The answer is clear:  Students who participate in such hands-on, active learning generally will be more “engaged” in their learning. A 2012 Gallup poll of almost 500,000 American students, grades 5-12, helps explain why student engagement is so important. The poll also shows a dramatic decline in student engagement as students move thorough our public schools.

How do we “engage” students?

• Students at the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley have researched and help create exhibits for the Minnesota Zoo.

• Students in many communities, including Apple Valley, Eastview, Eagan, Lakeville, the Main Street School for Performing Arts in Hopkins, and Richfield have produced musicals that won awards from the Hennepin Theatre Trust.

• In Little Falls, students in a combined biology/English/social studies class read and wrote about the history of the Mississippi. They also did water quality testing on the river discovering at one point that there was an unacceptably high level of bacteria in the water.

• In Houston, students interviewed local residents for an area history. They discovered one elderly woman who had been a member of the French Resistance during World War II, causing them to do a lot of reflection about her high school years.

• In St. Paul, students researched, planned and then built a playground with a zero budget.  It was a very big day in the life of the seven-year old co-chairs of the “sand committee” when six truck loads of sand, that they had arranged for, arrived.

Let’s be clear. This is not an attack on teachers. That’s because teachers are being pushed hard to focus on standardized, multiple-choice tests.

But as the national Gallup organization points out, we should care about this because “hope, engagement and well being of students accounts for one-third of the variance of student success. Yet schools don’t measure these things. Hope, for example, is a better predictor of student success than SAT scores, ACT scores, or grade point average.”

Gallup found that from elementary to secondary school, student engagement drops from 76 to 44 percent.

Gallup concluded: “There are several things that might help to explain why this is happening – ranging from our overzealous focus on standardized testing and curricula to our lack of experiential and project-based learning pathways for students – not to mention the lack of pathways for students who will not and do not want to go on to college.”

We want students to read, write and do mathematics. We also want them to be active, constructive citizens. We need to measure whether they are developing hope and a sense that they can accomplish important things.

You can read the report at http://thegallupblog.gallup.com/2013/01/the-school-cliff-student-engagement.html.

There are great examples of these applied projects at www.whatkidscando.org.

Many families and employers want students who are active, positive, able to work with others … engaged. Not just people with academic skills. Academic skills are important, but not enough. Being “engaged” helps many students see the value of and develop those “3-R” skills, along with a belief that they can set goals and make a difference.

Joe Nathan, formerly a Minnesota public school teacher and administrator, directs the Center for School Change.  Reactions welcome, joe@centerforschoolchange.org. Columns reflect the opinion of the author.

The post Student ‘engagement’ declining dramatically – and what schools can do appeared first on SunThisweek.

Pastor John Braland of the Freshwater Community Church came up with the idea after realizing many couples want to get married but can’t afford the expense of the wedding.

So he, his staff and volunteers removed all the barriers by providing at no charge: the wedding license, the space, the photographer, the music, the printed program, the reception and even the wedding cake.

Over the “Wedding Weekend” of Feb. 8-10, Pastor Braland married a couple on Friday night and four brides and grooms on Saturday in separate ceremonies to the delight of many guests. The five were picked out of those who responded to an appeal on Facebook.

On Sunday of Valentine week, 14 couples renewed their wedding vows. The church supplied 19 sheet cakes for all the couples.

Braland explains the reasoning of offering free weddings. Marriage is the bedrock of society. Married couples build better families, and better families make better communities.

So you are wondering —  what’s the catch?

There is none. The couples do not have to be members of the church.  In fact, they don’t even have to be Christians.

They did have to attend premarital counseling as part of a “Happily Ever After Marriage” series, to make sure they were ready for marriage.

“We said if you say ‘I do,’ we say ‘We do,’ ” he said.

Pastor Braland figures that, including a reception, the church is saving each couple up to $2,000.

The 900 members of the church are paying the bills, because they believe this is one way to build better families and a better community.

Pastor Braland has been getting positive reaction to the free weddings since the story by Todd Moen broke in the Waconia Patriot newspaper.

The pastor probably would offer free weddings again on a smaller scale.

This is an idea other churches should try, Braland agreed.

