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Sibley County School Districts

• EDVISIONS OFF CAMPUS SCHOOL

  
  

  Vision Statement At Community of Peace Academy, our desired outcome is to educate the whole person; mind, body and will; for peace, justice, freedom, compassion, wholeness and fullness of life for all. Mission Statement The mission of Community of Peac

• G.F.W.

  
  

  GFW Vision Goals: Community members are involved with school issues and activities. Business partnership, input, and support is encouraged. Each student assumes responsibility for learning to the best of his/her ability. Students are accountable for their actions and use school resources in a responsible manner. Students understand and respect others including those who are culturally diverse and of different family structures. Positive and helpful changes occur to assure a safe, caring, learning environment for all students. Staff will be models for life long learning. Clear and open communication takes place among staff, students, and community. Parents/guardians provide a nurturing and safe environment. Parents/guardians are responsible and accountable for their child's education and behavior.

• GREEN ISLE COMMUNITY SCHOOL

  
  

  Mission: Green Isle Community School will foster a positive and respectful multiage environment that promotes educational excellence, service learning, community connections, and responsible citizenship. Vision: Green Isle Community School will be a school of excellence, one that supports rigorous and responsible academic, social, and behavioral quests. Purposeful efforts to create a nurturing, stimulating multiage learning environment will foster respect, cooperation, character development, and peace-filled relationships. Planned interactions will mutually benefit school and community. The school will provide students an authentic voice that enhances leadership, activism, and civic responsibility. The school will enrich the greater Green Isle community by establishing traditions that celebrate history and heritage.

• MINNESOTA NEW COUNTRY SCHOOL

  
  

