Improvement grant string concerns

Cass Lake-Bena Superintendent Carl Remmers doesn’t dispute that his district could be among the state’s “persistently lowest-achieving schools,” as the Education Department told him in January. The department has designated 34 schools in that category, each of which could receive about $1 million through the federal School Improvement Grant program, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The SIG program targets the lowest 5 percent of Title I-eligible schools based on certain reading and math test scores and high school graduation rates.

Remmers and officials from other schools on the list told the House K-12 Education Policy and Oversight Committee May 5 the problem is the strings that come with the grant. One of them is that he’d have to fire Principal Pernell Knutson, who he calls “the best secondary principal I’ve had.” He said she’s made a big difference in her four years at the high school, which serves the Leech Lake Reservation area. Under her management, attendance rates have increased to about 90 percent, discipline referrals decreased by 52 percent and math achievement has improved, although it’s still below average.

Two weeks before he was notified the high school was on the SIG list, Remmers said U.S News & World Report named it among the top 100 in the country for working with low-performing students.

To receive the money, schools must agree to one of four change models: “turnaround intervention,” requiring the principal and at least 50 percent of staff to be replaced; closing a school entirely; closing it to reopen as a charter school; or the “transformation” model, which would replace the principal but not staff.

Remmers has even talked with U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) in hopes of meeting with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to request an exception to the consequences for his school.

The federal government allows exceptions to these remedies, but Education Commissioner Alice Seagren said making exceptions would delay funding for all 34 Minnesota schools because the timeline is so tight. No school is required to accept the funds if it on the list.

The committee did not hear a bill on the issue, but Rep. Alice Hausman (DFL-St. Paul) successfully offered an amendment to HF2431 during a House Finance Committee meeting May 4 that would allow a consequences exception for one charter school serving highly at-risk students in St. Paul.