What about those who make a living selling wedding services to married couples?

The pastor figures there are enough weddings to go around, saying these won’t make a dent in the wedding market.

Vanessa Martinson, the church office manager who coordinated the wedding weekend, said, “We want to be a church that gives something and reaches out and helps  the community.”

With all the sad news lately, she said, it’s nice to have a good-news story that helps people.

Come to think about it, that’s the real message of Valentine’s Day.

Don Heinzman, an ECM columnist and former editor of the Elk River Star News, can be reached at don.heinzman@ecm-inc.com or facebook.com/sunthisweek. Columns reflect the opinion of the author.

The post Church gives Valentine’s Day gifts that won’t be forgotten appeared first on SunThisweek.

Eddie Wallin and the three-wheel bike he received from an anonymous donor after his old one was stolen in 2008. File photo by Sun Thisweek.

I’m told the same thing happened at Babe’s sports bar in downtown Lakeville after Eddie’s funeral last month. Jeff Reisinger and his buddies exchanged Eddie stories over beer at Babe’s, laughing and recalling the times they shared with a guy you’d remember seeing if you spent any time in downtown Lakeville.

Reisinger’s sister found Eddie’s body when she checked on his apartment after he missed two straight bingo nights at the VFW.  Jeff asked his sister to check on Eddie because he hadn’t received a call from this gentle man we’d refer to these days as “developmentally disabled.” Reisinger, who runs a Lakeville lawn service, said he might have been more inclined than others to watch over Eddie because he had an older sister who was “mentally retarded” – the way we used to describe people with intellectual handicaps.

But while his family might have been sensitized to Eddie’s special needs by their own experience, Reisinger said he and others simply enjoyed banter with the big guy who rode through town on his three-wheel bike loaded up with cans he collected and sold for spending money.

“He called a lot of people in town,” Reisinger said. “Actually, if I was having a horrible day, I’d call him. But you couldn’t get him off the phone.”

At Babe’s, or the VFW, or at the ball fields in Lakeville, Eddie would spot one of the guys he knew since high school, and he’d shout out a nickname he had devised.

“He’d say, ‘Where’s Squirrel Brain?’” Reisinger said. “I was Oscar.”

Sure, the Lakeville gang would make some fun of Eddie, who was 54. But he gave as much guff as he got, and the locals would regularly pass the hat at Babe’s to collect funds they’d dole out to Eddie. They grew up with him and assumed responsibility for someone who was as much a part of downtown as the bars or the Ben Franklin or the park.

When I moved to Lakeville, I was corrected more than once when I referred to the city as a “suburb.” Technically, a city on the outskirts of a big city is a suburb. But some ‘burbs have elements others don’t. Among those elements are historic downtowns and, as someone said at our Easter dinner, history. Lakeville, which was founded as a village to serve the surrounding farms, has history in a way Apple Valley and Eagan, for example, don’t. And one of the people who will always be part of that history is Eddie Wallin.

After moving to Lakeville in 1999, I encountered Eddie many times while he was collecting his cans, chatting with customers at Moen’s Barber Shop, lining up for food at the Wednesday on Main events in the downtown park. My wife, Ann, had grown up on a farm near Lakeville, and her father, LeRoy Zweber, worked for many years as director of buildings and grounds for the schools. Ann said her father used to let Eddie help him when he worked on the school buildings. One day, LeRoy couldn’t find Eddie – until Eddie fell through the ceiling of a room where LeRoy was working.

Exploring the spaces above ceilings can be great fun.

Then there’s the story about the time Eddie’s car died on the way to a softball game in Mankato. The lesson to be drawn from that incident is if the engine starts when your buddies are towing you, don’t keep going.

Reisinger likes to tell about the time Rich Wensmann tossed a $10 bill on the floor at Babe’s to see if Eddie would pick it up. When he did, Rich said the money was his, Reisinger recalls. “I don’t see your name on it,” Eddie said, stuffing the bill into his pocket.

Oscar, Squirrel Brain and the others who grew up with Eddie made sure he had money, especially at holiday time. They dropped their cans off for him and passed the hat at Babe’s or the VFW. When Eddie’s three-wheeler was stolen in 2008, it was replaced by an anonymous donor after Lakeville police officers asked the media to write a story about the stolen bike.

