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Here’s some of my work from Rochester Public Schools

Project SEARCH Celebrates Career Development Month

Drew gets up at 6 a.m. every weekday to take the city bus to the Rosa Parks Pavillion in downtown Rochester. He scans his badge to get into the Mayo Clinic building and joins his seven classmates for their morning lessons before they all embark on the rest of their work days at 9 a.m.

Drew attends Rochester Public Schools (RPS) Project SEARCH program. He, and many of his classmates attended the Rochester Academy for Independent Living (RAIL). Project SEARCH is a program for students ages 18 – 22 years old with intellectual and developmental cognitive disabilities. Students will participate in internships while receiving systematic instruction in order to learn competitive, marketable employment skills. With the help of RPS Opportunity Services, some of them will go onto work at Mayo Clinic, and other employers, after their graduation.

Throughout the rest of this school year, Project SEARCH students will work within Mayo Clinic under realistic, practical conditions and carry out full time responsibilities and tasks–ultimately to build the experience that will lead to competitive employment opportunities after their graduation from the program.

Carlisle Corson, RPS teacher of Project SEARCH, has been working in this field for over 30 years and teaching Project SEARCH in Rochester for the last five years.

“They’ll learn the, what we call, ‘hard skills’ like the technicals of doing deliveries, sorting, and processes,” Carlisle says. “But for a lot of them, and the thing that Project SEARCH is designed to do is teach them the ‘soft skills’ like social interactions, communication, courtesy tendencies, and things of that nature.”

Project SEARCH started in 1997 in the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The hospital served persons with developmental disabilities, and its staff felt that the hospital would benefit from people with similar disabilites helping perform tasks. Often faced with trouble staffing high turn-over, the hospital found a great way to keep positions staffed while also building skills for people with developmental disabilities. Project SEARCH has 717 program sites in 48 US states and 11 countries. Since 2010, 43,375 people have been served.

The Rochester franchise of Project SEARCH was established ten years ago. It was started as a nine-month internship program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, designed for individuals whose goal is competitive employment. The program is structured to achieve total immersion in the workplace facilitates to teach and learning process as well as the acquisition of employable and marketable work skills. Interns participate in three internship rotations to explore a variety of career paths. The interns work with a team that includes their family, an instructor, skills trainers, and local and state agencies to create and achieve an employment goal.

This branch has served 51 people since 2015 with 34 graduates accepting positions in the community and 17 graduates accepting positions at Mayo Clinic. Project SEARCH at the Mayo Clinic is one of nine total Project SEARCH locations in the state of Minnesota.

The process for students to enroll in Project SEARCH is strategically strenuous. For students to qualify to be in this program, they undergo a hiring process consisting of applications, skills assessments, and interviews about why they want to work in the program.

Over the course of the entire school year, eight Project SEARCH students in Rochester will work in three,  ten-week intervals in specific Mayo Clinic departments, including Central Services, Charter House, Environmental Services, Food Services, Human Resources, Nursing, Recycling, and the DAHLC.

Drew is working in Central Services for his first rotation this year. In this rotation, he needs to dress in full scrubs, disposable gloves, and a hair net. He sorts and stacks viles to be used for lab testings.

“I’m liking it here,” he said. “I’m doing the same thing a lot. And I look like a smurf!”

Just a few long hallways and an elevator ride away are his classmates Jose and Kevin in the Food Service department.

Jose and Kevin wear aprons and hair nets while they prep the cafeteria for the lunch rush where Mayo Clinic employees gather for their lunch break.

“I’m tired at the end of the day,” said Kevin. “But I’m learning lots of new things. I have to measure the rice we make so we don’t make too much.”

Along with Kevin, Jose gets to work behind the cafeteria counters and operates in a full-scale, commercial kitchen.

“I cut the tops off the strawberries and then cut them in half,” said Jose. “It’s going well. The days are long and I don’t know when it’s going to be a busy day or not. But I also get free food which I like.”

Carlisle has graduated over 30 kids since he started at Project SEARCH.

“I’ve stopped by the departments where we have some of our students, some of who couldn’t even speak a word in social settings, and have seen them having sophisticated conversations with their team members or customers. The progress they make here is truly astonishing,” he said.

Project SEARCH has transformed the lives of its students and sets them up for success in their careers. Regardless if they are brought onto a role at Mayo Clinic after their graduation from Project SEARCH, they can carry the skills (hard, or soft) to their next endeavor.

This programs would have ten years of secured funding through the Ignite Student Learning Referendum.

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Watch the Project SEARCH graduates from last year share their feedback to the RPS school board of directors. (1:18:09)

Community Member Spotlight: Rochester Local

“There have always been lots of education options for Rochester parents. My parents chose to send me here, and now I’m choosing to send my kids here.”

Becky Montpetit is the founder of Rochester Local, an online, locally-focused and curated resource that offers guides to parenting, parks, camps, schools, product reviews, local activities, event round-ups, and more.

After having her first child in 2014, Becky found herself in unfamiliar territory. For the first time in a long time, she was out of the loop.

