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)

Minutes from 6/11/24 Meeting

 HiCap Parents Council

June Meeting

District Office

6/11/2024 - 10 AM - 12 Noon

In Person Attendance: Amity B, Andrea S, Hong Z, Jenine F, Austina D, Allen T, Carson S, Jenn C, Holly M, Liz P, Ashley W, Angie H., Faustine W., Mairéad
Zoom Meeting Attendance: Elizabeth W, Imen H, Veronica W, Terri K, Julienne M, Sudhakar, Elisa, Nikhat R, Ekta

Zoom Late: Karen Smith

Secretary: Liz P.

NEXT MEETING: September TBA

Discussion - Austina DeBonte’s Dissertation and Presentation

• On the NSD website, you can find the assessment information for our specific district

• If folks have questions, refer them to email

• Quotes in slideshow are worth a read. Carson comments that this is might be what is happening at the middle school – we didn’t push hard enough so we are defaulting back into what is comfortable

• “You have to go far enough fast enough not to slide back to where you were before you made the changes. And I think there's a certain level of inertia…that the system has to spin out of, otherwise it gets sucked back to what it always did.” – District Leader 

• With certainty, we can be confident that we are not overidentifying kids at NSD. Other districts throughout the nation would see our identification rates if they did the work

• Doesn’t always feel like NSD teachers have this overview. Example - Skyview teachers are still debating about if all the kids in the advanced classes should be there.

• Comment: The push for integrated classes is coming at a difficult time as the budget is contracting. Teachers are remarking that they need more help to make these classrooms work well. But we can’t give that to them right now.

• Service delivery may be easier in self-contained classroom model

• When researchers see this piece, the common remark is, “Wow, there has been so much success, without very much training and professional development.” And then we can start to imagine what would have been possible with training and development. Open research question.

• Professional development for teachers – 100 clock hours every 5 years; most certificates expire in June. 15 has to be STEM. Portion needs to be equity hours. Compared to neighboring areas, NSD provides more clock hours. NSD is also an approved clock hour provider.

• WAETAG is another provider and it specializes in HiCap kids. They often offer free webinar hours.

• NAGC 24 Conference will also offer clock hours.

• “What if teachers believed that their fundamental purpose in schools was to help students identify, develop, and refine their personal strengths and interests? Rather than trying to standardize all students to have no perceived weaknesses or differences, arguably an impossible goal, what if the goal of education was actually not to remove weaknesses, but to maximize strengths?” - Page 370

Amity Updates

• District is reorging and downsizing a bit. Amity’s role will change, but will still include Accelerated Models.

• Graduating HiCap Senior Student survey. 

• Some of these are kids that would have started at Bear Creek then separated all over the place for middle schools. Some kids went to three different elementary schools.

• The answers really are all over the place. Still need some coding to see trends.

• Some of the kids love being pushed while others did not. There is no one program delivery that will ever serve every kid. 

• We will receive copies of it with the names removed.

• MHS - Jack Naglieri’s newest assessments

• 1st and 2nd grade students will move to Naglieri quantitative test for next year instead of taking the IOWA math test during second assessment phase.

• It has national norms now

• IOWA reading test will remain

• We think that the youngest learners cannot prep for this test. We want to test them on their aptitude, not test their discrete skills. 

• Older kids will need those discrete skills to jump in later.

• NNAT 3 will go to the Naglieri Non Verbal. This is for the universal screen for 1st and 5th grade.

• Will be announced on website in August.

• Data from Integrated Model

• Data pull won’t happen until June 14

• Parents survey

• Complete. NSD will send it out.

• Playdates won’t be announced through Amity’s office.

• Frank Love Elementary conversation

• ELA feels a little more nebulous

• Teachers have resources K-6, it is all digital. Each teacher does have a hard copy of their own grade level.

• This was a whole new curriculum for the teachers this year. So they are adjusting to that. 

• Best PD is when Andrea meets with teachers by grade level and shows examples and walks them through.

• Andrea is creating pacing guides for each grade level. K is drafted and out to teachers for feedbacks.

• Could we include Art Docent program in Reading Remakes (Andrea will share resource)

• Teachers can borrow Rigby readers from other teachers, so they could pull high level books.
  
  

Council Questions/Updates

• Skyview Middle School principal is leaving. They will be interviewing for new principals soon. Taking input now!

• Elementary math complaints for 4 & 5 grade.

• Start coding email [HPC Board] at subject of email

• Schedule your playdates. More information by email.

Voting

Ekta - Northcreek Feeder Pattern - Voted in for 1 year.