Saturday, September 30, 2017

HCS Advisory Committee is looking for volunteers

Welcome to the 2017/18 school year!

The Highly Capable Services Advisory Committee is gearing up for the year and we have a number of open positions to be filled. The committee includes parent representatives from each school that houses the Highly Capable Cohort. Reps attend monthly meetings during the course of the school year and meeting this are held the first Tuesday of the month, beginning in November.

Nominations are now being accepted for the following parent representative positions:

Cascadia Elementary
Decatur Elementary
Fairmount Park Elementary
Eagle Staff Middle School
Hamilton International Middle School
Madison Middle School
Garfield High School
Ingraham High School

Please use the attached Nomination Form Form Link to apply and send to the HCS AC Chair, Jeanne Thompson at jeanne_thompson@hotmail.com. Priority will be given to applications received by Friday, October 20.

The first Advisory Committee meeting will be Tuesday, November 7. Additional details about the meeting times and places with be coming soon.

Also, please note that High School Boundaries are a priority in the District this fall.
If you received an email from the District regarding the High School Boundaries, please register with Thought Exchange and provide your feedback concerning Advanced Learning opportunities. The deadline is next week.
We will share dates and times for upcoming boundary meetings as they become available.

Lincoln High School will open in 2019 and the first community meeting will take place in October:

Tuesday, Oct 3rd, 6:30-8:00 pm, Hamilton International Middle School, 1610 N. 41st Street

In addition, the HCC Race and Equity Advocacy Group will have its first meeting next week:

Thurs Oct 5th, 6:00-8:00 pm, Thurgood Marshall Elementary School Library (2nd floor), 2401 S Irving St, Seattle, WA 98144

Please stay tuned for additional meeting information.

Jeanne Thompson
HCS AC Chair

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the 1000 HC students who attend their assigned neighborhood school or an option school but choose not to join the cohort, those students are denied representation on the HCS Advisory Committee?

That seems very unfair as those students would be the ones potentially having the most problems receiving WA state mandated appropriate services.

Anyone know why this group is excluded?

Mary

John said...

And JAMS isn't on the list? Do they already have a representative?

Anonymous said...

2017 Meeting Schedule
November 7, JSCEE, Auditorium
December 5, JSCEE, Room TBD
January 9, Garfield High School Library
February 6, JSCEE, Room TBD
March 6, Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, Library
April 3, JSCEE, Room TBD
May 1, JSCEE, Room TBD
June 5, Madison Middle School, Library

The advisory committee meetings have typically been hosted at HC cohort schools - WMS, JAMS, HIMS, GHS, IHS, Lincoln, TM - but this year's meetings are primarily at JSCEE (should we read anything into that? Are they expecting a big crowd for the first meeting?).

@Mary, the meetings are open to the public. It used to be most identified APP/HC students attended the pathway school, so representation by school made sense. Maybe they'd be open to adding regional neighborhood reps - just ask.

Anonymous said...

@Mary,
The application clearly states that the committee represents only students in the cohort. It does seem discriminatory to exclude the HC students who are not in the cohort, perhaps you should query the district Advanced Learning department.

GT

Anonymous said...

Out of curiosity, why is Jeanne Thompson the perpetual Chair? Wouldn't it be good to mix things up a bit sometime? Sometimes it appears the Advisory Committee is too cozy with the district... Then again, they seem to be an AC set up for the district's convenience (they can cite the AC as the required HC parent engagement), so I guess that makes sense. It would sure be nice to see a more advocacy-based HC group though, one that represented parents in and out of the cohort.

not cozy

Anonymous said...

Mary, great point. Why don't you strongly suggest the creation of this position and volunteer to fill it? With the demise of Spectrum and lack of true service among most ALO's, there needs to be someone at all those meetings reminding the district of what's really going on for those not in the cohort.

s

NESeattleMom said...

Is JAMS forgotten on the list?

Benjamin Leis said...

I don't speak for the HCSAC but I presume the schools that are not mentioned have already filled the positions at the end of last year.

Note: for those who haven't been the committee doesn't really vote on positions and has no particular authority. I've found one can just attend and make as much of an impact as an official rep.

Anonymous said...

Fun fact - the HCSAC doesn't publish minutes of their meetings. Attending is the only way to find out what they know about district plans for the future.

Anonymous said...

Another fun fact: they don't collaborate or communicate with the PTA at their school, literally ignore emails and look the other way at meetings or in front of schools.

