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Under the phrase “It Takes A Village,” our community’s children receive support from a wide variety of sources. This column will highlight the work of a few – the 544 Education Foundation, Fergus Falls Area Dollars for Scholars, Otters Elementary PTO, and the booster clubs. While we partner with each of these organizations, they are all managed independently through various boards and committees.
The 544 Education Foundation is a great place to start. It was founded in 2000. Their mission is to raise, invest and grant money through a charitable foundation to support educational programs. The 544 Education Foundation is a strong partner. This fall they funded twenty-seven grant requests totaling just under $37,000! They also provide scholarships to graduating seniors. They also fully funded 107 classroom wish list requests and nearly fully funded one additional request. That’s pretty remarkable!
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This week’s column is about school climate and culture, student behavior and district process and protocols.
Within our “brick and mortar” buildings, we have over 2,500 students enrolled in our school district. This is larger than the vast majority of cities in Minnesota and, when adding in the staff, makes the population of the school district about the size of the city of Staples. With a population that size, how do we maintain an excellent learning environment?
It starts with establishing climate and culture. Each building starts fresh each year by building relationships with our students and communicating expectations. These expectations include how students should conduct themselves in the classroom, hallways, cafeteria and recess. They include how we should treat each other. Students do best when expectations are consistent. Although there may be a few nuances here and there, generally speaking each classroom models similar expectations. All school employees play a role in being strong, positive role models for students and making sure that students are following the expectations. As you might expect, there are also many reminders to students that take place throughout the school year.
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Five. There are at least a half a page of notes on the mathematical significance of the number five in Wikipedia. Numerous cultural references include the number five. A couple of common idioms reference the number five: take five and high five. Its most important reference might relate to the health and wellness of children.
At the Otter Tail County Family Collaborative annual meeting last spring, speaker and founder of the Institute for Community and Adolescent Resilience (ICAR-US) Derek Peterson spoke about the need for every child to have a web of support. Ideally, this would include a minimum of five caring adults. Peterson states. “Our data says every kid needs a personal village.”
How are we doing as a community? The Minnesota Student Survey is a comprehensive tool used by the Minnesota Department of Education every three years. The survey covers students in grades five, eight, nine and eleven. I am going to reference some of the information our district’s students shared with us in 2022 and 2019.
By the time our female students are in fifth grade, 25% of them feel that the adults in the community care about them only a little or not at all. By the time our children reach ninth grade, those percentages for both boys and girls have grown to 40%. Junior girls - a disheartening 49% feel that adults in our community care about them only a little or not at all.
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I rarely title articles that I write, but this article is an exception. Welcome to “Great Expectations!”
I have been asked recently about expectations. It is something that I think about a lot. As an organization dedicated to providing our community’s children with an exemplary educational experience, what expectations should we hold ourselves accountable for as a district? Our slogan is, “Committed to Excellence!” That’s a high bar, but it also supports our mission to ensure that we create an environment where all students can reach their potential.
What do we expect of kids? Through the course of developing my philosophies over the years, I decided that it would be a far greater travesty to set expectations too low for children than to keep the bar high. They excel when provided with clear boundaries, unconditional love and support and when they know that the adults in their lives have trust and faith in them. One need look no further than the honorees recognized at the recent 2022 Fergus Falls High School Hall of Fame Ceremony to appreciate the results.
Gary Schuler served as a role model for kids over the course of a 46-year career in education. A teacher, coach, and later athletic director/dean of students - working with kids was his life’s passion. While my career in Fergus Falls only crossed Gary’s briefly, it didn’t take long to see that his interactions with kids in the cafeteria meant something special to him and to them.
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To quote a phrase popularized by Mark Twain, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” As a person who enjoys numbers and trying to make sense of what they mean and don’t mean, I read the editorial, “Why are some schools more equitable than others?” published by the Daily Journal in late August with interest.
The editorial was based on a study conducted by an organization called Wallethub. The design was fairly simple. All schools received what appears to be an arbitrary base score of 50. From there, two metrics were factored into assigning a final number representing a district’s equity score. The first metric was based on a district’s expenditures (expenses) per student. The state average expenditure per student was used (roughly $11,500 per student) and for each one (1) percent above the state average, a point was subtracted from the 50 point base. Likewise, for each one (1) percent below the state average expenditure per student, a point was added to the 50 point base.
The second metric was based on average household income within the school district. For each one (1) percent above the state average household income, a point was added to the 50 point base. For each one (1) percent below the state average household income, a point was subtracted from the 50 point base.