As the father of a son with special needs, I salute those who understand, as Reisinger and many others in Lakeville did, that Eddie might have biked to a different drummer, but he did so with a smile on his face and a song in his heart.

One of the many messages left on the White Funeral Home online guest book was this one from Loren McCaghy of East Hampton, Conn.:

“Eddie will be forever inseparable from the memories of Lakeville for those who grew up there. Whether it was at the store, beach, pool or just around town, Eddie had a special way of making every day just a little bit brighter. Thanks, Eddie, for being Lakeville’s eternal sunshine.”

OK. I promise I’ll try to avoid calling Lakeville a suburb.

Larry Werner is editor and general manager of Sun Thisweek and the Dakota County Tribune. Columns reflect the opinion of the author.

The post You can judge a community’s heart by the way it treats our Eddies appeared first on SunThisweek.

A survey of area school superintendents revealed that all educational opportunities for each Minnesota student are not equal.

Joe Nathan, director of the Center for School Change at Macalester College and an education columnist for ECM Publishers, contacted superintendents to see what their priorities were for this legislative session.

While top school officials don’t hold out much hope for positive changes this session, they agree the school aid formula is broken.

The biggest complaint is that while the basic state aid per pupil is the same for each student, the formula and the state laws enable some districts to provide more aid per student. The range of revenue per student in Minnesota can be anywhere  from $7,000 to $11,000.

For example, those districts that can pass levy referendums where the tax base is substantial, have more money than districts like North Branch that cannot pass such a levy referendum.

So the formula for state aid allots North Branch students less money than students receive in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Superintendent Vern Koepp of Rush City says that: “The inequality of the current funding formula has created an educational system in which some schools struggle to provide basic educational opportunities for students while other schools provide extras.”

In the Lakeville Area School District iPad technology is being introduced and is being strongly considered in the Farmington School District. Many other students don’t have that opportunity.

As Nathan points out: “Nations around the world with the highest average achievement don’t make funding dependent on which community a youngster lives in.”

Another major problem for school districts is the Legislature held back over $2 billion in state aid, 40 percent, to be paid this year. This means many districts borrowed money and paid the interest costs in order to operate until the state pays them the held-up money.

Superintendent Bruce Novak of Cambridge-Isanti notes: “It is very difficult for school districts to operate on 60 percent of the revenues during the current fiscal year without borrowing money to meet the everyday operational expenses.”

The Legislature this year at least should fix the law so that charter schools have the same access to borrowing money for the holdback as the regular schools have. Lisa Hendricks, director of Partnership Academy in Richfield, said: “Our school will have to spend nearly $30,000 in fees to cover the holdback.” (Legislators provided $50 more per pupil to pay for the borrowing costs, but that’s not enough for some districts.)

Legislators at least should pay more for special education, because school districts are taking millions out of their general funds to subsidize the cost of this mandated education.

Legislators complain that not even they can understand the complex formula to aid students. They don’t have the will to tackle a formula that gives more money to districts losing students and poverty aid to urban schools.

Meanwhile, students in schools like North Branch attend school for four days each week and hope for better days. Their superintendent, Deb Henton, says the formula has created winners and losers in public education.

“As a state we need to make sure all students receive the same opportunity to grow and succeed,” she said.

Don Heinzman is chairman of the ECM Publishers Inc. Editorial Board. Thisweek Newspapers and the Dakota County Tribune are part of ECM. He is at don.heinzman@ecm-inc.com. Columns reflect the opinion of the author.

The post Find a way to fix broken school state aid formula appeared first on SunThisweek.

“You’re a visionary,” Nordquist said with his characteristic overstatement and enthusiasm. “You’ll love it here. There are 57 restaurants within a half mile of this building. I counted them.”

By the time the party began last Thursday, I was feeling more like a punching bag than a visionary. Over the last two months, we have merged Thisweek Newspapers with the Sun Current papers to create Sun Thisweek while moving our entire operation from our longtime home in Burnsville to the Central Village area of Apple Valley. At the same time, we’ve had to make some major changes in our distribution system and our technology to accommodate the acquisition of the Sun papers by ECM Publishers, our parent company.

