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A new study from the National Council on Teacher Quality shows that housing costs are outpacing the growth of teacher salaries across the country, including here in Minnesota. As part of a sample of more than 72 large urban school districts around the U.S., the research and advocacy group looked at whether teachers at Anoka-Hennepin Public School District and St. Paul Public Schools could afford to rent or own a home in the community they teach in. From 2019 to 2025, the study found in Anoka-Hennepin schools, teacher salaries increased on average 21 percent, while home prices jumped by nearly 36 percent and rental costs by nearly 51 percent.In St. Paul Public Schools during the same time period, teacher salaries increased on average 19 percent, with home prices increasing nearly 29 percent and rent nearly 51 percent.Joining Minnesota Now to talk about what impact housing affordability has on teacher retention and the education system is Heather Peske, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality and John Wolhaupter, an educator in the Anoka-Hennepin Public School District.
Like most school districts in Minnesota, St. Paul Public Schools is facing a complicated set of challenges. Enrollment is up a bit this year, but the small increase follows years of decline. The district faces a budget shortfall, has already made deep cuts and plans to ask voters this fall to approve a tax increase to support schools. At the same time, student performance is stuck where it was before the pandemic and proposals from President Donald Trump and from Republicans in Congress would reduce support for public education. MPR News host Angela Davis talks about the challenges facing public education with St. Paul's new superintendent, Stacie Stanley. Guest:Stacie Stanley is the superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools, the second largest school district in Minnesota. Prior to joining the district in May, she served three years as the superintendent of Edina Public Schools, as associate superintendent in Eden Prairie Schools and on the leadership team in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District. She's been a classroom teacher, curriculum math specialist and a principal. She graduated from St. Paul's Central High School.
Like most school districts in Minnesota, St. Paul Public Schools is facing a complicated set of challenges. Enrollment is up a bit this year, but the small increase follows years of decline. The district faces a budget shortfall, has already made deep cuts and plans to ask voters this fall to approve a tax increase to support schools. At the same time, student performance is stuck where it was before the pandemic and proposals from President Donald Trump and from Republicans in Congress would reduce support for public education. MPR News host Angela Davis talks about the challenges facing public education with St. Paul's new superintendent, Stacie Stanley. Guest:Stacie Stanley is the superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools, the second largest school district in Minnesota. Prior to joining the district in May, she served three years as the superintendent of Edina Public Schools, as associate superintendent in Eden Prairie Schools and on the leadership team in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District. She's been a classroom teacher, curriculum math specialist and a principal. She graduated from St. Paul's Central High School.
Dr. Stacie Stanley went through the public school system in St. Paul, and today, she began her new job overseeing the district. Meet the new Superintendent on The WCCO Morning News with Vineeta Sawkar.
Dr. Stacie Stanley went through the public school system in St. Paul, and today, she began her new job overseeing the district. Meet the new Superintendent on The WCCO Morning News with Vineeta Sawkar.
Chief Financial Officer Tom Sagar joined Vineeta on The WCCO Morning News
Chief Financial Officer Tom Sagar joined Vineeta on The WCCO Morning News
Public schools across Minnesota are in the process of overhauling their reading curriculum. You may remember in 2023, the state passed the READ Act. It includes requirements that students be taught phonics and requires districts to purchase specific curriculum. At St. Paul Public Schools, the district began putting an emphasis on literacy even before the READ Act. And just last night they premiered a docuseries that followed students over one school year and their literacy journey.The docuseries is called “All In: The Saint Paul Public Schools Literacy Journey.” Jenny Davis is the literacy coordinator for the district and joined the program to talk about the docuseries. Emily Hanford was the reporter behind our Sold A Story podcast, which spurred states like Minnesota to put new laws into place regarding literacy and started a nationwide conversation. Hanford also joined the program to talk about her reporting on this topic.
Political control of the Minnesota House comes down to tight races in two counties. Our reporter spent the morning in Shakopee where a recount is happening and she is here with the latest on the close race in District 54A.Robbinsdale Public Schools made a twenty million dollar mistake in their budget. We hear about the fallout and plans for budget cuts.And St. Paul Public Schools is changing the way they teach reading — and they made a documentary about it. We talk to the district's literacy coordinator.Plus Minnesota United is inching closer to their first cup. They're in the semi finals this weekend against the LA Galaxy. We'll talk to a former Loons player about their journey to the top.Our Minnesota Music Minute was “Chopper” by Dessa.
Pat Garofalo in studio with the news that the Mpls Federation of Teachers Union intends to host a speech by virulent anti-Semite. We suspect that the event scheduled for Friday may get cancelled. Johnny Heidt with guitar news.Heard On The Show:A tale of two retailers: Target reports sluggish spending while Walmart has a stellar quarterLawsuit claims St. Paul Public Schools ‘misused' federal COVID funding violating federal lawWhat to know about Linda McMahon, Trump's pick for Education secretary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Pat Garofalo in studio with the news that the Mpls Federation of Teachers Union intends to host a speech by virulent anti-Semite. We suspect that the event scheduled for Friday may get cancelled. Johnny Heidt with guitar news. Heard On The Show: A tale of two retailers: Target reports sluggish spending while Walmart has a stellar quarter Lawsuit claims St. Paul Public Schools ‘misused' federal COVID funding violating federal law What to know about Linda McMahon, Trump's pick for Education secretary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Two charter schools in St. Paul closed Thursday and a third stepped up its security due to threats of violence that have been circulating online — mainly through social media platforms TikTok and Snapchat. The posts mentioned several schools in St. Paul and throughout the Twin Cities metro. St. Paul Public Schools said in an email to parents that the threats are not believed to be credible and noted many of the posts came from outside the district. And the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension spokesperson said in a statement that the state and local law enforcement are monitoring the situation. It's not a unique one, schools across the country have fielded similar threats in the wake of a recent shooting that killed four people in Winder, Georgia. Amy Klinger is co-founder of the Educator's School Safety Network and works with schools nationwide to prevent and respond to violence. She joined MPR News guest host Nina Moini.
Cherise Ayers was president of the student council at Central High School in St. Paul in the late 1990s. Two years ago, the St. Paul native returned to Central in a very different leadership role: as principal.Central is the oldest high school in Minnesota, founded in 1866. Known for strong academics, it was one of the first schools in the state to offer an international baccalaureate diploma program. Its graduates, including Ayers' classmate St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, have gone on to be prominent leaders in business, education, sports and politics. MPR News host Angela Davis talks with Ayers about returning to lead her alma mater, her vision for the school and what it's like to follow in the footsteps of longtime Central High School principal Mary Mackbee, who retired in 2019.Guest: Cherise Ayers was named principal of Central High School in St. Paul in 2022. She graduated from Central in 1997 and holds a bachelor's degree in English from Spelman College and a master's degree in secondary education and teaching from Brown University. A lifelong educator, she's worked as a middle and high school English teacher in Georgia and Minnesota, as dean of students for Richfield Public Schools, as an assistant principal in St. Paul Public Schools and as an equity supervisor and interim principal for the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale School District.Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
Former Gov Arne Carlson joins and tells us he regrets his endorsement of Tim Walz. Check out the numbers of coal plants in the United States vs China. We have come to the conclusion that whatever IT was......is over. Reusse with his weekly sports report. Johnny Heidt with guitar news.Heard On The Show:Readers Write: Kansas City, Trump, immigration, Arne Carlson on the Legislature, city imageryPutin's no 1 enemy Alexei Navalny ‘collapses and dies' in jail as Latvian president says he was ‘brutally murdered'St. Paul Public Schools teachers vote to authorize strike Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Former Gov Arne Carlson joins and tells us he regrets his endorsement of Tim Walz. Check out the numbers of coal plants in the United States vs China. We have come to the conclusion that whatever IT was......is over. Reusse with his weekly sports report. Johnny Heidt with guitar news. Heard On The Show: Readers Write: Kansas City, Trump, immigration, Arne Carlson on the Legislature, city imagery Putin's no 1 enemy Alexei Navalny ‘collapses and dies' in jail as Latvian president says he was ‘brutally murdered' St. Paul Public Schools teachers vote to authorize strike Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The St. Paul teachers union has voted to authorize a strike. The vote gives union leadership the authority to decide to call a strike. And the American Association of School Administrators has named the superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools, Joe Gothard, as its superintendent of the year.That and more to catch you up in this MPR News morning update, hosted by Phil Picardi. Music by Gary Meister.
For some in rural Minnesota, it continues to get more challenging to find a hospital to give birth. On Friday, labor and delivery services at Mayo Clinic Health System in New Prague will come to an end. And union teachers with St. Paul Public Schools will vote next week on whether to authorize a strike. This is an MPR News morning update, hosted by Phil Picardi. Music by Gary Meister.
The manager of the historic north shore lodge destroyed in a fire early this morning says it will be rebuilt. And union teachers with the St. Paul Public Schools will vote next week on whether to authorize a strike.Those stories and more in today's evening update from MPR News. Hosted by Emily Reese. Music by Gary Meister.
