Redwood school district focuses on college and career readiness

_{By Troy Krause
Editor
Posted Dec. 17, 2014 @ 12:01 am}
 

Students in the Redwood Area School District are not all that different from those in other schools. They often wonder allowed why they are doing word problems in math, finding the subject and predicate of a sentence in language arts, learning about things that happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago in history or trying to figure out what happens when two chemicals are combined in science. After all, those are things they are never going to use in their real lives, right? Helping students find the answer to those questions and providing them with the understanding of why they do what they do in school is part of a new concept being implemented in the local school district known as the World’s Best Workforce. The idea was established through the Minnesota legislature and requires schools to find ways to get students ready for the world. 

According to Rick Ellingworth, the World’s Best Workforce concept is in line with the purpose established for the school which, in essence, encourages everyone on the district – from the secretaries and staff to the students – to know why they are there. Ellingworth said he envisions a day when he can walk into any classroom at any level and ask a student why they are studying a particular subject. “We are at the beginning of a long-term plan,”?said Ellingworth. Under the World’s Best Workforce policy school districts must: • Have all students meet school readiness goals. • Have all third grade students achieve grade-level literacy. • Close the academic achievement gap among all racial and ethnic groups of students and between students living in poverty and their more privileged peers. • Have all students graduate from high school. • Have all students attain college and career preparedness. Ellingworth said as the district moved forward with its purpose it asked people in the district why they were there, adding studies show any business or organization that wants to be effective must have all of its stakeholders able to clearly explain the purpose. Naturally, the purpose of any school district is to help students as they are prepared for the world waiting for them after they earn their high school diploma, but Ellingworth said the overall vision as part of the World’s Best Workforce plan goes much deeper than that.   Click here to read the full article