This document is a public record of the Minnetonka School District and was obtained by TonkaFocus by a request to district officials.
Response to Community Comments from December 5th and 7th – Erin Adams
When I reflect on what we heard from our teachers, and others, on December 5th and 7th regarding the proposals before the board, I realize that there are several issues that I would like to speak to this evening.
First and foremost is the sense that the board is breaking faith in some way with our teachers and that there is a lack of collaboration around the issue of health instruction and indeed, the district as a whole; that teachers’ skills, passions, expertise, and thoughts are somehow not being consulted and valued.
I want to acknowledge those feelings because – as our health teachers would undoubtedly tell us – feelings are really, really important and are often the determinant in our ability to cope, to perform, to find joy in our work, and to make a difference in the world.
I think some of this disappointment comes from a sense of confusion that the board may have created by adopting the health study report in June of 2006. There may be a sense of “Didn’t we just do this?”; “Didn’t we just decide what health in Minnetonka should be like?” and “Why are we doing this now?”
I have re-read the Health Study Report over the past few weeks and I want to capture what the board approved. I want to speak to the issue of collaboration and I want to explain why I believe that we must, as our vision states, “act with an appropriate sense of urgency to serve all students well.”
Over the last five years, there has been an unprecedented level of staff collaboration and teacher-led research and recommendations that this board has supported and approved. Under Claudia Risnes’ leadership as our past Director of Teaching and Learning, every major curriculum area had new academic standards adopted, new benchmarks set, and new curriculum materials purchased – think of the work that entails. This board and administration relied on teachers throughout those processes to be the leaders in identifying and advocating for the best practices in their fields. Teachers have led - and continue to lead - new models for grading and reporting and innovative practices to embed study skills in core academic subjects. Indeed, I do not think I would misspeak if I said that working with and learning from our outstanding staff is one of the best parts of being a school board member.
Teacher-led innovation shapes this district on a daily basis and has resulted in the board adopting new services for ADHD students at both middle schools and the high school, as well as early identification procedures for special education students. Teachers have played an integral role in the development of the strategic plan and the supporting action steps and the overall steering committee. Likewise, teachers worked closely with parents and administrators throughout the instructional models process to identify and report on new options to be considered for the next decades of excellence in the Minnetonka Public Schools. Teachers also continue to be central players in the development of the school calendar and the conference schedules, two items that understandably impact every student and family in our community. This board also unanimously supported the teachers union’s interest in pursuing the opportunities and challenges that Q Comp present for increased professional development and student achievement. While the outcomes of Q Comp are yet to be achieved, I think we can all agree that this endeavor will take an unprecedented level of collaboration between teachers, administrators, the board, students, families, and the community as a whole. And, finally, school board leadership meets with the administration and union leadership through the meet and confer process on a regular basis to discuss agenda topics that the union and administration develop. While the union has only called one meeting since May, I am hopeful that this venue can be mutually supportive and beneficial to all parties as we share our common mission, but separate roles, in educating all children.
The health study report that the board adopted on June of 2006 was no exception to this teacher-based collaboration. In fact, this group – comprised of teachers, administrators, students, community members, and one board member – used as a starting place the K -12 health standards which were written by a committee of health teachers in 2003-04 and were unanimously adopted by the board in January of 2005. The health study report begins with reporting the following:
“After extensive research and study the committee presents the following six recommendations to be considered for program improvement for health education. These recommendations are theme based and developed from the findings pulled from multiple sources.”
To summarize, those six recommendations were to:
1) Provide a comprehensive and rigorous K -12 Health education curriculum that offers clear expectations for all students to achieve the Minnetonka Health Standards;
2) Acquire up-to-date and effective instructional materials
3) Provide staff development time for all K -12 staff to gain knowledge and training with the newly purchased materials and to ensure that the materials are being utilized appropriately and the instruction is meeting the needs of all diverse learners.
4) Have Minnetonka health teachers deliver instruction and facilitate student learning using varied and effective instructional strategies
5) Have the Minnetonka Health Education Program will consist of a comprehensive health education curriculum that ensures rigorous and timely instruction for all Minnetonka students
6) Continue to partner with its parent community to strengthen the home-school partnership as it relates to health. (emphasis in all of the above is mine)
The board approved all of these six recommendations and the supporting action steps and the board continues to value and honor the work that our staff has done. Nothing in the proposed embedded delivery model rejects the recommendations of this committee. Indeed, we need to move forward with these recommendations and there are many areas where the embedded model actually advances these six recommendations, especially in spreading health instruction over four years, instead of limiting it to a semester; the increased use of technology as both an up-to-date and effective instructional tool; and the increased emphasis on parent and community involvement.
There is one area that the health study group was charged with that was not addressed by the report and I will say that as a voting board member, I should have made my disappointment with that omission more clear when the recommendations came before the board. The health study group was also charged, as it states on page 2 of its document, with “the expectation that “alternative delivery”, in addition to currently offered courses, of health education be studied.” The board member assigned to this process, Carol Eastlund, confirmed via an email to me that the concept of Alternative Delivery models was on the agenda for this group over a year ago in October of 2005 and that discussion included the “ideas of health seminars, opening health related activities at the beginning of each school day, year round health education and other thoughts for a new model of health education at the secondary levels.”
