South Washington County, MN
Your CITY and DISTRICT meetings
JAiME for SCHOOLS’ May Feature is a CALL TO CONTRIBUTE! As the school year comes to a close, now is the perfect time while still fresh in your mind to submit lists to JAiME for SCHOOLS. The All Schools BOOK SHELF 2023 will piggy back onto 2022. public – private – home – micro. Calling for books in ALL schools within the South Washington County area ! Please provide SCHOOL – GRADE – ASSIGNED BOOKS.
Scroll to the end for more details …
time for endings and NEW beginnings…
May
Meetings
District 833 is a buzz with facility planning. Attend the final 5-year Facility Plan Community Meeting on May 23rd for an overview of the process and the Proposed Final Plan (View HERE). Don’t blink, or you will miss it because The Final Plan will then be presented June 1st at the School Board Workshop.
The grandeur of the OLD plan focused primarily on buildings. One year later, the NEW one is much more scaled down to needs, versus wants, and takes into consideration a resident base who is economically stressed. I appreciate the district for recognizing this, and I also appreciate the more student-focused approach. I hope this can continue.
Fun Fact: The NEW plan was accompanied by a NEW slogan. In March of 2023 “Building Our Future” changed to “Securing Our Future” – ” with the side bar, “Supporting Our Students.”
Over the last six weeks, each member of the board has narrowed down their priorities publicly at every meeting I have been able to watch. They have taken more of an a la carte approach this time around, and the three top priorities, for both the community and the board, has been focused on Security, High School additions, and Middle School additions.
School Safety
On April 20th, 2023 I Commented to the Board about school safety…
“Empowerment is a word I hear used often by adult leaders in District 833. Students are empowered to mirror government speech in activities such as student-led BLM poster designs, student-led racial justice walk-outs, a student-led GLSEN day of silence, and countless other student-led self expressions of speech done in the name of any number of injustices.”
“I have also read the words written in books District 833 assigns to our secondary school children. There is not only a theme of empowerment from oppression (which when done through love and correction is a good thing), but there is also a theme of resentful empowerment. It is this Empowered Spirit of Resentment that I feel is creating an environment ripe for self-harm. The danger to a student in District 833 is not coming from the outside world so much as it is coming from it’s own student body.”
“Juvenile crimes are up state wide, county wide, city wide, and district wide. According to the 2021-22 MDE Disciplinary Incidents Report, the Minnesota Public School System as a whole has seen an increase of 13,800 disciplinary incidents in just in five years. South Washington County Schools had 954 incidents last year alone. #1 was Insubordination (257) #2 was Fighting (216) #3 was Tobacco (96) #4 was Illegal Drugs (72) and #5 was Assault (50).”
MDE Disciplinary Incidents Report
Insubordination is the refusal to obey orders. Resentful empowerment breeds insubordination. Is it any surprise then that disciplinary incidents are on the rise? It seems logical to me that when empowering an adolescent student body of 18,000, you are flipping the order of hierarchy upside down, and there WILL BE consequences.
This does not appear to be an external problem that secure entryways will solve.
Random Detection Sweeps at the High Schools
The Woodbury Police K9 Fund has received recognition at the City’s Board Meetings recently, and I was pleased to hear SoWashCo Schools is working in partnership with them. They are conducting random detection dog sweeps of lockers and vehicles on school property . After confirming this with the District today, I learned that the sweeps have recently been completed at East Ridge, Woodbury and Park High Schools. Students and families were notified before hand, and the following explanation was given to them …
“These sweeps are an effort to maintain a safe learning environment, and to offer our school administrators a proactive approach to locate and remove contraband that may be found at school. These sweeps are done with minimal disruption to the school day. Our goal is for drug free schools.”
This gives me some hope that South Washington County Schools is stepping up to the plate, calling out danger for what it is, and setting a positive example of moral integrity and safety for children INSIDE their schools. Correcting children from themselves is a GOOD THING. Teaching humility and forgiveness is also a GOOD THING. Since there seems to be such heavy concentration in calling out past injustices, I hope the district will also recognize forgiveness as the only means to move forward.
May 22nd marks the end of the 2023 Legislative Session
This is a summary from 2nd Congressional District Republicans (Link HERE).
Most people are unaware of the dangerous content of these bills. Please take a moment RIGHT NOW to read over the below list, then take action to contact your State Senator or your State Representative!
Health Omnibus Bill
- House version eliminates the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
- House version adds a Health Affordability Commission to place spending limits on providers, resulting in rationing of care to the elderly and disabled.
- House version defunds Crisis Pregnancy Centers while increasing funding for Planned Parenthood by 20%.
Education Omnibus Bill
- “Embedding Ethnic Studies” in K-12 Education – based in divisive critical race terminology, instituting racism in our schools.
- Adds 65 new unfunded mandates that will financially strap local school districts and gives $38.8 million to non-profits.
Public Safety & Judiciary Omnibus Bill
- “Thought Crimes Database” – creation of a “hate-incidents” registry to record “crimes of bias” that violates our freedom of speech.
- Early release for felons; reduced sentences for violent offenders.
- Red flag gun confiscations and universal background checks.
- Senate version deletes lines which would preclude pedophilia from being a protected sexual orientation.
Tax Omnibus Bill
- Raises taxes by $2.2 billion, despite the $17.5 billion surplus, which they are failing to return to the people!
- Fails to repeal Social Security Tax, which was a bipartisan campaign promise.
- This DFL Budget will raise taxes by $10 billion to cover the cost of state government, which they are growing by 40% this session!
Independent School District 833 S C H O O L
M E E T I N G S
833 School Board Meetings
Workshop Meeting : May 4th @ 6:00
Business Meeting : May 18th @ 6:00
Community Meeting, preliminary 5-year facility plan : May 23rd @ 6:30 – 8 p.m East Ridge High School
School Board Members
- Melinda Dols
- Patricia Driscoll
- Louize Hinz
- Simi Patnaik
- Katie Schwartz
- Eric Tessmer
- Sharon VanLeer
7362 E Point Douglas Rd S, Cottage Grove, MN 55016
South Washington County C I T Y
M E E T I N G S
May Featured Activity :
Fill the BOOK SHELF
public – private – home – micro
Calling for books in ALL schools within the South Washington County area !
If there is one thing that makes the biggest impression on me when touring a school, it is always the books. You can tell by the media center. You can tell by the conversations. You can tell by the kids who walk through the halls with an armful of books … or an armful of nothing.
Please provide SCHOOL – GRADE – ASSIGNED BOOKS
I read every book I can get my hands on! Please help me FILL THE SHELF here on JAiME for SCHOOLS with books representative of ALL schools and models. This will help so much! I am in communication with districts around the state of Minnesota, and we are many hands working together with a hope and vision to what Minnesota Education COULD be. If we can FILL THE SHELF figuratively in order to recognize a trend, then we are one step closer to FILLING THE SHELF literally.
Thank you for your help.
The 2023 calendar can be accessed anytime through the Main MENU drop down.
Some will finish up their school year this month, including New Life Academy (May 23rd), Concordia Academy (May 26th), and some Home Schools. The last day of school for SoWashCo Schools will be June 2nd (K-5, 12th) and June 6th (6-11th). Also done in June will be Saint Ambrose, Math and Science Academy, St. Croix Prep, Hill-Murray, Woodbury Leadership Academy, and Pine Harbor Christian Academy are also done in June.
Happy Spring!