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SPPS commends Johnson High for class credit recovery programming
Johnson High School is trying new methods to help graduate students affected by the pandemic.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Education released a report Thursday showing the state’s four-year graduation rate in 2023 was down .3% from 2022 after several notable increases the previous year.
State education officials say the slight decline can likely be attributed to an increase of .4% in a category referred to as “unknown,” which tracks students who were incorrectly recorded or not reported as enrolled in another district. MDE says this re-enforces the need for schools to keep track of and report every single student during the course of their high school career.
At the same time, high school students who graduated last year were just freshmen when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and Johnson Senior High School principal Jamil Payton says many students suffered academically and socially. He says the class of 2023 was smaller than the previous year.
“According to the report that came out, we dropped down,” Payton said. “We have to look at as a school, as adults, like what are we doing that’s working and what are we doing we might need to revise?”
MDE reports just 68% of St. Paul students graduated, a 7% drop from the previous year, and the district’s third consecutive year to see a decline.
However, assistant superintendent Adam Kunz says it’s important to include summer graduates in total graduation rates. Doing so would increase St. Paul’s graduation rate to 73%, which would still be a decline from the previous year, but not as steep of a decline.
“In other years, summer graduates would have been counted in the overall total,” Kunz explained. “The story isn’t about the declining graduation rate for me. It’s about the hard work those students have done to get out of that hole and to then succeed and graduate whether or not it was on time or really close to on time.”
Similarly in Minneapolis Public Schools, the state report showed an almost 9% drop in graduation rates, but the district says when summer graduates are included, the dip is closer to 3%, not 9%.
District-wide in St. Paul there are several opportunities to make up class credits, Kunz says, and many of them are not just for seniors.
“We have experiential credit recovery which is something we’re really proud of where students get to do things like canoe with Wilderness Inquiry as a part of a way they re-earn science and health credits,” he said. “They get to learn about welding as a part of physical science and they explore culinary arts and things like that too.”
According to its website, SPPS is taking the following steps to support on-time graduation:
- Implementing fair and equitable grading practices, which includes support for teachers and students in measuring and showing their learning. In the first two quarters of the 2023-24 school year, 10% fewer failing grades have been recorded and passing rates in core classes have increased by 1-2% in SPPS high schools.
- Continuing to support and develop 9th grade academic support classes at all SPPS high schools
- Increasing access to student internships, certifications and work-based learning opportunities to bring real-world experiences into the classroom
- Offering multiple credit recovery options, including online and experiential learning programs. SPPS students earned 13,860 credits last summer, putting 624 seniors on track to graduate with the class of 2024
At Johnson High School, there’s a Freshman Focus class to help freshmen acclimate to high school, and a job and college readiness program called Frameworks for juniors. The national academic support program, AVID, is offered to all grade levels.
Payton says changes were also made this year to help more students graduate. The class of 2004 is set to graduate June 3 at Roy Wilkins Auditorium.
“This year we had an interventionist and a teacher, so the teacher was able to really work with their colleagues to find out what these students were missing,” he said. “The further we become removed from the pandemic, I think we’ll see things change because kids will know how to do school.”
To find out how students in your child’s district and school performed, check out the 2023 Minnesota Report Card on the MDE website.
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Similar to coal, researchers believe the carbon product holds the key to minimizing human impact on air, soil and water.
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota researchers are on the cutting edge of the fight against climate change.
The Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) and the city of Minneapolis are using Biochar to clean up pollution from different angles.
“It’s a way to remove carbon from the atmosphere,” explains NRRI researcher Eric Singsaas.
Singsaas and his research team in Duluth are creating this black carbon product by collecting wood damaged by storms and invasive species like the Emerald Ash Borer. Then, they incinerate it in an oxygen-free environment.
The result: small black bricks that look like charcoal, but prevent a more harmful substance from being released into air.
“If you just take a piece of wood and it falls on the ground, it will naturally decay and turn back into carbon dioxide,” Singsaas said. “If you take a piece of wood and you convert it in this process of pyrolysis, into Biochar, it’s a stable form of carbon.
“It sequesters that carbon away from the atmosphere,” Singsaas said.
Once biochar is made, NRRI researchers are putting it to use against an ever-growing list of threats to the climate.
“Biochar is one potential material that can be useful for filtering contaminants from stormwater,” NRRI researcher Bridget Ulrich said.
Ulrich’s biochar work focuses on filtering E. coli bacteria out of water sources and streams before they reach Minnesota’s lakes and rivers. ”But we’re also interested in organic contaminants like pesticides and PFAS, so biochar can also act as an adsorbent for those contaminants as well,” Ulrich said.
NRRI is also experimenting with mixing biochar and concrete, attempting to make the construction material more environmentally friendly.
“It improves things like the setting time of the concrete,” Singsaas said.
On the Iron Range, Singsaas believes the steel industry could one day swap coal for biochar in carrying out the forging process. “Coal is responsible for a lot of carbon emissions from those industries,” Singsaas shared.
“The Swiss Army knife of climate tools,” said Jim Doten, Carbon Sequestration Program Manager for the city of Minneapolis while explaining the allure of Biochar.
Standing in a green cit plot known as Ventura Village, Doten explained to KARE 11’s Audrey Russo how biochar transformed an eyesore vacant lot into a flourishing community garden.
“We mix it with compost and it makes both of them work better. It’s the synergy,” Doten said. “It really helps hold the water, it helps with the drought resistance.”
