Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Minutes from 4/14/20 Meeting


HiCap Parents Council Meeting
via Zoom with Amity Butler and Angie Hancock
April 14, 2020
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm


  1. New EAP sites next fall – Families have been notified.
  2. Will work on parent survey ideas for district. District wants to take over control of the survey, but possibly use HiCap Parent Councils survey device.
  3. Plans for next fall – concerns for missing school. Everyone is missing school. Parents are probably more concerned than students are.
  4. Algebra readiness testing – There is a plan. Not perfect, but there is no perfect plan. Best plan they can get accomplished prior to middle school registration. Planning to test students tomorrow via Zoom. Had to make sure Riverside was ok with that plan. A new adventure for proctoring over Zoom. Four different sessions tomorrow.
    1. Mr. Keeler sent an update to Bear Creek parents addressing the concerns. Amity saw email before it went out.
    2. This is not a HiCap test. They took it on because the HiCap Department knows how to test online. Not every department knows how to do that.
  5. Angie – Number of students who were offered HiCap services and their responses. Not all families responded to accept or not accept services. If so, they reached out via email, robocalls and school principals. If no response, they can mark it as no response and students are treated as if they did not accept.
  6. Numbers of EAP students in each grade at each EAP site. Given the numbers, there will definitely be some split classes. As of now, no changes are planned for the list of EAP sites. Numbers do not reflect waivers and students moving in/out of district. HiCap may share the numbers, just with disclosure that the numbers are not final.
  7. Canyon Creek discussion
    1. Discussion about whether students at Canyon Creek will be split into those designated for Skyview and Canyon Park middle schools. No current plan or explicit rules, but will probably be mixed.
    2. Canyon Creek is one of the few EAP sites that do not fit the middle school feeder pattern.
    3. Have not looked at split at Canyon Creek by middle school.
    4. Placement forms, but CC says they do not have parent contact information for incoming families. Angie says they should have it though if they look at assignments for next year.
    5. Presumably an issue for other EAP schools as well
  8. Parent Survey
    1. Angie copied old council survey and is tweaking that.
    2. Want it to be a quick survey
    3. Overall goal of survey is to gauge parent satisfaction
    4. What questions does the council want asked?
    5. Will survey go out to parents of high school students as well? Angie says yes. Austina wants to know whether high school HiCap students are getting their needs met
    6. Austina suggested a question about satisfaction with new EAP sites
    7. Will parents or students know which test is which? And what does it mean to enjoy taking a test? Remove the questions.
    8. Need demographic of neighborhood home school, not just which EAP school they attended
    9. Add question about whether parent felt the screening and assessment process was fair.
    10. One survey response per student, not per family. Have tried in the past to have separate responses for each child within a single survey, but was too confusing.
    11. Angie will send out the survey questions for us to provide feedback.
    12. Can the survey be translated into multiple languages? Robocalls are translated via Google translate, which is not perfect. Distinction between home language and preferred language, but English is preferred language for 90% of families.
  9. Austina gathered questions from people via Facebook group
  10. Waivers – Why have to wait until August? To make sure people who move to district can land first, and then worry about waivers.
    1. Lots of waivers to Liota have been granted already. Same with Canyon Park.
    2. Perhaps middle schools have a better history of knowing their staffing needs and waiver requests better. More about principal discretion and numbers.
  11. Transition Activities – Stress because they are not going to happen because of COVID, particular for Bear Creek.
    1. Can Dr. Reid do a call with Bear Creek parents like she has for 8th, 11th and 12th graders?
    2. Jasmine – Dr. Reid did not have a lot of answers to specific questions. Perhaps getting principals of incoming elementary schools together instead?
    3. How about each incoming principal host a Zoom meeting with EAP kids? Or parent arranged similar to EAP play dates? How about a parent-focused meeting since parents are probably more stressed than kids?
