 
April 22, 2008
State Knowledge Bowl News Release
State Knowledge Bowl Champions
The top forty-eight teams, out of nearly 800 across the state, competed at the Minnesota Service Cooperatives’ State Knowledge Bowl Meet held at Cragun’s near Brainerd on April 17-18, 2008.
The State Champions are:
A
2nd Place Lac qui Parle Valley
3rd Place Sebeka
4th Place Houston
5th Place Redwood Area
6th Place Dover-Eyota
AA
2nd Place Prior Lake - Savage
3rd Place Simley
4th Place St. Anthony Village
5th Place Minnesota Valley Lutheran
6th Place Chaska
Winners of the Heritage Spirit Awards for qualities and conduct become to a champion competitor are Roseau High School and Duluth East High School.
At the state meet, four person teams compete against one another in one written and five oral rounds of interdisciplinary questions, for a total of 285 questions. Success at the competition requires the ability to work as a team, as well as knowledge of a variety of areas of study and the ability to recall the information quickly. Knowledge Bowl is sponsored by eleven Service Cooperatives around the state.
April 22, 2008
Districts Turn to Early Intervention
TIGARD, Ore. - When her son Dylan was just 6 years old, Kristen Wahlmeier noticed that he had to be bribed to read: A surfing trip here or a pair of new shoes there before he'd pick up a book.
Worried as she watched him struggle, a gnawing fear crept into her stomach: Her only son, with big blue eyes and the jones for Star Wars, might be headed for a special education classroom.
Instead, teachers at his suburban Portland school intervened immediately, putting him into extra reading and vocabulary tutoring every day before school. It paid off.
Now, officials in districts across the country are rapidly adopting similar early intervention programs, hoping that steering a child away from expensive special education classes later will pay off for them, too, in cost savings.
"It's a chance to catch up, if you can have this instruction. We are identifying kids earlier and better than we used to" said Karen Twain, principal at Dylan's school, Metzger Elementary.
The adoption of these programs comes at a time when districts have been trying to also cut down "overidentification" — too many poor and minority kids being shunted off to special education who don't need to be there.
Not everyone is so pleased about the early help, known as "response to intervention" or RTI.
Some parents worry that children with learning disabilities will have to wait too long to get the intensive help they need. Academics and administrators fear the trend is taking off too quickly, without enough research to back up its surge.
"RTI is a runaway train — it's an explosion right now in the entire field of education," said Wayne Sailor, a professor of special education at the University of Kansas.
Traditionally, children haven't been identified for special education until third or fourth grade. They end up costing roughly twice as much, or about $12,000 a year, to educate an average student, including about $11 billion in federal dollars every year.
But researchers, including some influential with federal education officials, have long argued that students were getting stuck in special education not because of biological disabilities, but because of environmental factors.
They say their parents may have not read to them enough or allowed the children to stay home from school too often.
RTI was launched as a response, finding a foothold nearly a decade ago in school districts in Oregon and Iowa.
The idea is to screen children as early as kindergarten for any sign that they are falling behind their peers in basic subjects, like reading and math. Teachers keep careful records, and children like Dylan get intensive extra instruction.
The tutoring intensifies if there's no improvement. If problems persist, they go into traditional special education.
In Virginia, special education numbers statewide dipped by about 4,000 students this year, which officials attribute at least partly to increasing use of early interventions.
And in Oklahoma, where 15 school districts are piloting the program, some schools reported a 50 percent decrease in the number of special education referrals between 2006 and 2007.
The Bush administration is backing RTI, allowing districts to spend up to 15 percent of the money they receive for special education on the program, and setting aside $14 million in federal dollars to help states implement it.
Believers swear by the method.
Brad McDuffee, principal of Highland Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, Calif., said that in the three years that RTI has been in place at his school, the special education population has been cut in half.
It's now just seven percent, about half of the roughly 13 percent national average, even though about 87 percent of his students come from poorer families.
Hawaii decided to begin using RTI after the only elementary school on the island of Lanai was routinely putting more than 20 percent of students into special education, said Debbie Farmer, who coordinates special education for the state.
