GIVE WITH YOUR HEART

The United Way Campaign is underway and I am personally challenging all employees of the St. Cloud Area School District 742 to give with their heart to United Way this year. It's difficult to comprehend the number of children that are directly or indirectly impacted by the United Way of Central Minnesota. So much of what we give goes to the children that come to us everyday to learn with hopes of having a successful future.

Please, Please, Please give financially from the heart.

I challenge every employee to give through payroll deduction, but my real challenge goes even deeper by asking that all employees seriously give what's equivalent to one hour of wages each paycheck or at least one hour of wages each month. Last year, our district gave about $42,000 or $1 per person from each paycheck, and that's with some giving at a leadership level of $1000.

We work with these children everyday; we see their needs first-hand. Therefore, I want us to take a leadership role at giving to the United Way by finding it in our heart to rise well above the giving that was done in the past.

Skyward Access and Instant Messaging for Parents

We began seeing family access activity with the parent portal about 4:00 Thursday (15 minutes after posting the link on the web site). We could not figure out how people were getting in since the letters arrived at the post office at 1:00 the same day, but regardless, we are really excited about the access all parents will have. It looks like parents are clicking the tab "forgot password" and getting a new password sent to them. This is no problem from an implementation standpoint. It is actually good to have activity to see how it reacts.

Soon, we will be prepared to use our Instant Messaging service where we will be able to send out communications to all parents that have signed up for the service. An example would be the instant message that could be sent to phones through voice mails and text messages or the messages that could be sent via e mails at work and/or at home. Parents will have the option of getting messages in one or all of the above mentioned ways. Examples will include information about weather alerts, crisis drills, upcoming events, parent/teacher conferences, and etc. The information may come from individual classroom teachers or coaches, entire buildings or the whole district. This will certainly improve communications.

Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Update

Dr. Julia Espe, Executive Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, presented information on a Race to the Top reform effort coming from the federal level that equates to $4.35 billion dollars worth of funding to encourage and reward conditions for education innovation and reform, achieving significant improvement, making academic gains, closing gaps, improving graduation rates, or student preparation for college. Funding will be awarded to states, and each state is to come up with a plan; it will be a competitive grant that will or won’t be received as a state. The State of Minnesota is currently in the process of collecting input from various entities, including school districts.

The core education reform areas they are looking for are: internationally bench-marked standards and assessments to prepare students for post secondary education; recruiting, developing, retaining and rewarding effective teachers and principals; building data systems to measure student success and inform teachers; and turning around lowest performing schools.

There are nineteen selection criteria for states to address when submitting their applications. Dr. Espe stated that we participated as a District in some input sessions, and most of the input we gave was to look for some more system-wide resources for our District. Districts are asked to forward ideas, comments, and/or questions to the Minnesota Department of Education via their website.

The MDE will be drafting the letter for the entire State, and School Boards and Teachers Associations will be asked to jointly sign the letter if Districts are interested in pursuing this funding. Board Members indicated that after a review of the letter, they would be interested in pursuing. Dr. Espe will meet with the St. Cloud Education Association to seek their support in signing the letter. She reiterated that signing the letter does not bind the District in any way.

The deadline to submit the letter is November 30th.