Elementary School recommendations in Duluth (Hopkins, St. Michael: special needs, housing, university)

[jaycheryl]

Hi,

My family will be moving to Duluth in about 3 months. I will be visiting Duluth in mid-April and would like to get my oldest daughter enrolled in an elementary school for kindergarten at that time. I would love some recommendations from any of you who have children who have attended a Duluth elementary school - public or private.

In particular, anyone who has info on Congdon, St. Micheals, St. Johns or Holy Rosary, I'd really like to get your opinions.

TIA! :-)

Cheryl

[newcastle]

My daughetr attended Congdon from k-3rd grade. She had a mixed experience. Her Kindergarten teacher was excellent. She had a poor first grade teacher, an excellent second grade teacher, and a useless third grade teacher. My daughter loved the school, was very enaged, but struggled to make any gains academically.

My daughter has Dyslexia and was diagnosed by a professional. Congdon told us that if we wnated those types of services that we should go to another elementary school. I was dumbfounded and demanded services at Congdon. They had their own psychologist perform a test and, big shocker, she suddenyl didn't have dyslexia and did not have a "big enough gap" in comprehension versus reading.

Well, we basically left mid year and went to Kenwood Edison Charter school where they also perfomred a test and validated the original diagnoses and now she has an IEP, reading specialists and has jumped more than a grade level in less than a year.

I hear good things about Holy Rosary, St. John's and St. Michael's. Lester Park is good too as well as Lowell. I was trained as a teacher initially (5-12) and completed many practical experiences at Lowell and think it is a great school.

[aluminumpork]

Well, I assume you'll be living in town, but even if you're in some of the outer Woodland and Lakeside areas, I'd highly recommend Lakewood Elementary (if you have a choice that is). I went there K-6 and thought it was a great experience. Excellent teachers, and a very modern facility compared to all of the other schools (in fact, I believe it's the newest school in the district still, I think it was built in 1992).

[Eurogal]

Well, I am very interested in that question myself.
As we live in Congdon, it's more about comparing the Congdon school with the Edison in Kenwood.
l mean, I hear fantastic stuff about Edison and the fact that they're ahead in the curriculum, but when you look at the national tests results, Congdon fares much better. How can that be if the Edison school seems to offer better tutorship and advanced program?

[newcastle]

Congdon does fare better in the High Stakes Testing game. You can compare the scores and data below versus Edison.
Congdon: http://education.state.mn.us/ReportC...F402007010.pdf
Edison: http://education.state.mn.us/ReportC...F402007010.pdf

Another aspect to consider is the percenatge of special education students at Congdon 10% and at Edison 17% and Free and Reduced Lunches at Congdon 13% and Edison 37%. Which means there is a greater proportion of students at Edison that fall below the poverty line and qualify as special education.

Yet, Edison has made Adequate Yearly Progress every year and still scores higher in the state testing versus other school districts in the state. Edison still has a waiting list for enrollment and much smaller class sizes than Congdon.

My daughter has 23 students versus the 31 students she had in class at Congdon. Edison still had higher percentages overall against the whole of the Duluth School District, just not Congdon. Edison is also more diverse which I see as a benefit for my daughter.

I am telling you my families' experience at Congdon was not as good as it has been at Edison. That may not be the case for everyone attending Congdon.

Edison may not offer more tutorship and advanced programming.( I never heard that they did) However, the reading curriculum is based off of John Hopkins University program and inlcudes 90 minutes every morning. That, to me, is one benefit Congdon does not provide.

Everything else seems to be par for the course.

[jaycheryl]

Thank you all for your replies! I'm not even sure where we'll be living yet (we're visiting in mid-April to find housing). I don't know if we'll be in the school district we eventually choose, but I've heard they all have open enrollment, if there are spaces available. I'm happy to hear that some of you have heard good things about St. John, St. Micheal, and Holy Rosary. My daughter will turn 5 the beginning of August and I notice the cut off in MN is Sept 1, so I've been very "on the fence" about sending her to kindergarten at all this fall. Her young age, coupled with the fact that we'll be making a very big move in June/July and she's also in speech therapy, I'm just not sure she'll be ready for kindergarten...

Any suggestions on preschools in the area? She started preschool last fall in our school district and her p/s teacher says she's ready for kindergarten, I'm just not convinced.

Thanks for any recommendations on preschools!

[newcastle]

Nope, no recommendations from me on preschools. Although, if you think your kid isn't ready for school at 5-go with your gut because you're most likely right. It will not hurt her in the least to wait another year.

