Minutes from 02/22/21 Meeting

HiCap Parents Council Meeting

via Zoom

Feb 22, 2021

12:00 pm – 2:00 pm

 

1.     Welcoming a new Sunrise EAP rep, Karishma!

a.     Austina introduce new Sunrise EAP rep, Karishma.

b.     Sunrise rep Karishma Singh introduce herself.

 

2.     Parent education chalk talk idea

a.     Amity proposed books sharing idea.

b.     Austina recommended two valuable books for parents: A Parent's guide to gifted children and Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of gifted Children and Adults.

c.     Council proposed idea to do book review on website. 

d.     Council like these ideas.

 

3.     Amity Update on assessment & screening plan for this year

a.     Grade 5-7, almost done

b.     Grade 1, 8 week plan

c.     Grades 2-4, online when possible

d.     Kindergarten. WA kids & iReady. 

 

4.     Amity Update on asking in-class hicap students if they want to move to EAP next year

a.     Amity updates: planning testing bus. Need to know how many students fall into this category.

b.     Council feedback: how many families are going to want to go back in general? District’s data are helpful. How many families want bus if we want to go back school? bus is big factor.

c.     Council feedback: testing bus is a fabulous idea.

d.     Council suggestion: We might need proctors for help.

e.     Amity updates: need proctor volunteers. Also need any suggestion on 504 or IEP.  

f.      Council suggestion: parents cannot proctor the grade in which their kids are. 

g.     Amity sharing some concerns: inequity issue, device limits and so on.

 

5.     Amity Update on High school course description updates

a.     Amity updated the progress: each district provides content area, course description for all schools. And we compared, went through them together. 

b.     Council question: do you have any update history for review?

c.     Answer from Amity: I can ask. I can see the history on changes.

d.     Council answer: Maybe there is a good reason we do not see.

e.     Feedback from council: Some ask science to align, we need to respond. 

f.      Feedback from council: AP courses are not called AP courses anymore. This is problematic. We need specific title like AP or CHS.

g.     Feedback from council: We need to know which college gives the course credit exactly. A wide range credit variable among different college even from the same CHS class in different school. They should be as consistent as possible.

h.     Amity agreed that CHS credit needs to be consistent.

i.      Council feedback on course catalog: Course description and catalog are the same in some school. English classes have students working on their college essays in class, but others do not. This should be clearly stated in the course catalog.

j.      Council feedback on course description: we may want to take different senior English classes to prepare College.

 

6.     Advanced math course options

a.     Double jump: 7th algebra, 8th geometry, 9th alg2/trig, 10th precalculus, 11th AP Calc AB, 12th AP Calc BC.

b.     Triple jump: 6th algebra, 7th geometry, 8th alg2/trig, 9th precalculus, 10th AP Calc AB, 11th AP Calc BC, 12th ??

c.     Council comments on math: calculus is a proximity for students to be ready for Ph.D. study. Linear algebra is more relevant for computer science & engineering, better than calculus.

d.     Council suggestion: we should make liner algebra available without jump. Many students find it easier than calculus but it is a higher level math than what is supposed to be.

e.     Council comments on math: algebra is not hard for kids. Higher level math is different from calculus. It allows statistics. kids can take for who are interested. 4-year math are relevant to college which you want to go.

f.      Courses suggestion for 12-grade: it could be Algebra, AP-stats, differential equations, Calculus 3, multi-variable calculus, number theory, game theory, probability.

g.     Council question on math courses: should we see same algebra courses across varied high schools? Or should we have flexibility for kids to choose?

h.     Council: some courses need option to drive to college or to take online virtually.

i.      Council: maybe we can record and keep online courses copies for review. But this has high cost for all classes.

j.      Council: some courses like calculus do not need option in Woodinville. They might only take only one class without other options.

k.     Council: it is a great idea to cover a large population of students even they might not need in future. This is because lots of students sign in algebra, for instance. 

 

7.     Council Questions/Updates on Update regarding thinking about HiCap testing for grades K-5

a.     Council: I’ve seen some other parents asking about this on the Facebook group, and I would like to know how they will extend testing to students who do and students who DO NOT choose to re-enter the school in person this spring

 

8.     Council Questions/Updates on Math trajectory diagrams for each high school

a.     Council: post-calculus, it does not matter so much in ordering. Linear-Algebra is for all engineering in general. Number theory is for running Ph.D. program.

 

Minutes from 01/19/21 Meeting

 HiCap Parents Council Meeting

via Zoom
Jan 19, 2021

10:00 am – 12:00 pm

 

1.    Recap from high school meeting this morning with RAS & Chris Bigelow

a.    Amity acknowledged council for preparing slides.

b.    Austina summarized presentation and would share with us later. 

c.     Successive discussion from council: Students rely on peers, friends for course or catalog. They should be more informed.

d.    Amity mentioned the biggest concern is time, need to find out time for how to broadcast these catalog or course info to teachers.

e.    Council suggested how to proceed the course catalog: get syllabus and contents from all four high schools; make differences visible; summarize contents.

f.      Council suggestion: course catalog declaration need to be done without writing down. More progress or great changes are expected. systematic way is suggested for review. It is needed to make principals be aware of this conversation and bring this discussion to table.

g.    Amity reply: course difference highlighted helps; ask to get substantial change done; ask what is meaningful to parents; will go back to talk to principals and won’t involve them in the last minute. 

