| May 2021, Vol. 28, No. 4
edNews is a quarterly publication of the Metropolitan Educational Cooperative Service Unit
Metro ECSU - 2 Pine Tree Drive, Suite 101 - Arden Hills, MN 55112
Front desk: 612-638-1500
edNews Editor: Colleen Feller
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| | The COVID Glide Back to School: Building a New Normal
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| Mental health/trauma and local assessment experts to discuss tools and strategies during summer cohort meetings
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| What does research say about the impact of learning
disruption and trauma from natural disasters? What are trauma-informed and
mental health strategies schools and districts can implement when building a
new normal next fall? What are learning disrupts and implications for
assessment?
In response to district
requests, these questions, and others, will be addressed in a new cohort for
education leaders. Participants will attend meetings virtually on June 16, June
22, and August 5, 2021.
Participants should attend as a district/site cohort team.
Each session includes cohort and large group discussion. For more information, contact Susan Frame, susan.frame@metroecsu.org
Session 1: Wednesday, June 16, 8:30-10:00am (note this keynote is only 1.5 hours)
Keynote: Lessons Learned: The Impact of Learning Disruption and Trauma
from Previous Natural Disasters - What to Expect and
How to Prepare
Session 2: Tuesday, June 22, 8:30-11:00am
Return from COVID: A Deep Dive from a Trauma-Informed
and Mental Health Perspective
Session 3, Thursday, August 5, 8:30–11:00am Local Assessment Experts
Panel Discussion: Learning Disrupts and
Implications for Assessment |
| | Region 11 IEIC/Help Me Grow Team welcomes Anna Paulson!
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| Anna Paulson (pictured) recently joined the Region 11 – Interagency
Early Intervention Committee/Help Me Grow team. Anna is an alumna of the University of
Minnesota, Department of Educational Psychology and is
a licensed teacher in the areas of Deaf/Hard of Hearing and Elementary
Education and Early Childhood Education.
Anna was an instructor in the Deaf/Hard of Hearing and Early Childhood
Special Education teacher preparation programs at the University of Minnesota where
she most enjoyed supervising the student teaching experiences. She remains fascinated by the transition from
research to practice and the impact of a robust and equitable educational
system.
Most recently, Anna was the Director of Educational
Advancement and Partnerships for the Minnesota Commission of the Deaf,
DeafBlind, & Hard of Hearing. From
that role she brings extensive
experience in interagency collaboration, leadership, and programmatic progress
monitoring. Anna has training
in the gaps analysis and consensus building process and has used the skill set
to support multiple initiatives in special education. Anna has a quote that guides her work in
Early Childhood: “All children have innate potential and extraordinary
promise”(C. Carotta). She is motivated
to assure all children the opportunities to unfold their authentic selves.
Anna is a proud Minnesota native whose parents immigrated
to Duluth from a small village in Greece. She, her husband Kevin, and their two
adult children are all fans of the Golden Gophers and can be found at every
home football game. You can reach Anna at anna.paulson@metroecsu.org
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| | Upcoming Health & Safety virtual meetings
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| On
May 27 at 9:00am, Daniel Tranter from MDH will present
on the recent changes regarding radon and on June 3 at 9:00am,
Sarah Miller from MDE will present on long term facilities maintenance funding at the annual townhall meeting. Each session will include time for questions. Health & Safety Program members, if you are interested
in attending, contact Bianca Virnig at bianca.virnig@metroecsu.org
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| | CLEAR training returns in fall 2021
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| Due to
popular demand, Martina Wagner, Ed. D (pictured) will again facilitate a 4-part learning
series (virtual via Zoom) on the CLEAR Model in Fall 2021 (Dates TBA).
Educators, leaders, and support staff are invited to attend. Please contact
Angela Skrade at angela.skrade@metroecsu.org or 612-638-1528 for more information.
Are You an
Interrupter? Creating a
robust equity vision for your classroom, school, and school district requires
an educator or leader to dig deep into their own experiences in effort to best
service our culturally and linguistically diverse learners. In unprecedented
times, this is even more important. While most districts are contending with
issues of racial inequity in education across the board, we are even more
challenged when working in hybrid and distance learning environments. Have you
questioned your instructional practices and curriculum from a racial
equity-based lens? Have you investigated your own belief systems to challenge
the status quo in curriculum selection, teaching practices, or policies? Have
you wanted to blend both skillset and mindset around race and culture to be
more responsive?
You may have said yes to many of these prompts. If you did,
CLEAR training is ready to support both the conversations and the learning
needed to do just that! We are in an age where we can no longer wait, rather we
need to be culturally and linguistically responsive from all levels. Being culturally
and linguistically responsive does not mean you are ONLY thinking about these
pieces, but that you are TAKING ACTION and being the INTERRUPTER to educational
inequity.
