November 1, 2023 | Stories from St. Louis Park Public Schools

The SLP Communicator, published monthly, centers the stories and voices of students, staff, and our community. District-level news and information will be shared in school newsletters.

A warm welcome from Interim Superintendent

Dr. Kate Maguire

I am honored and excited to join the St. Louis Park Public Schools team as the interim superintendent. As I enter the SLP community, I bring with me a deep commitment to education and belief in the power of a shared vision. I am drawn in by the mission which is not only to educate but to inspire each of our learners to live out their brilliance, ultimately enhancing the spirit of our community. I look forward to advancing the identified strategic priorities, supporting daily operations, being in service to students and staff and, at the end of the school year, ensuring a smooth superintendent leadership transition.

The role of our schools in ‘enhancing the spirit of our community’ is top of mind for me at this time. One thing is already very clear. St. Louis Park Public Schools prides itself on being an inclusive community of diverse learners, holding high expectations for both behavior and academics - essential characteristics of effective schools. Students are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that allows each individual to show up as their authentic selves which creates a culture and climate of safety and care.

It is also very clear to me that the war between Israel and Hamas is not only felt globally but is activating strong emotions for some students in our learning community, particularly at the high school level where, as you might expect, students are developmentally navigating their voice on local, national and international issues. Students are trying to make sense of the chaos and need caregivers to support them to process their feelings. Many of our Jewish community members are deeply connected to Israel, and similarly, many of our Arab and Muslim community members are deeply connected to the region. 

Families can help us maintain the safe and inclusive culture we have nurtured in our schools by talking with children about how they show up and share their voice in school in a respectful and supportive manner. It is important to name anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate and/or bias which often manifest during times of war, violence, and terrorism. Actions that dehumanize the identity of our students are detrimental and will not be tolerated in our schools. 

Students needing support in processing global events have access to our student support team of school counselors, social workers, and administrators. We encourage families to review Talking to Children and Teens About the Israel-Gaza War, which provides a starting point for adults in our community to process these global events with students.

All performances will be held at the St. Louis Park Middle School Performing Arts Center. Performances are Nov. 10, 11, 17, and 18 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 12 and 19 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for students and senior citizens, and free with student ID for all SLPHS students.

I look forward to serving your students and families this school year.

Dr. Kate Maguire

Interim Superintendent

Hometown in the City: Virginia Mancini

Virginia Mancini, school board member and parent, shares what makes St. Louis Park Public Schools an amazing place for her family.

Redefining grading at SLP high school

Anya Panday is a junior at SLPHS and an intern with the communications department. As the Editor-in-Chief of the SLPHS student-run newspaper, Echo, she is committed to the representation of student voice within the district. As an intern for the communications department, she develops a story for each SLP Communicator to incorporate student voice into the district’s communications. This article is Anya's first article in the SLP Communicator.

The beginning of the school year typically brings about various changes: teachers, classes, friends, and more. Along with these changes, St. Louis Park High School (SLPHS) has rolled out new grading practices more consistent with the school’s core mission, Strategic Plan, and best practices. Most notably, the new practices include an optional 50% grading floor, an official 80/20 summative-formative split, and consistency in grading practices between teachers of the same department. The grading floor means that if a student misses an assignment, they will not receive anything lower than 50% in the grade book. The 80-20 split means that tests and projects are collectively worth 80% of a grade, while assignments, quizzes, and homework collectively make up the other 20% of a student's grade. 

The new grading practices are aiding SLPHS in furthering the district mission, specifically with SLPHS’ core values. SLPHS is committed to the brilliance of the school community and others, as well as high expectations for students. SLPHS is encouraging the demonstration of knowledge by placing more emphasis on final summatives, which in turn heightens the expectations for students regarding the way they show their knowledge in class, pushing students to achieve the full potential of their brilliance.

The grading practices at SLPHS are created using a collaborative process, a central part being the grading design team. English teacher Callie Hefstad, who collaborated with the design team, said she was invited to give the design team her background knowledge on grading policies to aid their development of new practices.

“(The new practices) stem from the grading design team,” Hefstad said. “They’ve been looking at research, what best practices for grading are, and what other schools around the region are doing. They pitched their idea to add-in (new grading practices), and they asked me to be a part of it because I’ve done different grading practices at other schools -- specifically standards-based grading.”

