Opportunities for Houston Schools

Amy Guenther, a 20-year educator working with Access Point, attended the Houston School Board meeting October 6 to present a student opportunity. Access Point helps connect high school students beginning their senior year with jobs that will begin at $50,000 to $60,000 a year. Working with community colleges, Access Point trains students for jobs that have already been set aside for them.

Currently, they are working only with Minneapolis Community College. According to Guenther, there are more jobs available than applicants at this time. Guenther opined that MNVA students are uniquely ready for this since they already are used to the necessary time management piece.

An abbreviated cycle will be starting for seniors soon; juniors will partake in a more lengthy cycle. Once students are in the program, representatives of companies come in and talk to the students so they can choose their top three companies. At this time, there are no plans to extend the program to the Winona area.

Guenther mentioned several large companies such as Best Buy and Cox Communications as potential  employers, noting that many companies were looking specifically for remote workers. All graduates go into their new jobs as entry level JAVA programmers.

Students are required to take a 3-credit programming logic design class and a 6-credit JAVA class. In order for funding to come through PSEO, the school needs to include it in the transcripts; the school would pay the college directly. Students would receive credits from both the high school and college. Minneapolis Community College offers the classes virtually. So far four MNVA students have applied.

Local opportunities

Principal Michael Mangan shared many opportunities students have right at Houston High. Houston has combined with Caledonia to offer a CTE (Career and Technical) program; Houston now has a FACS room.The CTE offers dual enrollment, meaning students get high school and college credit for the courses.

Houston pairs with La Crescent to offer Work Based Learning. Offered to 11th and 12th graders, the course excuses students from school to work at a local business. Students receive high school credit for this.

Houston High is working with MNVA to offer a dual enrollment for algebra II. Students would be able to take the class at the Houston building.

Taking advantage of a recent grant, Houston was able to hire an additional counselor. The counselors can now connect with students at a different level; their goal is to give students a vision and focus on what students want their school to be like.

The school board wants to educate parents and promote all the possibilities at Houston. Suggestions were to give more detailed information in class descriptions. At the second parent-teacher conference, staff will again provide more information. Having a second counselor will help students learn more about the offerings.

Field trips

This fall a planned trip to Washington, D.C. is scheduled. Mr. Mangan proposed a trip to NYC and Broadway tentatively set for July 11–15, 2024. The NYC trip is projected to cost $2,489 for students and $2,869 for adults.

While the board is enthused to offer such trips, several expressed concern for families’ finances. They are hoping to spread out the trips and plan ahead so families can make decisions on which trips their students will be able to go on.

Other business

In other business the board:

Recognized Erin Frauenkron for all her extra hours in getting the school year rolling;

Heard from MNVA principal Angela Specketer that the graduation rate at MNVA has gone up from 17% when she became principal to 55% now; she hopes to get this number even higher by identifying students who need help sooner;

Learned from Mangan that hiring additional math support at the high school has been paying off with an improvement in FastBridge scores;

Heard from assistant principal Angela McQuinn that parents overall liked the new assessment days beginning the elementary school year; they liked to have a conversation with the teacher and talk about specific strategies to use with their children;

Agreed with Supt. Morem to add two student members to the school board — these students will serve as connection points for students and the school board and would qualify for possible scholarships from MSBA;

Approved a motion with little discussion to dissolve Houston’s HVED membership fully as of June 2024; they plan to hire their own SPED director and staff and contract with SMEC for additional services as needed.