Strange Group

Anonymous said...

It's a thankless position. In the not too distant past, they provided meeting minutes. One year an Ingraham student took the meeting minutes. Reps also used to provide short updates to the committee at each meeting, but they are now emailed to the AC.

Jeanne said...

Mary, there has been discussion about adding a position or positions that would represent HC-identified students who are not at HCC sites. The committee charter would be need to be changed but we can add this topic to the agenda for the November meeting. Please remember that all meetings are open to the public and I invite you to attend.

Jeanne Thompson
HCS AC Chair

Jeanne said...

The parent position for JAMS is filled for this year but I strongly encourage parents to be involved by applying for other open positions and by attending meetings. Some meetings will be at JCSEE this year because there are now too many sites spread out across the city, so we are trying to strike a balance this year between regions and a central location.

Jeanne

Jeanne said...

The committee is made up staff and parent volunteers and one of the areas that often suffers has been distribution of the minutes. We will make it a priority this year to get them out in a timely manner.

Jeanne

Anonymous said...

@ Jeanne, can you please clarify what the HCC Race and Equity Advocaacy group is, since it was mentioned in you email today? Is this the TM-specific group, or one representing all?

Also, how does the HCS AC work with that advocacy group? Thanks!

DisAPPointed

SPS Mom said...

I would also be in favor of adding a rep for HCC eligible but not enrolled families. It's a very specific group that has a unique perspective and needs, especially as the high school boundaries and program placement are rolled out.

Eyebrows Up said...

How would that rep talk to the other HC-eligible-but-not-in-cohort families? You have no idea who most of them are. No way to contact them. And releasing a list seems like a major privacy infringement if you ask me. I'm not saying they shouldn't be represented, but how can they be? I guess they could start an HC-but-not-cohorted PTA?

Anonymous said...

@ Eyebrows Up, how is it that different than now? You can't get a list of which kids are in HCC at Hamilton, for example, so you don't have a way to reach those families, either. There's not a special HCC PTA at each middle school with HCC, so you just have to reach out to the whole school. I guess you could extend those types of efforts to all schools, or have schools at least include information about a group or list or something that they could join if their kid was HC-eligible.

Then again, the district doesn't seem to care that much about hearing from this group, or understanding why they aren't participating...

Scattered

Eyebrows Up said...

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "HCC eligible but not enrolled" then. Not enrolled in what?

There's HCC in some form or another at:
Cascadia, Grades 1-5
Decatur, Grades 1-5
T. Marshall Elementary, Grades 1-5
Fairmount Park Elementary, Grades 1-5 (an HCC Options site)
Jane Addams Middle School, Grades 6-8
Hamilton International Middle School, Grades 6-8
Madison Middle School, Grades 6-8 (6th grade Pathway, 7th & 8th grade Options site 2017-2018)
Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, Grades 6-8
Washington Middle School, Grades 6-8
HCC AP pathway at Garfield (AP courses open to all students), Grades 9-12
Accelerated IB Program (IBX) at Ingraham, Grades 9-12

Seems like it would be relatively easy to communicate with HCC families in any of those programs. I thought the question was more, how to you communicate with families of HCC eligible students at Olympic Hills or Wing Luke or Rainier Beach. And how you would do that, I have no idea.

Anonymous said...

What I mean is that just because a school has HCC it does not mean it's easy to communicate with those families specifically. They don't give out special mailing lists or rosters of who is in HCC. It's obvious at Cascadia, of course, since it's the whole school. At other HCC elementary schools I suppose parents could put together lists, if they have HCC-specific classes (although some are blended, aren't they, and parents don't/shouldn't know who is HC-identified vs. in there for other reasons).

In middle school, things are also mixed. Kids have some HCC-specific classes, but how is a parent going to get a list of who all those kids are? Kids can't tell you who all is what. And schools aren't likely to either. You're best bet is to communicate to the whole school, knowing that some portion is HCC.

At high school it's even more challenging, since they don't even have HCC classes. Take Garfield. How could you put together a list of all the HCC families when everyone is in the same Honors for All classes? Some kids come from outside the boundary via the pathway, others live in the boundary and may or may not be HCC.

Not to mention that for all of those, except maybe elementary school, you're not likely to get a list with contact info for any families in the first place.

I don't think it's as easy as you think to communicate specifically with HCC families. At most schools, you have to use broad announcements that reach everyone--the same as what you'd have to do to reach them at schools where they don't have a program.

scattered