Part 1: School Board Candidates Tackle Achievement Gap

Editor's Note: Earlier this month, Patch submitted a series of five questions to each of the seven candidates running for four seats on the School District 199 School Board. Each day this week, we'll publish the candidates' answers to one of the questions we posed. To promote fairness, we asked each candidate to limit responses to 150 words; we reserved the right to edit for clarity and length if necessary. The general election is Nov. 8. Click on the candidate's names to view profiles of each candidate.

Patch has not yet received candidate Bridget Sutton's answers.

Inver Grove Heights Patch: In 2010, minority students made up 27.6 percent of the district's total student population, up from 14.6 percent in 2003. What can the district do to reduce the academic achievement gap between different ethnic groups in the schools and make sure the needs of its growing minority populations are being met?

There is no one solution, and unfortunately more services cost more money and do not guarantee the desired results. We need to attack the achievement gap from multiple directions. First is early childhood education.  If children come to school prepared to learn, they are more apt to experience academic success. Increasing the numbers of minority students with some level of pre-school readiness will address the foundation of the gap. Secondly, when students enter our district with some educational experience, if possible, academic evaluations should be used for placement—not just their age or grade. If remediation is required, that should be addressed prior to developing a regular schedule. I would like to see us address the teaching of English to non-English speaking students more aggressively. Focus on the language before the other academic content. We need to involve the families of these students in their education.

The school district should continue the emphasis on early childhood education. We need to separate the issues of academic achievement gap from those students that are enrolled in the English as Second Language (ESL) program. Schools in Minnesota know how and what is needed to teach students to speak English. We continue to struggle with how to close the academic achievement gap. We need to learn from other schools. Funding for cultural liaison positions, as well as diversity training for students and staff should continue. Engaging families of at-risk students would be helpful as well as a more diverse staff and administration.

Our schools have really two groups to serve. The first being the students who use the entire school system: Preschool through 12th grade. Addressing the achievement gap is a little easier with this group. I believe that these students and their families have access to the Birth to Three [Editor's Note: Birth to Three is an early childhood program for students with developmental disabilities], and to the preschool program for four-year-olds. The challenge might be to identify families and have their participation in our programs. I think that productive preschool programs can go a long way in addressing  the achievement gap.

There needs to be a partnership developed between the families and schools. The learning does not only happen during the school day in the classroom, but continues in the home after school. We can offer learning opportunities for the families to understand the curriculum and offer the support at home. This may mean going outside the school buildings to meet with families, as many of the students are new to the city, and may not be comfortable coming into our school buildings to ask for assistance. There also needs to be a better understanding of the many different cultures within our district, as over 25 different languages are represented in our schools.

I have a strong belief that if the district can identify the struggles families have that do come from different ethnic groups, we can identify what is preventing them from being able to help their children achieve academic goals. Once those struggles have been identified, we can move forward with some strategies to close the gaps and achieve with good results. The goal is to insure all children meet a high-quality professional development. We can start looking into flipping the class room. What that means is parents can watch a video to practice with an exercise to help their children complete their homework. As I will continue to say, these children are our future and it is our responsibility to ensure their success.

We need to fully understand why the gap exists in the first place, so we can address the issues properly, and unfortunately, research is still not clear on this. There are, however, steps that we can take to make sure we are providing the best possible education to all students. For example, providing more or differentiated opportunities for our growing ELL population is one way to address the gap.

We need to better understand the educational backgrounds of our students to help enhance curriculum and alternative methods of classroom delivery. Technology, in and out of the classroom, can also help to close the gap. By providing new learning opportunities that extend beyond a textbook, we can help our students learn key concepts. We must also provide a way for students to access these tools at home, such as a laptop checkout program.