Kare11
St Paul school erases staffing shortage by recruiting parents
Battle Creek Elementary has at least six parents of students on staff, and the familial connection goes even deeper.
ST PAUL, Minn. — One week into the new school year at Battle Creek Elementary in St. Paul, Brittany Oliveraz is navigating a new commute to work as a special education teacher’s assistant.
“I’m still getting to know the routine and just having fun,” Brittany said.
The fun includes a new kind of drop-off routine for her daughter, Addy, who is now commuting alongside her mom, and learning just down the hall.
“I wanted to apply because I knew Addy was here,” Brittany said. “It’s just easier for us to come together and leave together.”
“It feels great,” Addy said. “I was very happy when she started working here.”
There are several students and parents at the school who know the feeling.
“I think there’s six of us now,” said Marcy Berenato, Battle Creek’s Parent Liaison, who has a second grader learning down the hall. “It’s worked really great for our family.”
Though it’s certainly not uncommon for a parent to work in the same building as their student, this year, St. Paul Public Schools made it a point to recruit more parents into new roles, in an effort to reverse years of understaffing.
The strategy has certainly paid off at Battle Creek Elementary.
“We are 100% fully staffed,” said principal Kristen Longway. “I’ve also found that by recruiting our parents, word travels, and other family members actually reach out and are interested in coming to work at our school as well.”
Though, in most cases, that does not mean they work in the same room as their child or relative.
“Nope, I’m not in (Addy’s) class,” Brittany Oliveraz said. “We still need space. She has her own little area and then I have my area. We see each other during lunch and recess and then, after that, we’re good.”
School leaders say the benefits extend beyond the family members themselves.
“When parents are involved with their children’s education we all win,” Berenato said.
“It’s people who we know are invested in our students and they want to be here helping fellow students grow and learn,” Longway said.
In turn, the school is also invested in helping its new staff members grow into their new roles.
“For the first week, I make sure they shadow others,” Longway said. “And that way they can ask questions, they can learn the position, we continuously check in with them to see how they feel about the position, so we really try to make sure that they’re supported, so that they stay.”
And if staying is the ultimate measure of success, there’s already a promising sign courtesy of Brittany Oliveraz.
“I’m actually going to go to school for this so hopefully in two years I’ll have my license and then I’ll be a teacher,” she said.
Not all St. Paul schools have been as successful at filling open positions as Battle Creek, but according to SPPS the pitch to parents is part of the reason why there are now fewer than 100 open classroom positions across the district. There were more than 300 jobs that went unfilled last year.
Watch all of the latest stories from Breaking The News in our YouTube playlist:
“Could be a dry September to dry October, back to back,” Brennan Dettmann, a meteorologist at NWS Twin Cities, said.
CHANHASSEN, Minn. — Rain has been more than difficult to come by recently – it’s been almost nonexistent.
The National Weather Service Twin Cities reports that it has measured barely a trace of precipitation, marking another stretch of dry weather.
“Could be a dry September to dry October, back to back,” Brennan Dettmann, a meteorologist at NWS Twin Cities, said.
“There’s been periods of normalcy, but certainly has been a lot of record-setting conditions that we’ve seen this past year,” he continued.
This past year has seen many records added or broken. December to February was the warmest winter on record. March to May was the 10th warmest spring.
Last month was both the warmest and driest September ever in Minnesota.
Those trends also include a shift from the heavy rains we saw over the summer to dry conditions right now.
“We’re not alone in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but certainly, yeah, it has been a quick uptick from what it’s been from the spring and early part of the summer,” he said.
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows 97% of Minnesota under abnormally dry conditions.
That’s why NWS Twin Cities issued a red flag warning for nearly all of Minnesota Thursday.
“With the drought, you know, there hasn’t been any precipitation in a while, things are just generally dry,” Dettmann said. “So you get something to spark, it can very quickly spread with the aid of those gusty winds pushing in, you know, any fires that form. So that’s the main reason for having the red flag warning.”
