Guest Column by Tom Jones

At the public forum before the last school board meeting on Nov. 17, I read the following letter that unfortunately I could not finish in the two minutes that I was allowed. Because of that, I feel compelled to get the remaining portion published for those who were there and those who did not attend.

The Nov. 4, Albert Lea Tribune featured a story that was written about the previous night’s school board meeting. One of the topics addressed the graduation rate for our school district. It showed that we had a graduation rate in 2013 of 83.7 percent, 82.5 percent in 2012 and 80.2 percent in 2011. I then wondered what the state averages were. In 2013 it was 79.5 percent and in 2012 it was 77.5 percent. Albert Lea was actually ahead of the state by 4.2 percentage points last year and 5 percentage points the year before. In 2012, we were also ahead of the national average by 2.5 percentage points.

It is good to see that last year’s graduating class showed that 70 percent went off to college, with 47 percent to a four-year and 23 percent starting at a two-year.

According to the Star Tribune on Aug. 20, for the ninth consecutive year, the state’s seniors posted the highest average composite score on the ACT in the nation among students in states in which at least half took the test. Gov. Mark Dayton congratulated the Minnesota students, teachers and administrators on their tremendous accomplishment. “The nation-leading score demonstrates to the entire country the academic ability of Minnesota students, the dedication of our teachers and the world-class quality of our education system.”

And this was accomplished without having any school districts having balanced calendars like what is being proposed for Albert Lea.

Albert Lea’s ACT score was 21.8, higher than the national average of 20.9 — another great accomplishment for our district.

Shown on the Albert Lea Area Schools’ website is the headline “Albert Lea Area Schools lead the Big Nine in Minnesota Department of Education’s school rankings.” For the second year in a row, we were the only school district in the Big Nine Conference to have two schools earn the Minnesota Department of Education’s top designation as a Reward School. Mankato and Winona each had one and the others none.

One of the things that has disappointed my wife and me is the fact that, after the fall reading tests were scored for our two children in third grade, one child scored higher than the other. It was the one who scored higher that got the extra help in school from the AmeriCorps program and not the other.

We have great teachers throughout our school district and the numbers I have presented above show it. We have banners hanging in our gym that represent academic state champion teams.

I am proud that my kids represent the fifth generation of our family to attend Albert Lea schools. We would hate to see families like ours go to another district and take with them $9,206 per pupil in state funding. We need to get the 2.5 full-time-equivalent interventionist positions filled for three of our elementary schools that are now posted as well as the one to three temporary positions posted for targeted services at our elementary schools. They are both targeting remediating math and reading skills and intervention at math and reading.

We need to look at other programs like Austin has implemented in AVID www.avid.com and REACH: www.hutch.k12.mn.us/reach/index.html.

We need to keep our kids from failing in the first place, instead of letting them fail and then try to remediate them in October or March. This can be done without disrupting the lives of the many students, parents and businesses that this change would bring.

 

Albert Lea resident Tom Jones is an insurance agent and a volunteer with local sports.