The West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan school district has won $1.2 million in federal dollars to teach its kids how to get along.
Under the federal grant, part of a national effort to improve schools' climates, the district will hire one counselor for each of its five elementary schools this fall.
The mission of the "Kindness Project"? To create welcoming and safe schools.
"It's incredible for a small district to get this big of a grant," Superintendent Jay Haugen said. "It's great recognition for our schools."
The counselors' responsibilities range from teaching lessons on kindness and providing individual counseling to surveying families about school climate and helping students transition to middle school.
School officials received additional details this week after learning last month they were one of 53 school districts across the country to receive the grant, which will bring in $400,000 each year for three years, if federal authorities give approval after periodical [sic] monitoring of the district's program.
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[W]ith the increased diversity and schools struggling on state-mandated reading and math tests under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, some community members believe minority students "have eroded the quality of our schools," officials wrote in the district's grant application.
The Kindness Project will enable the new counselors to work with students, and this "can only help boost achievement," Haugen said.
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"(The federal grant) really shows that we have put a lot of thought into this," said Reine Shiffman, school board chair. "They believe we can make a difference."
I'm speechless. What if this money had been spent on tutors? Decent math curriculum? History and science classes?
Ooo I wasn't expecting that perspective. Good point though. I suspect the underlying plan is to stop children from beating each other to a pulp which would put them in a better frame of mind to learn.....anything. [maybe?]
ReplyDeleteCheers
I suppose it's too much to ask that the mission statement for a school would include incidentals like - let me take a wild guess, here - academics?
ReplyDeleteFrom the newspaper account of the award....
ReplyDelete"A decade ago, racial minorities made up less than 10 percent of the student population. Now, 38 percent of the student population comes from minority groups, according to the Minnesota Department of Education.
The district has attempted to embrace that diversity by opening an elementary magnet school with an environmental focus and an alternative learning center for high school students, Haugen said.
But with the increased diversity and schools struggling on state-mandated reading and math tests under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, some community members believe minority students "have eroded the quality of our schools," officials wrote in the district's grant application."
This district is an amalgamation of a bunch of different towns. I'm not sure how this was accomplished but it appears to be a mix of suburban and urban schools all thrown together to form a district. A map of the district looks like it is comprised of a huge chunk of exurb and a little tiny corner of St Paul.
It is 70% white. One of the schools in the grant is named Pilot Knob. I'm not making this up! It's in the lovely city of Eagan Minnesota, median income $67,388, with average home price of $263k (2005). It has 54 parks (1350 acres), 79 softball diamonds, 31 soccer fields, 22 outdoor skating rinks, and a civic arena with, get this, two sheets of ice.
Total expenditures per student $18,619. If you want to see just how much the minority population has 'eroded' the quality of the city, go to google maps and punch in Eagan Minnesota. Click on sattelite view and then cruise around. See if you can find any erosion. What? Nothing you say?
My guess is the erosion is all from that little corner of St Paul. It's spreading like a, oops, no check that. The satelite view looks like most of the erosion is from water rubbing on the lake fronts.
This grant is racism diguised as kindness. Pilot Knob hasn't figured out how to check the erosion academically so they're going at it full bore with kindness. Yup, that's it. All those eroders are dragging down our test scores because they're just plain mean.
BTW I looked at the AYP and all of the 'failures to meet' were in free or reduced lunch, minority, and otherwise distressed (IEP kids) categories. With such lopsided academic results how could any reasoning person conclude that kindness is the root problem?
The grant provides for five counselors at $80,000 per year each over 3 years. Now even if you assume that the kindness defecit is real they're only teaching it in K-4. So when kids hit the fifth grade and the hormones begin to rage they'll be relying on the kindness lessons from K-4.
Just guessin' but if you forget your k-4 math and English as you move up, wouldn't your kindness quotient be similarly afflicted in middle school? And oh by the way, those eroders from St Paul that got all the kindness training, they will mostly move on to other districts (low SES kids are highly transient) and not be around to spread the love in middle school.
How does money create kindness? This logic implies that rich people are kinder than poor people, which I haven't particularly noticed.
ReplyDeleteIts nice to hear that someone in the district is taking the lead in helping students develop. I hope this was not precipitated by a severe injury or death. I doubt the grant was worded in a racist way...more than likely the newpaper took that spin. The district's lawyers aren't that fooolhardy up here.
ReplyDeleteMy district, similar composition to the one in the article, runs several counseling problems and has active social worker involvement in the elementary. It's very helpful, as is the principal's leadership in the morning message focusing the school on the academic mission and the active development of character and empathy for and kindness to fellow human beings.
>>BTW I looked at the AYP and all of the 'failures to meet' were in free or reduced lunch, minority, and otherwise distressed (IEP kids) categories. With such lopsided academic results how could any reasoning person conclude that kindness is the root problem?
Can one learn if one cannot be next to another student without hurting that one first? Can one learn if one doesn't have the background for the lesson, but no one is kind enough to fill them in? Kindness may sound like the wrong word, but it does give the person who is being asked to be kind a way to shift their thinking from the negative to the positive, and encourages them to notice others, develop empathy for others, along the way discovering that is does feel good to help someone else in need rather than ignore them. Lack of kindness is not assumed to be either a minority problem or a student problem here...rather a positive character attribute that all are encouraged to develop and use.
Paul put to words (backed up by data) what I felt viscerally: this is no way to solve the problem. I would only add my impression that the wealthy white kids (and parents) will also be receiving a daily dose of kindness therapy. Be nice to those poor disadvantaged kids, even if you're grumpy about sharing your property taxes with them (well, less so now, since our federal government has stepped in to relieve you of part of that burden).
ReplyDeleteI'm all for social workers and counselors; they have performed essential roles in the schools my kids have attended. But why isn't this wealthy district funding counselors from its own budget? Other schools do. And if my experience in an urban school is any indication grades 1-4 aren't the problem areas.
Kindness is important. Lgm is right, kids can't learn in a hostile environment. But 1.2 million dollars? In this district? Does kindness cost that much? Over and over again we just seem to divert our precious resources to everything but the (ZPD) education that all these kids (from every corner of that district) deserve.
By the way, I looked for that grant (both the application, and the award) and couldn't find it. Paul, it looks like you might have--is there a website for it anywhere?
I guess all of you have missed that without a kindness project, how can we teach kids to be Minnesota Nice?
ReplyDelete---It is 70% white. One of the schools in the grant is named Pilot Knob. I'm not making this up!
Pilot Knob school is near Pilot Knob road. Pilot Knob is the hill over which pilots fly as they make their final descent into the MSP airport.
-- It's in the lovely city of Eagan Minnesota, median income $67,388, with average home price of $263k (2005). It has 54 parks (1350 acres), 79 softball diamonds, 31 soccer fields, 22 outdoor skating rinks, and a civic arena with, get this, two sheets of ice.
Minnesota cities and counties have several municipal ice rinks. Two sheets of ice in one rink is not unusual here. Many towns have more. This is the State of Hockey.
""""""some community members believe minority students "have eroded the quality of our schools," officials wrote in the district's grant application."""""""
ReplyDeleteThese words are in the grant application per the newspaper article I found announcing the grant. I never found the grant. I just googled the district name and got loads of newspaper hits on the announcement. Then I did research on the town and district.
I'm not trying to beat up on Minnesota 'niceness' and I understand that ice is part of the culture. The point is that this is a community that has apparently taken on a portion of minority students from St Paul. I'm guessing here but I would venture that it wasn't always so. Eagan more than likely had only Eagan students at one time.
Now they have 'minority' students that are hosing their AYP. Take out the minority students and they fly through NCLB requirements. Someone in that administration attributes this state of affairs to a lack of niceness or they wouldn't have bothered to go for the grant ( a not insignificant effort).
It seems more than a bit odd that their first look for a solution was not in academics, eh? You want niceness, just teach all the kids the things they need, within their grasp and they'll be fine.
Behavior problems, 99% of the time, are due to kids that are bored out of their skulls, especially in elementary school. They're either bored because the curriculum is 3 years ahead of what they need or 3 years behind what they can do.
The nicest thing you could do in that school is deliver appropriate curriculum.
Time to take a look at LaSalle High School again.
ReplyDeleteI'll find the passage about "LaSalle" using academics to deal with behavior problems.