One primary concern of previous grading practices is the probability of a student failing a class. The odds of a student failing a class is 60%, or 6/10. Historically, it has been easier for a student to fail than for them to pass. If a student performs poorly on a test or misses assignments, the zeros in their grade book begin to pile up, and it’s hard to raise their grade because you have to make up 60% of your grade from 0% to have a chance of passing. Understanding the impact this has had on students and wanting to encourage students not to stop trying after failing a test or missing an assignment, SLPHS implemented a 50% grading floor. This promotes best practice grading because it doesn’t automatically give students an “easy A” or pass them. Still, it doesn’t punish them as severely for making a mistake or not understanding a topic. It’s much easier to make up 10% than 60%, which encourages learners to keep striving for improvements.

Hefstad said the grading design team was also concerned about the probability of a student failing. From the teacher's perspective, she said they wanted to offer more ways for a student to succeed rather than fail.

“I’ve also implemented the 50% grading floor since I’ve been here and been an outlier in that way,” Hefstad said. “I started to (work) with them, and we decided the 50% floor idea is what we want to move towards. When you look mathematically at our grading practices and (see) the fact that we have more ways for students to fail rather than succeed, it just doesn’t make sense. What the grading floor does is offer students more opportunity to succeed in many ways.”

While many are excited about the growth at SLPHS surrounding best practices for grading, there is a part of the new grading system that raises concerns among some students. The logic behind the 80/20 summative-formative split is to emphasize demonstrating knowledge. Not every student benefits from assignments in the same way because not every student learns the same way, thus, there is less emphasis on completing smaller assignments. If a student can understand a concept without the assignments, it makes sense not to have their grade rely on completing them.

On the other hand, not every student demonstrates their knowledge the same way. If the student isn’t a good test taker but did all the assignments that should prepare them for the test, their grade shouldn’t be tanked by the test. While the 50% grading floor mitigates some of this effect, some students were still concerned about the inclusivity of different learning styles when they first learned of the new practice. The 80/20 split doesn’t place more emphasis on testing performance; instead, it encourages teachers to branch out into promoting new learning styles through project and discussion-based summatives. With the newfound importance of summatives, teachers have realized students' grades cannot be 80% dependent on tests and have begun to include, rather than exclude, other kinds of learning styles to demonstrate knowledge. 

Overall, while the new grading practices at SLPHS may take a bit for students to adjust to, the practices are ultimately put in place to better the equity of the traditional grading systems within schools and to help students succeed within their learning styles. 

Reflecting our Students: SLPs New K-5 Literacy Curriculum

It’s no wonder that students and teachers alike are excited about the new culturally relevant K-5 literacy curriculum adopted this fall. It includes new, inclusive books, such as I like Myself, Our Subway Baby, and many more. 

Surveys from the language arts and literacy design team show that K-5 students hoped for more access to a wide variety of books that represented their diverse lived experiences, and teachers longed for more support, tools and training to adequately meet the needs of all learners. 

Last school year, 68 teachers and literacy specialists across elementary schools piloted three new literacy curriculum. After a several year process to research best practices, gather student and staff feedback, study surrounding school districts, and as noted above, pilot several curriculum, the design team recommended the adoption of a series of new curriculum beginning the 2023-24 school year.

The new K-5 curriculum is a comprehensive, research-based reading instruction that systemically develops foundational skills and comprehension. It involves whole-class, student centered writing instruction that teaches process, conventions and genres. The high-quality fiction and nonfiction reading selections provide equitable representation, and there are opportunities for integrated social skills development for the classroom community. 

As part of the curriculum review process, teachers assessed the curriculum and found that it is academically rigorous and addresses the multiple learning needs of a classroom; helps build cultural competence and empower students in their identities; is critically conscious and offers opportunities for inquiry and learning about, as well as questioning, the world around them; and offers opportunities for students to learn about and see people who are different from them. It includes the five essentials of teaching reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, helps build the knowledge and skill of the teacher, builds upon and aligns to learning from previous units and years, and is aligned to the standards.

This curriculum is in alignment with the values that we hold in St. Louis Park Public Schools around inclusive beliefs and identities. For example, some of the curricular materials, such as books, reflect storylines of LGBTQ+ students and families, as well as racially, culturally and linguistically diverse people. We believe it is important for students to see themselves and their families represented in our literacy materials. 

As part of St. Louis Park Public Schools’ approach to literacy, elementary students receive 90 minutes a day of dedicated reading time and engage in written exercises. Students also receive gifted and talented programming four days a week through STEAM (Science, Technology, Education and Human Development, the Arts, and Math) programming. Prior to the enrichment programming changes, only a small portion of students received only 40 minutes of gifted programming per week. Enrichment teachers and literacy specialists provide support, guidance, and coaching to teachers to ensure every student accelerates, no matter where they are at. 

November Dates

6300 Walker St. | St. Louis Park, MN 55416

Phone: 952-928-6000 | Fax: 952-928-6020