"Identifying kids that need not be identified is the worst thing," Farmer said.
She said she's encountered some resistance as Hawaii phases in the new program, from teachers who are suspicious that the program is just another education fad and from parents who worry that their children won't get the help they need.
Pat Lillie, a North Carolina mother whose sons were both in special education programs, said parents are worried about all the questions they say have gone unanswered, as school districts have rushed to adopt RTI.
"There really are no guidelines for how long a child can remain in RTI before they are moved into evaluation, but we hear from some parents that it can take a long, long time," said Lillie, who sits on the board of the Learning Disabilities Association of America.
It will take the average school about three years to get the early intervention system in place, Sailor said, including intensive training for classroom teachers who need to learn how to evaluate and identify students who need help.
And in the end, he said, it might not save schools much money, since they'll be spending more on early interventions, even if fewer children wind up in special education down the line.
For the Wahlmeiers, at least, the program worked.
"Before, he was definitely avoiding reading; he'd do anything to get out of it," Kristen Wahlmeier said. "Now, in the evenings, he'll just pick up a book."
March 27, 2008
Windom Area School Seeking a School Psychologist
Windom Area Schools has a 1.0 FTE School Psychologist position available for the 2008-09 school year. School Psychologist licensure required.
Interested applicants send letter of application, resume, completed application form (available on-line), letters of recommendation and copy of licensure to:
Superintendent of Schools, Windom Area School, PO Box C-177, Windom, MN 56101.
Application deadline: Until filled.
Website Address: www.windom.k12.mn.us
March 18, 2008
Govt Give States Flexibility Assigning Penalties To Schools
WASHINGTON- The Bush administration is trying to address one of the most common complaints about the No Child Left Behind education law: It treats schools the same, regardless of whether they fail to meet annual benchmarks by a little or a lot.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plans to announce Tuesday that she wants states to submit proposals for assigning different consequences to schools based on the degree to which they miss annual progress goals.
Those goals are largely based on reading and math tests given in grades three through eight and once in high school. Schools are judged not just on average scores but according to how groups of students perform — such as those with disabilities, limited English skills or minorities.
Educators have complained that the consequences for failing to hit yearly progress goals are the same for schools in which one group of students misses the mark as it is for schools in which many groups or many grades fail to hit targets.
The law spells out specific steps schools have to take for failing to make "adequate yearly progress," a category about 30 percent of schools fall into. For example, the law says students in such schools — at certain points — must first be given the chance to transfer out and then must receive tutoring.
The new initiative will allow states to distinguish between "on-fire schools and those with a smolder," Spellings said in an interview Monday.
States will be able to tailor consequences toward specific problem areas. Spellings likened it to diagnosing an illness and then prescribing a cure. She also said it would lead to more efficient use of resources.
Spellings plans to outline the proposal during a visit to St. Paul, Minn. Only a limited number of states — 10 in all — will be able to participate at first.
Spellings said states must submit proposals by May and that only carefully thought-out plans would get a green light.
"Not every state will meet the core principles that are required," she said. "This is complicated stuff that requires sound data systems, good reporting systems."
The administration recently expanded to all states a similar pilot plan that gives states flexibility in tracking student progress over time.
No Child Left Behind calls for student progress to be measured with an eye toward getting all kids doing math and reading on grade level by 2014. Spellings said that goal remains unchanged, though many have called it unrealistic.
The six-year-old education law is up for renewal in Congress, but lawmakers trying to advance it haven't gained much traction. Without congressional action, the existing law remains in place.
Spellings said she didn't think her efforts to improve the law through administrative action would further stymie efforts on Capitol Hill.
"Plan A continues to be getting a good law done as soon as possible," she said.
March 3, 2008
Autism: Pudge Goes to School
At Rochester's Jefferson Elementary School last Tuesday morning, first-graders loitered at their lockers, greeting friends and slipping off parkas and boots. Reece Trahan tiptoed along the second-floor hallway, keeping a loose grasp on the harness of the big black dog who loped at his left side. Reece's fingers played on the harness as they walked, gripping, releasing, gripping, releasing, a quiet gesture in the din of the day's start.