What is
CLEAR you Ask? The CLEAR
Model is aligned with equity and language strategies as part of a district wide
response to the need for culturally and linguistically responsive
instruction: Cultural- emphasizes the human purpose of what
is being learned and its relationship to the students' own culture. Learning- encourages students to make choices
in content and assessment with support for language development through methods
based on their experiences, values, needs, and strengths. Equitable- respectful learning environments in
which students’ racial and ethnic diversity is valued and contributes to
successful academic outcomes. Achievement- includes multiple ways to represent
knowledge and skills and allow for attainment of outcomes at different points
in time. Responsive- through positive relationships,
rigorous learning experiences are created involving higher order thinking and
critical analysis. Simply put
CLEAR is responding to the cultural diversity of students within instructional
activities. To accomplish this, teacher, support staff, and leaders must be
culturally proficient in relating to their students. This knowledge of students
is incorporated into curriculum, instruction, and assessment in order to meet
the needs of all learners. CLEAR is
anchored in research based best practices that include the work of Zaretta
Hammond, Paul Gorsky, Glenn Singleton, Dr. Sheldon Eakins, and others.
What will
this training cover? Mindset:
- Socio-Cultural
Consciousness
- Creating a
Welcoming Environment
- Value and
Empowerment by Embracing Race
- Using the
Courageous Compass as a Viable Tool
Skillset:
- Developing
Authentic Learning Partnerships
- Warm
Demandingness
- Wise Feedback
- Linguistic
Responsive Language Scaffolding
Join us for
this series to learn more about how to be more culturally and linguistically
responsive while enhancing equity and achievement for our students.
Dr. Martina
Wagner has a background in serving English Language Learners that has spanned
over twenty years in grades pre-K through adult education. Her professional
passions and expertise include best practice and programming for ELs, Sheltered
Instruction (SIOP®), Co-teaching, Special Education Identifications of ELs,
WIDA assessments, and English Language Learning assessments and data.
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| | | Senior High KB wraps up with state meet and inaugural national meet!
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| The Metro’s Senior High Virtual Knowledge Bowl (SHKB) season is officially over! It is always bittersweet to finish a Knowledge Bowl season knowing that we will lose graduating seniors whom we have watched compete and grow for the last several years.
The virtual Minnesota State Meet was held on April 9, where Academy of Holy Angels, Chaska, Prior Lake, Tartan, and Totino-Grace all competed for the AA Division title. It was a great day for the Metro Region as all six teams finished in the top eight spots!
Even though the pandemic took a lot of things away from us this year, it allowed us the opportunity to help coordinate the FIRST EVER National Knowledge Bowl Meet. Thirty-nine teams from Colorado, Washington, and Minnesota competed virtually on Discord on Saturday, May 1. The five Metro Region teams that competed finished in the top 13! It was an exciting event that we plan to continue in the future.
When a KB season comes to an end, a new season always begins! We are already scheduling our dates for Middle Grades (MGKB) and Senior High Knowledge Bowl to return to in-person meets for the 2021-2022 school year.
Questions about 2021-2022 SHKB? Contact Madi Grove
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| | | Young Authors Conference returns to in-person in 2022 (and keeps virtual option)!
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| Mark your calendars for March 18 and May 24-27, 2022
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| | This year SBC was able to transition our traditional
in-person Young Authors Conference (YAC) to a monthly virtual event held throughout
the school year. We partnered with 32 Minnesota authors who presented sessions
on poetry, storytelling, fanfiction, journalism, character development,
fantasy, scene creation, fiction, and so much more. These authors also created
blogs and hosted live Q&A’s which inspired our young writers to get started
and continue their writing journey.
As the end of this school year approaches, we are preparing
for the return of YAC at Bethel University for the 2021-2022 school year. Plan to join us on March 18 or May 24-27, 2022. In addition to the in-person conference, we will also offer a virtual YAC experience during the winter/spring of 2022.
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| | 2022 Future City Competition theme revealed: The Waste-Free City
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| Registration
is open for the 2021-2022 Minnesota Future City Competition. Next year's engineering challenge for students is ambitious: develop a plan for a
zero-waste city.
The
Future City Competition (FCC) is a national project-based STEM program. The
Minnesota FCC is open to 6th-8th graders throughout the
state. Under the guidance of an educator and a volunteer engineer mentor,
students who participate in Future City are challenged to think like engineers
in order to design a futuristic city. This semester-long program runs from
September to January. Competing teams are judged by panels of volunteers from
the engineering community on four program deliverables:
- Project Plan:
Students work with their team to complete a project plan to help them stay
organized and focused with the Future City project.
- City Essay:
Students write a 1,500-word research essay addressing a specific
engineering challenge (changes yearly) and describing the unique
attributes of their city.
- City Model: Limited to a $100 budget, teams build a model of their city to-scale with at
least one-moving part using mostly recycled materials.
- Team Presentation and Q&A:
Students give a 7-minute presentation to a panel of judges discussing
features of their future city and their solution to the citywide
challenge.