Saint Paul Public Schools Chief of Operations and Administration Jacqueline Turner talks about the School Choice Fair is happening in less than week. The event is Saturday, December 9, 2023, from 9:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.Saint Paul RiverCentre (175 Kellogg Boulevard West, St. Paul, MN 55102)For more information https://apply.spps.org/school_choice_fair
Movement underway to restrict parking in Duluth for purposes of equity. Mary Moriarity signals that she still intends to treat carjacking cases on a per case basis, rather than actually prosecute anyone. Author admits contriving article in order to get published in "Nature." Johnny Heidt with guitar news.Heard On The Show:Minneapolis City Council member granted restraining order against citizenSt. Paul Public Schools notifies families of data breach from FebruarySpeaker McCarthy directs a House panel to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Movement underway to restrict parking in Duluth for purposes of equity. Mary Moriarity signals that she still intends to treat carjacking cases on a per case basis, rather than actually prosecute anyone. Author admits contriving article in order to get published in "Nature." Johnny Heidt with guitar news. Heard On The Show: Minneapolis City Council member granted restraining order against citizen St. Paul Public Schools notifies families of data breach from February Speaker McCarthy directs a House panel to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Teachers are an important part of how all of us grow and learn, but many of them are struggling.A state report suggests that the majority of districts in Minnesota are significantly or very impacted by the teacher shortage and believe the availability of teachers has decreased compared to five years ago. And, nearly a third of new teachers leave teaching within the first five years in the profession.MPR News host Angela Davis speaks with a current teacher and a former educator and burnout coach about how to better support teachers. Guests Jasman Myers is a special education teacher of third and fourth grade students at Carver Elementary School in Maplewood, Minn. She previously taught five years of secondary instruction at Tartan High in Oakdale, Minn., and four years with St. Paul Public Schools.Marnie Pauly is a burnout coach based in Waconia, Minn. She's a former teacher and principal in Watertown, Minn. Andrew Skirka is in his ninth year as an elementary school teacher, starting this fall as a second grade teacher at Oxbow Elementary in the Anoka-Hennepin School District. He's also a mentor in Education Minnesota's BRAVE program, which works to reduce the number of early career teachers who leave the profession. Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
The superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools spoke to the press after a Harding High School student was killed Friday at the school. A group of activists marched today to remember Minnesota's missing and murdered indigenous relatives. And Minnesota's junior synchronized figure skating team just returned from representing the U.S. in Poland.
Mouakong Vue with St. Paul Public Schools tells us about the Ethnic Studies Program he oversees.
Being able to read well is the foundation for so many things. If you can't read well, you can't do well in school, read a medical prescription or even manage a Google search. But one in three fourth graders in the United States and in Minnesota cannot read at grade level. A new investigative podcast from American Public Media explores how a common way of teaching reading fails students. Earlier this month, MPR News with Angela Davis talked with Emily Hanford, lead producer of “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong.” Listen to our follow-up conversation with Minnesota educators. Guests: Katie Pekel is executive director of educational leadership at the University of Minnesota where she heads up the Minnesota Principals Academy and other programs to train and inform school system leaders. She's a former teacher and elementary and middle school principal. Athena Goff is a WINN literacy teacher at Phalen Lake Hmong Studies Magnet School in St. Paul Public Schools where she teaches reading to small groups of kindergarten through third grade students. Katharine Campbell is a former special education teacher and director of literacy partnerships with Groves Learning Organization. The literacy partnership program offers literacy training and reading curriculum to elementary schools in the Twin Cities. Here are four key moments from the conversation. The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Click the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. From your experience, describe the way that reading has been taught in Minnesota: Athena Goff: I listened to the entire Sold a Story podcast. I was shocked and disappointed. In St. Paul, for the past 15 years, we have had an explicit phonics curriculum, so teaching phonics is not new. The podcast references the cueing method and my experience with that method was when teaching kids to use the visual of a word, looking all the way through the words letter by letter and seeing the sound blending. I knew in my heart that teaching kids how to decode is really teaching them how to read. I never had kids look at the first letter, check the picture, and just make a guess. For 15 years we have had a new curriculum that aligns more closely with the ‘science of reading' books. It has followed a scope and sequence. Katie Pekel: Unlike what Athena just shared, where St. Paul has had a solid phonics curriculum for 15 years, that is not the case in most districts across the state of Minnesota. As a matter of fact, when I was an elementary school principal, we had a balanced literacy approach in the building that I led. That approach meant that kids would just get reading if they were surrounded by good books and comfortable places to read as Emily described in the podcast. There was a little bit of phonics, but not what Athena described. In fact, we know from the National Reading Panel research dating back to 2000, that phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, all have to be present in literacy instruction. Tell us more about the ‘Science of Reading' program: Katharine Campbell: We have been basing our reading instruction at Groves Academy for years on what we currently call the ‘science of reading'. It is explicit instruction in phonics, but also some other of the five components of reading that Katie mentioned. What we did when we went into grubs, literacy partnerships, is we changed what we were doing to meet the needs of typical learners. But it's still based on the same methodology that we follow when we talk about structured literacy or the science of reading. We started in 2016 and when we partner with a school, we bring teacher professional learning and a curriculum that is based on the science of reading. We ask them to collect data three times a year using a quick standardized test but also look at the performance of each student as they are doing a unit. Our focus is on kindergarten through third-grade readers right now, although our program is expanding, and we are publishing curriculum for those older students that need intervention. What can you tell us about racial disparities in education? Athena Goff: It is an alarming issue. For the last 14 years, I have taught at schools that had one hundred percent kids of color, and nearly one hundred percent poverty. I have been shocked over the years, and yet I have not given up on doing what is right in my heart. And now, since last year, with our new training in the science of reading, my students are reading decodable books and I am really seeing a difference and progress in how they are reading. I am hopeful and I believe in my students. Katie Pekel: Literacy is a social justice issue. And the approaches that Athena just described in the classroom are what we need to see but on a much broader scale. At the University of Minnesota, we have the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement and we help school districts across the state of Minnesota to understand how the science of reading intersects with and is part of what's called an MTSS model (multi-tiered systems of support). A second component is the school curriculum that we are going to use, that ultimately needs to reach all kids. What could help more kids learn how to read at their grade level? Athena Goff: A real focus on both phonemic awareness and letter sound instruction with phonics is the key. Teachers need decodable texts, they need decodable passages. I am hoping that classroom teachers will be getting those soon. For way too long, we have used level readers and we need to get away from that. Katie Pekel: We need a significant scale-up in the training of teachers. We already had a $3 million investment last legislative session, and as we sit on over $17 billion going into this session, I think we're going to see that investment. We need to support teachers and make sure they have the skills to use those decodable texts and resources. Your stories Parents and teachers called into the show and shared their stories. Here are some of them. Laurie from Roseville I'm a kindergarten teacher. I have been teaching for over 20 years and was trained in the balanced literacy approach. It was almost like you taught kids how to look like a reader but you were not teaching them the explicit phonics that makes them decode words. My oldest daughter is dyslexic and as a mom, it really hit me hard. I wish so badly I would have known then what I know now, so she would not have gotten through the struggles that she did. Nowadays, I'm in letters training which is based on the science of reading. Minnesota has made a big push for this. It is just December and all my kids are starting to decode. Daisy from Minneapolis My son is in third grade at Minneapolis Public Schools. I assumed things were fine and then one day, he told me he does not know how to read. I listened to the podcast and emailed the teacher. I got a paragraph response telling me he was at a benchmark level, which is where he should be at the end of third grade. So I got these mixed messages and I think where he is struggling is in writing. I think my son has a good teacher, he is at a school with people that really care about education. But I do not know what to do. Carlin from Minneapolis I was a middle school teacher in Minneapolis Public Schools for six years, and I taught predominantly Black, Latino, and Indigenous students, many of whom spoke languages other than English at home. I really believe that many programs were not properly audited in Minneapolis, because of educator bias, be that racial bias, class bias, or linguistic bias. We're all leveled against students and families to say: “well, maybe the reason they're not able to read is because they are still learning English, or because of their home lives, or because of poverty”. And so it really put students and families in this deficit lens, to the educators and to the school institutions. Susan from St. Paul I am a high school teacher, and I have students who do not know how to read, who phonetically cannot decode words, and I think it comes down to race and class. Those students have been passed through techniques of memorization and techniques of deep listening to the teacher as they go through books. As a high school teacher, to know what that is going to mean for a student who is graduating high school in two years, is a terrible feeling. Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
We took the week off for Thanksgiving to rest and relax, but we are back and hitting it hard! We as in Josh and Mark; Chris is in a Christmas parade at the time of this recording lolol. If you have not listened to Episodes 97 and 98, STOP NOW and go listen to those episodes first. 99 is the third episode in this series. In 97, we talk with a superintendent about a cyber attack on his school. In 98, we talk about fostering a cyber security culture in schools. We promise they are worth the listen. In this episode, we talk with Don Wolf from Portland Public Schools and Idrissa Davis from St. Paul Public Schools to find out just what is a "cyber plan." Cyber plans are being required by insurance companies, and some state legislatures, but people have a hard time defining what goes into a cyber plan. We hope that after listening to this episode you will have a much better understanding of what goes into a cyber plan, and how to start developing your own. Visit our sponsors: Managed Methods Free Google security audit that Managed Methods is running through the end of the year - https://hubs.ly/Q01sHqqY0 SomethingCool.com - Cybersecurity Solutions Provision Data Solutions Extreme Networks - dmayer@extremenetworks.com Jefferson College's success with Extreme Networks Oh, and... Email us at k12techtalk@gmail.com Tweet us @k12techtalkpod Visit our LinkedIn page HERE Hang out with us at K12TechPro.com Buy our merch!!!
Open enrollment for MPS and St. Paul Public Schools.
