>Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota<, Volume V, No. 12, June 2019 >>>>> Article #5, MPS District Priorities and Timetable for Community Engagement

Article #5

 

MPS District Priorities and Timetable for Community Engagement

 

Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS)

 

MPS Vision and Current Strategies

 

Multi-tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is an evidence-based, best practice framework intended nto accelerate student achievement by providing inclusive and equitable educational practices.  MPS believes that all students deserve the support needed to access grade level benchmarks and accelerate beyond them.

 

Key MTSS Strategy

 

>>>>>    Ensure students who need additional supports are identified, receive evidence-based interventions aligned to core instruction, and that their progress is monitored.

 

Key MTSS Goals

 

>>>>>    Establish common understanding of MTSS;  dispel persistent myths

>>>>>    Ensure all students receive standards aligned, differentiated, and culturally relevant daily instruction

>>>>>    Ensure all schools are safe, supportive, and caring environments where students receive the social, emotional, and behavioral supports they need to be successful

 

MTSS Framework

 

>>>>>    Infrastructure to Support Implementation

>>>>>    Team Process

>>>>>    Assessment Cycle 

>>>>>    Multi-Tiered Instruction & Prevention

 

Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

 

MPS Vision and Current Strategies

 

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) helps children and adults

 

>>>>>    understand and manage emotions

>>>>>    set and achieve positive goals

>>>>>    feel and show empathy for others 

>>>>>    establish and maintain positive relationships

>>>>>    make responsible decisions

 

MPS believes that this work requires partnerships with students, familiesm and community, and it begins with the SEL skill development of adults.

 

SEL Strategy

 

>>>>>    Advance SEL skill development through an equity lens for all MPS adults throughout MPS as models and teachers

>>>>>    Ensure all schools use evidence-based direct instruction practices and materials to support students in their SEL skill development and expression

>>>>>    Promote developmentally-focused SEL standards from Early Childhood through adult integrated with grade level core content standards

 

CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) Framework

 

Home and Communities

Schools

Classrooms

SEL Curriculum and Instruction

Schoolwide Practices and Policies

Family and Community Partnerships

 

Self Awareness         >>> 

Self Mangament       >>> 

Responsible

  Decision-Making    >>> 

Relationship Skill     >>> 

 

Equity

 

Courageous Conversation Compass

 

Believing  >>>  Thinking  >>>  Acting  >>>  Feeling

 

Equity Vision & Current Strategies

 

Minneapolis Public Schools Equity Framework and Policy 1304 outlines the district belief that every student deserves to learning in an environment where their racial and ethnic diversity is valued and contributes to successful academic outcomes.  Educational equity, the raizing of achievement for all students while narrowing gaps and eliminating racial or cultural predictability in outcomes, benefits all students and our entire community.

 

Key Equity Strategies

 

>>>>>    identify and disrupt processes, policies, and programs that contribute to inequitable outcomes

>>>>>    Center the voices of historically marginalized stakeholders in school and district decision-making

>>>>>    Leverage state and local funding to achieve more integrated learning environments and student outcomes

>>>>>    Advance the racial and cultural identity development of staff in order to interrupt and reframe mindsets and practices that is leading to inequitable outcomes

>>>>>    Ensure that curricula and pedagogy are culturally relevant for all students

>>>>>    Recruit and retain diverse teachers and staff

 

Equity Framework

 

MPS Equity Framework  >>>>>     Transformational Change

 

Personal and Collective Responsibility

 

>>>>>      Pedagogy of Equity 

>>>>>      Families as Education Partners

>>>>>      Equity in Operations

>>>>>      Equity Divsersity Impact Statement

 

Literacy

 

Minneapolis Public Schools students will become global citizens through the development of effective reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing skills.

 

MPS believes all students arrive with potential to graduate with literacy skills required for college and career readiness.

 

>>>>>    Ensure all literacy instruction includes all components and elements of balanced literacy, and is culturally and linguistically responsive

>>>>>    Strengthen all 6-12 students’ listening skills by increasing the quality and quantity of academic discourse through writing experiences

>>>>>    Ensure all students receive standards aligned, differentiated, and culturally relevant daily literacy instruction, and that all students have access to evidence-based interventions when needed

 

A Balanced Literacy Framework

 

MPS Balanced Literacy Framework

145 Minutes

Adapted from Founzas and Pinnet, Guided Reading, second edition, Benchmark Education

 

Interactive Read-Aloud

 

WordWork Foundation Skills

 

Word Study >>>>>

 

Phonic Spelling & Vocabulary Lesson

 

and

 

Reader’s Workshop

 

Shared Reading & Mini-Lesson

 

and

 

Writer’s Workshop

 