But Nordquist’s comment about the choice of this Apple Valley location for our headquarters got me to thinking about an interview I did several years ago with Bruce’s boss, Mayor Mary Hamann-Roland. At the time, I was writing for the Star Tribune and doing a story about her plans for a new walkable downtown where people can work, live and play without having to get into their cars.

In her conference room, the mayor showed me a map with lines drawn where office buildings, restaurants, a park and multi-family housing would be built on what had been a pumpkin patch. Hamann-Roland was jumping on a trend known as “new urbanism” that was being embraced by other suburban communities, including Burnsville, where her friend, Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, had built her “new downtown,” known as Heart of the City.

For years, Apple Valley officials had referred to the commercial cluster adjacent to Cedar Avenue and County Road 42 as “downtown.” As anyone who  has driven through that intersection knows, there’s nothing “walkable” or “pedestrian-friendly” about that busy place. So Apple Valley officials had embarked on turning a pumpkin patch along Galaxie Avenue, a couple blocks south of 42, into a place that feels more like a downtown.

Readers of this newspaper might recall we’ve done several stories on the fact that the Central Village has been slow to develop. The building in which I am writing this column has seen several tenants fail after opening their businesses with great hope. And as I look out my office window, I can see empty plots of land where apartments and townhouses were to have been built by now. The Great Recession got in the way of the big plans  Hamann-Roland and Nordquist had for this place.

But now that the economy is improving, the prospects for Central Village are improving. Our building, which had dropped to about 40 percent occupancy, is more than 80 percent occupied. An apartment building planned to our west will connect by trail to the new Bus Rapid Transit line on Cedar. There’s talk of another development to our north that will wrap around the lovely Kelley Park where  concerts are held in a bandstand on summer Fridays.

And my staff enjoys walking along the sidewalks of Central Village to some of those restaurants or grabbing a bite at the Valley Diner, which, along with the Kami Japanese steak house, is in the Shops of Galaxie building.

Readers of this space know I’m a downtown guy. There’s something magical about the vitality of working in a place that offers the variety that downtowns do – retail, restaurants, workplaces and gathering spots such as Kelley Park. As our lease was headed for expiration in Burnsville, I began to look at space in downtowns, including Burnsville’s Heart of the City and downtown Lakeville, one of my favorite places to hang out. We got the best deal in Apple Valley, and we’re happy to be here.

Last Thursday, about 150 businesspeople enjoyed food from Kami and Valley Diner and music from a talented performer known as Rockin’ Woody. Many of the folks who came to our party said they had never been to the old pumpkin patch that is becoming a downtown.

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by. I can recommend the food at Kami, Valley Diner and a few of the other restaurants I’ve tried in our new neighborhood. It will take me a while to try all 57 of them.  It’s a difficult job, as they say, but someone has to do it.

Larry Werner is editor and general manager of Thisweek Newspapers and the Dakota County Tribune.

The post We’ve settled into our new home in downtown Apple Valley appeared first on SunThisweek.

Is there someone in your life who is always there when you need him or her?

It’s the person who listens to your concerns, offers good advice, and has the answers to tough questions.

I like to think of this newspaper as that mom, dad, sister, brother, friend or neighbor you can call on  for nearly any reason.

Today your sounding board, counseling office and information desk just got a whole lot better.

This first edition of Sun Thisweek has merged the resources, knowledge and talents of both ECM Publishers and Sun Media Group to roll out a new look, expanded coverage and a strong commitment to be there when you need us – in print or online.

Loyal readers view the best media as essential in their lives; something they can’t live without.

We listen to readers concerns through letters to the editor and online comments attached to our stories and on our Facebook page.

We offer advice – with attribution – from the experts in our communities.

We print lots of answers to questions, ranging from softball (even the sporting kind) to hardball. Whether the answers are the right ones depends on your perspective. And if you disagree with those answers, remember we are your proverbial soapbox, too.

If you haven’t ever considered how our newspaper and website can be essential, think of the information we disseminate about the things in your life – food, water, air, a place to live, a car to drive, clothes to wear, family, friends and community.