  It’s now been more than ten years since the first planners met to discuss the creation of what was to become one of the most unique and celebrated charter schools in America. The New Country School planning process began in the halls and basement of the 1900 portion of the old Henderson High School, located approximately sixty miles southwest of Minneapolis, farm country along the Minnesota River Valley. A couple of teachers, myself and a few local business people first met in the teachers work room to sketch out a plan for a new kind of computer-infused high school. That first meeting was invaded by the local superintendent who sternly warned the group, “You had better not be talking about a charter school.” He subsequently banned the group from meeting on school grounds. So it was into bars and coffee shops for the next eighteen months that this group of entrepreneurs and school reformers were banished to pursue their dream. I was the convener of sorts. I was two years into a position at the Center For School Change at the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and knew a little about the landmark charter law Minnesota had passed the year before. I also had access to the best minds and activists around the school reform work of the early 1990’s; in particular, Joe Nathan, Ted Kolderie, Wayne Jennings, Ted Sizer and others. My job was to help create new kinds of public schools, schools-within-schools, magnet schools and charter schools if possible. So it was not so accidental that I came to be involved in the making of a school. What was more accidental was the place where that school began. Most people find it highly unlikely that such a school would be found in the heart of rural Minnesota, where the kids are all “above normal”. I had been on the local school board for about five years in 1992 and was committed to making high school more interesting and friendly. My own experience as a teacher, relatively short at four years, was one of boredom and frustration. My own small high school education, in Henderson, was one of tremendous personalization and non-stop activity; total immersion in sports, drama, music, community service and academics (when we could fit them in). I knew school could be more than regimentation, rules and elitism. The local school had consolidated with the bigger neighbor, taking local kids out of their community and giving them less opportunity to participate in the kinds of activities that develop true active citizenship and leadership. What tipped the scales for me was a survey done in the local high school where seventy percent of the students indicated their school “was not a good place to be”. How could we stand for that many students being unsatisfied? It had to affect the entire culture of the school and community. So I began to recruit and we began to meet. I recruited teachers, ex-teachers, board members, former board members, mentor teachers from Minnesota State University-Mankato, and business people who were both entrepreneurs and reformers. We even got a few students to join us. We met every couple of weeks for a year before we let our plans be known. Our premise was to take the typical high school and look at each major design feature and decide whether that piece made sense in terms of what it did for the students. At the end of the year, we had nothing left that looked like traditional high school; no classes, no grades, no bells, no principal, a week long break every six weeks, personal work stations and a computer for every student, public presentation of student work, and a building that would look more like a busy office. And it would be small, no more than 150 students. When the news of the new school came out, some were shocked and insulted, others inquisitive and interested. The school board was not impressed and turned down the request for sponsorship 6-0 (I had to abstain). We were disheartened but immediately turned our attention to a neighboring district who subsequently refused to take a vote for not wanting to appear to be anti-reform. Little consolation for us, but LeSueur-Henderson’s new superintendent, Dr. Harold Larson came back to us and asked if we would like to participate in a district-wide strategic planning process to take place in the summer of 1993. We agreed and the resulting plan called for a new kind of high school model. Later that fall, the board unanimously voted to sponsor the Minnesota New Country School. At that point, the real planning began. We had less than a year to recruit students and teachers, find a place to locate and develop a program no-one in the country had yet to try. We had only our good intentions and advice from folks like Joe Nathan and Wayne Jennings, who had started the St. Paul Open School twenty years prior. We began meeting weekly, and with no startup funds and only our good name and intuition, we created a school from scratch. We had one big political hurdle to overcome yet. Three months after our sponsorship, we were ready to take the contract back to the board. In many ways this was more crucial than sponsorship because it committed the district to three years of experimenting with an autonomous, new and different kind of public school arrangement. We were asking the district, in Ted Kolderie’s words, “To trust someone other than the typical district and its employees, to provide the service of public education”. It was a very intense couple of weeks. The opposition and the press wanted all the answers now. They wanted to know where we would locate, how students would be bused, how many students from the district would attend? And we didn’t have many of the answers. The board took testimony for six and one-half hours, mostly from current high school teachers opposing the reform ideas and the need for such a school. We got a few “experts” to come in and support our ideas but mostly relied on our ability to convince folks of our sincerity and the growing need to change high schools. The stars must have been aligned the following week when the board voted 5-1 to approve the contract. The key point in the process was when board chair, Virginia Miller, spoke eloquently about the reality of school choice coming to a small Minnesota school district. She looked at the crowd that had gathered, many opposing teachers, and pointing at them, said, “This is not your money. This is not our money. This money belongs to parents and their children and if sixty or seventy of them choose to spend it differently, I can’t stand in their way.” The superintendent nodded in agreement and the contract vote was approved. Years later, I still think about that moment and how important that statement has become and how charged the question of public school choice remains. It seems never about doing the right thing, but about money. We wouldn’t create big boxes with two thousand students if it wasn’t about the money. The rest is history. Well, not exactly. Charter schools are always evolving. They never take a break from change or controversy. We set about preparing for our opening in Fall, 1994. We found a couple of empty store fronts in downtown Le Sueur and remodeled up to the opening day. Parents and potential students helped out immensely those first few months prior and after opening. I still can’t believe they were so patient and trusting that first year. The program was totally unknown and untried. The buildings were less than adequate, and some of the first students were troubled, having come from a variety of school districts (This seemed to be their latest stop). The original teachers (Ron Newell, Nancy Miller, Kim Borwege, and John Brosnan), two who came from the traditional school, one a local techie, and the fourth, a MSU mentor with twenty five years experience, were motivated but unsure. I think what saved us that first year was that the planners were there almost daily, trying to help the teachers pragmatically and with the big picture stuff. We kept reminding them at our weekly meetings that they were doing groundbreaking work and others would be looking at their success or failure. Admittedly, we put pressure on them they probably didn’t need. Shortly after our initial contract approval, we put another twist on this story. Ted Kolderie approached us with a question and an idea. He asked if we’d be interested in creating a school that had no employees. As you can imagine we were puzzled but very intrigued. I’d always been interested in alternative business practices. Ted described the notion of a teacher professional practice, legally organized as a cooperative, to own the instructional service at the school. In other words, a cooperative made up of teachers and others, would contract for the learning program at the school. The staff would receive a lump-sum amount of money (compensation, staff development, etc.) and then