School Board meeting includes Counseling Services, HiCap and a Budget Presentation

The May 23rd school board meeting began with a short presentation by two ASB officers from Cascade High School (CHS). Carly Ostrem and Olivia Cappellini shared their recent successes, including prom, which was held at Sleeping Lady’s Snowy Owl Theater. Attendance was 220 people and the junior class made $1200 fundraising profit. Next year’s officers were recently elected. When the school board asked about lessons learned during their stint in office, Cappellini and Ostrem emphasized organizational and communication skills and learning to work well as a team.

Superintendent Tracey Beckendorf-Edou congratulated them on reinvigorating ASB after it was challenged during COVID, and she recommended they seek out more leadership opportunities in college. Next up, Dani Steele and Amanda Schafer gave a presentation about the newly created Comprehensive School Counseling Plan (CSCP). Steele is the school counselor for Icicle River Middle School (IRMS) and Beaver Valley, while Schafer is currently the CHS career counselor, but will be the CHS school counselor next year. A district-wide CSCP was mandated by the Washington legislature in 2021, requiring it to be in place by the 2022/23 school year.

Steele, Schafer and others have developed this CSCP working document to set standards and lay the framework for consistent counseling work. This document details the role of the counselor, ethical standards and acceptable and unacceptable duties, clarifies how the program matches the district’s mission and helps fulfill district and school goals and explains delivery of services, which are required to be 80% direct services and 20% indirect services.

Direct services are interactions with students such as instruction, appraisal and advisement. Indirect services can include consulting, collaboration and referrals. Steele explained that this working document also serves as a tool for assessment and improvement and helps the counseling team be accountable to students, staff and the community. An advisory council of the counselors themselves, building representatives, community partner representatives and parents will oversee the use of the CSCP to gauge success and set future goals.

Beckendorf-Edou praised Schafer, Steele and Meche Grace (elementary school counselor) for putting in time, often after hours, to develop the CSCP, and she also thanked the principals for helping reallocate duties so the counselors can meet the 80% direct services thresholds. She was impressed with the amount of vertical thinking that went into this so there’s appropriate flow of expectations with grade levels and also that they accomplished this during a staffing shortage. IRMS principal James Swanson and school psychologist Tyler Cox gave an update on the Highly Capable (HiCap) program.

Students are identified for the program primarily in first grade and fifth grade with a nonverbal cognitive screening. This test is given to all students, and its nonverbal format means that ELL students are identified at an equitable rate. To participate in the program a student must achieve at or above the 96th percentile. A few students enter the program based on teacher observations, academic history and test scores. Currently, there are 47 students across grades 2-12.

At the elementary schools, Cox meets with the HiCap students every Friday, and meets with the IRMS students on late start mornings. The HiCap program is structured to be ungraded, informal and nonstressful and yet offer opportunities for these students to interact among peers and explore topics at a higher level. Students have engaged in debate and studied and discussed philosophy, current events, sociology and psychology and have worked on engineering and problem-solving projects and engaged in social emotional learning activities.

Next year, Jodie Tremberth will lead the HiCap program at IRMS as an exploratory class option. The program phases out at the high school level, where students take advanced classes. By giving younger students support through HiCap, they are ready to take college level courses in high school. Swanson