Bicycling is growing in more ways than one in Minnesota. During the COVID-19 pandemic bike sales shot up and more people started biking recreationally. City and regional planners are also encouraging bicycling with the expansion of protected bike lanes and trail networks that let you get from point A to point B without riding on the road. But, today's cyclists are a diverse pack, including fast racers, slow beginners, kids, commuters and electric bike riders. How can everyone share the paths? MPR News host Angela Davis spoke with two avid bicyclists about how to get into bicycling and tips on using trails and bike lanes. Guests: DeWayne Combs is a physical education teacher at Murray Middle School in St. Paul. He's worked for St. Paul Public Schools for 31 years and was a finalist for Minnesota Teacher of the Year in 2020 for his work introducing hundreds of students to bicycling. He's also raced mountain bikes and commutes from Stillwater to St. Paul by bike. Elissa Schufman is director of strategic partnerships at Move Minnesota, a St. Paul-based advocacy group that promotes transit, biking, and walking. She also chairs the Minneapolis Bicycle Advisory Board and commutes to work by bike. Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS. Recent reporting Creating a safe space for Black bicyclists
Do you remember a teacher who really made a difference in your life as a child? A teacher who really saw you and encouraged you? Minnesota schools have a persistent opportunity gap, with Native American children, Black children and other children of color less likely to graduate high school than their white peers. Research has shown that having teachers and school staff of color can help students of color succeed. But nationally only seven percent of teachers are Black, and only two percent are Black men. American Public Media special correspondent Lee Hawkins spoke about identity, curriculum, recruitment and more with four Black men who are educators. Guests: Michael Walker, the Director of Black student achievement for Minneapolis Public Schools Michael Thomas, superintendent of Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools Eric Robinson, a retired teacher Derek Francis, Executive Director of Equity and School Climate for Minneapolis Public Schools. He previously managed the district's counseling services. The following is a partial transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and brevity. Listen to the full conversation using the audio player above. Lee Hawkins: Thank you all for being here. I'm really excited about the opportunity to bring you brothers together into this discussion. So thank you. Only two percent of the nation's teachers are Black males. That's a tough number to swallow. But here's something that's mind blowing for you all to digest: across the state of Minnesota, there are only 1.45 percent Black teachers, male or female. So that's even less than the percentage of Black male teachers across the nation. Only 1.45 percent Black teachers in a state where Black people make up seven percent of the population. What does this mean for Black children for Minnesota, particularly boys? And what will their educational experience be like as a result? Michael Walker: Well, we already know that representation matters if we got to make sure that we have people that look like them in front of the classrooms, right? And when we think about how that impacts the growth and development of young people, is that when we see folks that look like us, it gives us the ability to see that we have that possibility to be an educator as well. The school system is not designed for them to feel valued, to feel welcomed. The cultural aspects of our schools are a little different than what our Black students are experiencing. So it's not designed for them. And so we have to really think about how do we address that piece? The other components of why the experience is different: what about our curriculum? Like how is the curriculum set up? We have a Eurocentric curriculum, again, that is not centering the experiences of our Black people. And so how do we change? That is some of the things that we have to address. Hawkins: Michael Thomas, what does this mean for the kids who are in these classrooms? Without people who look like them? Michael Thomas: Yeah, I take it right back to the psychology of one's health and in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When a young person doesn't have a sense of belonging, they're going to struggle no matter what that gap might be. In this case, a lot of our young Black students, specifically young Black boys to your question, they don't see themselves in the curriculum, they don't see themselves in terms of adult authority in the school systems. And so it becomes very psychologically isolating, and with no outlet or sense of support. That's where you begin to see a young, immature mind trying to make decisions for themselves that are well beyond their comprehension. So that's where we might see some kids falling off. Because they don't have the ability to make some of the best decisions without, you know, the struggles that they're going through, and not being able to have somebody that they can trust to go to, to help kind of process and support them through some of the challenges. I would just center there first, and you can fast forward 30 years as adults. Many of us sitting in this room, were oftentimes maybe the only one — only teacher, only administrator in a system — where we also had that level of isolation and had to navigate very carefully our own existence to kind of stay alive in that system. So, I think that's where I would say first, how do we address Is that social — psychological need of our kids. Hawkins: Derek [Francis], you're counseling kids. When kids come into your office and you're doing the counseling, do you ever get the feeling “wow, this person could really use some diversity in terms of the people who are educating them?” Derek Francis: Oh, man, that is, I think the thing that comes to mind, especially when you're thinking about career development, especially for our youth, the exposure to seeing someone who looks like you. So many times when students, they have just the what they see on TV, so I show up as a Black person in the school, and then I start to teach lesson around. “Well, guess what, let me show you pictures of people who look like you. And they're doctors, they're lawyers, they're educators.” And it opens the mind. I think that's so neat, because it's really exposing them to their hope and future. I start to share students, “you have so many different career opportunities. Here's some schools where You see students that look like you.” And that makes a difference. If you have a counselor that hasn't been around or seen Black people or Black students do some of these successful things, you might limit them from your own views. So at some point for someone to say, “Oh, I see you, I've seen people who have looked like you do some of these things. And that's going to be you.” Hawkins: It's so interesting that you say that because people of all races have stories of being counseled out of going into certain careers by their counselor because their counselor didn't believe in them. I particularly remember a story of a woman who is very, very prominent in the science field, a Black woman that I went to school with who talking about being counseled away from STEM… and right now, she's one of the top people at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. So many people have these “Hi, how you like me now?” stories, and it's sad because you shouldn't have to hear those stories. You should be able to say, “I have the support from my village from the beginning.” Before we get too deep into this, it's really important that we frame the problem that we're addressing right now: Boys collectively, of course of all races, are not performing academically, and socially, as strong as girls. We know that. In the case of Black boys, they're not an exception. And as the effort to close the racial opportunity gap continues, it's important to look at how our educational system can do a better job with Black boys. And if we're going to discuss the issue, we need to be transparent and candid. From what you see right now, from what you see statistically and in the classroom, are Black boys underperforming? Eric, you want to take that? Eric Robinson: Right now students are looking at this as a Eurocentric type of system. And, you know, maybe when you're younger, elementary age, there's a little bit of hope. But then as they get more toward high school or middle school, then that starts to dwindle as far as improving their reading or math goals. So that follows them. I mean, working with high school students in a charter school and knowing that they can't get anything… any higher than a fourth-grade reading level. It comes back to having that presence of a Black teacher in the classroom. To, you know, just say that you can do this, you have value you're worthy of careers that you think you don't think you're capable of doing. Hawkins: I wanted to shift this over to you, Michael [Walker], because … you're the director of Black student achievement for Minneapolis Public Schools, are Black boys underperforming? Walker: I know you start off by saying there's an opportunity gap. And what I tend to believe and the kind of research that I've done, it's really a belief gap, right? It's about what do our adults believe about our Black males? Do we believe that they are able to accomplish success? Do we believe that they're able to achieve whatever goal there is that they're trying to achieve? If we don't have that belief as adults, then we're going to treat them or have expectations that are lower, right? Because I don't believe that you can be a doctor, I don't believe that you can be a lawyer. I don't believe that you can be a scientist, right? And so it really starts with the adults. And so that's kind of the focus of our work. And then some of the work that we do, it's really how do we change the beliefs of the educators so that they can see value in our Black students, specifically our Black males. And so I don't believe in an achievement gap. I don't believe that the young people are Black males are underperforming. I believe that the system has been designed and created and the belief of them in that system has created the outcomes that we see. Hawkins: In talking about improving outcomes, it's important to introduce some data that I think is just mind-blowing. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University studied about 100,000 Black students who entered third grade at North Carolina public schools between 2001 and 2005. About 13 percent of the students ended up dropping out of high school, while about half graduated, but with no plans to pursue college, OK? However, low-income Black students who were assigned to at least one Black teacher in third, fourth or fifth grade, were not only less likely to drop out of school, but 18 percent more likely to express interest in college when they graduated. And persistently low-income Black boys who had at least one Black teacher, in third, fourth or fifth grade, were 29 percent more likely to say that they were considering college. And I spoke to Nicholas Papageorge, who was the lead researcher on this study at Johns Hopkins. And he told me that the big difference is that Black teachers tend to have higher expectations for Black students. Michael, when we were in the green room you were talking about when you were working in Osseo. “I'm Dr. Thomas, I believe in you. And you're going to come in here, and you're going to perform up to your potential.” Tell me about that experience. Thomas: I'll say, it stems back to when I was in sixth grade. I actually had a sixth-grade teacher who called me the n-word, and said I wasn't going to amount to anything. Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure I was a handful, and maybe wasn't always making the best choices. But to have an adult teacher who had power and influence over me, kind of cut me down at that level. I'm 50 years old, I've never forgotten what that felt like, right. So fast forward to myself being an educator, I knew very well, I was never going to let a young Black kid — basically a mini-me — experience what I experienced. I had a lot of positive Black men in my life, who countered that. And that was part of my job when I was a principal. Yes, I'm here to serve all kids. And that was a non-negotiable. I also knew I had to bring a point of emphasis for my kids of color. And that was very clear based upon my data. And if you were Black, and you live in a certain zip code and you're coming to my school, I can predict outcomes, unfortunately. So for me, it was to have a tough conversation, I remember I got criticized for pulling a lot of the Black students together and essentially letting them know, “You're not on track to graduate. And if you continue on this path, you're not going to find success in life.” And there was a lot of backlash to “why would you break confidentiality?” and, you know, having families know each other's business. I'm like, this is a small community. If we don't talk about this and put truth out there, I need the families to come and join me in helping these young men and young girls find a better path in life. And so we were successful in my junior high, closing that achievement gap by almost 45 percent in a period of three years. Because the intentionality was data driven. I could see it, no one can deny it, the numbers are here. But going back to what Dr. Walker was just saying, it was about a mindset shift. Kids don't come to our schools. They're not dumb, right? These kids are looking to become successful, whatever that means for them. And it's our jobs as adults to be that bridge to that. But if I don't believe as an adult, if I don't believe that this young kid can ever achieve something, you know, subconsciously, it's going to come out in my practice. I'm not gonna call on Eric, you know, call on everybody else in the classroom. I'm not gonna call on Eric. I'm gonna be, you know, writing discipline referrals for young Mr. Francis. if he was my kid. That comes out. Because you can't necessarily change beliefs. Although there's a belief gap. I totally believe that. But I can manage the behaviors that are manifestations of what you believe. And that's what my