If you’re looking for relief, don’t count on it coming anytime soon.
“Expecting it to stay dry into the end of October,” Dettmann said.
With little precipitation coming soon, expect to see these reminders of fire danger continue – whether there’s a warning or not.
“You’ll likely see that continue into the end of October and November, as long as there’s no major precipitation that falls during that time frame,” Dettmann said.
According to the CDC, 40% of students experience sadness and hopelessness on a regular basis.
ST PAUL, Minn. — At this year’s Minnesota Educators’ Academy (MEA), the main focus was how to better students’ mental health. MEA is the largest development opportunity for educators in Minnesota, and gives teachers the opportunity to learn ways to improve in the classroom and handle the forever-changing needs of students.
“We need more counselors, we need more social workers, school psychologists, school nurses, people who really know their stuff,” said Education Minnesota President Denise Specht. “There are some schools that only have a counselor one day a week. We simply need more teams to address the needs.”
Specht also said having smaller class sizes would help teachers build stronger relationships with their students, potentially bettering their mental health.
According to the CDC, 40% of students experience sadness and hopelessness on a regular basis. Student teacher Caitlin Efta feels social media is playing a large part.
“There’s a lot of bullying and other things that happen online, and a lot of kids are just falling victim to that,” Efta said.
Minnesota’s 2024 teacher of the year Tracy Byrd says to improve students mental health, we need to take the stress off of them.
“Just by letting them know, relax, you are enough, you are okay,” Byrd said. “Don’t put too much pressure on this one assignment or this one test or this one book.”
Women’s Advocates opened in 1974 in St. Paul and is renovating 19 new apartment units to increase shelter space.
ST PAUL, Minn. — Women’s Advocates is considered the first shelter in the nation for survivors of domestic assault. It opened in St. Paul in 1974 and on Thursday, it’s hosting its 50th anniversary gala at the Landmark Center.
The tickets are sold out.
The organization is in the midst of a campaign to raise $14.25 million to acquire and renovate two new facilities in St. Paul to better serve the public. It includes 19 new individual apartment-style units totaling 58 beds for adults and children.
The space would also allow survivors to live with their pets 24/7, increase mental health support, and be ADA-compliant for all genders, sexualities, and abilities.
“It’s hard because we want to work ourselves out of a job, we want to be in a scenario where there’s not violence present in our community, but until we get there, we’re here as a support system for folks needing that,” said Executive Director Holly Henning.
Women’s Advocates currently serves about 50 adults and children, sometimes for three months at a time. It offers services ranging from mental and chemical health to legal advice and financial support.
The organization originally started as a hotline to guide people going through divorce.
“What they were finding when those calls were coming in was much different than, I just need a divorce,” said Henning. “It was folks who were in immediate danger and really needed help beyond that.”
Nowadays, the organization often has to turn people away. Other organizations actively work to find empty beds across the city for survivors in need. But Henning says, that sometimes, the violence people are experiencing is also more severe.
Violence Free Minnesota says that the 40 people killed in domestic violence situations last year is the most in more than three decades of record-keeping.
“It’s about compassion and empathy and I think it’s OK to have emotion, it’s OK to see people human to human and they’re continuously reminding you of why the work is so important,” said Henning.
Henning is also hoping to raise $125,000 during October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. If you’d like to donate, you can find more information about the capital campaign here.
There’s also more information about services and ways to connect with someone through the Women’s Advocates 24/7 crisis resource hotline here.
Nearly all of MN is abnormally dry
Israel’s proxy war with Iran leaves young children in Gaza and Lebanon burned from head to toe
Charges dropped against Tyron McAlpin, deaf Black man with cerebral palsy whose Phoenix arrest video prompted outrage
Nearly all of MN is abnormally dry
Israel’s proxy war with Iran leaves young children in Gaza and Lebanon burned from head to toe
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings