Oak Point Principal Arnette Bell discusses the looping strategy at Oak Point Intermediate School. She mentions the School District Web site, which can be found here: www.edenpr.org.

By Karla Wennerstrom
Work continues after the Oak Point Intermediate School looping decision discussed at the last Eden Prairie School Board meeting and announced in a letter to parents on June 18.
Principal Arnette Bell pointed out that the Looping Task Force decision adds parent and staff choice to the mix for the 2009 school year and stated that looping will not be schoolwide.
Reading and math specialist Jeff Aamot and parent Kalyn Stanley served on the Looping Task Force, which included 22 people and has been meeting since April to address concerns with the recent looping proposal at the school and the lack of community input into the proposal.
That original looping proposal would have meant that starting in 2009, students schoolwide would have had the same teacher for fifth and sixth grades. The task force decided to add parent and staff choice elements.
When asked if anything surprised him about the work of the task force, Aamot said that everyone participating in the task force was very respectful.
“That surprised me in the sense that there was a lot of emotion coming in to the task force,” he said.
The task force’s work included analyzing surveys of parents, teachers, students and community members, according to the letter to parents.
Stanley said that she could see real benefits to looping, but “I could also see the concerns.”
Survey results are available on Oak Point’s Web site.
When asked if there were any surprising results in the surveys, Aamot said that the results showed how pleased people were generally with the school system.
He also said that when asked how many teachers had taught a different grade level before, the vast majority had.
“They are very qualified,” Bell said.
Stanley said that teachers are very well prepared for teaching other elementary grades. “They’re not just trained for one grade,” she said.
The group also gathered research on the looping model and how other districts and systems had implemented it.
“A lot of what we came up with confirmed the research we found,” Aamot said. He said the research showed that choice should be an option at the front end of a looping proposal. “Even those that went all-school eventually started with choice,” he said.
Aamot said that the group really landed upon a consensus in its recommendations to add in parent and staff choice for those entering sixth grade in the 2009 school year.
“They will have a choice to loop or not to loop,” Bell said. The task force directed the school’s Detail Team to work through January on strategies for the classrooms that are not looping, so they still have “long-term, sustained, learning relationships over two years between each student and his/her teacher.”
In addition the Detail Team’s tasks include working on an opt-out process, helping support staff with resources and materials (42 teachers are taking extra time this summer to work with their new team members) and coming up with strategies for communicating how looping affects achievement.
“The task force tried to stay out of the details of how to run it,” Aamot said.
Bell said the Detail Team consists of a cross-representation of about 20 staff members, administration and specialists. It is led by Bell.
When asked what a non-looping classroom might look like in 2009, Bell said that the Detail Team would be looking at options.
“We really are trying to create long-term relationships with students and teachers,” she said.
The task force also recommended that teachers “develop alternative strategies to close the achievement gap;” that strategies “have stakeholder input;” that better communication is used to understand strategies to close the achievement gap; and that strategies are measured and those results shared with the community.
This fall 11 classrooms of sixth-graders are to loop from fifth grade. Nothing about the proposal is changing for this fall’s Oak Point students, Aamot said.
Bell said it will be important to communicate how looping can help close the achievement gap. She said the need for a change might not have been communicated clearly.
Jessie Score of Eden Prairie, one of the parents who had originally questioned the process, said in an interview, “I think that we have made progress as far as letting the district know that basically as a community, we care about the education that is being provided to our children. When decisions are being made that will directly affect our kids, we want to be a part of that.”
Although she said the task force had done a good job gathering information, she said she is still disappointed about [the administration] decision, “just because I feel like the alternative strategy, as opposed to the looping is still very unclear.”
She pointed out that she questions the entire process.
Task force members said they received a lot of comments from the community throughout the process.
“I have been and was very impressed with the process and I’m very comfortable with where we landed,” Stanley said.
A Title I school
Bell reported that Oak Point has been named a Title I school for the fall, which means federal funds totaling about $168,000 will come into the building.
The designation comes through a formula that considers the number of students receiving free and reduced cost lunches.
The money can only be used for specific things, like after-school programs, staffing resources and materials. School staff members have been working on a plan for how the funds will be used.
“It’s going to really provide a boost, I think,” Aamot said.
He called it a “funded mandate,” saying it offered a terrific opportunity to offer programs above and beyond what the school is already doing.
For more information, visit www.edenpr.org.