job was as a principal, as an administrator, to look at the adult behaviors that were derived from their belief sets of what kids are going to do well, and who's not going to do well. And then those were the tough conversations that allowed us to really kind of peel that onion back and get to the core of what we needed to get to. Hawkins: I'll tell you, it must be hard. Years later, when you're seeing that Black kid that was in your class and he's on TV now or he's, he's the superintendent of schools. Are you reading about kids? You taught and then in the school system and you didn't believe in them. It's an educational journey for a lot of educators in this country. There's one critical thing growing up in Minnesota taught me. And that's that it's not always about malice or racial animus. A lot of times it's about people not having experience with Black people. You haven't been around Black people in your life. And that means you're bringing a lot of this bias and prejudice into the classroom, to the point that you're still you're nervous around the kid. Am I right about it? … [Cross talk in agreement.] Francis: The thing is too, the way it comes out, even the way… you hear it in the language… it's always in opposition. So the students who are doing well, “that's such a good kid, they're great family, they're their siblings were smart.” Or if it's a student who is a Black student, “they're in the hall again.” The way it's around, not giving the same amount of grace when an assignment is missing, or a student might be a minute late walking in the room. It's a different tone. The students I know, see it too. They'll notice with Black students, the staff is more short with or doesn't call on as much. And I think also too, as a Black staff at a school, I've had times where I can tell staff will kind of dance around saying certain things to me, because they know I'll pick up on what they're really trying to say about that student or their family. And so I do think it's a lack of exposure. You can just tell. Maybe their friendship group might not be as diverse. I think, as educators, being aware of that. Because if you're going to work for Black students, and say that you're working in that neighborhood, or working in an inner city, you have to be cautious and aware of the experiences and have that humility to say, “hey, I don't know what that's like." Let me listen and glean some knowledge from my Black colleagues that are here.” I think that's so important to have that kind of humility. Robinson: I think that bias… has a lot to do with it, because the white teachers they would have in mind, well, this is how they would behave. I remember when I started early in education, there was just one teacher, and I was working with the Black students to Black boys. And it was always every day, the same two or three would like a revolving door, you know, instead of this person, this male person giving grace or, you know, understanding, “Well, why are these students doing this?” or, you know, trying to work with that student. But the teachers would have this in mind that they all behave the same way. And, you know, what I've noticed — just to switch gears here — what I've noticed, as far as administrators, right? Principals, you like the assistant principal, was working always with behavior, you know, and that was the role of Black male working in behavior, well, they can take care of these students because they know how to handle them. But it goes beyond that, you know. Literally it goes beyond that, because if there were Black male teachers in the classroom, then those things wouldn't occur. There wouldn't be suspensions, and, you know, with over-suspending students, students of color males. And I know… about this individual that actually, he graduated this June, and he was in my ethnic studies class a couple of quarters ago. And he never passed. Never, never, in fact, he would disrespect me by calling me Eric by my first name. And toward the middle of the summer. He came in, he owed certain assignments and everything. The teachers were working with them, and they had compassion on him and they knew he had to get graduated. And he graduated, he got everything done. And when he was seeing me, he would call me Mr. Eric, you know, because he was succeeding. You know, years ago, certain behaviors would come out and everything. And teachers would overlook that day. They gave him time they gave him a rope, you know, just “Hey, you can do this.” And he did it, you know, But in some schools, right, some classrooms, they're not given that chance, if a student is gifted, maybe their behavior is helter-skelter. However, there's something beneath that. Teachers don't always see that. They don't, they look at the behavior first, instead of getting to know their student. Hawkins: You mentioned, people expecting the same behavior from all of the Black students. And it reminded me of my cousin who went to my high school, North St. Paul, Senior High School, who actually receipt was called to the office, about a matter that pertained to another Black student, where they actually thought he was the black student that they were talking to. And, you know, I've experienced this in corporate America, where I've been called the name of another Black reporter. Whereas you know, and so, that's how deep the issue is. This whole idea of people not knowing how to deal with black people, sometimes not even knowing the difference between Black label. Thomas: Well, and also, you know, to your question earlier — and Eric, you as well just brought up — they bring one of the four of us in to handle these Black kids. Right? And again, we're all passionate Black men who care deeply about our communities and cared deeply about, you know, Black kids, no doubt. But we're more than that. Right? And we, even as professional men have with degrees, we get relegated, and trapped, right? Just like Hollywood, right? You can act this part. I'll never forget my very first year as a principal. That was the narrative, you know, and one of the staff came up to me and said, “Hey, just want to let you know, staff are all really happy that you're coming here. And finally, me on the handle a lot of the behaviors is behavior issues of, you know, these students of color.” And I thought to myself, wow… and my very first staff meeting, you know, August workshop week comes up. And one of the statements I said to my staff — which was all white minus one person — was, “just because you're white, doesn't mean you're not right.” And don't think that's going to exonerate you from accountability for all kids in the school. Right? It gets to that fear piece, Lee, that you were speaking to, like, they don't want to say something, because either they're afraid of being called racist, or whatever it might be, or they just don't know. But at the end of the day, your expectations that you have for some kids need to apply to all kids. And you can't lead from a place of fear. And you can't expect me as a Black person to own your issue. Right? So that was my push to really get my staff to embrace that this is about you, not so much about the student. Hawkins: Dr. Michael Thomas, we had a conversation and I asked you to send me a copy of your dissertation. The reason I asked for him is because it studies African American male school leaders in predominantly white school systems, and how they negotiate their racial identity without committing cultural sacrifice. And I want to read this sentence that you wrote, you said, and I quote: “It is said that being a school administrator is a very lonely and challenging position to have, one must continually negotiate who they authentically are, in an effort to remain in the position,” you wrote. It was 1996, when you wrote this, now that you're a superintendent, and you're actually living this, do you think that you were way ahead of things? I mean, because it seems like that's what we're talking about now is that as educators trying to influence the Black male achievement equation, you're going through your own sort of identity issues with people projecting things on you? Thomas: That's a deep question, Lee. And yeah, there, you know, when I was the only in a system, it was a real lonely place. On top of that, when you're in higher levels of leadership, there aren't a lot of people you can go to and talk to, because you might feel as though you can't do the job. And you don't ask those kinds of questions, right? And I've had colleagues, they go, “oh, here goes Michael, he's on that Black stuff again.” Right? I mean, colleagues! And I'm sitting here thinking, “if you're saying this to me as an adult, what are you doing with kids when you close your classroom door?” Right? At the same time, because my deep commitment to ensuring that young Black students didn't experience what I went through, and I could still continue to blaze a trail for them to have a much better-beaten path to go down. I could only say and do so much before the system then would squeeze me out. Right? And so, oftentimes, I felt caught. Because my heart is committed to doing the right thing, and I know me, I know exactly who I am and what I'm about. And thus the name of my title of my dissertation, which is a play off of Sidney Poitier movie, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Right? How how much of my authentic Blackness can I be, before my plate is pulled from the table? Right. And it's a real delicate dance. And this is a negotiation, beyond education that people of color in this country do every single day. Hawkins: What I hear you talking about is that identity continues to be an issue, the expectations, what people project on you certain stereotypes, certain expectations, and that this is something that you must carry with you everywhere, as you navigate through the professional world. So if we are experiencing this as grown, Black men, let's talk about identity, and the challenge of identity that Black boys are facing every day. And how did they work through that or not? Francis: Oh, man, there's so much when you talk about identity, I think about it. The first part is, how it shows up as the academic system. So when you're looking at the schoolwork, how often are you seeing yourself mirrored in that work, seeing people that look like you that you're learning about. This past month, Juneteenth, how many students sit and hear about Juneteenth or learn about the history of it. And so just imagine the liberation that comes with being a Black person hearing someone teach you about the true freedom that people who look like you had to fight for and how delayed it was. But also, I think, especially in Minnesota, our schools have this unspoken toxic culture of attacking students who are marginalized, and it shows up in schools through social media, it shows up in things that are said to students about their identity. So many students talk about how schools don't do anything to speak up when they're attacked as a Black student. Would that bother you? I'm here to learn, I'm here to get an education. I'm hearing these things on an ongoing basis, or I'm seeing other people being called these negative things, either on social media, or in real life. And I have to absorb that day in and day out. And then if I don't have someone at school protecting me to understand what that feels like, that's hard. So I think that's one of the ways we really need to step up as educators to say, hey, we're gonna call out when we hear at sporting events, people making monkey sounds to the Black athletes, that should not be happening in schools, students posting on social media, calling other kids downward, we got wouldn't, because how would I feel safe going to school if I know that there are seeing that happen? And no one's speaking up? Hawkins: There's that problem of the external pressure that Black kids are feeling. But there's also the internalization of some of these stereotypes. And I know Dr. Roland Fryer, at Yale talked about a while back, the acting white phenomenon. Where there was actually a social penalty put on kids, the higher their grades, the less socially acceptable they were. And now we're starting to see that sort of shift, which is nice to see that there's that Black male achievement or Black student achievement is not as stigmatized as it once was, but working as the director of Black student achievement in Minneapolis. What do you see along the lines of identity that these kids are dealing with, that our kids are dealing with every day? Walker: I think it goes back to kind of what Derek mentioned earlier about the curriculum, right? So when we're looking at the curriculum that we have in our schools, we are sharing identity, right? But we're sharing a Eurocentric identity. So in those classrooms, students our white students are getting taught about how they have discovered this, how they have created and invented this, all these great things that they have done, right? Which, okay, fine. Where's that for the other groups in our school system, right? How are we not uplifting those narratives and those stories? So in our program in Minneapolis public schools, we have a class called BLACK — it stands for Building Lives, Acquiring Cultural Knowledge — where it is designed to teach some Afro-centric curriculum and to show them the benefits that they have created and what they have done for this society in this country, but also goes back to before we came to this country where things were better and things were invented on the continent of Africa. So they understand the foundation of that. So it's not just what happened here on the states, right? And that is important, right? Because when we think about schooling, and I'll just experience from myself, I learned about being enslaved. That was the foundation of what they told me about myself, right? So if that's the foundation that you are sharing with these young people, well, we are intentionally creating a thought and an idea in these kids minds of who they can be and where they came from. So we have to undo that and show that there is a much better place. Yeah, enslavement was a portion of our history, but it's not all of our history, right? Hawkins: If you're going to teach enslavement, then teach enslaver, right? and what the role of Thomas Jefferson was, right with his biracial children, some who are buried right here in Madison, Wisconsin. Let's go to that cemetery. Let's bring the classroom to the