We write stories about healthy eating, water quality, pollution, new roads and  housing developments, in addition to carrying ads for restaurants, car dealers and places to shop.

While we carry plenty of information about those “essentials,” we specialize in the “people” part of that list.

It’s the part of our work that can best differentiate ourselves in a highly competitive media market and it’s the most satisfying for us and our readers.

For the past combined 198 years, Sun, Thisweek and our sister publication, the Dakota County Tribune, have told the stories of countless people that never would have been written had it not been for a curious reporter with the desire to write the story.

We’ve told you about paraplegic artists, cancer survivors, child prodigies, energetic 100-year-olds, life-saving rescue workers and volunteers who give selflessly of themselves for so many causes.

Today we are telling you about the challenges facing returning veterans as they seek employment in a very tight job market.

We know these are the stories that matter when ticket sales for local arts programs take off after those programs are featured in Thisweekend.

We know these stories matter when readers start a fund to pay for surgery for a man injured while breaking up a domestic dispute after we reported he would have been permanently disabled without medical treatment.

We know these stories matter when we get a call from someone at a suicide hotline who says a depressed teen just called them after reading their phone number in our story about the topic.

Unlike a famous New York Jets quarterback, I never make guarantees, but it is my sincere hope that the momentum we have summoned by creating this new newspaper will result in a greater capacity to tell more of these kinds of stories. In the coming weeks, we plan to take a look at the problem of and solutions to teen drug abuse, the high cost of youth sports participation, commuting gridlock and much more.

While you are enjoying the new look of Sun Thisweek newspaper, I hope you will notice the increased news, sports and arts coverage.

And as you are sitting at your computer, cruise on over to the new SunThisweek.com and check out the reorganized menu of choices. We hope you like our additions of Must-Read and featured stories and that you browse the site a bit using are new related-content widget.

Remember all of that content you are reading and viewing comes from an editorial staff with over 100 years of combined experience covering Dakota County.

We wouldn’t have been here this long and invested so much in merging Sun Thisweek if we didn’t think the people of Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Lakeville and Rosemount deserved to have their stories told.

We hope you feel the same way.

Tad Johnson is managing editor of Sun Thisweek and the Dakota County Tribune. He can be reached at tad.johnson@ecm-inc.com or facebook.com/sunthisweek.

The post You can’t live without Sun Thisweek appeared first on SunThisweek.

The March 23 print edition was the last issue of Thisweek.

Next Friday, March 30, you’ll be getting a paper called Sun Thisweek.

The change represents more than a new name for your weekly newspaper and its website  – which will be rechristened SunThisweek.com from ThisweekLive.com. The change is the newest chapter in the history of Dakota County’s second-oldest news organization, which was started in 1884 as the Dakota County Tribune. And it represents another example of the disruptive evolution going on in the business in which I’ve spent my career.

As we announced a few months back, ECM Publishers, the Coon Rapids company that owns Thisweek and the Tribune, acquired the Minnesota Sun Newspaper Group, which had been owned by a Dallas company called American Community Newspapers. A few weeks ago, we told you that we would be merging Thisweek and the two Sun Current papers that have been distributed to homes in Dakota County.

Next Friday, we will be delivering a Sun Thisweek that will be larger than either Thisweek or the Sun Current has been, with more news and more advertising than either paper offered before. That’s the future. What about the history of Thisweek and the Sun? In a sense, Thisweek owes its existence to the Sun, the former competitor that is now part of the ECM newspaper family.

As I mentioned, Thisweek is a descendent of the Dakota County Tribune, which was started in the county’s frontier days and for a hundred years was the dominant and very successful paper covering government and people in the county. Until the mid-1970s, the Tribune operated under a business model that called for readers to buy subscriptions to the paper with advertisers promoting their products and services to those readers through ads.

In 1975, a Burnsville resident named Mary Ziegenhagen started a “free weekly” called the Burnsville Current. She distributed her paper, which she later expanded to other communities, to virtually all homes free of charge. The only revenue came from advertisers, who could suddenly reach more people than they could reach through the smaller-circulation subscription paper.

Another paper called Life & Times, started by a man named Dick Sherman, also pursued the free-weekly strategy.