It seems more than a bit odd that their first look for a solution was not in academics, eh? You want niceness, just teach all the kids the things they need, within their grasp and they'll be fine.
Absolutely.
I suppose it's too much to ask that the mission statement for a school would include incidentals like - let me take a wild guess, here - academics?
ReplyDeleteEd had an exchange of emails with the super this year in which he proposed that the new Strategic Plan state that the school's mission is to prepare all students to succeed in college level work by providing them with a liberal arts curriculum.
This, in fact, is the formal policy of the state of New York: college prep for all students.
The super emailed back saying we can't adopt college prep for all students as the Strategic Mission because "We have students who don't want to go to college."
85% of this year's graduating class is set to attend college in the fall, and I've heard that 95% is normally the final figure.
So...90% college enrollment rate & a state policy of college prep for all & we can't mention academics in the Strategic Mission.
Which does mention character education, athletic fields, and technology.
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ReplyDeleteI'm sorry it was unclear my tongue was in my cheek. But I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. This is just another way to get this district money, and this district is good historically at getting money. You took one quote from the one news article that claims to have gotten the context correct based on grant app none of us has found yet. Eh, I have my doubts that it was meaningful in anyway.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the specific AYP data, and I don't understand what AYP data you even saw. I looked at the 2007 data on the district's web sites. Every one but one demog. group in one elementary school are hitting their AYP targets. What data did you find? you said:
"BTW I looked at the AYP and all of the 'failures to meet' were in free or reduced lunch, minority, and otherwise distressed (IEP kids) categories. With such lopsided academic results how could any reasoning person conclude that kindness is the root problem"
what schools? what places? the school that is most heavilty containing the hispanic demo does great, despite free or reduced lunch, or IEP kids. Where did you come up with this stuff?
Let's correct some misconceptions. There are no Saint Paul students here. West Saint Paul is a separate city from Saint Paul and in a different county. It's physically south of most of Saint Paul, and east as well. (It's on the west bank of the Mississippi, that's why it was historically "west".)
It's in Dakota County, as are Eagan and Mendota Heights. That's why this is the school district.
--"I'm not sure how this was accomplished but it appears to be a mix of suburban and urban schools all thrown together to form a district."
I don't know what you mean by "urban" in this sense. Dakota County is contiguous, and all of these towns are in this county. Saint Paul is not represented at all; it's in a different county. yes, Dakota Co. changes from a density that most of us would call suburban to rural and suburban again. but urban? none of these places are urban to mean inner city. They get as urban as First-ring suburbs.
There's no data to suggest the outline of this school district has changed at all in several years. These towns and county boundaries have been set for over a hundred years. The demographics are changing because the twin cities' metro demographics are changing.
In 2002 and 2003 this district got over 325k each year for another DoEd project. This just appears to be more of the same--400k over the next 3 years. Sounds like they are simply good at getting earmarks or my congresswoman to get them funding, whatever the spin.
You can see their stats on AYP and others at
http://www.isd197.org/se3bin/clientgenie.cgi?schoolname=school157&statusFlag=goGenie&geniesite=145
Did you look at St. Paul data or something?
All 5 elementary schools are doing rather well. And that's who won the Kindness Project money.
I've been told nothing but outstanding things about the special ed and IEP programs in this particular district, fwiw. Far far far better than any Ramsey Co. or Saint Paul school does.
This is apparently an outgrowth of other character education grant money. So while everyone's outrage here is fine by me, it doesn't seem to be that anything here is new, or based on crashing AYP numbers or any thing else than the current character ed craze.
ReplyDeleteHere is another news article from 2006 on this district receiving money for the same kind of character ed program (state money at the time):
http://www.taketimetobekind.org/files/Reading_Writing_and_Character_Education_-_Bao_Ong_St._Paul_Pioneer_Press.pdf
"Once an afterthought, character education curriculum and programs like Pilot Knob's kindness patrol are not unusual in schools today. Two weeks ago, the Minnesota Department of Education formally announced the 22 recipients receiving a total of $1.5 million in grants for character education development."
So, they got state money, and now figured out how to go for fed money.
http://www.taketimetobekind.org/ is all about character ed...