cemetery to see the kids that Thomas Jefferson had with Sally Hemings. It's important to teach all of that, but the complexity and the nuance of it all. Eric, you taught ethnic studies, right? Robinson: Yeah.. and if I could piggyback on you, doctor, the same thing, you know identity. When students first come into that classroom, I say, “Well, what is your story? Know your story.” However, it may be in your, in your family, but it still goes back to slavery. You know, none of us have color, or Indigenous Natives, have not had a certain history, you know, through the colonists. So, I know the boy talks about a double consciousness. Right. And we experienced that as adults, as a Black man. But the students they need to know who they are, and where they've come from, and where they're heading. Hawkins: I mean, you taught ethnic studies, at a time in which there is a national backlash against teaching of ethnic studies, right? People calling it critical race theory — which it isn't. It's American history. So tell me about ethnic studies in teaching it and, and the effect that that has on not only students of color, but students in general of all races. Robinson: I think the point where I come from, when I'm teaching that class, I want to co taught that class is not just African Americans, but Indigenous Natives, Asian Americans, you know our whole global society has been affected by colonialists. And not just England, but Portuguese and Spaniards. So this is an area that our kids, our Black kids, our students, they come from communities where, you know, they're not exposed to it in education. I've learned some of this while I was teaching, you know, research, because I hadn't had this in elementary, middle, even in undergraduate, master's. I had none of this and I had to learn it on my own, so I can teach it. So if this can happen to me, can you imagine what our students are dealing with? You know, they're not exposed to it. Hawkins: I want to shift the conversation. Let's talk a little bit about the school to prison pipeline. Growing up, there were two places in Minnesota that you had to avoid if you were a young Black boy, it was Totem Town and Red Wing. Those were juvenile detention centers that people went to, and many came back and they were never the same. In fact, I can remember the precise days that some people were literally placed by a teacher on the school to prison pipeline. It was: You got in a fight. You had marijuana. You had a knife. You'll never amount to anything, get out of my class right now. You're out of here. And that's just enough to ruin a kid's life. And you're sending them into a community, unfortunately, where they do feel accepted. And that begins the school to prison pipeline. I know people who are still in prison right now that I went to school with. Is that something that you see and how do you make the schools more sensitive to the trauma that leads kids to make the mistakes that lead them into juvenile detention? Walker: Yeah. And you talked about the ones that are like front and center that we see all the time. Right? Right. So whatever, those are the ones that we see, but there's other school to prison pipeline that may be invisible to, to the outside world. Hawkins: Like what? Walker: Like, directing our kids into special education programs and labeling them as EBD. Because now you get on this transition, and now you're in a “level four” setting. And now you're in an enclosed school… that's another, maybe less direct way that we may not see on the outside. So do those things happen? Yes, of course, they happen. What we have to start to do is really, again, center, what are we talking about? Are we really looking at behavior from a Eurocentric lens? Right? We talked about student not being able to fill the full range of emotions, our Black students with the social and emotional learning? Well, if I get angry, my anger may show up differently. That doesn't mean that I am a threat. That doesn't mean that I should be sent down to the SRO office or whatever, I'm just upset right now. And give me time to go through my emotions and go through that. But I don't get an opportunity to do that. And so now I am put into this category that I am violent, that I am a threat. And now, anything that I do, gets heightened. So, what we're talking about here is confirmation bias. Right? So now we have educators who are looking to confirm their bias that they already have about these Black students by when they make one act. Thomas: And they'll push the button until the trigger pops. Now that student is… like Dr. Walker just said. And in the thing is, it's those both macro and micro… acts that are committed particularly on young kids of color, and a lot of the prevention work that Michael has done with the BLACK program. I remember years ago, when I was doing project COFI, in St. Paul Public Schools, same thing. It was doing a lot of co-teaching with my colleagues, giving them an additional lens to look through that they just weren't… They didn't get trained in their teacher prep programs, right? Or they weren't comfortable. They weren't, you know, fill in the blank, as we've just talked about earlier. But we've all seen our colleagues, particularly our white colleagues who, who may have that light turn on for themselves, like, “Oh, I see that now.” So I don't want to, you know, be in this doomsday conversation, right? That nothing is going well. There's a lot of improvement, no doubt. But there are — I'll speak for myself, I know these brothers, and probably validate too, but we've all seen opportunities where, where teachers get it, and they lean into that space. And they take that and now, they are part of that conversation of helping this young kid. But that goes back to us just not being the ones relegated to that space. It's way bigger than the four of us. We can do a lot. But you know, we don't have “S”s on our chests or wear red capes to work. Hawkins: We're gonna wrap up in a minute. But I just have two more questions. Why aren't there more Black men teaching in the classroom? And what can be done to recruit and retain more? Robinson: Yeah, this thing about recruitment. I went through a program through St. Thomas. And I already had my BA in another area. But I was recruited by an individual who saw something in me and said, “Well, yeah, you know, you'd be a great teacher.” Two men: first Dr. Terrell, and this man that was a recruiter. I think our universities — we have quite a few within the Twin Cities — need to send out those recruiters to our schools. Because, like we mentioned earlier, your gift is gifted students in the classrooms, Black boys and girls in the classrooms already. Those that might be in high schools, junior seniors, and recruiters from these universities or these, you know, these schools, these colleges, need to go into these high schools and have some type of programs, with incentives, to get these young men or women out, and say “Hey, this is for the community. You can do this.” It might be me, but it has to be somebody from these colleges that knows what's going on in the schools and collaborate with these schools and have them go in and recruit. Or communities, whatever community access, organizations, nonprofits that are out there, as well. I mean, you have, I can't think of it off the top of my head, but that's what needs to be done. Francis: As I'm hearing this, because I'm from Minnesota. Minneapolis, Twin Cities area born and raised. I went to Champlin Park High School, Anoka-Hennepin area. And I had one Black teacher my entire K-12 career. And then, when I was in high school, I had a white teacher who saw me working with elementary kids through the child care occupation course. And she started saying, “Whoa! You're talented, you're good.” And I share this because it was something that I carried with me. When I went to get my licensure to be a school counselor, I originally wanted to be a news anchor. And I started volunteering after I didn't get a gig as a news anchor. And then my teacher, I saw her again, she was like “You know have you ever think about going into counseling.” And then when I got to the University of Minnesota, I met a professor there that would speak into me, it was like you're talented. And mind you, I was the only black man in my course in high school and in my program for school counseling. And so the importance of that belief, that encouragement. And so that's something I carry with me. And I say this also to white listeners out there, don't think you can't do the work. Don't think for a second that it's only… it because there's not enough Black people in education for us to wait for just us to do it. So white educators, we need you. We're in this all together. And so speak into... have that belief in your heart about Black boys. See the potential and the skills, we see it speak into it, because who knows where that seed will land. And so I think it's so important. That's what we really need to do. And I do that. That's why I want to be a school counselor, because I know the power of not just having that belief, but it's speaking that word for people. Hawkins: Dr. Walker, I know one thing that you said that was powerful — of the many things you've said — was: If we're not creating an environment where Black men or Black boys feel comfortable in the educational setting, what makes them want to come back? Walker: I say it all the time. We're probably the only profession that has students for 13 years to recruit. So if our Black boys are getting a horrible experience going through the school system, why would they choose to come back and work in it? So the first thing we have to do is give them a better experience. Meaning: Do we value them while they're in the school system? Do we see that they're great and their genius, is what Derek is speaking about. If we can do that, then we may have more of them interested in this profession. The second thing is what Derek said is, who is being directly speaking that into students? Hey, you know what, Michael Thomas, as a second grader, you would be a really good teacher one day you ever thought about that profession? Hawkins: Is that what happened [to you] Mike? Walker: It didn't happen with me. But I'll tell you, it happened with my daughter. So my daughter, who's going to be a senior at Hampton University next year, is an elementary education major. And it was that intentionality from my mother-in-law. She was a first grade teacher. And long ago when my daughter was a little girl said, “you'd be a great teacher, you know?” and she's never forgotten that and so she will be graduating and anybody looking to hire a dynamic teacher? *laughter* Hawkins: In the Green Room, you said, “Are you sure you want to do that?" Walker: I did! You know, I had to have that conversation. I mean, given what's going on in education these days, I mean, it can be a scary space. But my daughter, she's committed to kids, you know, and she's been working at that youth program and champion, you know, she graduate from Champlain Park High School as well. Derek was her counselor and, you know, again, I mean, I credit you know, people like Mr. Francis, who really helped, you know, stay in touch with her to keep her inspired to be great. Me and Mr. Bridgeman How a teacher transformed a student's life Listen to the full conversation with the audio player above.
— Mary Tinucci has always believed that everyone has an important story to tell. She has always believed that everyone wants to be seen, heard, and understood. Mary has always believed that we are all creative in some way. She has always believed that having an outlet for creativity, a place to share our stories, and being heard are healing. She also has always believed that there is an important link between our stories being told and heard and having access to a creative means of expression to share these stories. Mary designed The Poetry LAB with these beliefs in mind. Valeria interviews Mary Tinucci — she is the author of “The Poetry LAB: A Curriculum Guide for Facilitators - Employing the Use of Groupwork, Writing Circles & The Therapeutic Use of Poetry with Youth.” Mary Tinucci is also a clinical social worker in private practice and a social work professor. She teaches in the graduate program at Walden University in the Barbara Solomon School of Social Work. Her private practice which she has named, “Think in Possibilities” is based in St. Paul, Minnesota. There, she provides clinical supervision for social workers who are pursuing their next level of licensure in the social work profession and coaching for clients who are seeking support for personal and professional development. Her work is focused on supporting the personal growth, professional development, and transformation of all of her students and clients. Each facet of Mary's work – clinical social work, group work, coaching, supervision, training, consultation, and teaching - is informed and fueled by attitudes of hope, creativity, and inspiration. In her work, she integrates her love of poetry and journaling as a healing practice, her belief in the principles of positive psychology to support emotional health, and a variety of creative practices that support personal growth, professional development, self-care, and overall well-being. In 2004, Mary developed The Poetry LAB, an arts & wellness-based program serving adolescents in St. Paul Public Schools. The Poetry LAB is a groupwork model that employs the therapeutic use of poetry and spoken word performance to support the social & emotional health of youth. Mary wrote the Poetry LAB curriculum and trains social workers, educators, and other mental health providers how to initiate and facilitate Poetry LAB groups in their schools and communities. To learn more about Mary Tinucci and her work, please visit: thinkinpossibilities.com The Poetry LAB Curriculum Guide is now available on Amazon — the direct can be found on Mary's podcast page — The Poetry LAB Curriculum Guide is also available as a Digital Download at her website: https://thinkinpossibilities.com/product/employing-the-therapeutic-use-of-poetry-with-youth/ — This podcast is a quest for well-being, a quest for a meaningful life through the exploration of fundamental truths, enlightening ideas, insights on physical, mental, and spiritual health. The inspiration is Love. The aspiration is to awaken new ways of thinking that can lead us to a new way of being, being well.