decide amongst themselves how it would be spent, thus eliminating the board from the tedious work of negotiating every person’s worth and pay. The group was not all that excited about the idea, especially since Minnesota charters were governed by a teacher majority board already. After several hours of discussing and selling the idea, I was able to convince everyone it was worth a try. If we didn’t make history with our unique school design, we were certainly going to with the teacher ownership and professionalism model. I and others were especially excited about EdVisions Cooperative because the group decided to allow for “at large” membership. This allowed those of us who had been part of the planning team to remain involved at the learning program level. The initial group included about twelve to fourteen members, including Dr. Larson, the superintendent. Essentially, we directed the program those first years of the school. Today, EdVisions Cooperative has grown to include nine schools, 125 teachers, a dozen at-large members, a small group of consulting members, and a non-profit arm that has set about creating more New Country-like schools. A recently published book about the professional practice idea, Teachers As Owners, is available through Scarecrow Press. The New Country School itself has evolved. Although still holding true to its original premise, it has developed a bit more structured, but very respected project based learning model. The school still has no courses or bells and no formal principal. Still run by the teachers, it is now located on Main Street in Henderson in a new facility that was designed to mirror the unique learning program. There are the high tech personal work stations for each student, lots of room for project work, a science lab and media resource center, and a stage area for public presentation of student work, plays and community events. The building project in 1998 was a unique partnership between a local development group, the City of Henderson, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development and a local bank. The New Country School has become an economic development success story. It attracts over 500 visitors from around the world each year and the Cooperative has created several jobs for this small community of one thousand residents. The school has had a measure of success beyond the novelty and publicity, as well. Standardized and other measures are positive and student and parent satisfaction is always tremendous. The combination of technology and self-directed learning is very popular and works with all ability levels. The staff at New Country has spent considerable time over the years improving the learning process and fine tuning the project system; weaving in the state performance standards, making sure the basic skills are attained and preparing young people for the world of work and post-secondary school. About seventy percent of New Country’s graduates go on to further schooling. About a quarter of the students attend some college while in high school through Minnesota’s post-secondary enrollment program. Reaction to the school has been mixed over the years. I think generally the public has accepted the idea that we need a variety of schools to serve students’ needs. Many still don’t understand or appreciate the differences in our school. They see on the surface that the school doesn’t have its own sports teams (they have a pairing arrangement with the district). Some still think the school is either for “tech-heads” or “at risk” students. The building is getting more and more community use so that tends to break down the barriers to a certain extent. After eight years, there are no original board members left on the district board and Superintendent Larson has retired. The former high school principal is now the superintendent and is generally supportive. The various board members have been helpful over the years, especially when the different academic program is explained and they get first hand knowledge of how it works well for students. They appreciate too the teacher cooperative model, especially when they see how many of their own issues are tied to collective bargaining and union vs. management politics. Those difficulties are virtually non-existent in the cooperative model and if so, are internal to the cooperative group. Some of the original planners are still present but working in different capacities. Ron Newell is the Learning Programs Director for the Gates-EdVisions Project of EdVisions, Inc. the non-profit arm of the Cooperative. He recently authored a book about project based learning, called A Passion For Learning (Scarecrow Publishing). The Gates-EdVisions Project is a multi-million dollar replication project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I am now the President of EdVisions, Inc. (non-profit) and Director of the Gates-EdVisions Project, after spending ten years with the Center For School Change. Nancy Miller returned to the local high school to retire and take advantage of a lucrative severance package. Kim Borwege spent seven years with New Country until accepting a position in the district where she lived. John Brosnan returned to the private technology company he had been employed by before teaching at New Country. Two of the original planners, Dee Thomas and Dean Lind, are now teacher/advisors at the school. Dee Thomas is a member of the Minnesota State Board of Teaching and is currently President of the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools. Dean Lind and Ron Newell are active members of the Board of Directors of Edvisions Cooperative. Together, we all keep the fire burning. The Gates-EdVisions Project is charged with creating fifteen new schools like MNCS and ten new teacher-owner models like EdVisions Cooperative. We now have a small staff, located in downtown Henderson, and have nine new schools up and running in Minnesota and Wisconsin and are working on a national scale-up effort. It is truly a dream come true for many of us who started the New Country School. Our mission was to create a great, small, innovative school and to change the world of high school education. We often joke about being “farm kids with attitude” and trying to “save the world”. The truth is that the charter venture is hard, sometimes scary work. If you don’t have a passion to make things better for kids and adults, you tend to run out of energy or lose interest in the fight. As Joe Nathan reminded me so often at the Center For School Change, “This is a marathon, not a sprint”. My personal reflection on ten years is quite positive. I’ve heard all the clichés about small groups doing great things. Now, I’ve seen it happen and know it can happen over and over again across this country. If a group of naïve country kids in a typical school district can do this, anybody can. The heart and soul of public education is the entrepreneurial spirit that comes from parents, educators and students joining together to create something wonderful. I can’t help but think this is the beginning of the re-independence of public education, this infusion of spirit that has often been zapped by the bureaucracy. Leadership is all about ideas and people. It’s the infusion of ideas into people’s hearts and minds and helping them do something extraordinary. I’m certain there will be a new culture created around charter schools. One with a new freedom and motivation to say “we can” when dreaming about what might happen for kids. We often say this is “missionary work”, converting one soul at a time. For me, the past ten years has been just that, working with one person or a small group to help them realize the possibilities of acting on their dreams.

• SIBLEY EAST SCHOOL DISTRICT

  
  

  Sibley East School District represesnts the communities of Arlington, Gaylord and Green Isle. The Senior High and one of the elementary Schools are located in Arlington. The Senior High serves students in grades ten through twelve and the Elementary School serves students Kindergarten through sixth grade. The Junior High and our other Elementary School are located in Gaylord . This Elementary school also serves students in grades Kindergarten through sixth grade while the Junior High serves students in grades seven through nine. Our classrooms are totally networked for computers to the internet as well as having communication capabilities between classrooms and school sites. This allows parents access to their child's academic progress. Every teacher has a classroom telephone so that parents are able to contact them directly. There are many partnerships between the school and businesses in the community as well as the city and county governments. Sibley East Schools maximize the use of community resources to prepare today's students to meet tomorrow's challenges.