The Crookston School Board met on Monday evening, but due to a lack of a quorum they couldn’t conduct the meeting. Only three of the six board members were able to make the meeting with Tim Dufault, Dave Davidson, and Mike Thies in attendance. Instead, the board heard about the featured program and received reports from the administration.
The featured program was about the Barr Grant, presented by Crookston High School Principal Matt Torgerson and Middle School Principal Cierra Hangsleben. The school district received a $240,000 grant to implement the Barr Program.
“The Barr grant is through the MDE (Minnesota Department of Education). They funded us through the next three years to build some systems alongside the Barr Center,” said Torgerson. “We will be receiving training and resources to help develop our systems. To put systems in place, to help support more students and identify some students that might have fallen through the cracks. It is a lot of training for our teachers, they are excited to take all that on and I really think it is going to do good for our school.”
The Barr Program is a Minnesota-based program that has been proven to create statistically significant impacts in 20 areas of academic performance and outcomes for students, teachers, and schools. It helps improve math scores, increase attendance, close the achievement gap, while decreasing behavior issues. Over 60 Minnesota School Districts currently use the Barr program.
“It talks about relationships, and we know working with kids it is beyond academics.” Said Hangleben. “Knowing that the foundation is made there by getting to know all kids at a higher level is important to us so that we don’t miss those students so the people, our kids, and our staff feel like they have a place, and they are seen, and heard, and feel welcomed and look forward to coming to school.”
With the program taking three years to fully implement, everyone will have to be patient to see the full impact. “We’re not going to see huge immediate successes, but it is the long game to really get the foundation restructured for Crookston Secondary,” said Torgerson. “I think in the next few years we will have a lot of great things happening on top of what is happening already.”
The Crookston Secondary staff are excited for the new program. “Staff are excited, and it is the kind of stuff they have been asking for with systems in place. We get to know them (systems) and practice them, they will stick,” said Hangsleben. “So having the three-year implementation, it is not just something we do, and it ends in a few months. It is long-term and staff are excited for it.”
The board meeting has been postponed to Monday, October 30 at 5:00 p.m. in the Crookston High School choir/orchestra room.