Doten is no Johnny Come Lately to the promise of Biochar – He’s studied the science since 2012. With help from a $400,000 federal grant, he’ll take what he’s learned and scale it up near the University of Minnesota campus.
“What we’re doing there is we’re building a facility that will turn woodchips into biochar,” Doten told Russo.
The goal is to complete the facility by the end of the year, with biochar production beginning in early 2025. It’s a timeline that puts Minnesota ahead of the curve. “Right now, no city has this type of operation,” Doten said. “It’s a great place to be a leader and an innovator.”
Once the facility is complete, Doten says the biochar it produces will be used in Minneapolis and across the entire state.
“To help other governments around the area achieve their climate plans, their climate goals,” Doten said. “Restoration is what I see.”
“It’s not the answer, but it’s part of the answer. It’s a tool in a tool belt,“ he concluded.
Court documents detail the charges against 25-year-old Ameer Musa Matariyeh, which include second-degree murder, attempted murder and fleeing police.
WILLMAR, Minn. — A Minneapolis man is charged with second-degree murder and multiple other felonies following a multi-county shooting spree Tuesday that left a New London man dead.
Court documents filed in Kandiyohi County Thursday break down the charges against 25-year-old Ameer Musa Matariyeh, which also include attempted murder, first-degree assault and fleeing police.
Prosecutors say the crime spree began in Minneapolis around 12:30 p.m. that day when Matariyeh fired several rounds from the top floor of an Uptown apartment building at his estranged girlfriend and her new partner. It would continue through several counties as the defendant was pursued west at high speed by Minneapolis police, eventually entering Kandiyohi County.
The criminal complaint filed against Matariyeh says Kandiyohi County law enforcement was informed shortly after 1:50 p.m. that a man was headed their way in a stolen vehicle on Highway 7, being followed by members of a multi-county drug task force.
Shortly after 2 p.m., a 911 call came in from a Kandiyohi County farmstead in Lake Lillian reporting that a man had been shot in the chest. The wife of the victim, 25-year-old Peter Mayerchak, told investigators he was out doing some work in the shed when she heard a pop, then looked out the window and saw her husband and another man yelling at each other. Mayerchak then ran into the house and she saw he had been shot.
Investigators later discovered multiple bullet holes in the home’s windows and walls.
Prosecutors say Matariyeh continued to flee west on Highway 7, and then on a county road at speeds reaching up to 130 mph. Eventually, law enforcement said, the defendant looped back to State Highway 23 and headed towards Willmar. Local law enforcement was informed that a Minneapolis PD crisis negotiator was on the phone with Natariyeh and that he was threatening to commit suicide by cop. Multiple squads, including one driven by Kandiyohi County Sheriff Eric Tollefson, were pursuing the suspect’s vehicle.
At 2:25 p.m., court documents say, law enforcement had OnStar disable the engine of the stolen car Natariyeh was driving, and one officer saw the suspect vehicle rear-end a green pickup near the Highway 7/23 bypass. That same officer said he saw Natariyeh jump out of the stolen Chevy, open the driver’s side door of the green pickup, and then noted that the defendant’s arm pointed and recoiled as if he fired a shot before running into traffic.
The criminal complaint says at that point, Sheriff Tollefson and another officer ran up to the pickup and discovered that the driver, identified as 55-year-old Jerome Skluzacek of New London, had been shot in the head. Responding officers attempted life-saving measures but Skluzacek was declared dead on the scene.
Multiple officers eventually caught up with Natariyeh, who raised his hands above his head and was taken into custody without incident. The firearms he allegedly used in the shootings were recovered near the highway median. While in the back seat of a squad car, Natariyeh reportedly said he wanted to die, and that he threw his life away because his girl had cheated on him.
Additional charges could be filed against Natariyeh in Hennepin County in connection with the shooting incident in Minneapolis.
Hunter Buckentine was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular operation.
CLEAR LAKE, Minn. — An Avon man will serve a prison sentence of nearly 10 years after pleading guilty in a 2023 crash that left one person dead and another badly injured.
The Sherburne County Attorney’s Office shared Thursday that 24-year-old Hunter Buckentine was sentenced to nine years and eight months in the fatal crash, which took place around 1 a.m. on Aug. 19. The Minnesota State Patrol said a vehicle driven by Buckentine was clocked at 132 mph on Highway 10 in Becker before it slammed into a second vehicle, killing 34-year-old Jordan Kramer of Clarissa. Another person in the car, 38-year-old Candice Pooler of Clarissa, was taken to a nearby hospital by air ambulance with life-threatening injuries while another woman was found in the ditch with minor injuries.
Buckentine would be charged with third-degree murder but eventually pleaded guilty to one count of criminal vehicular homicide and another of criminal vehicular operation.
“This level of recklessness on our roads led to senseless injuries and loss of life,” said County Attorney Kathleen Heaney. “The only measure of justice that the system can give to the families and friends impacted is that of holding the defendant accountable for his deeds. With this accountability, it is our hope that the families and friends may begin their journey of healing
A witness told investigators he had been drinking with Buckentine in a Becker bar before the crash. Prosecutors say shortly before hitting the other vehicle Buckentine took a Snapchat of his speedometer reading 150 mph and posted it with a caption that read “a new record.”
Crash reconstruction by the Minnesota State Patrol said Buckentine’s Infiniti was moving at 133 mph when it rear-ended the victim’s vehicle.