    4. Amity thinks each principal could do an evening meeting with parents. Or maybe a video welcoming kids and giving a virtual tour. Kids would probably be less interested.
    5. Not sure how to get kids to meet each other online and interact.
    6. Could the district send out a notice to new parents and parents who are switching schools?
  12. Discussion about teachers, particularly Mr. Symons at Lockwood, was unaware kids are being transferred out of Lockwood.
  13. Hiring and training for new EAP teachers
    1. Amity – There is a plan, but not fully defined yet. Have to honor collective bargaining, seniority, etc. for where existing EAP teachers will be next year.
    2. There should be an EAP spot for each existing EAP teacher that is displaced, but not necessarily in grade or location they want. Process has started though.
  14. Portfolio reviews & private school testing issues
    1. Portfolio reviews were completed on time
    2. Has first review on Thursday for private school and outside school-district reviews. Don’t have many, so they are not done all the time. Will do another round in June and then throughout the summer.
    3. Portfolio reviews are done anonymously. The screeners have no idea which student they are looking at. Race, ethnicity and other demographic data is hidden. Just the criteria that are considered during the appeal. If new criteria are later considered, they go back and re-examine a student considered prior to the new criteria being considered.
    4. What to do when there is no data and no test was given? No good answer.
  15. Algebra readiness testing – Some kids will be tested under adverse circumstances. Are results considered differently?
    1. Purpose is to avoid placing child in a class that will be too hard
    2. But if parent wants their child to be placed in Algebra in 6th grade anyway, they can choose to take that on.
    3. Sessions are being run around Amity’s schedule and when people are available to help with any IT issues. Angie and Amity are proctoring the testing tomorrow.
    4. Sessions are scheduled by classroom. Possibly makeup time on Thursday.
  16. High school
    1. Are incoming 9th graders going to be ready for pre-calc? They will have to do an assessment at the beginning of the year. Everyone is in the same boat. Amity has contacted middle school teachers for transition from 5th to 6th. She could contact 9th grade teachers as well.
    2. Registration questions – Are counselors working? They should be. Last week was Spring Break.
    3. Lack of communication from BHS compared to other high schools
    4. HiCap info nights happened at some high schools. Woodinville and North Creek happened. Inglemoor and Bothell did not happen. (Discussion about info nights at Woodinville and North Creek, effectiveness and involvement of counselors.)
  17. Innovation Lab High School
    1. Is happening next year
    2. Everyone who wanted a spot got in
    3. Can we get numbers on HiCap kids who enrolled, particularly doubly gifted
    4. 30% HiCap enrollment
    5. Enrollment: Around 150 9th graders and 50 10th graders
    6. Lack of athletics and music is a deal breaker for many kids
  18. Distance Learning Impacts
    1. Any knowledge of in-school HiCap services? They should be providing what they got in class, and it should be easier or at least not harder. There is guidance for teachers, but do not know how parents feel.
    2. Returning library books – There is interschool mail. So not a big deal.
    3. Ready for next year’s curriculum – Concern at every grade. No one knows.
  19. Curriculum updates – dedicated curriculum for EAP, AAP and in-school. Nothing is happening on that now, but want to keep it on the radar.
  20. Funding stability from State because of COVID – Danger for funding in general, but HiCap is not specifically at risk. Just potential for across the board funding cuts.
  21. Long term numbers – Reminder to keep an eye on them.
    1. Underserved populations – difficult number to assess
    2. Most students in >95% ITBS but 85-95% Naglieri were single-subject qualifiers, not dual qualifiers.
  22. Post Amity/Angie – Election discussion
    1. Need new positions for Ruby Bridges, Canyon Creek, Hollywood Hills and Kokanee and Innovation High School
    2. Steven or Carson or Bonnie for Canyon Creek
    3. Dropping Shelton View, Wellington, Woodmoor and Bear Creek
    4. Need new rep for Lockwood, Skyview Middle and Canyon Park Middle
    5. Bonnie no longer meets requirements for Bothell feeder pattern
    6. Lauren could take over North Creek High School
    7. Should include a note in the email invitation for the survey sent by the district
    8. Need someone who is not running to be in charge of elections
    9. Austina is not up for re-election and will handle the elections