[Eurogal]

Originally Posted by newcastle

Congdon does fare better in the High Stakes Testing game. You can compare the scores and data below versus Edison.

Yet, Edison has made Adequate Yearly Progress every year and still scores higher in the state testing versus other school districts in the state. Edison still has a waiting list for enrollment and much smaller class sizes than Congdon.
dison may not offer more tutorship and advanced programming.( I never heard that they did) However, the reading curriculum is based off of John Hopkins University program and inlcudes 90 minutes every morning. That, to me, is one benefit Congdon does not provide.

Everything else seems to be par for the course.

Thank you very much Newcastle, that's very informative.
As a foreigner, American testing and other considerations are still well, foreign to me! That's why my choice of vocabulary may be inaccurate.

By tutorship, I mean I heard Edison offers a lot of afterclass tutoring for students to catch up with the required level. By advanced program, I meant they seem to adapt to the child level (like, (s)he will follow a 4th grade reading program, though (s)he's in second grade cause of his/her good reading abilities).
Is that what you've experienced?
Another question: what is the difference between the high stakes testing and the state testing? Congdon faring better in the first and Edison in the latter, what does that mean in terms of the kids' real achievement in curriculum?
And third question: I know Edison offers Spanish as second language. Do regular elementary schools offer second language as well, and if yes, is it Spanish too or depends the school?

[newcastle]

Originally Posted by Eurogal

Thank you very much Newcastle, that's very informative.
As a foreigner, American testing and other considerations are still well, foreign to me! That's why my choice of vocabulary may be inaccurate.

By tutorship, I mean I heard Edison offers a lot of afterclass tutoring for students to catch up with the required level. By advanced program, I meant they seem to adapt to the child level (like, (s)he will follow a 4th grade reading program, though (s)he's in second grade cause of his/her good reading abilities).
Is that what you've experienced?
Another question: what is the difference between the high stakes testing and the state testing? Congdon faring better in the first and Edison in the latter, what does that mean in terms of the kids' real achievement in curriculum?
And third question: I know Edison offers Spanish as second language. Do regular elementary schools offer second language as well, and if yes, is it Spanish too or depends the school?

Edison does offer tutoring and extended school year if your child qualifies through an IEP (Individual Education Plan) which is for students that have special needs such as a specified learning disorder (e.g., Dyslexia) and would be in danger of losing the previous years academic gains. They also offer summer tutoring at a specified rate.

Edison does align student reading by grade level. You're right. If a student is in 1st grade but reading at a 5th grade level, the first grader will be reading with 5th graders. They do not practice the other way around. Meaning, they do not place a 4th grader struggling to read with 2nd graders. They did do that last year (it only made the older kids feel stupid).

High Stakes testing is a catch all phrase for the idiotic emphasis the government places on academic testing as a measuring rod for American Student's progress. The newspapers only increase the focus by publishing the results locally.

This stems from President Bush's "No Child Left Behind Act" from his first term in office. Schools and states had used testing before to gauge student progress but never to the level of No Child Left behind. All states are mandated to make "Adequate Yearly Progress" meaning they must meet certain standards in specific categories (I can't remember all of them) like attendance, scores in math, science, reading and others.

AYP is hard to continue to achieve because you must continue to improve upon your score every year. If you fail to meat AYP, the government has some nasty penalties: removing federal monies (how is that supposed to help a school improve!?), removing individual teachers or the whole administrative team, or closing the school, or federal control of the actual school. I haven't heard of any school actually having the latter happen.

Edison overall scored higher on average than the Duluth schools as a whole. Congdon individually was higher than Edison. I do not put a whole lot of emphasis on the tests becasue they do not take into account the audience, the socio-economic background, and ethnicity of the test taker. The schools usually end up teaching to the test and large amount sof the year are focuse don learning the "correct" curriculum which is determined by what the test authors think is important.

My wife is baffled by the US system too. She is from Scotland and thinks the Scottish Education system is far superior to the US schools.

[jaycheryl]

Okay, I've looked at the sites you all provided and also the schools that were mentioned, does anyone else have any new info on Lakewood or Lester Park? Our relator said these were good schools as well as the recommendations here. But she's in it to sell a house, not so much for my benefit (sorry if I sound cynical). And I've got to ask, even though I googled the definition of "Magnet Schools", I'm still not sure what the difference is b/t them and a normal school. I hate to sound dumb, but can someone clarify this for me? Thank you!