But, at this point, all those expectations and who said what when are essentially water under the bridge. The board felt strongly that there were student behaviors and choices that needed to be addressed that were not adequately responding to either the traditional one semester model or the on-line option and that there needed to be improvements to the delivery and frequency of instruction – not the content -- of health education at the high school. Those issues were not addressed by the health study report and in June of 2006, we unanimously directed Dr. Peterson to develop a model that would more fully address our concerns. As an elected body charged with serving the developmental and educational needs of children, we felt we needed to use our authority to improve programming for our children and that is how we came to be where we are tonight. The teachers have done their jobs and have done it very, very well; the administrators are doing exactly what we asked of them; and the board is fulfilling our responsibility to build programming to respond to student performance. Different roles, different responsibilities, but all aimed at serving children well.
The embedded model proposition is an example of innovation and there are always challenges to innovation that we can address when we are on the specific agenda item for health. The other issues that were mentioned during community comments at our last two meetings involved the change from the 7 to 6 period day and the nature of spending money on new programming when finances are unpredictable.
The decision to go to a six period day was made almost two years ago – February 24, 2005. It was a difficult one that involved months of board analysis, over 45 public meetings, and an incredible amount of hard work by our administrative staff. The board adopted the six period day unanimously and charged the administration to track and report on the impact of these budget changes as a district goal for the 2005-06 school year. We responded to that report by reinstating two previous cuts: group music lessons at the middle schools and an improved and expanded guidance model at the secondary level.
Other options were studied in lieu of the six period day, options such as freezing salaries; closing one elementary school and changing the attendance boundaries for the remaining five schools; significantly increasing class sizes throughout the district; eliminating some co-curriculars and/or curriculum offerings and mandating study halls, to name a few. Instead, we chose the six period day because it provided needed stability to our scheduling and staffing models; preserved and often lowered class sizes; preserved programs by basing it on student choice; increased teacher-student contact time by lengthening the time each student has with his or her classroom teacher; and honored our historical and contractual commitment to the teacher duty day which requires them to teach 5 classes a day and be given one period of preparation time. We saved $1.5 million dollars by going to a six period day and entered the first year—this year -- in over a decade in which we did not have to cut budget.
We will have another budget before us beginning in January and I would respectfully suggest that discussions about the merits and affordability of the 7 period day be focused around that document. The administration will present us with a budget that is based on the six period day; those who want a return to a 7 period day should identify an additional $1.5 million dollars in cuts that would have to happen in order to secure it. Having served on this board since July of 2000, I know that the board will be looking for a budget that preserves programming, preserves jobs, grows enrollment, maintains class size, maximizes teacher-student contact time within the core classroom, and allows for a reasonable salary settlement with all our employee groups. We also have to acknowledge that while the 7 period day presented the possibility of more choice, there are three facts that we have to face: the first is increased graduation requirements in math and science. Since moving to a six period day, the state has added another year of math and another year of science for every high school student in Minnesota, which limits the range of choices for some students and would have resulted in a lessening of electives, regardless of the number of periods. The second reality is that during the last year of the 7 period day, only 54 juniors and 25 seniors took seven periods all year. During the first year of the 6 period day, about 90 students enrolled in zero classes. It seems that the 6 period day serves all but about 100 of those students seeking more. I think re-instating an infrastructure that was under-used and cost an extra million dollars is not the best investment we can make to serve all students. The third fact is that students knew how to use the registration system to their advantage: juniors and seniors would usually register for seven periods and we would staff accordingly. They would then drop classes based on their schedules to achieve a late start, early release, or longer lunch. This practice would make it difficult to accurately predict staffing loads or class sizes and resulted in students often being out of school and unsupervised by 1:00, which I do not believe is a societal good.
In conclusion, I would respond to concerns expressed that the programming changes we are considering tonight are aimed at only a few students or at only the very elite students. While we will go into more detail in our remarks over each agenda item, I believe that these program changes are aimed at serving all learners and are intended to honor the community’s preference for choice and flexibility. The embedded health model is obviously for all students; the language immersion program is open and available to all interested Kindergarten families; and the expanded services models for high potential students, by moving from one half-time position to one fulltime position in each elementary building allows those high potential teachers to deliver the services that they are supposed to provide to all students, regardless of their involvement in the WINGS program, namely Level 2 and Level 3 services.
Budget forecasting in public education is very difficult because the bulk of the revenue is determined by the political process at the state level. We make predictions based on known levels of state funding and known levels of age and experience within our personnel. Doing nothing will result in future deficits, just based on the impact of inflation and the aging and increased levels of education amongst our staff. Doing nothing new, however, is not an option for an organization that has to simultaneously serve the current needs and predict the future needs and desires of our community.
We have pledged to be innovative stewards of the public’s trust and the programs we are considering honor that pledge. This board has taken risks before that have proved to be very successful – the Minnetonka Pre-school; the Ready-start Kindergarten program; the all-day kindergarten program; STEP classes at the middle school; Tour de Tonka, on-line payments; student-driven arena scheduling; our outstanding co-curricular hires; our partnerships with community groups that have resulted in outstanding new facilities; and our IB program – all started as somebody’s idea of how to do a little bit better with what we had in order to give all our children their best possible start in life. I am proud of that legacy and I am eager to continue the community’s work this evening.
Thank you.