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May 2015 Vol. 22 No. 3
edNews is a publication of Metro ECSU (Metropolitan Educational Cooperative Service Unit)
Did you know that Metro ECSU was established in 1976?
More about Metro ECSU
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Quick links:
Metro ECSU2 Pine Tree Drive, Suite 101 Arden Hills, MN 55112 612-638-1500
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K-12 Math Specialist Ellen Delaney joining Metro ECSU
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We are very excited that Ellen Delaney (pictured)
will be joining Metro ECSU as a Regional Math Specialist beginning in
August 2015. Ellen is well known for her leadership and expertise in
K-12 Math throughout the state and respected for her innovative
strategies and solutions.
Ellen recently retired from her position
as Director of Secondary Curriculum, Assessment and Instruction in the
Anoka-Hennepin School District where she lead curriculum, assessment,
and instruction for five traditional high schools, six traditional
middle schools, six alternative programs, a virtual summer program, and a
traditional summer school. Ellen’s experience also includes: High
School Associate Principal for Learning and Teaching in the Spring Lake
Park School District, Adjunct Faculty at the University of Minnesota and
Curriculum Director in North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale School District
622.
Ellen has received numerous awards and honors including:
the Minnesota Teacher of the Year award in 1999, the National
Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics in 1999, the
Excellence in Leadership Award from Commissioner Alice Seagren,
Minnesota Department of Education in 2007, and the Administrator of the
Year Award from the Minnesota Educational Media Organization in 2009.
She is an Honorary Lifetime Member of the Minnesota Council of Teachers
of Mathematics and currently serves as President of the Minnesota
Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Ellen’s work at Metro ECSU
will be focused on providing on-site customized math related support
services to K-12 teachers and leaders in Region 11. Her work at your
site or district may focus on instruction and coaching for teachers as
well as curriculum and assessment services. As with all Metro ECSU
services, we focus on your needs, your time, and your location. Let us
know how Ellen can help.
At this time contact Julie Frame at
julie.frame@metroecsu.org or 612-638-1508 for inquiries regarding Ellen’s availability
or to reserve dates on Ellen’s calendar. Once Ellen is fully on board
she will be able to be contacted directly. |
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| Metro ECSU 2015-16 Composite Calendar Available
Each year Metro ECSU publishes its Composite Calendar featuring a combined summary of school district calendars for the metro Twin Cities area. Many districts and organizations that work with schools value this compact look at school vacations, conference dates and other important dates during the school year.
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| SBC 2015-16 Calendar of Opportunities Available
View SBC's Calendar of Opportunities to see next year's event dates and registration deadlines for the Young Authors Conference, Creativity Festivals, Knowledge Bowl, Future City Competition, and STEMLINK5. Be sure to note the Early Bird registration deadlines!
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| | | Fifth graders dissect, experiment, design, and construct at SBC's second annual STEMLink5
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On
May 14, 430 fifth grade students from nine metro districts had the
chance to work in labs and classroom spaces with STEM and Health Science
faculty from four MnSCU colleges and other STEM professionals, learning
firsthand the potential futures they could have should they pursue an
interest in a STEM discipline.
This one-day event is designed to
help fifth graders understand how the science and math they study at
school now can actually lead to a life’s work that is stimulating,
challenging and meaningful – and not out of reach. STEMLink5 took place
at Normandale Community College. Students had the chance to dissect
cows’ knees, design an efficient and affordable water filtration system,
experiment with the properties of concrete, have a BLAST with physics,
make dental molds, use a computer-controlled vinyl cutter, build a wind
turbine, and more.
One teacher who brought her students to the
event commented, "The conference inspired me, giving me great ideas for the
classroom! Hosting STEMLINK5 at Normandale and having real engineers and
professionals lead the sessions was very valuable."
To learn more about STEMLink5, please contact Kelly Ascheman at 612-638-1555. |
| STEMLink5 students in action!
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| | | Six metro region Senior High KB teams show teamwork, academic prowess at annual state meet
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The Senior High Knowledge Bowl Minnesota State Meet took place April 9 and 10 at Cragun’s Resort in Brainerd, MN.
