Meeting with the Commissioner @BCassellius - December 16, 2015 #JWP

Dr. Brenda Cassellius engaged in a conference call with various stakeholders throughout the great state of Minnesota to discuss a variety of educational topics today.  We discussed the following topics in which I have evaluated for our district:

ESSA - Every Student Succeeds Act
This provides the opportunity for our districts to embrace innovation and engage in more innovation zone classifications.  As these innovations are rolled out, they need to be assessed for efficiency/effectiveness.

In terms of assessments, it sounds as though we will maintain utilization of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments.  Some folks have been lead to believe that we would no longer need to take these assessments as we could transfer to the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measure of Academic Progress and other such tools.

The ESSA is a four year reauthorization that will be revisited.  Although this may be a step in the right direction for school districts, we still have progress to make.  For more information on ESSA, please click the below picture.

Celebrating Reauthorization

Higher Education Learning Commission Ruling
The Higher Education Learning Commission set standards for teacher qualification in teaching these courses.  Post Secondary Education Options (PSEO) provided services to 20,000 students last year and continues to grow.  This is an excellent opportunity for students and families throughout our state.

Although the HLC came out with their ruling, we were able to be granted a waiver until 2022 to remain with current programming while becoming compliant with the HLCs compliance rules.  Folks are working diligently to provide guidance to districts throughout Minnesota.  Programming is also being developed to make this process reasonably attainable for existing staff members.

For the JWP school district, it is absolutely essential to develop a plan of action to ensure our students continue to receive college credit offerings in house.  To do so, we'll need to take the recommendations and develop a plan of action.  By clicking the picture below, you can view an article from the Star Tribune regarding this process.

Full House at the HLC Hearing

World's Best Workforce
Our current report on the World's Best Workforce can be located by clicking here.  We will be meeting on January 7, 2015 from 7:00-9:00 pm to revise and update our current plan.  The members of this team are as follows:

Mike Berding - Technology Staff Development and Curriculum Coordinator
Nicole Olsen - 7-12 Counselor
Scott Kaminski - Director of Buildings and Grounds
Dawn McGregor - Parent
Amy Schmitz - Kindergarten Teacher
Julia Strand - Parent
Kelly Eustice - School Board Member
Kristine Eustice - Community Member
Ryan Eustice - Student
Grace Schlueter - Student
Kevin Babcock - High School Principal
Jeremy Erler - Elementary Principal
Bill Adams - Superintendent

I look forward to working with this group of stakeholders to revise and improve our current plan.

Graduation Rates
Districts were reminded to ensure all MARSS reports are up to date and accurate so that graduation rates can be calculated.  During the 2012-2013 school year, JWP began working with the Phoenix Recovery Programs to provide educational services for students receiving support.  In the past, all students were calculated into the JWP High School Graduation Rates.  Going forward, we have created two separate sites.  One sites is JWP High School and one site is Phoenix Recovery Programs.  This should provide a more accurate picture of how graduation rates look for each site.  If you have any specific questions about this, please contact me directly.

For more information, click the picture.

It was another great and informative call with the Commissioner.  Open lines of communication is essential in our educational development as a state.