Originally from Illinois, dancer, choreographer, director, and creative Mathew Janczewski (he/him) has been residing in Minneapolis, MN since 1989. He was a company member, most notably with Shapiro & Smith Dance from 2007-2014 and JAZZDANCE! By Danny Buraczeski from 1992-97. As a dancer, Mathew has performed as a guest with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Bebe Miller, and Jacek Luminski of Bytom, Poland. Over the years, he has performed the works of Beth Corning, Sean Curran, HIJACK, Marge Maddux, Shawn McConneloug, Jane Shockley, Robin Stiehm, Morgan Thorson, Doug Varone, and Cathy Young. Shortly after receiving his degree in dance from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, and performing internationally, Mathew founded his own non-profit dance company, ARENA DANCES, in 1995. His practices are profoundly inspired by music, architecture, self-expression, and an ongoing collaboration with dancer's opposition of distal extremes while pushing the edges of space within the body's potential. ARENA serves as the vehicle for his body of work and provides young, aging and underserved segments of the Twin Cities community with opportunities to experience the transformative power of dance.Mathew's choreographic and creative work has garnered praise in the Twin Cities and beyond. He has set numerous commissioned works for universities,colleges and companies such as Minnesota Dance Theatre, Cleveland Repertory Co., aTrek Dance, and Zenon Dance Company. He has been named as the Bates Dance Festival's choreographer (2001), received the Sage Award for Outstanding Performance (2005), and was awarded the distinguished McKnight Fellowship for Choreographers (2005). In 2008, Dance Magazine named him as one of their “25 to Watch.”Mathew founded The Arena in 2021—a community movement center offering affordable movement classes for all ages, pre-professional and professional workshops & intensives, and community gatherings, all in support of the moving arts in a bustling urban location. Janczewski is a specialized teaching artist at The Arena in addition to ARENA DANCES' DanceON program for K-12 Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools. Janczewski's most recent project, THERMAL: Meditations on Climate Change, was researched and created in collaboration with the dancers at the Tofte Lake Arts Center (Ely, MN) to then be performed in residency for a month at the American Swedish Institute (Minneapolis, MN). Mathew has also recently been invited as a guest choreographer and teaching artist in various collegiate settings, including University of Minnesota - Duluth and Carleton College. Currently, Mathew is working on a new project that includes twelve dancers and an original musical score, Erased Steps, which uses dance (steps, improvisation, shape, and gesture) as a way to articulate his curiosities about past and present, industrial revolution, and the struggle of homelessness—actively allowing the vibration and energies that surface within the process of creating the studio to reverberate within the performance.
Dr. Suzanne Rivera is the President of Macalester College. She also is a Professor of Public Affairs, and her scholarship focuses on research ethics and science policy. Rivera has written numerous journal articles and book chapters, and she co-edited the book Specimen Science. Her research has been supported by the NIH, the NSF, the DHHS Office of Research Integrity, and the Cleveland Foundation. She is engaged in numerous civic and municipal leadership roles, including Chair of the Board of Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R), Appointed Member of the Executive Council for Minnesota's Young Women's Initiative, Board Member of the Science Museum of Minnesota, Board Member of College Possible, and Member of the TeenSHARP National Advisory Board. Rivera received a BA in American Civilization from Brown University, an MSW from UC-Berkeley, and a PhD in public policy from UT Dallas. Head Start ProgramsBrown University Undocumented, First-Generation College, and Low-Income Student Center Transcript SUMMARY KEYWORDSstudents, people, brown, feeling, college, Headstart, Minnesota, Posse, support, low income students, financial aid, St. Paul, sponsored, day, job, brown university, group, Marian Wright Edelman, graduate, phd SPEAKERSResa Lewiss, Sue Rivera Resa Lewiss 00:36Hi, listeners. Thanks so much for joining me with today's episode and I'm gonna start with a quote. You can't be what you can't see. One more time, you can't be what you can't see. Now this was said by Marian Wright Edelman. She was the founder of the Children's Defense Fund and was one of the original founders of the Headstart program. She graduated Spelman College and Yale School of Law. Now Marian Wright Edelman is not my guest in today's conversation, however, she was an inspiration for my guest. Today I'm in conversation with Suzanne M. Rivera, PhD MSW. Sue. Dr. Suzanne Rivera is the president of Macalester College in Minneapolis. She's also a Professor of Public Affairs. Her scholarship focuses on research ethics and science policy. She received her BA in American civilization from Brown University, a master's in social work from UC Berkeley, and a PhD in public policy from UT Dallas. Now Sue and I have a few areas of overlap. Number one, we graduated college one year apart. Number two is the Headstart program. Growing up in my small town, Westerly, Rhode Island, I was exposed to the Headstart program through my mother. My mother is an elementary school educator, and she did preschool testing for children. And my knowledge at the time was she helped with evaluating children for learning disabilities, for challenges with speech, sound, and sight. Let's get to the conversation where when we get started, Sue is explaining her ideas about mentorship, and who her mentors were, or at least a few of them. Sue Rivera 02:47I mean, one thing I tell young people all the time is, don't hold your breath waiting for a mentor who shares all of your attributes who can inspire you because especially if you're from a historically excluded or underserved group, the likelihood that there's going to be some inspirational leader who shares all your attributes is pretty small. So the mentors and sponsors who've made the biggest impact in my life have all been men. They've all been white men, they've all been white men who were significantly older than me and much more accomplished, and who came from backgrounds that were, you know, that had a lot more privileged than my own. And yet, we were able to connect on a deep level and they really opened doors for me. So a couple exams for Harry Spector at UC Berkeley was a great mentor is no longer with us. Another great mentor, for me was a guy named Al Gilman, a Nobel Laureate, who, who I worked for at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas, opened a lot of doors for me, encouraged me to go back and get my PhD when I was a 35 year old mother of two school aged kids. And once I got it, promoted me and then what, and then once I had a faculty appointment, invited me to co author a chapter for him with him in the kind of most important pharmacology textbook, that he was responsible for publishing, which means My name is forever linked with his in the literature, which is an incredibly generous gift for him to give to me. People like that have sort of stepped in at at moments where, if not for them, I might not have seen in my self potential that was there. Another person I would mention is a professor from my undergraduate days. Greg Elliot at Brown University in the sociology department, who sort of encouraged me to think about my own interests in social inequality and poverty as things that were worth studying things that were worth studying in a rigorous way as a scholar and not just sort of feeling badly about or complaining about or having a personal interest, but really taking them on as an intellectual project. So he sponsored me for a summer research assistantship, he had me serve as a TA in one of his classes. And he sponsored a group independent study project for me and a bunch of other students. And I'm still in touch with him to this day. He's somebody who certainly helped me think about myself as a scholar at a time where I was really thinking, I was just barely holding on, like, hoping I could graduate with a BA, I wasn't imagining that I could go on to become a professor and eventually a college president. Resa Lewiss 05:36People saw in you what maybe you hadn't yet seen for yourself. I was a sociology concentrator, and I took Professor Elliott's class, and I remember him reading from Kurt Vonnegut Mother Night, and it was really moving, he sort of cut to the punch line of we are who we pretend to be, so we must be very careful who we pretend to be. And that stuck with me. And that also launched a whole lollapalooza of reading Kurt Vonnegut. Sue Rivera 06:07Yeah, actually, this is one of the beautiful things about a liberal arts education, I think is that you know, so you became a physician after being a sociology undergraduate concentrator. I dabbled in a lot of different things as an undergrad did not imagine I would eventually become an academic, but I feel like the tools I got, from that degree have served me really well, moving between jobs. You know, I originally went to go work for the federal government thinking I was going to do policy work. Eventually, I worked in higher education administration, then I went back and got a PhD in public policy. But, you know, all along as I was making career changes, the tools I got as an undergraduate to think critically and communicate effectively and, you know, think in an interdisciplinary way work with people who have really different perspectives than I have. All of that is just priceless. I mean, so so incredibly valuable. Resa Lewiss 07:02Speaking of liberal arts education, let's jump right in and talk about Macalester for audience members that aren't familiar with the college. Tell us about the college and tell us about how it's been to be President. Sue Rivera 07:14Well, it's a wonderful college. It's it's almost 150 years old, and it's a originally was founded by Presbyterians and although still Presbyterian affiliated his is a secular liberal arts college, a small private liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. It has a deep history of being committed to social justice. It was the first college in the United States to fly the United Nations flag, which is still flying outside my window in my office here. And in fact, Kofi Annan was a graduate of Macalester the four pillars of a Macalester education as they're currently described, our academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and service to society. And I think the character of this place actually is not that dissimilar from the brown that you and I know, in the sense that social justice is really important part of the character read institution, but it also attracts people who dispositional li are attracted to activism, to wanting to make a more just and peaceful world who think about their education in a sense as not only a privilege, but also an obligation to go out and make things better. And so the students we attract at Macalester are really sparky, in the sense that they, they, they're, you know, they're really passionate. They all come with it, let's just set aside that they're really academically talented because they all are so that no longer is a distinguishing characteristic once they get here because they're all academically talented. So what distinguishes them when they get here is all the other stuff in addition to being bright, you know, they're, they're committed athlete, they're a poet. They're a weaver. They're a dancer, they're, they're an aspiring politician involved in political campaigns mean that they're all just how they're debater, you know. So whenever I meet students, one of the first things I say to them is, well, what are you really loving right now? Or, you know, what's keeping you really busy right now, instead of saying, you know, what are you taking? Or what's your major, I'm much less interested in what their major is. And I'm much more interested in like, you know, what's got them really jazzed? What are they spending their time on? What's what's so exciting that they're staying up into the middle of the night working on it, Resa Lewiss 09:40The timing of your start. There was an overlap with the murder of Mr. George Floyd. And I'm wondering if you can share with the audience how that sort of set a tone and set an inspiration for your work. Sue Rivera 09:55Yeah, it was a really difficult time I actually accepted the job. On January 31, of 2020. So at that time, if you can remember back to the before times, none of us had ever heard of COVID. And the board of trustees who offered me the job, were saying, this is going to be a turnkey operation for you, the previous president had been here for 17 years, smooth sailing, really easy transition, you know, easy peasy. And three weeks later, you know, every college in America started