There were 24 teams each in two divisions -- A and AA Divisions. All six of the teams from the Metro Region played in the AA bracket.
This year Chaska High School placed at the #2 position with a point total of 125.5 points! The Academy of Holy Angels narrowly missed a placing spot coming in at #7 with 114 points. Chaska High School got the highest Metro Oral Round score in Oral Round 1 with 21 points. Eastview High School (District 196) secured the Highest Metro Written Round score with 54 out of 60 correct; tied with two other non-Metro teams, this was the highest Written Round score of the division!
Prior Lake-Savage did some serious climbing, starting out the Oral Rounds in the bottom room and then going all the way to Room 3 to secure a spot in the top 10 with a point total of 108. Also in the top 10 was Edina with 107.5 points. Overall, four out of six Metro teams secured a top 10 placement and 5-out-of-6 Metro teams secured a top half placement.
Anoka-Hennepin played a great meet with most of their rooms playing out with a small point difference between each team. That can be a rough way to duke it out, and they really held their own!
This year’s State showing was incredibly strong. Many Greater Minnesota teams did a great job and we look forward to seeing every KB team’s strength and fortitude play out in the years to come. For complete A and AA Division placement, please visit Success Beyond the Classroom on social media: @SuccessBeyondMN on Twitter and Instagram or facebook.com/successbeyondtheclassroom
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| | Exciting changes for the 2015-16 Future City Competition
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| The theme/essay topic for the 2015-16 Future City Competition is: Waste Not, Want Not: Design an innovative city-wide solid waste system for your future city that is safe, environmentally sound, and energy efficient. Students only have to think about residential and commercial waste (not industrial). Solid waste does not include sewage.
Future City National is redesigning its website. Check out www.futurecity.org after July 15.
New in 2015-16:
- The city narrative and research essay are combined into one 1,500 word document.
- Teams may use new SimCity or SimCity4. Teams will not have to upload their SimCity file. Instead, they will submit screenshots showing city data via PPT slides. The details about this are still being worked out. The SimCity deliverable will be worth fewer points so that it can be used more as a tool and not take so much time to master.
- A new deliverable, called the “Project Plan," will be launched. This written component has 4 parts: Goals, Schedule, Monitor, and Reflection. Students will document how they followed the Engineering Design Process while participating in Future City.
Registration is open: www.futurecity.org/register For more information about the Future City Competition, please contact Colleen Feller at 612-638-1511.
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| | | | Minnesota chosen as first Intensive Training/Technical Assistance state
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| In Spring of 2014, Minnesota was chosen to work with the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA) as the first Intensive Training/Technical Assistance (T/TA) state. This two-year T/TA will focus on Implementing, Sustaining and Scaling Up Evidence-Based Practice to Improve Child Outcomes. This partnership is focused on building the state’s capacity to establish or strengthen professional development designed to support the outcomes of children ages birth through 5 who are at risk for or with delays and disabilities through the adoption of evidence based practices (EBPs).
For our purposes, the evidence-based practices are the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children’s Recommended Practices (DEC RPs). The Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA Center) has been funded by OSEP to improve state early intervention and early childhood special education service systems, increase the implementation of effective practices, and enhance outcomes for young children and their families.
The Region 11 Minnesota Centers of Excellence for Young Children with Disabilities is supporting two metro districts working through this implementation process. Richfield Public Schools was selected to focus on implementing the DEC Recommended Practices in their home visiting program while St. Francis Public Schools will focus on their classroom program.
As a part of this work, each district has created an implementation team to ensure program wide adoption of the philosophy. Following intensive training in the fall, teams are now working to increase their skills to support child and family engagement through the Practice Based Coaching Model. While teams have encountered the struggles associated with working through change, both teams are excited to continue their work and are experiencing success.
For more information, please contact Donna Miller at 612-636-1557 or Hope Beissel at 612-638-1552.