Reece has severe autism. Pudge is a specially trained service dog who came from a school near Toronto last March to be Reece's guide and protector. In the year since, the nearly 3-year-old Labrador has become Reece's first friend, an obvious source of comfort and the first chink in the wall that autism has created between Reece and the people who love him.
It was a year of firsts: sleeping through the night, more relaxed family outings and evenings at home, a vacation for Reece's parents, Brad and Joanie.
But this day had been set aside for a first they'd anticipated since before the dog's arrival: Pudge was going to school.
In the preceding months, the school had prepared, with meetings and memos, a letter home to parents, a school assembly. Brad Trahan and Pudge's trainer, Chris Fowler, program director of National Service Dogs in Kitchener, Ontario, tried to soothe parental concerns about allergies (kids aren't allowed too near to Pudge; there have been no problems in 13 years of placing dogs) and biting (if Pudge were a biter, he'd have flunked out of training school). Signs were posted at the school's front door, and at the doors of all the rooms Reece uses: the gym, the library, his homeroom and the room for students with autism spectrum disorders.
Fowler came down for the special occasion, and to check on Reece and Pudge's progress. As a special treat, he also brought a friend: Brodie Morin, 16, of Cambridge, Ontario, who 13 years ago received the first dog Fowler had trained to help kids with autism.
Pudge is the only NSD dog in the United States. One other American family is on the NSD 2 1/2-year waiting list. A Poughkeepsie, N.Y., training school, Guiding Eyes, has begun placing dogs trained using Fowler's method.
Just before the bus came, Brad looped a purple belt and tether around Reece's waist. It would make a real connection between the boy and the dog's purple work vest. Brad, Reece, Pudge, Fowler, Brodie and his dog Shadow crossed the driveway. At its end, Reece kept walking, but was cut short by his tether to Pudge.
With help from bus driver Roger Gunderson, Reece settled in the back seat, with Pudge laid out in the aisle beside him.
Brodie settled in nearby; Shadow reclined in a seat across the aisle. This self-possessed and articulate teenager was once as nonverbal and distant as Reece is. He got his first dog, Shady, at 3; he didn't speak until he was 9. The dog gives him confidence, he says, reduces his anxiety and allows him to break through what he calls the "wall of autism."
"Before I had Shady, I can only recall a few things," he said. "People ask me what it's like to have a service dog; it's like asking someone what it's like to breathe."
Pudge turned a few heads as he walked through the hallway to Reece's mainstream first-grade class and settled in on the mat Brad had brought for him. Teacher Kate Holcomb was able to calm the hubbub created by the novelty of seeing a dog at school, but more eyes were on Pudge that morning than on the spelling words, "bigger, biggest, faster, fastest."
Reece didn't seem to see the eyes on him as he scribbled in a workbook with a rainbow pencil. Nor did his accompanying special-ed teacher, Kori Ring.
Very soon it was off to yet another assembly, this one for the morning kindergartners in Dee Tiedeman's classroom, where Reece spent last year, without Pudge.
Brad talked about autism, and some of the ways Pudge has made their lives easier.
"Reece hears and understands," he told the children. "When you say hi to him, he may not say hi back, because he can't. But he hears you, and it makes him feel really good."
Fowler went over the rules: Please don't yell at Pudge, pet him or distract him, because he's working hard to help Reece.
Tiedeman asked the children whether they would just go up to someone in the hall and hug them.
"No," they chimed.
"You need to respect the space of the dog just like you would another student," she said.
As the morning progressed, Reece and Pudge moved along to adaptive P.E., art and back to the workroom. Pudge snoozed on his mat while Reece played letter- and color-matching games with Ring. At intervals, Fowler took Ring and paraprofessional Stephani Parlin out for a stroll in the hallway with Pudge, so each could practice holding his leash and using the commands the dog knows best.
Brodie and Shadow ambled along, too.
Brad watched the teenager and his dog.
"I think about Brodie a lot," he said. "I've talked with Brodie's mother, and there are a lot of similarities between Brodie and Reece. We're realistic about our situation, but kids like Brodie could give a lot of families hope."
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