closing because of COVID. And I realized, wow, this job is about to get a lot more challenging. I was in Cleveland, Ohio at the time at Case Western Reserve University. And I was sort of watching as the news was unfolding, but also doing my job at another higher ed institution. So I could anticipate how it was going to get more difficult to come to McAllister, then literally on the day that I got in my car to drive to Cleveland, to drive to St. Paul from Cleveland to take this job was the day that George Floyd was murdered. So as I was driving all day, north of Michigan, and then across the up of Michigan, going west to St. Paul, I would drive all day and then turn on the TV at night and watch the news. And as we approached St. Paul, the city was deeper and deeper in grief and righteous anger and fear National Guard troops were coming in, there were fires all over the place. In fact, I was supposed to start the job on a Monday and arrive on a Saturday and I got a call on that Saturday while I was on the road saying don't try and come into the city because we've got a curfew. And it's not feeling safe right now. Just get in a hotel outside of the city and try and come in tomorrow. So I arrived really on Sunday in St. Paul to start the job on Monday. And I and I recognize that my first day was going to be very different than what any of us had imagined. Because what the, what the moment called for was to name the pain and grief and anger everyone was feeling. And to try to address people's grief in a way that was honest about the challenges offer some comfort, but also a call to action about how we could be how we could be of help how we could be of service. So you know, the first couple things I did that week were one was I attended a silent vigil that was organized by the black clergy of St. Paul from various different faith, faith communities, I also attended a food and hygiene drive that was organized by our students, you know, it's just a lot, you know, we stood up a mutual aid fundraising drive, within the first couple of weeks, it was just a lot of attending to the immediate needs of the community. And also, all of this was complicated by having to do almost everything by zoom, you know, so, you know, Zoom is good for a lot of things. But when people are crying when people are scared when people, you know, our international students, many of them couldn't go home, because of COVID. So they were staying over the summer, it was just very, very complicated and didn't look anything like what we thought it was going to look like. And what I didn't have was a reservoir of trust built up with this community. And the only way I could talk to people was on a computer screen, which doesn't give the full benefit of body language. It doesn't give all you know, everything you learned from being in a room with somebody. The various facial expressions, the way the way that when you talk to a roomful of people, you see two people make eye contact after you've said something and you recognize you have to go follow up with them and see what that was all about. You know, none of that is possible on Zoom. And, and it was just it was just an impossible summer. It was very, very difficult. I was trying to introduce myself at a time where I also had to deliver a lot of bad news to people. You know, we were having to take all sorts of difficult decisions about keeping the residence halls densifying the residence halls by telling some people they couldn't move back in August that was disappointing for them taking decisions related to the college's finances, like suspending contributions to employees retirement accounts for six months until we could understand how we were going to do financially. arranging for testing COVID testing was incredibly expensive and something we hadn't budgeted for figuring out where to put hand sanitizer and plexiglass and what our masking policy should be. I mean, really, it was like being a full time disaster management person not being a college president. And in many ways, the whole first year was was not being a college president. It was it was just one really challenging, ethical or logistical decision after another all year long. Resa Lewiss 14:50According to my reading in 1991, you delivered your graduation class orration and I'm wondering if you can fill us in on about what you spoke Sue Rivera 15:04well, I, you know, I basically I talked about my unlikely journey to being an Ivy League graduate and what that could mean for all of us about the possibilities of you know pathbreaking of moving into uncharted territory. When I, when I went to college, we didn't have the expression first gen, and we didn't have really a sense of pride around being a financial aid student to the contrary, my experience at an elite institution was that if you were there on financial aid, and came from a low income background, that you tried to hide it as much as possible in order to fit in, you know, back then Brown had a policy of limiting financial aid students to 30% of the student population. And that meant even just students who only had loans and got no grant awards. So just imagine an environment it's not like that anymore, I should clarify, Brown is not like that anymore. But back then 70% of the student body were full pay, meaning their parents could write the whole check. And just imagine what that means when the tuition is significantly more than the, you know, median income for a family of four in this country. It means you're, you're in a really elite and I daresay elitist environment. So what that meant if you were a student on financial aid was that it was kind of a scary place, it was kind of an alienating place. And when I arrived there, I really felt like a fish out of water. I thought about transferring, had a job in the Ratty in the dining hall. You know, my work study job, where I was sort of serving other students and feeling I don't know if I would say inferior but definitely had a sense of imposter syndrome. Like you know, one of these days somebody is going to figure out I don't really belong here. And the turning point for me was that in in the spring semester of that first year for me, a chaplain, Reverend Flora Kashagian who I don't know if that's a name, you know, but she offered like a discussion group, she and Beth Zwick, who was the head of the Women's Center offered a discussion group for students struggling with money issues. So I opened the school newspaper one day, and there's an ad in there. That's like, I don't even remember what it said. But it was something like are you struggling with money issues? Are you on financial aid, you know, are things tough at home, and you don't know how to talk about it come to this discussion. And let's rap about it. And for whatever reason, that spoke to me and I, I went, and there were like, 11 or 12 people in the room for this discussion group. But it was like the Island of Misfit Toys. Do you remember that, that that Christmas cartoon where like, every toy is broken in some kind of way, but they all have their gifts, right? Every student who showed up for that thing had a different non traditional path to get to brown and we were all broken in some kind of weird way. You know, for me, I had grown up in an immigrant home on was on public assistance, food stamps, free lunch, you know, you name it. I was there on a on a Pell Grant, which are, you know, the neediest students. And there were other people in the room who came from really different environments. I grew up in New York City, but there were other people who were like, from a rural farm family, or, you know, I mean, just all everybody had different reasons for why they came to that discussion group. But it was magical because we all saw each other in a really like, pure and non judgmental way. And we could all be real with each other. As it turns out, one of the other 11 people was the person who would eventually become my spouse. And other people in the room that day are lifelong friends. I mean, we really bonded, we ended up forming a club called sofa students on financial aid. We even have little T shirts made up that said, so far, so good. And it had like a picture of a couch that was all ripped and torn on on the front. And by making it a student club, that got incorporated by the student government, we kind of created legitimacy for ourselves on campus, and started to create a way of talking about being from a low income background that didn't feel shameful, that felt prideful, not prideful, in the sense of hubris, but in the sense of like, acknowledging the distance traveled was great that we were not born on third base. And yet we were here sort of competing with people who had every advantage in the world and having a sense of deserving to be there or belonging there. So by the time I was a senior and I got selected to give the one of the two oratory addresses at graduation, the theme for me really was one of triumph of having overcome all of those hurdles and feeling like finally I feel like I deserve at this place. I earned my spot here. Resa Lewiss 19:57In my freshman unit, there was a woman with whom I'm still very, very close. She is an attorney. She's an LA county judge. And she transferred from Brown for some of the reasons that you considered transferring. And she to this day says that it's one of her biggest regrets. And also she really feels if they were more visible vocal support for first gen students than she thinks it would have made a huge difference for her. Sue Rivera 20:29Yeah, no doubt and and Brown has come a long way. In this regard. I consider them a real leader. Now they have this you fly center. It's like it's an actual center on campus for people who are undocumented first gen or low income. And they get extra support. They have a dedicated Dean, they have programming. I think it's a real testament to the seriousness with which Brown has taken the unique challenges that face low income students going to a place like that. It also helped a lot that between Vartan, Gregorian and roof Simmons, two presidents, who I greatly admire from Brown, they were able to raise the money to provide financial aid to students who need it, but also to go need blind. So I told you that at the time that I went there, they limited the number of students on financial aid to 30% of the student body, that's no longer true. Now, when you apply to brown, you are admitted without regard to ability to pay and they commit to meet full need. So I think it's a much more socio economically diverse student body today. And I think Brown has really been a leader in how to increase access and support low income students when they get there, because I think it's a two part problem. You know, just letting people in. But allowing them to sink or swim is really not helpful. You need to increase access, but then also provide the support necessary so that the that educational opportunity is a ladder to economic mobility, people have to actually be able to finish, you know, complete the degree, and then go off and have a career afterwards in order for the opportunity to really, you know, fulfill that promise. Resa Lewiss 22:16Yeah, it reminds me a bit of what you described with the Headstart program of not just, you know, supporting this one individual child, but it's actually the system in place. So similar, like it's one thing to get in, but you have to help the student, succeed, thrive. Be healthy in that environment. I believe I've read that you that you're actually doing work to increase access and admission of students that may have fewer resources in the state. Can you talk a little bit about that initiative? Sue Rivera 22:47Yeah, I'd love to. So when I arrived at Macalester again, just like a little over a year ago, Macalester already had a relationship with the quest Bridge Program, which is one way to recruit first gen and low income students. But of course, we take those from all over the country. We also had other cohort programs like the Bonner Scholars Program and the Mellon Mays program. But after the murder of George Floyd, one thing that I heard a lot from people on campus was that while Macalester had done a great job recruiting a diverse student body from not only all over the country, but also all over the world. We have a very international student body that we hadn't done as much to focus on students from right here in Minnesota, especially talented students from historically excluded groups from right here in Minnesota. So we did two things last year. One was that we established a new fund called the Minnesota Opportunity Scholarship Fund, which is an effort to raise scholarship dollars that will be targeted specifically to talented students from Minnesota. And the second thing we did was that we joined forces with the Posse Foundation to sign on as a posse school, whereby Macalester will become recipients of the first posse from the state of Minnesota. I don't know if you're that familiar with posse, but that's a program that's 30 plus years old, that that's based on the Really clever idea that that their founder Debbie Bial