This
initiative is made possible through an interagency agreement from the
Minnesota Department of Education to the Metro ECSU using federal
funding under CFDA number 84.181 Special Education Grants for Infants
and Families with Disabilities.
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| | | State recognition for Positive Behavior Intervention & Support (PBIS)
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Once each school year, the Minnesota SW-PBIS Recognition Program recognizes schools that have completed training and continue to achieve positive student outcomes by implementing and sustaining PBIS school-wide with fidelity. Schools chosen are awarded the distinction of "Sustaining Exemplar School".
This year, Cohort 1-7 schools that met eligibility requirements applied for the award through a self-nomination process, as opposed to an invitation-only process that has occurred in years past. Applications were due on May 15. Winners will be announced on June 1.
Sustaining Exemplar eligible schools were invited by the State PBIS Leadership Team to complete an application that provides information and data from their school addressing four key elements important to sustained SW-PBIS implementation, including:
1. improvement in professional outcomes;
2. school leadership;
3. action planning; and
4. giving back to the greater PBIS community.
PBIS is currently being implemented in 489 Minnesota schools, which equals 25% of schools in the state. In 2013, 16 schools in Minnesota were recognized for their continued success in sustaining PBIS. In 2014, there were 30 schools that were selected for recognition at the state level. View the list of 2014 Sustaining Exemplar Schools.
Recognition categories for districts as well as for schools who were trained outside of the traditional Minnesota SW-PBIS model will be added in 2016. Information on these recognition categories and specific eligibility requirements will be announced in the winter of 2016.
For more information, please contact Lauren Sparr at 612-638-1534.
Funding for this program is made possible by a grant from the Minnesota Department of Education
Federal Award CFDA#84.027A –Special Education–Grants to States, IDEA Part B-611.
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| | Help Me Grow online presence makes a huge impact
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The Region 11 Interagency Early Intervention Committee (IEIC) at Metro ECSU is responsible for Help Me Grow public awareness and child find efforts in the 7-county metro area for infant/toddler early intervention and preschool special education services.
Our Help Me Grow goals are:
1) to increase knowledge of developmental milestones among parents, caregivers and providers,
2) to provide clear, concise information about when and how to refer a child if concerns occur, and
3) to raise awareness that free early intervention is available for children with developmental concerns.
To achieve these goals, the Region 11 IEIC enlisted the help of Risdall Advertising to develop a multi-pronged strategy. The public awareness outreach campaign uses a landing page, Facebook, online ads, media outreach, community organization outreach, and distribution of free print materials in multiple languages
(brochures, informational handouts, developmental wheels, magnets,
post-it notes, kid stencils, info-graphic posters, “Amazing Me” books,
tote bags, bibs). The landing page, now hosted by MDE, provides extensive information and resources for parents and professionals. www.helpmegrowmn.org. The Help Me Grow Facebook page posts information 5-6 days per week and has 17,000 “likes".
As a result of the Region 11 IEIC’s new public awareness campaign and their launching of a user-friendly web landing-page and mobile access for Help Me Grow to make online referrals, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) reports significant increases in referrals to their statewide office from 3600 in 2012 before these outreach efforts began to 9600 in 2014.
The Region 11 IEIC has been collecting data from all of the school districts in the 7-county metro area on the number of young children (birth thru 5) with developmental concerns referred to their early childhood intake team. Nine-month data from 2013 and from 2014 shows an increase between the two years from 8287 to 9438 referrals. The number of children identified and receiving educational early intervention services in the Birth-2 age group as reported on the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) yearly December 1 Child Count increased from 5,027 in 2012 to 5,449 in 2014. Child Find is working!
Knowledge gained by parents and professionals on how children develop as well as early intervention services for children with developmental delays assures a better future for all young children. Early intervention works!
For more information, please contact Marty Smith at 651-247-3429.
This initiative is made possible through an interagency agreement from the Minnesota Department of Education to the Metro ECSU using federal funding under CFDA number 84.181 Special Education Grants for Infants and Families with Disabilities.
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| | Metro ECSU wishes you a rejuvenating summer!
Watch for the fall edition of edNews in September.
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