and Maywood Hills kids are getting bussed to Moorlands. No feeder pattern to middle schools. Will there be room to create an EAP site at Frank Love after the new Maltby elementary school and Canyon Creek expansion opens?

Bottom line – what is the plan for next year, including for Bear Creek? NorthShore Family Partnership may be taking over Bear Creek campus while both EAP and GenEd classrooms will be moving to other schools.

14. We should survey parents to ask whether they prefer shorter bus rides, fewer transitions of moving kids to new schools, sibling waiver issues especially for transportation, etc. Part of the goal is to make the process less stressful for parents and make them feel like they are part of the process and their concerns are being heard. Maybe offer them transition assistance. The survey would preferably be done by the school district, but the parent council could help if necessary. It would be better coming from the school district though.
15. Middle School Issues – There is an emergency meeting today about Challenge-for-all classes where AAP kids are not separated. They are looking at trying to separate the AAP kids into separate classes. Also concerns about mixing AAP kids from grade 6 with non-AAP kids from other grades instead of keeping 6^th grade AAP kids together. Complaints about AAP kids being in GenEd classrooms but being required to get higher scores on tests to receive the same grade as a GenEd student. Music causes a scheduling problem too.
16. Screening & Assessment – Proposal for this year is not much different than past year, except perhaps for timeline.

New online referral form is open to anyone for permission to test a child if they move beyond the screening process, regardless of grade. Two forms —one for a parent and another for parent/teacher/counselor/community member that does not have parental rights.

Universally screening K, 1 & 5 – not all grades. K is state requirement, 1 because EAP begins in 2^nd, and 5^th because it’s year before middle school. All will be screen with Naglieri between 9/25 and 10/13. Most worried about supporting kindergarten teachers since it’s a whole new process for students.

10/30 thru 11/8 – Naglieri test for new-to-district students and referred students if necessary. Can skip screening if have sufficient data. Other data will be considered since Naglieri was not a perfect indicator. It captured kids in kindergarten really well, but not older grades.

11/8 – 12/20 – Iowa for those who screened 85% on Naglieri or need more data. Also includes single-qualified students. Testing at 1 grade level up. Option for make-up testing for kids who are not at school that day. The goal is to identify most kids via universal screening of K & 1, and screening grades 2-4 will fill in gaps, but hopefully parents already know about the process.

i-Ready is a backup screener, not an assessment tool since no experience with it yet. Will stick with Iowa at 95% and exceptions for SES students.

If new to district after October 18, will due portfolio screening since they will have missed the testing windows. Could potentially do a 2^nd round of testing at another time to catch these students.

Everything should be done by winter break.

Private school – They do not screen private school students, only students who are already enrolled. Portfolio assessment is used. Absence of data means the student should be tested, but not easy to test them. Is there any communication to students new to district about HiCap? Right now, no but there should be.

17. Numbers from last year
    1. 2690 students were screened in across K-5, meaning they scored 85% on at least one test, e.g., IRR, SBA, etc. That qualified them for Iowa.
    2. Total number qualified after Iowa were 2,328
    3. 1,291 were dual qualifiers
    4. Math-only: 1478
    5. Reading-only: 709
    6. Numbers do NOT add up though
    7. Unclear if universal testing has successfully identified under-populated classes of kids, such as English-language learners and low-income students.
18. In-class services for single qualifiers. Walk-to model for math, but not all schools do. Many schools do not cluster HiCap kids. Will add to agenda for next meeting.