In the News

Mandate requires district collaboration

By Edie Grossfield

January 7, 2006

Learning about other races and cultures comes with its costs, including a plan that brings six regional school districts to Rochester.

Rochester will incur no extra costs by collaborating with the other districts because it's the one providing the diversity.

However, it will cost Chatfield, Dover-Eyota, Elgin-Millville, Pine Island and Stewartville an average of about $1,500 annually, said Carol Carryer, an educational consultant who facilitated the plan's development. The state pays 70 percent of the integration plan's costs for the six smaller districts, and they must raise the other 30 percent through local levies.

The amount is relatively small compared to the districts' overall budgets, but some people found reason to complain anyway, Carryer said.

"Frankly, it was a hard sell for some of the districts to do anything," she said. "It's really one of those things that you know is really good to do, but it comes at a time when districts are having to do more with less money. And, you need the people (and time) to do it."

The Rochester School Board on Tuesday approved the state-mandated Area Collaborative Integration Plan outlining strategies for interaction between the homogeneous student bodies in Chatfield, Dover-Eyota, Elgin-Millville, Pine Island and Stewartville with the more diverse student population in Rochester.

Sensitivity concerns

Another concern raised during the development of the Area Collaborative Integration Plan was that there might be a lack of sensitivity regarding minority students involved in the activities, Carryer said.

"It was really an important discussion, and brought up by some of the Rochester teachers of color, that this does not become a 'dog and pony show.' That we're not parading these students from different countries and cultures on a stage. It has to be a genuine, natural kind of association," Carryer said.

The Diversity Council in Rochester will help the districts with some of the activities, including staff development, prejudice-reduction workshops and pen-pal relationships between students, said the council's executive director, Kay Hocker.

Hocker, who attended the multidistrict meetings, said she thinks the integration plan is a good idea.

"Any time students are provided with an educationally justifiable way to interact, that's a good thing. Now, whether or not I can say there will be a specific outcome, that's pretty hard to say," Hocker said.

New perspectives

Dover-Eyota Superintendent Bruce Klaehn, who served on the integration plan committee, said he looks forward to the student activities, which likely will begin next school year.

"I think there can be some real value in us being able to have some experiences with students of different color and cultures. We tend, for no particular reason, to be pretty one-dimensional in terms of our student body, which might actually be a disadvantage once they go out into a much bigger world," Klaehn said.

One of the activities planned would bring students from different districts together to study for college assessment tests, like the PSAT, SAT and ACT.

"It would help kids, especially kids in the majority, to understand that kids in the minority also have a desire to go to college," said Zelda Collins-Moore, Rochester Public Schools' minority program coordinator and a member of the multidistrict committee.

Collins-Moore also said the districts plan to set up pen-pal relationships between students inside and outside of Rochester using e-mail. Some of these correspondents will be students in Rochester's Newcomer centers for immigrants. Then, at the end of a semester or year, the students would have the chance to meet each other in person.

This school year, some surrounding districts will start out with diversity training for their teachers. For example, Dover-Eyota has invited the Diversity Council in Rochester to conduct workshops with its staff in March, Klaehn said.

The frequency and scope of the activities, including which grade levels will participate, varies with each district. The plan is mandatory, but how it is implemented leaves a lot of flexibility.

"It just depends on the school and what the need is, and what their timeline is," Collins-Moore said.

© 2006 Post Bulletin. Used by permission.

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