In the September 16, 2019, issue of the Fillmore County Journal, I wrote a commentary titled “One Moment, Please… A population crisis.”
In that commentary, I said, “We need to work more diligently to sell our communities as the best place to live and raise a family.”
I talked about how we need to promote what we have to offer in order to grow our population. We have incredibly affordable housing, but a lack of inventory.
At that time, the City of Preston EDA and Preston Area Chamber of Commerce were hosting a housing summit. The goal of this event was to discuss how the community of Preston, Minn., could increase housing availability by 160 new homes and apartments by 2030.
I left one item in my September commentary for future reference. Our small town education systems in Fillmore County compared to the big city.
Today’s front page article provides an important point of reference.
Teaching at Apache Mall…
This past May of 2019, I was asked to speak to a classroom of students at a high school in Rochester, Minn.
The curriculum of this class was focused on life planning and career development.
I showed up at the high school early, because I didn’t want to be late for my presentation. I was approximately 30 minutes early, so I had time to sit in the lobby area of the school.
It was around 8:30 a.m., so classes had started at least 30 minutes prior to my arrival. While sitting in the lobby area, I noticed at least 40 students lounging at high top tables and on couches. They were eyeballing their phones and chatting with friends, intermittently.
As I was waiting for time to pass, I observed roughly 12 different school faculty walk down the hallway and stop by various groups of students hanging out in the lobby. Each time, they would stop by and say, “Are you going to class today?”
With a shrug and a smile from the students, the faculty member would move along to continue their work for the day. The tone of these conversations seemed casually commonplace.
It was my time to speak in the classroom, so I gave my presentation. After that, I pretty much forgot about what I had observed prior to the presentation.
Fast-forward a couple months, I was attending a gathering in Rochester. While at the gathering, I spoke with a man who teaches at one of the middle schools in Rochester. I recalled what I had observed at the high school I had visited for a presentation, so I told him about that experience.
He said, “Oh yeah, that’s what it’s like at the middle schools, too. I feel like I teach at Apache Mall. If the kids don’t want to go to class, they don’t have to. And, if you address anything with these kids, the parents side with their kids. The kids just hang out at the school like it’s a mall.”
On the way home with my family, I asked our kids if students hang out in the hallways or lobby area of their school. I was starting to think this must be a new thing. They said no. Nobody hangs out in the hallways or lobby, because everyone is in class.
This was eye-opening for me, to say the least.
Why compare?
After observing and hearing about how Rochester Public Schools have issues with students not attending class, I wanted to see the numbers provided by the Minnesota Department of Education. Was there any data to back up this observation? How did our small town schools stack up? After all, numbers tell a story.
And, much to my surprise, these observations were actual and factual. RPS was performing below the Minnesota statewide average of 85.4%, with only 82.4% of their students attending class more than 90% of the time during the 2018-2019 school year. All of the small schools in Fillmore County were well above the Minnesota statewide average. RPS also had the lowest MCA scores for reading and science compared to small school peers. And, their 2018 gradation rate was only 87%. All schools in Fillmore County produced a graduation rate of between 93% and 100%, far above the Minnesota statewide average of 83.2%.
My ancedotal biased observation of this information leads me to believe that bigger isn’t usually better. Bigger schools may have tremendously more resources than our smaller schools, but I’m not sure they can give the time and attention on a per student basis — which is apparent by the numbers provided in the Minnesota Report Card.
Our smaller schools offer an opportunity for students to become more involved in sports, arts, theatre, 4-H, FFA, and other activities. Bigger school systems like RPS are dealing with such a high volume of students, that students don’t have as much of an opportunity to stand out among their peers.
Case in point. The 2018 RPS graduating class was 1,145, while Mabel-Canton handed out 22 high school graduation diplomas that same year. With 1,145 graduates from three different high schools, that’s like an assembly line of diplomas. With 22 graduates from Mabel-Canton, that’s like a family. The same could be said for any of our small town schools with graduating classes ranging from 22 to 65 students.
Along with affordable housing, and a low crime rate, our small towns can boast about our great schools. And, we need to toot our own horn if we want to grow our communities, our demand for housing, our tax base, and our schools. Nobody else is going to toot our horn for us.
Like it or not, we are competing with everything Rochester has to offer to attract newcomers to our area. We need to increase our population, and specifically young families, in order to plot a course for sustainable school systems and communities in the long-term.
We have so much going for our area, and we need to keep telling this story.
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