District Asks: What Do You Want To Improve At The High School?

Last week, launched the first part of what could be a history-making experiment with two community listening sessions, designed to gather feedback from residents on what they like and don’t like about the current high school.  

And as the high school gathers this input, it will be collaborating with other schools from across the country as part of a federal initiative.

St. Louis Park High School is on a team with the high-poverty Helmet High School in Los Angeles, and Madison Area Memorial High School and Bucksport High School in rural Maine. This team — along with 30 others across the nation — received a $5 million development grant from the federal Department of Education as part of its Investing in Innovation, or I3, initiative.  The grants are intended to develop new educational ideas, and explore how they might be implemented in many different types of schools.  

St. Louis Park High School will be sharing its “Building Assets — Reducing Risks” and ninth grade transition programs with the California and Maine schools, and exploring how to replicate the success the high school has seen, principal Rob Metz said.  Metz added that St. Louis Park High School will also be using its $1.6 million share of the grant to expand these programs and redesign the high school.

“I see this as seed money,” Metz said on Thursday night.  “We’re already a very good high school, but can we use this money to innovate into something better?  And if you can, can it be copied by other schools?”

During the meeting, parents were asked to brainstorm ideas for improvement in eight areas, including technology, scheduling, and college and career readiness. Metz said teams of teachers will blend these ideas with their own research into best practices in each area to create a whole-school reform plan.

“I heard several parents in the 'College and Career Readiness' discussion say their students need extra training on what to do when they hit the wall in college,” said school board chairwoman Julie Sweitzer, who observed the proceedings.  “They wish we paid more attention to the personal aspect of college readiness.”

I3 Grant Director Angela Jerabek said the district would finish compiling the community input in two weeks, and encouraged those who could not make it to one of Thursday's forums to share their opinions in an online survey, set to close at the end of this coming Thursday.

“Community involvement in the high school is key,” said Troy Hildman, a parent of a high school student.  “I’m glad they’ve got a willingness to be proactive.”