had, which is that if you pluck one student from an under resourced High School, and you send them across the country to a private liberal arts college, they may feel like a fish out of water. But if you cultivate a cohort of students from a city, and you give them in high school leadership training and other kinds of support, and you foster trust and friendship among them, and then you take a group or a posse, if you will, and you take those 10 students and send them all to the same liberal arts college, the chances are, that they're going to be better equipped to persist and complete because they have each other you know, they don't have that feeling of walking into the dining hall and not seeing any familiar face. We're not having anybody who knows what it's like in their home city neighborhood. You know, the same feeling I had when I walked into that room and I saw the other Misfit Toys sitting around in a circle. The posse already formed a trusting cohort that can keep each other company and offer support through the four year experience of college. So we are adding posse to our other cohort programs here on campus. But we've specified that the posses gotta come from here in Minnesota, they will come from the Twin Cities, either Minneapolis public schools or St. Paul Public Schools. And we're going to get our first group of 10 in September, and we will give them all full tuition scholarships. It's really exciting. Yeah. Resa Lewiss 25:47Wow. What a conversation and honestly, I could have kept speaking with Sue for quite a while. I think she enjoyed the conversation too, regarding my friend that I referred to in the conversation. Attorney judge Serena Murillo. As I said, we're still friends, and she knows that I had tipped her during this episode. And all I can say is, listen to your heart. Listen to your brain. Have a growth mindset and know that your professional path is not linear. Thanks for joining and see you next week. The visible Voices Podcast amplifies voices both known and unknown, discussing topics of healthcare equity and current trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us on Apple podcasts. It helps other people find the show. You can listen on whatever platform you subscribe to podcasts. Our team includes Stacey Gitlin and Dr. Giuliano Di Portu. If you're interested in sponsoring an episode, please contact me resa@thevisiblevoicespodcast.com. I'm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I'm on Twitter @ResaELewiss. Thank you so much for listening and as always, to be continued
Is it time we rethink the K-12 model? Our education system needs some major updates, including more flexibility, greater focus on student identity, and a college and career readiness plan that starts in kindergarten. In this episode, we continue our conversation with Dr. Joe Gothard, Superintendent of Saint Paul Public Schools, exploring these points and more in a discussion around career readiness.Among a plethora of insights, Dr. Gothard shares his unconventional idea of the 12-Hour School Day. Could it really be a solution to providing students with more access to work-based learning, more flexibility in their coursework, and make it easier for them to work, be involved in after-school activities, and take classes that they're excited about?Listen to find out!If you missed our last episode with Dr. Gothard, we talked about building systemic equity into a large urban district that is primarily made up of minority students and families. You can listen here: https://techedpodcast.com/building-systemic-equity-in-urban-education/
Education has reached a tipping point; people are waking up to the idea that we can and should do things in a different way. The challenge is how to actually enact change in a large urban district. St. Paul Public Schools reaches 35,000 students, 79% of whom identify as a race other than white, with 125 languages spoken by these students at home. In this episode, we talk with SPPS Superintendent Dr. Joe Gothard about what needs to be done to build systemic equity into our urban education system. Our conversation runs the gamut of hot topics facing K-12 education, including:How COVID-19 brought to light so many disparities among urban students and their families and what school districts must do to bridge those gapsDigital natives vs. digital immigrants and how this affects the teacher-student relationshipWhat's wrong with our high school graduation requirements, and why it's affecting our students' workforce readinessMaking tough decisions, like school closures, for the long-term benefit of all studentsBuilding systemic equity into every aspect of your district's culture, strategy and initiativesHow to include parents and families into DEI conversations and initiatives: the two-generation approachOne word appears consistently in our conversation on systemic equity: identity. How can education do a better job of supporting each individual student's passions, interests and needs, and then help them build their identity?We answer all these and more in this fascinating conversation with Dr. Gothard.
Join us as we host Kiley Hendrick, ECSE Teacher, St. Paul Public Schools, and Jackie Johnson, CICC Coach in a discussion of an overview of early childhood special education, the system, and the process of evaluation.
We wrap up the series with Kiley Hendrick, ECSE Teacher, St. Paul Public Schools, and Jackie Johnson, CICC Coach by discussing what is helpful in the ECSE-child care partnership and what are some possible roadblocks to success?
Kiley Hendrick, ECSE Teacher, St. Paul Public Schools, and Jackie Johnson, CICC Coach join us for part two to discuss key components of success in the partnership between child care and ECSE.
The Friday Roundtable with Max Rymer and Brian McDaniel kick off the second hour of the show with Drew and Sam discussing St. Paul Public Schools considering closing several schools and Bill Clinton being in the hospital with an infection.
St. Paul Public Schools will hold a news conference Tuesday to discuss a bus driver shortage that has spurred the district to give metro bus passes to some students. Meanwhile, school buildings in Stillwater are open early for student drop-off, after a bus provider told the district it needed to cut routes due to staffing. This is an MPR News morning update for Tuesday, September 7, 2021. Hosted by Cathy Wurzer. Our theme music is by Gary Meister.
St. Paul Public Schools says they'll institute a vaccine mandate for their teachers and staff. Will this prompt other schools to do the same? That, plus we debate a subject like no other show can... Masculinity on Chinese TV!!! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Starting next month, St. Paul Public Schools employees will be required to get a COVID-19 vaccine or agree to routine tests. Also, members of Congress debate the Line 3 pipeline project during dueling visits in the Twin Cities. This is the evening MPR News update for Friday, Sept. 3, 2021. Hosted by Jon Collins. Theme music by Gary Meister.
St. Paul Public Schools is joining Minneapolis and several other districts in mandating face coverings in school buildings. This is an MPR News morning update for Wednesday, August 18, 2021. Hosted by Cathy Wurzer. Our theme music is by Gary Meister.
St. Paul Public Schools cancelled the last few days of school because it's hot out, even though they are fully equipped to do distance learning. Sam shares details on that with Justice & Drew in her Top 5 Stories of the Day!
Alfrieda Baldwin, wife, mother, grandmother & a TakeCharge MN Volunteer. Afrieda is working on opening a K-8 micro-school in the Twin Cities and wants to restore the Black community’s cultural roots of faith, family, and education. Oredola Taylor is Co-founder of The Exodus Minnesota and TakeCharge MN Volunteer. This mother of 3 sons became frustrated with St. Paul Public Schools and what she calls a push to lower academic and behavioral standards. She co-founded The Exodus Minnesota in 2016 with four other Black moms to promote excellence in education and showcase how it provides a path out of poverty. Alfrieda and Oredola join Roshini to share how they, along with other mothers, are taking action to overcome education Issues. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
St. Paul 350 and the East Side Freedom Library host an SPPS School Board candidate forum on climate action. SPPS has a fantastic opportunity to make a major impact on Saint Paul's energy generation, as well as a major impact on our students. To view the video: https://youtu.be/iRwSn6zX_lU
Dave Webb, Superintendent of South St. Paul Public Schools, joins our CommuniTIES podcast to discuss the demographic realities that challenge school tax elections and share the process and results of a successful voter turnout.
If you were to hear me talk with youth in The Poetry LAB you would know how I need them, this work. If you were to see me sitting in front of my computer, typing their poems and editing their recordings, long into the evening hours, then you would know how I am changed by them, their stories. A 16-year-old girl who acts like she doesn't care, volunteers to read her poem, and lets loose her story of rape, leaving a long line of silence in her wake. Wow. Powerful, I say. Have you told anyone this before? No, she says, through her hard shell, now cracked. I'm over it. Because of poetry, I can let it go. Because of poetry, people can know now. Because of poetry, I can begin to trust. Because of poetry, I can tell my truth to you. Drop by any day next week and discover them, fiercely pulling stories from their backpacks, notebooks holding truths screaming to be heard. Drop by any day next week. I'll be there, writing poems with kids. I'll let you witness transformation, Theirs, and my own. — The Work poem by Mary Tinucci, The Poetry LAB founder Valeria interviews Mary Tinucci the author of A Daily Gratitude Journal: Think in Possibilities Mary Tinucci is a clinical social worker in St. Paul, MN. During her 24-year career in St. Paul Public Schools (1991-2015), her individual and group work practice focused on youth in special education who struggled with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD); lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, staff and families; youth in foster care, and middle school youth struggling with depression. During her 24-year career in Saint Paul Public Schools, Dr. Tinucci was an innovator, initiating and designing programs to serve the most marginalized students. In 1994, she designed and implemented Out For Equity, the third district-wide school-based LGBTQ program in the country. This program continues today, serving the needs of LGBTQ youth & adults in St. Paul Public Schools. In 2004, she created The Poetry LAB, (later known as The LAB) an arts and wellness-based special education program for youth with emotional/behavioral disorders. This program employed the therapeutic use of spoken word/poetry, visual art, music and experiential wellness with at-risk youth. From 2003 - 2018, Dr. Tinucci was also an adjunct faculty member in the School of Social Work at St. Catherine University and University of St. Thomas (SCU/UST). Since May of 2018, Dr. Tinucci has been teaching full-time as a Core Faculty member in the Barbara Solomon School of Social Work at Walden University. Through her private practice, Think In Possibilities, she provides clinical supervision for social workers pursuing next-level social work licensure and facilitates Writing Circles/Support Groups. She also provides training, strategic planning support, team meeting facilitation, and consultation for school staff, teachers, social service providers, and mental health workers on topics relevant to social work practice including: LGBTQ youth and school issues, educational stability for youth in foster care, and the therapeutic use of poetry and creativity as a tool of mental health for youth and adults. To learn more about Mary Tinucci please visit her website: www.thinkinpossibilities.com For Intro-free episodes: https://www.patreon.com/aquestforwellbeingpodcast Podcast Page: https://fitforjoy.org/podcast — This podcast is a quest for well-being, a quest for a meaningful life to the exploration of fundamental truths, enlightening ideas, insights on physical, mental, and spiritual health. The inspiration is Love. The aspiration is to awaken new ways of thinking that can lead us to a new way of being, being well. ** Bio intro and outro one by Heidi Lynn Peters.
Another session of the Bad Moms Club. Ann McInerney from St. Paul Public Schools calls in to tell us what we can do to assist those experiencing shelter displacement from the Super Bowl. D-Bags: LiLo. Plus, SCIENCE news!
Abdisalam Adam, born in Somalia, came to the USA in 1991. He's the director of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Civic Center in Minneapolis, MN and works as a Somali Cultural Specialist for St. Paul Public Schools. He'll be one of the featured speakers for Ways of Peace II: Non-violence in the Islamic Tradition on 4/9/11.
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