 

2.    Amity updates on assessment & screening plan for this year

a.    6th & 7th is 60% done.

b.    5th grade should be done by mid-February. 

c.     Referred 4th grade students, possibly online. 

d.    Early elementary plan. There are no lower level graders conversation yet.

e.    Results will be available after everyone is done.

f.      Figured out how to do emails/letters with student name!

 

3.    Grading guidance to teachers

a.    Amity will meet teachers tomorrow, send grades to students. Scoring is based on standards, i.e., 4th-grade is scored on 6th-grade base. Will send out one page guidance on why scoring is this way. Grade level report card is explained.

 

4.    Single-qualified math program

a.    First unit learnings

b.    Parent night tonight with tips, grading, Q&A 5:30-6:30pm. 

c.     Amity & Austina presentation online: https://www.withunderstandingcomescalm.com/lets-talk-2e-2/

 

5.    Temperature check on online learning, how’s it going?

a.    Academic aspect from council: Both my students enjoy online meeting. they love it and share with others. My students love iReady. Both kids find way to pull things together. Prodigy is good.

b.    Academic aspect from council: My kids do not like iReady. Because it needs to read it again.

c.     Academic aspect from council: Prodigy keep my kids busy. Kids need parents to complete their learning. Parents are suspending 2/3 for learning service.

d.    Some council thinks math from prodigy is so many. Some wish kids learn independently.

e.    Academic aspect from council: My daughter gets bored; she wishes to choose any topic. Some of my students are missing classes. They are struggling. iReady is painful. One cannot finish. It is lucky to have everything done in a half day. Online learning is not a good experience to my kids.

f.      Academic aspect from council: I have 4th and 8th grade students. 4th grade student has challenging time to learn online. Learning online is not engaging. Playing guitar is more engaged. Physically assisted learning is more helpful.

g.    Academic aspect from council: I have 2nd and 4th graders. It is impressive on 2nd graders learning. 4th graders cannot catch up async tasks. Both teachers be aware of one to one meetings to check if all assignments are done or not. They need to adapt to online learning and need more assistance from teachers.

h.    Social aspect from council: My kids are missing the chance to talk to friends. They are interested in this topic. Then they have meeting room to talk friendship.

i.      Engagement aspect from council: in high school, lots of students have no cameras. It makes it to feel odd to have only two cameras on. The kids’ classroom would be more engaging if more cameras are on. It might be a good idea to find the balance between learning and social aspects in order to engage kids for more.

j.      Social aspect from council: I have high school students, it sucks. And it is not going on well. 6th graders did not do anything. 8-graders have hard time. It is hard for them to do things right emotionally.

k.     Suggestion to fix social issues in online learning: join club. 

l.      Engagement aspect from council: school chrome book doesn't allow students to do more interesting things. chrome book block and isolate kids' engagement. 

 

6.    High school registration

a.    The time and date info have been discussed by council.

 

7.    Council questions / updates:

a.    Library: library upgrades for EAP sites?

                                      i.     Question from council: nobody know what book to borrow for kids from library.

                                    ii.     Suggestion from council: generate a list for EAP kids from library.

                                   iii.     Question from council: Should kids reading rely on teachers or PTS? Or wondering which group should be relied on?

                                   iv.     Answer from council: PTA don't give a lot help. Some Librarian helps before. But now it is harder in pandemic time than usual. We have to train kids to get books.

                                    v.     Insightful observation from council: 2nd or 3rd graders have book check out limitation. Library solution is not very helpful. I volunteer in library for 3 years. It is challenging for kids to have solution or policy for kids to borrow higher level books.

                                   vi.     Suggestion from council: Kids needs freedom to get more engagement. Library books reading help kids to protect their eyes.

                                 vii.     Amity replied to take a look for this library reading issue.

                                viii.     Austina summary: this topic is great for it was brough up never before; it is great for Amity to work on.

 

8.    Austina shared the presentation slides

a.    Contents include EAP student’s ratio, history of universal screening, results and so on.

b.    Amity explained why some families did not accept EAP program: one reason is that two forms are confusing. Parents thought they have accepted, but actually they did not. Another reason is they are concerned to move site. After explaining they have option not to move. they accepted eventually.

 

9.    Parents-Only Meeting

a.    Lauren shared the budget this year. There is no individual donation this year. The main issue is that we have about $240 short this year.

b.    Council discussed ideas on how to broadcast for people to donate: ask PTSA to use newsletter to broadcast; mail chimp letter inserted with pay-pal option for donation. 

c.     Next Step: survey tool; Jasmine will draft a letter.