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Minutes from 2/4/20 Meeting


 HiCap Parents Council Meeting
with Amity Butler and Angie Hancock
February 4, 2020

10:00 am – 12:00 pm


  1. Amity – Struggling with messaging around various pathways.
    1. 79 students qualifying in area of low income and active ELL across district, qualifying with alternate pathway.
    2. Not yet public. Haven’t specified on the website what the alternate pathway is. (Alternate pathway is state-required.) Letter home does state it was via an alternate pathway but does not specify which, just “sub-group.”
    3. Concerns because parents share stores, but do not want to “out” alternate pathway families. Willing to answer over the phone, but not in an email which can easily be posted to FB. Email response seems evasive.
    4. Discussion about whether to ask parents in the future to not share their child’s scores.
    5. Did not have data this year about how students are performing this year who were admitted based on alternate pathways last year. Hoping to have that next year.
    6. Alternate pathways are state-required and because tests do not treat low-income and ELL fairly. Not about lowering the threshold, but a correction factor for the tests that provides an alternate way to evaluate these students.
    7. What about 504 and IEP students? Results are 504 students are represented in HiCap proportionately based on numbers within district. Not same for IEP though. We expect to be under in IEP since receiving an IEP designation is difficult to achieve, so they often get 504 designation instead.
  2. Final numbers of newly qualified students (not yet published):
    1. Summary by grade of newly qualified students
    2. How many kids took/passed screener based on ELL, 504 and IEP. And how many qualified.
    3. 5.2% of kids in district have 504, 5.1% qualified. ELL is 8% in district and 4.3% qualified, but making progress.
    4. Significant growth in qualified students across 504, low income, IEP and ELL from 2015, especially in 2019 and 2020. But based on kids current qualification and ideally ELL designation is temporary, so unclear if they were ELL prior to qualifying.
    5. Chart with summary on how kids qualified: NNAT3, WAKids, IOWA, HC Qual 2nd subject, subgroup threshold, SBA or SBA+IOWA.
    6. Would be interesting to know how many newly qualified kids are new to district vs identifying kids who were not previously qualified. Last year was 25% new to district.
    7. Chart with qualification criteria by grade based on screeners, dual qualifiers and single qualifiers.
  3. Portfolio reviews
    1. Parents can request, but any outside testing are inherently biased.
    2. “Edge cases” receive a special letter of kids who are 5 points below cutoff in SBA. But they could have used IOWA or a number other than 5. So inherent issues in criteria.
    3. MST was not willing to just allow kids to be qualified without any approach.
    4. Reached out to parents of Edge cases to tell parents to request a portfolio review.
    5. Only 11 kids this year are Edge Cases. So not a significant number.
    6. But should we require a parent to request a portfolio review instead of just doing it anyway?
    7. Appeal is something went wrong with the test. Portfolio review is we just want to take another look.
  4. Is SBA delivered consistently across the district: school to school, teacher to teacher, etc.? Testing environment may not be consistent based on what kids are told about how important/serious the test is., the actual classroom condition, etc.
  5. Are most appeals kids who single-qualfied and but parent ask about dual? Or did not qualify for either? Many times, kids are not even close to cutoff by any measure. Portfolio review is best option for these kids. Sometimes they are doubly gifted and no test will be a good indicator.
  6. District did tons of make-up tests this year for kids who were sick, test malfunctions or kid who had other issues during the test, e.g., medical.
  7. Process for acceptance – go online and click acceptance. It does not work if sent the link and they are not qualified. (Evidently parents share the link.) Acceptance is due 2/14 for all grades. They encourage people to accept their placement even if they may change their mind later.
  8. EAP meetings on 2/10 at NPAC and 2/12 and NSD board room at 7 pm. Robocall going out today or tomorrow.
    1. Suggestion for a 10-minute overview that will likely answer a lot of questions beforehand. Presented by Amity.
    2. Huge step that doing in partnership with district as opposed to past years.
    3. Should kids be allowed on the panel? Most kids are not really ready to answer questions in real time. But they could prepare a statement ahead of time to read. One or two students who can speak for 2 minutes at beginning but probably not answer questions.
