Teachers planning innovative teaching methods next year

TOWER- The teaching staff at Tower-Soudan Elementary has more years of experience than they really like to talk about. Yet for this group of energetic and talented instructors, experience doesn’t mean they’re set in their teaching ways.

“We all work so well together,” said first-grade teacher Jo Holen. “We are open to ideas and trying new things, and we all are willing to re-evaluate if something new we’ve tried isn’t working.”

The staff effectively manages the day-to-day operations at the school on their own. The school shares Principal Kelly Engman with Northeast Range, but she is usually only in Tower one day a week.

That means that when school district administrators recently moved to cut a half-time equivalent position at the school, the teachers here were actively involved in trying to accommodate the reduction without affecting educational quality.

The move to cut staff at the building is the result of analysis that shows the student-teacher ratio at Tower-Soudan is significantly lower than in other elementary schools in the district. District numbers show the school’s teacher-student ratio is 1:11, compared to 1:14.6 at Northeast Range and 1:17.2 at North Woods.

The elementary school is the smallest in ISD 2142, and routinely boasts the highest test scores in the district, and teachers here are intent on maintaining an educational standard they’ve become known for in recent years. Third-grade teacher Jacqueline Horvat said the staff is now meeting to discuss creative and innovative ways to adjust the staffing with the least impact to students.

The half-time reduction in staffing planned for next year will mean that the current Kindergarten teacher Wendy Jordan, who has the least seniority of all the TS teachers, would only be teaching Kindergarteners in the mornings. Jordan was the building’s special education teacher before bumping into the Kindergarten spot this year.

“Nothing has been decided yet,” said Horvat, who said the staff will have a few more meetings on their own, and then meet with administrators before finalizing plans. Final scheduling plans will depend on the size of the incoming Kindergarten class, which might end up being a larger-than-average group.

Among the changes made in the past year has been a shift to greater use of multi-age groupings. The school started working with multi-grade groupings in the upper elementary several years ago when class sizes in fifth- and sixth-grade dipped. Other multi-grade groupings were put in place to cover times that fourth-grade teacher Michelle Anderson is teaching music, and fifth/sixth-grade teacher Scott Chiabotti is teaching physical education. This flexible staffing allows the small school to offer these “specials” on a regular basis.

The multi-grade times are also popular with the students. They enjoy being with friends in grades other than their own, said Horvat, and moving to different rooms also makes the day go faster.

And the small class sizes, even when two grades are together, make individualizing lessons for students at different levels possible.

“We can pull the higher kids up, and those who may be a bit behind up at the same time,” said Horvat. “It’s very manageable.”

Wednesday, which is early release day, will feature an all-new look next year, with a focus on hands-on learning. Each teacher will have a learning station set up in their classroom, and students will rotate from room to room. Horvat said this will give teachers the opportunity to focus on areas they are passionate about. Second-grade teacher Charissa Dahl, for example, is looking forward to the opportunity of designing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) centered learning, and Chiabotti is designing games and exercises that promote the type of whole-body coordination that is essential for successful learning, along with advancing overall fitness. Other Wednesday learning opportunities will include language arts, and additional music and art instruction.

The teachers said that once next year’s schedule is set, a meeting with parents will be held, to answer any questions from current and future families.

The teachers look forward to next year as a positive challenge. Holen said while it is always more work to create a new curriculum, it’s also something new and different for the teachers. She noted that teaching the same curriculum year after year can be boring, so she is usually creating new lessons anyway.

“I’m glad we have the time to figure it all out,” she said.

District committed to maintaining TS School

ISD 2142 Superintendent Reggie Engebritson recently confirmed the school district’s commitment to the Tower-Soudan Elementary after some school board members appeared to question its viability. But Engebritson indicated that the district should be able to continue to operate the school unless enrollment were to dip below 30 students. Projected enrollment for next year is 77 and enrollment figures have been relatively stable in that range for several years.

The school district does get special state aid, payment-in-lieu of taxes, specifically targeted to the Tower school due to the presence of the expanded Lake Vermilion State Park. It also receives lease payments from Scenic Rivers Health Services, which operates a medical and dental clinic in part of the building.

Research shows multi-grade groupings may benefit students

The multi-grade groupings in Tower, along with the small class sizes, mean that the teachers here have gotten to know all the students, and vice-versa. Holen said she feels that is one of the reasons the school has very few discipline problems.

Multi-grade groupings used to be a normal part of rural education— think of the classic one-room schoolhouse. Research over the years has shown little difference in academic achievement between multi-grade and single-grade classrooms, with a slight edge in many studies going to students in multi-grade settings. In researching student attitudes towards school and learning, results actually favor multi-grade classrooms, and the same is true when studying students’ social relationships. (See: A Review of the Quantitative Research on Multi-grade Instruction, by Bruce A. Miller, Northwest Regional Education Laboratory.)

Newer studies have focused on the impacts of grade-level testing and assessments of students in multi-grade classrooms, and while research is still underway, the results so far at T-S Elementary have shown that with small class sizes, it is possible for teachers to make sure students are receiving a quality education, and meeting state benchmarks in a multi-age setting.