The
first place winning team from Minnesota receives an expense-paid trip to
Washington, DC to compete in the National Future City competition, which takes
place in February.
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| | 2021 Spelling Bee was u-n-u-s-u-a-l and successful!
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| On
March 25, Metro ECSU sponsored the annual Metro Area Regional Bee, a
qualifier for the
Scripps National Spelling Bee. Due to Covid-19 safety concerns, our
Metro ECSU Regional
Bee was held virtually this year, using an online format provided by
Scripps. Forty-two 4th-8th grade students from the metro area, all
champions who had
previously won their local bees, competed in our regional bee. In lieu
of an
in-person event, spellers had a 24-hour window to complete the online
Regional
Bee test, which also included a vocabulary component this year.
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| LynnClara
Tun (pictured), a seventh-grade student from South View Middle School in Edina, was named
2021 regional champion. She will now move on to the Scripps National Spelling
Bee Preliminaries set for June 12.
LynnClara
was awarded a plaque, mint coin set, a one-year subscription to Encyclopedia
Britannica Online, a one-year subscription to Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online,
and if she advances to the finals, travel expenses and accommodations for the
Scripps National Spelling Bee in Orlando, Florida (Preliminaries,
quarterfinals, and semifinals will all be held virtually this year). |
| The top
spellers also included our 2019 regional champion, Annika Kim, an 8th grader from Lake Middle School in Woodbury, and Samantha Singh, an 8th grader from
Wayzata Central Middle School in Plymouth. The bee is
challenging in that we can only send one speller on to the National Bee, so we
would like to acknowledge the work and dedication of all of the spellers who took
part in this event. Congratulations to all who participated in the Metro ECSU Online Regional Bee!
Metro
ECSU would also like to acknowledge our additional
sponsors: Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster. Thank you for helping to
make our 2021 Regional Bee a great success!
Please watch for updates on our 2022 Regional Bee in August 2021.
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| | Sparks of creativity shimmer during COVID
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| | There’s
no denying that COVID-19 has dimmed life-as-we-knew-it for some time. With stay-safer-at-home orders renewed several times over, we continue
to office in our closets, teach from our kitchens, and create from our
couches. Yes, with more time spent on the couch and less time spent
commuting, sparks of creativity have been quietly lighting our spaces
and our way through some very dark days.
Matching
creativity to creative platforms for communication has been a task
recently undertaken by ECSE Professional Development Facilitators (PDFs) with
the MN Centers of Excellence.
As PDFs interacted with statewide ECSE
leaders, Innovation Teams, teachers, practitioners, and support staff --
the TRUE creatives amongst us -- it became apparent that everyone was
being inundated with well-meaning but long-winded Word docs and email
trails. In an effort to capture both creative minds and also intended
audiences’ attention, ECSE teams, State Innovation Teams (SITs), and PDFs
began exploring the design platforms of Canva and Smore. |
| | Canva
is a free graphic design platform that's great for making infographics,
flyers, presentations, and much more. A drag and drop interface makes
customizing thousands of templates simple and easy. Photos can be
edited without extensive photo editing knowledge or experience. This
snippet from the Richfield Evidence-based Quality Intervention Practices
(EQIP) team shows how they personalized a MNCoE created newsletter
template designed for EQIP teams. |
| | Slightly different but just as user-friendly is Smore. This interactive newsletter platform can be embedded within a district or classroom website and/or sent directly to recipients. It allows users to collaborate on a shared document and the beauty is built in. Users can grab a ready-made template to get a jump start or build from scratch. This Smore newsletter created by the Classroom Engagement Model (CEM) State Implementation Team was shared out statewide to CEM teams for consistent communication about the Innovation and its practices. |
| | Bianca Virnig awarded 2021 Public Health Achievement Award from Dakota County
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| | Bianca
Virnig (pictured), Facilities and Environmental Health and Safety Specialist at
Metro ECSU, is a regional support coordinator on the Dakota County
Public Health
consultation team. As a Lead Regional Coordinator for Minnesota Public
Schools Covid-19 Support Teams, she has helped schools provide a
safe learning environment for students and staff as they responded to
COVID-19. Bianca has helped school staff members better understand
COVID-19
guidance for contact tracing, personal protective equipment and
building safety. She has given consistent information to school health
staff, which has reduced confusion during a time of many changes within
schools. Congratulations, Bianca! |
| | Cooperative Purchasing Connection has partnered with
SafetyFirst Playground Maintenance for an Enhanced Wood Fiber sale!
Nature’sPlus Playground Safety Surfacing is clean and high-quality, plus it is
soft and fun for kids to play on.
Sustainably harvested, this fiber is made of 100%
tamarack trees so it is naturally resistant to mold and decay. It is also
ADA Compliant and IPEMA Certified. Sold by the cubic yard or truckload, the
promotional discount runs until 10/31/2021.
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| | Thank you, educators, for giving 110% this year.
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