    4. Goal is to have all schools represented at both nights.
  9. EAP sites for next year
    1. There is a plan, but has not been publicly released. Close to finalized as of yesterday. But need to speak with principals who may be getting more kids than originally planned.
    2. Fernwood, Moorlands, Lockwood, Sunrise and Canyon Creek are definite EAP sites.
    3. A few sites have been added to the list too, but not yet public. Unlikely final location decisions will be made before the 2 meetings.
    4. Recommendation from district is to accept since it helps them plan. Easier to withdraw.
    5. Can accept designation but choose to stay in home school. Deadline on 14th is about accepting the designation, not just about reserving a spot in EAP.
    6. PACE parents also have a deadline before knowing the location, but they can just accept both.
    7. Also sent letters to parents who are dual-qualified but not in EAP. Gave them option to continue receiving services in home school or switch to EAP.
    8. District preference is for students to go back to their home o. r closer school if it gets EAP. Parents can request waiver to stay at current location, but would probably have to provide their own transportation.
    9. Survey results suggest majority would prefer to move closer to their home school. Results were considered by district when assigning EAP locations.
  10. Survey – Big request was a transition day for newly qualified students.
    1. No district efforts yet to make that happen. But need to coordinate to avoid SBA testing and other conflicts.
    2. June would probably work best since SBA testing often happens in May.
  11. Amity has after-school meetings today at Wellington and Moorlands with PTA about middle school registration.
    1. Concerns by parents, especially immigrant parents, who are unfamiliar with middle school.
    2. Concerns about what classes to register for, particularly regarding HiCap like algebra readiness.
  12. Thoughts on eventual clustering in elementary schools:
    1. Concerns about changes to urban growth boundary which could cause huge growth in our district.
    2. Current EAP model is not sustainable if massive growth.
    3. ArrowHead had experimented with clustering, so they are going to evaluate that.
    4. Concerns about finding spots for all kids.
    5. Clustering is generally split-level classes but does not have to be.
    6. Not doing it this year. But concerns in the future.
    7. Small pilot at Wellington for single-qualified students.
    8. Concerns about whether staff would accept training to support clustering. And whether kids will still receive the accelerated services they deserve?
    9. Cluster-based differentiation models have not been very successful across the state.
    10. One option is to cluster HiCap kids teacher at each school. Growth in HiCap program means there may be enough volume to do that. Would likely require more staff though.
    11. Split-classes require 2-hour para-educator, primarily intended for math. That will cause a budget issue, so single-grade classes are preferred.
  13. High School issues
    1. Would be nice if each high school would schedule their parent information night and put it on calendar. But that does not reach parents of 8th graders.
    2. North Creek
      1. Registration details for HiCap classes.
      2. Discussion about AVID at high school for ELL students. System for execute functioning. It’s a class that students are evidently automatically registered for.
    3. Inglemoor
      1. Different than North Creek. Each high school is different.
      2. Grouping 9th grades into a cohort.
    4. Question about what is the safety net for any kid who enrolls in a difficult class, but must fail instead of un-enroll and switching to an easier version.
    5. Question about whether the 2-year Capstone class is considered an English class by colleges or whether they have to take English and Capstone.
    6. Access to syllabus – if course descriptions were better, then people wouldn’t want earlier access to syllabus. But not available until fall. The syllabus does not change too often though, so could look at previous years.
    7. Disconnect between 9th grade AP classes and 8th grade HiCap English classes. No communication or continuity so that students are properly prepared and have read the appropriate background. An issue with other classes too.
  14. EAP Parent meeting
    1. Goal to have panelist from each school at each meeting
    2. Need to pass out clipboards for parent HiCap registration
    3. Panelists should arrive by 6:40
    4. Carson is organizing Monday and Steven on Wednesday.
    5. Need to follow up with council members who say they will find reps from each elementary school.


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