Writing Mini-Lesson

Interactive Writing

 

WordWork Foundation Skills

 

Independent or Small-Group Practice

 

and

 

Reader’s Workshop

 

Guided Reading

 

Independent Reading and Writing about Reading

 

Conferring with Readers and Writers

 

and

 

Writer’s Workshop

 

Independent Writing

 

Guided Writing

 

WordWork Foundation Skills

 

Group Share

 

Reader’s Workshop

 

Group Share

 

Writer’s Workshop

 

Group Share

Timeline for Board Meeting Engagement

April 30 (COW)

Districtwide Design Options Presented

1 May-31 May

Initial Community Engagement

14 May (BOE)

District Improved Academic Achievement component of plan

28 May (COW)

Share overview of community engagement feedback with Board members;  discuss integration and equity component of plan

11 June (BOE)

Share overview of community engagement feedback with Board members

 

First read of recommended option to BOE

12 June-2 August

Summer engagement and education with regard to recommended option

13 August (BOE)

Present Summer feedback and modifications to recommend design model

27 August (COW)

Proposed Board vote on recommended model

Fall 2019

Begin Planning for Year 2 (SY20-21) of Comprehensive Design

SY 19-20

Develop plan and conduct engagement for school boundary and start time changes to be implemented in SY21-22

SY 20-21

Launch Phase 2 MPS recruitment and marketing plan

Community Engagement Opportunities

30 April

Latino Parent Advisory Committee

 

3 May

Somali Parent Advisory Committee

 

9 May

Special Education Advisory Committee

 

13 May

Edison High School          

 

15 May

MFT and ESP members (tentative)

 

16 May

Southwest High School

 

20 May

Wilder

 

21 May

 

Davis Center

 

22 May

 

Latine community presentation at Waite House

 

23 May

 

Heritage Family Night @ Hmong International Academy

 

30 May

 

Black Parent Advisory Committee

 

30 May

 

Title VI Parent Advisory Committee

 

13 June

 

Special Education Advisory Committee

 

TBD

 

>>>>>    Internal engagement with MPS staff (departments and school staff)

 

>>>>>    Individual and group meetings with key community influencers (Board and Leadership)

 

>>>>>    Ongoing engagement June-August (Calendar of Events Summer 2019)

 

MMLJ Gospel II >>>>> Seeking Eternity, Part One

Having found Divinity and having deeply internalized her Identification with the Divine, She moved ahead toward Eternity. 

 

In this, too, She sought Herself, for She sensed that She had Always Been and Always Would Be:  She knew that before the advent of cosmic and terrestrial reality She Herself had always
Existed.  She was there at Material Creation, and She would Be whether Materiality endured or vanished.  She was the Light that Shone in the Darkness, so that for her Darkness and Light were One:  She was at once Darkness and the Light That Darkness Could Not Overcome.

 

She ran now toward and merged with the Light.

 

She remembered Beasts, Goats, Rams, Locusts;  she recalled Humanity in the Lion’s Lair and the Fish’s Bloated Belly.

 

Ahead she saw those street-corner beggars, history-scarred alley-dwellers, untended babies, cocaine-afflicted souls, opioid-obliterated bodies, alcohol-drowned spirits, priest-molested boys, family-abused girls, male-oppressed females, religion-attacked religion, humanity-murdered humanity.  She saw the prevalence of ignorance, the toll taken by lives without Meaning.

 

Arriving at and merging with the Brightest Light, she confronted blindness, leprosy, all manner of corporeal and spiritual infirmity;  She beheld with Wonder and Gratitude Her own Power to Heal.  In the midst of the Brightest Light, she observed and merged with the Greatest Teachers:

 

She discerned that to be ignorant is to suffer, that suffering arises with incessant desire, that cessation of errant striving terminates suffering, and that Supreme Love produces Serene Gratitude, eliminating never-satisfied quest for excess.

 

She comprehended the Unity undergirding perceived opposites:  Wealth and Poverty, Life and Death, Day and Night, Friend and Enemy, Male and Female.  She felt the Power of Nature and filled herself with the Wisdom of Flexible Response to circumstances that are because they are.

 

And permeating Her Discernment, deepening Her Comprehension, was the Supreme Principle illuminated by the Brightest Light:  the Power of Unbounded Love.   She grasped the Power of the Life of Love, extended to all, with abiding intention to heal, empower, nurture.  She beheld Meaning in the Life of Love, the only meaning in life that is the Meaning of Life: 

 

She knew and would thenceforth proclaim that the Gate to Eternity opened to all of those who lived empathically in the service of each emanation of Divinity, with Love for all Humankind.  She understood that the Legacy of such a Life would constitute Immortality, would inspire Remembrance Throughout all Generations.

