FMS @ a Glance
March 4-8, 2019
Proud to be!
Shout out to Dana Cowan for going above and beyond when working with some challenging students. Your positive attitude and willingness to try anything is appreciated. Thank you for going the extra mile in the hallways last week!
Shout out to Jonathan Rydberg and Amelia Tesdahl! Great job with your 6th and 7th-grade choirs! You make Faribault Middle School proud!
Shout out to Brent Hawkins for getting all of our 8th graders registered for high school! You are awesome!
Shout out to all staff who stepped up and helped sub this week! We appreciate the teamwork!
Shout out to Scott Bruns and Ted Aleckson for organizing Student Led Conferences!
Shout out to Nate Rockow, Alicia Sheehy, Ruby Teague, Sarah Simon, and Amanda McColl! Great presentations on Monday! Way to represent FMS!
Shout out to Connie Hart, Matt Barron, Chris Johnsrud, and Lauren Fairlie! Thank you for trying something new with our EL students. Your constant desire to reach all learners is noticed and appreciated! We know it isn't always easy so thank you!
Shout out to Doug Tinaglia, Matt Barron, Caleb Case, Andrew Salonek, Steve Gravgaard, and Renon Thomas! Thank you for being our awesome team leads! You're doing an amazing job!
Shout out to Maki Love! You are the best Community School Director Ever! We love you and are so glad that you are part of our FMS family!
Shout out to the 7th-grade staff members who helped with our lunch bunch this week! We appreciate the extra efforts to help model the behaviors we want to see in our students.
Shout out to Hope Briggs, Kayla Tromborg, and Phil Dennison! Thank you for navigating all the ACCESS testing and being flexible with the snow days! We have the best EL team!
It pains me to add this one - but I cannot edit it since it was submitted:
Shout out to Ted Aleckson and his enthusiasm with announcements. The students love it!
All the 6th,7th and 8th-grade students that participated in the ski trip to Welch Village. The kids were awesome! They worked very hard and learned something new about themselves. No one gave up! All finished what they started and learned something new, most enjoyed themselves so much they will probably ski again. All represented their school, city and themselves very well! Congratulations!
Eric Alm for organizing a Friday morning basketball session. I heard it was great! Much needed exercise!
Week @ a Glance
SOCIAL WORKER APPRECIATION WEEK
Monday, March 4
Blue Team Drill
9:00 am Student Services meeting
3:00 pm FMS Admin meeting
Tuesday, March 5
NAEP Testing
9:00 am Immigration meeting with Mr. Sesker
9:30 am F4C trip (Hawkins)
11:00 am Community School meeting
3:30 pm District Technology Committee meeting
Wednesday, March 6
Development Day meeting
Orchestra Festival
9:00 am PST
Thursday, March 7
9:00 am Principal PLC with Ryan K.
Friday, March 8
7:15 am FMS TEchnology Committee meeting
8:30 am Paraprofessional meeting
9:00 am F4C trip (Coppess)
A look ahead:
3/11 PST visits CPT
3/11 School Board Study Session
3/11 Student Services meeting
3/11 Team Lead meeting
3/12 District Leadership meeting
3/12 FMS Admin meeting
3/13 Somali PAG
3/13 Development Day meeting
3/14 Facilities Committee
3/15 PST
By: Kasey Short
February 2019 | Volume 61 | Number 2
Thank you.
Legislative Update
The impending deadline to hear new bills is coming fast. As a result, schedules are full and hearings are long. During the week we covered a variety of issues.
Monday was special education day in the House. A wide range of bills were heard. Much testimony was presented about special education. Parents talked about their children, teachers talked about their experiences and advocates talked about working in the field of special education. As happens with complex issues like this, most of the time was spent talking about general experiences with a short amount of time on the specific provisions of the bills.
The bills were set aside with an eye toward inclusion in a large bill at a later date
The staff generally try to group topics in a hearing. In the Senate, the committee heard the first presentations of the Governor’s education budget. On Tuesday the House Education Finance Committee heard about libraries. On Wednesday the Senate reviewed transportation bills and a handful of other bills. On Thursday the House Finance Committee discussed school safety and school facility projects.
Of interest was Senator Nelson’s bill on snow days, (SF 1743), authorizing a school board to count snow days toward the required minimum number of days on the school calendar and learning year hours. This bill was sent to the floor rather than being held behind to be included in an omnibus bill. With a little luck, we can get the House and Senate to agree on this early.
On Wednesday a rather innocuous bill sparked some pointed discussion. When the bullying bill was passed some years ago, it included the “safety technical assistance center”. It contained a sunset of 6 years which is now approaching. Representative Freiberg proposes to extend the center. This prompted a long discussion about transgender students and the “Toolkit”. The bill was laid over.
On the same agenda the committee heard two bills modifying graduation requirements. The first (HF 847 Her) would require that every student take ½ credit of “personal finance” as a condition of graduation. This applies to students entering 9th grade in 2020-21. This would reduce the number of electives in state law from 7 elective credits to 6.5 credits.
The second bill requires a separate course in government and citizenship for all students to be taken in 11th or 12th grade (HF 249 Urdahl). While the course must be separate, the credits are included in the 3.5 required credits in social studies. The bill applies to students entering 9th grade in the 2020-21 school year. Representative Urdahl continues to press the government and citizenship education and may be successful this year. He has a strong ally in the Senate in Senator Carla Nelson.
One interesting bill was brought forward by dermatologists. Representative Morrison presented her bill authorizing students to possess sunscreen at school (HF 1343). Apparently, some schools took the position that sunscreen was an over the counter medication requiring a doctor’s note to have in school. No school was identified but apparently this has happened somewhere. Again, the bill was laid over and will probably end up in the omnibus.
Today (Friday) the House Education Policy Committee undertook a marathon hearing on several issues. The day opened up with a mandatory radon testing bill (HF 244 Claflin). This was followed by new criminal penalties for sexual relationships with students (HF 491); mental health education (HF 1094 Her); and substance misuse (HF 1566 Kunesh-Podein) prevention.
The big discussions took place around (HF 1414-Lippert) which requires the Commissioner of Education to develop a model sexual health curriculum program. It would allow districts to create their own programs, provided they are provided to the department.
Another bill provides the requirement that MDE provide support to districts for purposes of Title IX compliance. This is brought by a group of high school students asserting that Title IX is a better avenue to deal with harassment and discrimination than the current practices. Unfortunately, it provided another opportunity to criticize school administrators.
Also, on the agenda was Representative Erickson’s bill (HF 532) requiring additional background checks on teachers when renewing the license each 5 years. The bill also includes significant provisions regulating PELSBE’s authority on revoking, suspending, issuing or refusing to renew a license.
(The hearing is continuing while I write this.)
Next week will continue with the contentious nature of the hearings. On Monday the House Policy Committee will hear a bill with several changes in the PELSBE requirements. On Tuesday the committee will hear a bill basically removing school principals’ authority over school papers. (A significant question arises in this bill as to whether it covers yearbooks as well.) The student newspaper bill was introduced yesterday (HF 1868-Youakim) and is authored by the committee chair, Representative Youakim. The House committee will also hear three bills on Dyslexia screening. It will be a busy week.
In the meanwhile, it’s March.
Hockey and basketball tournaments.
And at some point maybe some melting snow.