The Clay family, of Farmington, decided in 1979 to launch a free newspaper of its own to compete with the Burnsville Current. The Tribune continues to this day as a subscription paper and focuses on business and public-policy news. The Current was purchased in 1983 by a California company and, over the years, added the “Sun” name as metro weeklies were consolidated through mergers with other papers carrying that name.

As the competition for local advertising intensified among papers and the Internet, news organizations dependent upon ad revenue have struggled. Several newspaper companies, including the owners of the Star Tribune, the Pioneer Press and the Sun Current, had to file for bankruptcy. ECM has remained profitable and made the decision in December to acquire the Minnesota Sun papers, which included those serving Dakota County.

I started reading Thisweek and the Sun papers when I moved to Lakeville in 1999. When I lived in Edina, the Edina Sun Current was the paper that kept me informed of what was going on in local government and in the schools my children attended. When I worked at the Star Tribune, Thisweek and the Sun Current were the Dakota County papers we saw as our competitors.

Since I joined ECM as general manager in Dakota County, my staff has competed against the Sun papers for the news and the advertising. I am delighted that we have merged two former competitors into one news and advertising operation dedicated to serving Lakeville, Farmington, Apple Valley, Rosemount, Burnsville and Eagan.

And while we’ve been planning our new paper and website, we’ve also been moving our offices from our longtime home in Burnsville to new offices in Apple Valley. In our business, it seems, there is only one constant. And that constant is change.

Larry Werner is editor  and general manager of Thisweek Newspapers and the Dakota County Tribune. He can be reached at larry.werner@ecm-inc.com. Columns reflect the opinion of the author.

The post Thisweek adapts again to changes in the newspaper business appeared first on SunThisweek.

Both national and local talent is being used to help Lakeville, Farmington and other Minnesota students gain the benefits of online videos. That’s good news for students and a compliment to teachers who continue seeking new ways to help students learn.

Andrew Hilliard, an eighth-grade math teacher at McGuire Middle School, turns all of his class lectures into videos that students who miss class can view and keep current with the curriculum.

“One of the most challenging obstacles for any teacher to overcome, especially in math, is dealing with student absences,” Hilliard said. “The videos we’ve been posting online allow students who have been absent the opportunity to stay connected with the material they’ve missed due to vacations, illnesses, etc.  This ‘hybrid flip’ classroom also allows students who were uneasy with material during class to revisit the lesson at their own pace.”

Hilliard said student and parent feedback has been positive.

“I had a student who went to a family wedding in the Caribbean for a week in January, for example, and she viewed the videos to stay current on the material we were covering in class,” Hilliard said. “I’ve had other students who missed a day of class due to an illness watch our videos during homeroom so they are caught up to speed prior to coming to class in the afternoon. Now I feel like I have a great resource for students when they come to me and say, ‘What did I miss?’ ”

All of Hilliard’s videos are linked within his Edline page, so students must log on and then pick the lessons they would like to view. A link to an example of one of the screencasts is at www.screencast.com/t/Elj90Crabx7.

Farmington Superintendent Jay Haugen had a surprise in store when the district announced recently that every one of its eight schools would have one or more teachers involved in a flipped classroom pilot.

“I was amazed at the number of staff who came forward, and how many were already recording lessons for students,” he said.

While this type of instruction is happening in all subjects areas, and all levels, at this point most seem to be in the areas of science and math, he said.

He has posted one of those lessons, a middle school math lesson, on his blog at www.farmington.k12.mn.us.

Initially, the Farmington district will be making lessons available on a DVD, or a take-home iTouch.

“This is needed for about 10 percent of students,” Haugen said. “Ultimately, as we work to customize education for every child, we will work to make sure every student has access to a mobile learning device, 24/7.”

Jeffrey McGonigal, Anoka-Hennepin associate superintendent for high schools, pointed me to HippoCampus, which has hundreds of free videos that educators, families and students can use. This is part of the Minnesota Learning Campus website, a project of the Minnesota Department of Education, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, and the University of Minnesota.

A number of Anoka-Hennepin School District teachers have created videos.

Students can view these before a lesson, thus giving the teacher more time to help students practice the concept, and obtain individual assistance.