I-M Prophecy II >>>>> Seeking Divinity, Part Three

Clear now as to Her Values, with Deep Insight into History, and with the Passion of Poetry having hastened Her on the Road to Divinity, She sought Divinity in Prophecy and became Prophet:

 

She peered into the Core of Past Life, finding the pervasiveness of Immorality, Grief, Tribulation, Destruction.  Though personally incorrupt, She felt sullied by association.  All around her She saw people worshiping idle idols, putative power, glamorized gluttony.  She observed the oppressiveness of the material, the insubstantial moorings on the Ship of Things, the elevation of the self over the good of the fellow. 

 

Her anger welled. 

 

Her frustration bellowed. 

 

And in that raging ire, She envisioned most momentous scenes: 

 

Beasts raged,  Goats bleated, Rams butted, locusts swarmed, crops failed, forests blazed.  Humanity---  painted, tainted, infested, tested---  fell from the plains into the Lion’s Lair and beneath the sea into the Fish’s Bloated Belly.

 

She arrived at the Core of the Present and saw the same: 

 

Mentally deranged beggars gestured on street corners, people deformed by history found no solace in the present, babies lay untended, cocaine killed souls, opioids obliterated bodies, alcohol deluded spirits, priests molested boys, families abused girls, men oppressed women, religion attacked religion, humanity murdered humanity, ignorance abounded, and everywhere the absence of Meaning took toll. 

 

Then of a sudden She turned and directed the Radiance of Redemption toward Souls in Exile, indicating the way to Life as Life Should and Will Be.

 

She spoke forcefully, reminding them:

 

Recall The Divine Law of Human Values for Life as It Should Be:

 

1     >>>>>     Understand that Love is the essence of the Divine.

 

2     >>>>>     Think Lovingly.

 

3     >>>>>      Speak Lovingly.

 

4     >>>>>      Act Lovingly.

 

5     >>>>>      Work Lovingly.

 

6     >>>>>      Strive Lovingly.

 

7     >>>>>      Concentrate on Love.

 

8     >>>>>      Meditate and pray with Love.

 

9     >>>>>      Unite all faiths in Love.               

 

10   >>>>>      Heal all carnal and spiritual wounds with Love.

 

She then spoke thusly to her people:

 

“You must examine all that you once thought was true.  You must oppose all that has been Toxic.  Manifest anger when you must.  Recoil not from confrontation.  Be forceful in battle with the Guardians of Toxicity.  Convert these when you can, defeat them when you must, let them know unequivocally that they must unite with the Good or be gone.”

 

Life as It Should Be will henceforth be Life as It Will Be.

 

You are delivered from Exile of the Soul and according to this Divine Law of Human Values shall your Spirit be redeemed.

 

Thus shall you walk

 

with Courage.

 

with Love,

 

toward the Land of Promise,

 

the Realm of the Good,”

 

the Land Led by Woman,

 

with Love

for all

Humankind.

J-S Poetry II >>>>> Seeking Divinity, Part Two

J-S Poetry II >>>>>  Seeking Divinity, Part Two

 

Clear now as to Her Values and with Deep Insight into History, she felt the Passion of Poetry pressing forth as she called out to the Divine  >>>>>

 

I Discern now that

You are

as

You are,

and

Life is

as

It is.

I shall never need to

doubt

again,

though I remain

full of

Wonder.

Life:

full of

Misery,

full of

Joy,

Evanescent

and yet

Eternal,

I

and each one of

Us

Inextricably Connected

to

Each Other,

to

You,

to events

Sorrowful

and

Felicitous,

One

and the

Same.

 

No longer need I

Question

where

You

are in my times of

Tribulation.

No longer shall I feel

Your Presence

only in my

victories,

successes,

and the

triumphs

of those

who have been

dearest

to me.

For

You

Abide,

and

I

Live:

That is all I need to

Know.

 

I

Comprehend

now that

I,

by which I mean

We,

Live Fully

When we pursue

Knowledge

and spend our

Time

with maximal

Sincerity,

Efficiency,

applying then what we

Know

to our

Best Lived Lives

of

Wisdom,

Compassion,

guided always,

above all,

by

Love.

 

Thus,

in the

Depths of My Sorrow,

in the

Ebullience of My Joy,

I henceforward shall

Know

that for everything

there is a

Propitious,

Divinely Bestowed,

Season.

 

How blessed

am

I,

Female

of your

Creation,

to receive from you

this impetus to gain

Knowledge

this

Opportunity

to

Live

with

Wisdom,

and to impart this to

Male,

My

Brother,

Friend,

Lover,

for in our

Perfected Union,

Divine Love,

we are

Microcosm,

Macrocosm,

You,

the

Divine.