by Sue Webber
contributing writer
The board approved the 2014-15 World’s Best Workforce report and then continued its discussion of that document into a 20-minute work session following the board meeting.
In a presentation on the report Sept. 14, the board learned that District 728 “far exceeds” state requirements thus far.
The World’s Best Workforce bill was passed by the Minnesota Legislature in 2013 to ensure every school district in the state is making strides to increase student performance.
Each Minnesota school district is required to develop a plan and yearly report that addresses five goals:
• All children are ready for school.
• All third-graders can read at grade level.
• All racial and economic achievement gaps between students are closed.
• All students are ready for career and college.
• All students graduate from high school.
At last week’s work session, conducted by Vice Chair Holly Thompson, she said the School Board’s role at this point is to determine how best to participate in carrying out the legislative mandate.
The legislation requires that school boards in each district across the state establish an advisory committee that will involve the community in plan development. The legislation stipulates that members of the committee must reflect the diversity of the district and “make recommendations to the school board on rigorous academic standards and student achievement goals and measures.”
“The World’s Best Workforce has not been on our front burner,” Thompson said. “We need to put it on a burner somewhere for the year coming up.”
Board Member Sue Farber noted that until now, the board has never had a role, other than to approve the report.
“We’ve never been involved,” Farber said. “By stating that we’re supposed to be involved, what does that look like? Do we need to work collaboratively with (the staff) to set goals, or to get more reporting?”
Assistant superintendent of Education Services Jana Hennen-Burr said that each of the district’s school principals is charged with finding someone representative of that school’s community to serve on the Student Accountability and Achievement Committee.
“It’s hard to get people there,” she said. “We always have more staff than parents. We’ve never had 17 people there; it’s seven or eight people each time.”
She noted that whereas the committee formerly met monthly, it now meets just four times a year.
“There has to be a place for parents to give input on the curriculum,” Hennen-Burr said. “We want parental input on that.”
Thompson suggested that community members, business owners and retirees, all of whom have a stake in how student performance affects the future, might be good candidates for the committee.
Farber agreed that the committee needs to be “a cross-section of parents, staff and community.” She suggested that the committee be “repackaged and renamed so people understand what systems accountability is.”
“We also have to sell it,” Board Member Jamie Plantenberg-Selbitschka said.