For a different approach, check out a video by Minnesota Transitions, an inner city charter school that cleverly focuses on negative numbers. It’s called “Don’t be Negative,” and is found at vimeo.com/35905316.

West St. Paul Sibley High School teachers sent several videos they have created. The first helps explain how they are replacing word problems with video problems (www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh_0puziQog).

Sibley teachers are also helping students make their own videos illustrating physics principles. A basic learning principle is if you can explain something to others clearly and accurately, you know the subject well.

In talking with people from more than 30 districts and charters, I saw enormous creativity.  I hope we’ll find ways to share teachers’ best work around the state.

Joe Nathan, formerly a Minnesota public school teacher and administrator, directs the Center for School Change at Macalester. He can be reached at jnathan@macalester.edu. Columns reflect the opinion of the author.

The post Videos are helping students see what they have missed in class appeared first on SunThisweek.

At a time when more people than ever are using their community libraries, the funding gradually is being reduced.

A good library is essential in a community now more than ever when people cannot afford to buy books and more people are using its computers (many of them job seekers), downloading e-books and checking out audio materials.

At this time, advocates of local libraries need to protest some of these reductions during a time when they are most needed.

Counties are responsible for providing a library system. Libraries receive some revenue from the state while most of it comes from taxpayers in each county through special and general property tax levies.

The counties’ revenues are suffering because tax capacity is going down due to all the foreclosures and shrinking commercial tax base. State legislators have cut local government aid and are requiring counties to do more with less and mandating more expenses with no extra money.

County commissioners, mostly sympathetic to library needs, are reducing revenues to libraries. To their credit, county library directors have been able to minimize reductions through more efficiencies and reorganizing library service.

One silent cutback, however, is reduction in books and materials. For example, in St. Paul, money to build up the collection has dropped from $1.3 million in 2003 to $850,000 this year.

In Hennepin County, where neither hours nor staff has been reduced, a reduction of $2.5 million cut into the collection budget.

Metro Library Service Agency, which buys books and materials in large quantities, enables metro counties to buy items at a lower cost.

Over the past several years, community and regional libraries have been cutting hours, and staff. In Washington County, due to Lake Elmo’s decision to start its own library and withdrawing $260,000 from tax revenues that are no longer going to the county system, libraries are open five days instead of seven days a week.

The Minnesota State Auditor’s Office reports that cities and counties in the state have cut public library operating budgets and capital outlay by 42 percent between 2005 and 2009.

Meanwhile, more people than ever are using libraries. More students are going to the library, because school districts are short-changing their media centers, once called libraries. Home-schooled children are using the libraries more. Senior citizens are attending computer classes so they can use the library’s computers.

One study shows that use of the library in Minnesota has gone up from 49 million to 59 million users from 2003 to 2010.

Reductions in funding from the six counties in the Great River Regional Library, based in St. Cloud, have resulted in fewer service hours based on circulation figures and in loss of seven staff members. Where Great River had received 6 to 8 percent increases in revenues before 2008, it now doesn’t receive an increase at all.

Of course, the economy and particularly reductions in local government aid from the state to the counties partly are to blame for the underfunding and reduction in services.

Advocates of community libraries need to speak up particularly to legislators about this slow erosion of library hours and services. Unless policy makers hear protests from users, funding for libraries will continue to be reduced.

Don Heinzman is chairman of the ECM Publishers Inc. Editorial Board. Thisweek Newspapers and the Dakota County Tribune are part of ECM. He is at don.heinzman@ecm-inc.com. Columns reflect the opinion of the author.

The post Speak up for public library funding appeared first on SunThisweek.

I pledge to use my words to speak in a kind way.

Ava Paquette, 10, a member of the Lakeville chapter of the Kids for Peace organization, spent time with preschoolers at the Washington, D.C.-based Covenant House, a full-time shelter for homeless. The kids made Peace Packs filled with crayons, coloring books, toys and a note of friendship for the children who live at the shelter. Photo submitted.

I pledge to help others as I go throughout my day.

I pledge to care for our earth with my healing heart and hands.

I pledge to respect people in each and every land.

I pledge to join together as we unite the big and small.

I pledge to do my part to create peace for one and all.

Wise words, seemingly derived from the Golden Rule, we can all heed, especially during an election year defined by virulent mudslinging.

What makes them more powerful is that they are crafted by the children of Kids for Peace, an international organization founded in 2006 in California that has a chapter here in Lakeville. The group’s mission is “to cultivate every child’s innate ability to foster peace through cross-cultural experiences and hands-on arts, service and environmental projects.”

This week I met with chapter co-founder Brook Paquette and her daughter Ava at Mainstreet Coffee Cafe in downtown Lakeville.

They had just returned from a D.C. gathering of Kids for Peace members from around the nation called the “D.C. Peace Pledge Tour.” They marched to sites around the nation’s capital reciting the above pledge along the National Mall, the floor of the House of Representatives at the Capitol and at a meeting of Democratic members of the House.

“I really like giving and helping,” said 10-year-old Ava. “Doing this gives me a better chance (to do that).”

She also enjoys the social aspect of it.

“It allows you to work in a group and meet other kids… Help other kids,” Ava said.

The Paquettes originally became involved in the organization when they lived in San Diego. After they moved to Lakeville two years ago, Paquette helped open a chapter here. Her inspiration, she said, was her father.

“My dad was missing-in-action in Vietnam,” Brook said. “I never had a chance to know him, so I’ve always wanted to work for peace.”

Among their most important programs is what they call “Peace Packs.” The kids prepare packages of books and school supplies for impoverished children. The most recent recipients were in Guatemala.

Another recent effort was a visit to the Eagan women and children’s shelter, the Lewis House. The Kids for Peace children played with kids at the shelter, made sugar cookies and sewed felt blankets with message of “peace” in mind.

On their trip to D.C., the Kids merged those two programs together with a visit to the Covenant House, a safe-haven for homeless, orphaned and runaway youth. The group passed out Peace Packs to the resident kids, who took to their new friends – and supplies – instantly.

One orphan, who shares my first name, took custody  of his new crayons instantly.

“He would not put the crayons down,” Brook said.  When they were trying to take a photo of him, he said “cheese,” but “kept on coloring.”

Along the way in D.C., the Kids for Peace group also met with San Diego Congressman Bob Filner, a man who once shared a jail cell with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; had an audience with Elkanah Odembo, Kenya’s ambassador to the United States; and took part in a unique program of the United States Institute of Peace, an organization signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

USIP typically works with teens, Brook said, but an 11-year-old girl from another Kids chapter wrote a letter to USIP President Richard Solomon describing the work of Kids for Peace. He was sold, and so he invited the kids to partake in a program tailor-made for their age group.

Ava enjoyed that part of the trip, too.

“We got to give (Solomon) a little peace banner, which a lot of kids helped to create, including me,” she said.

Ava’s group of nine- to 12-year-olds discussed how to resolve conflicts, focusing on the art of friendship.

Using a house as a metaphor for amity, the program taught the kids about “what materials are needed to build a house and how to use materials to build a friendship,” Ava said.

“What would the tools be when building a friendship? Honesty, fairness…” she continued.

They also did a case study involving cheating on a test that resulted in the group learning that sometimes situations are not a diametric matter of peace vs. conflict, but reside somewhere in the middle.

But in addition to spreading the message of peace, the trip hit home personally for the Paquettes on a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

The national Kids for Peace cohort went to the wall to read their Peace Pledge, but Brook found her father’s name on the wall. Ava did a pencil etching.

“I wanted to find my grandpa’s name,” Ava said. “It was a neat experience.”

For Brook, it was made more meaningful when the co-founder of the international Kids for Peace organization let the group know Brook’s father’s name was on the wall.

“It was special,” Brook said.

Going forward, the Lakeville chapter wants to help more kids with its Peace Packs and continue to spread the ideals of the likes of King and Gandhi: that a peaceful existence is a better one.

At a time when every transgression – no matter how minute – becomes an issue for vitriol and the debasement of society, it is comforting to know that from the mouths of babes comes the prospect of a sweet, serene redemption.

Aaron M. Vehling is at aaron.vehling@ecm-inc.com or www.facebook.com/sunthisweek.

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