“It was such an interesting time. I was a new parent, but I didn’t have a full understanding of everything available to me or things going on in the area. I didn’t feel like a ‘local’ anymore.

As a new mom, Becky’s search criteria had to be: affordable places for dining and entertainment, family-friendly events around the city, input from other parents in the area about things to do, and it all had to be in a comprehensive website. Left frustrated and craving information, Becky started the Rochester MN Moms Blog in October 2015. 

“I knew it was a risk to leave a fully-fledged career to pursue this, but I learned from my experiences and education that getting uncomfortable and trying new things is all a part of the human experience.” 

Becky felt poised to take on this challenge because of her upbringing in the Rochester school system where she not only developed her academic skills and proficiencies but also sharpened her empathy and resiliency skills, which would prove pivotal in her future endeavors including starting her own business. 

“I was in a peer help group at John Marshall High School [as a student], and that’s where I learned how we all handle situations and receive information differently. Without my experience within that program, my perspective on how I interact with my community members, clients, and even family would be completely different.”

Still strong within RPS high schools exists the T.O.P.S. (Teens Offering Peer Support) program. T.O.P.S. is the evolved program that Becky was in herself. 

At its core, Rochester Local serves to welcome people into the community with as much helpful information as possible. Becky found a way to make her community more accessible, all while building a community for herself. 

But like most things in March 2020, things changed. The COVID-19 pandemic forced people to modify the way they did business, communicate, travel, and everything else! Rochester local was no different. 

“The other two big things I took away from high school were resiliency and creativity. High school is full of ups and downs. I learned what paradigms were and found out how to frame things from multiple perspectives. Creatively, nearly all of my instructors challenged me to think outside of the box. When COVID happened, the livelihood of Rochester Local depended on my resiliency and creativity.”

When thousands of Rochester residents searched for information on local COVID numbers, vaccine availability, and restaurants that delivered, Rochester Local changed its content to local guides, event information, outdoor activities, and safe social distancing opportunities rather than primarily parenting content and perspectives.

Now with two kids of her own, Becky and her husband AJ proudly send them to Rochester Public Schools.

“There has been a big emphasis on making school a community. This is crucial for developing relationships in a student body population. Belonging to something has been a theme throughout my Rochester Schools experience and now my kids’ Rochester Schools experience.”

Through her and her children’s experiences,  the Montpetit family has sustained a school spirit, of sorts, that keeps Rochester a great place to raise a family.

RPS Celebrates Bullying Prevention Month

October is Bullying Prevention Month and at Rochester Public Schools (RPS), teachers and staff across the district are trained in conflict resolution and work to convey anti-bullying messages. In our school buildings, RPS school counselors lead the charge to prevent bullying and start the effort when students enter elementary school.

Tony Yang is a school counselor at Jefferson Elementary School and the self-published author of “Banana,” a children’s book that draws from his personal experiences of bullies calling him “Banana” in school. 

“We use books to teach life lessons and skills to students and it was difficult to find a book that was related to students who look like me,” said Tony. “When kids hear that I wrote this, they’re shocked! They gasp and they see that anyone can do this and more importantly have a person to identify with the lessons in the book. When kids can see a living product of bullying in front of them, they have an easier time making connections between their peers and their actions.”

His vision aligns with RPS’ Multi-Tiered System of Supports in the mental health field. If a student is experiencing bullying — either noticed by a teacher or self reported by a student to a caregiver/adult — students can expect a school counselor to be receptive to their concerns. If additional intervention is necessary, students are enrolled into small groups of students with similar problems.

Sonya Lundstom, a school counselor at Kellogg Middle School, works specifically with students in this area.

“We do a lot of preventative work on bullying through community building. Most counselors here spend their time outside of their office and in classrooms and spaces where students are. Of course, students are willing to come seek us out, but by us being present, they’re more comfortable bringing their problems to us,” she said.

Sonya hands out notecards that have various thought provoking questions for students to fill out throughout the year. For the month of September, her notecards have asked: What does belonging look like to you?

Some students have responded: ‘having friends,’ ‘kindess,’ ‘feels welcoming,’ feels happy,’ ‘feels like not being left out,’ some of them draw pictures to illustrate how that prompt makes them feel.

“One of them said ‘ownership” said Sonya. “These are sixth graders with really profound outlooks on community and relationships with their peers.”

Kristina Stephenson, a school counselor at Dakota Middle School, has expanded her program to not only help students resolve peer conflicts, but also include adults.

“We’ve seen restorative circles work with kids and we’ve taken it a step further by including it in our staff and faculty practices,” Kristina said. “Dakota is building a school culture that starts with the adults leading by example.”

The foundation of preventative bullying starts with interactions like the ones listed above. The Multi-Tiered System of Supports starts with broad-stroke meetings with classrooms that outline what bullying looks like, where bullying behaviors come from, and how to prevent it.

Because of the efforts at the elementary school level, kids have the groundwork to recognize signs of bullying at the middle school level and beyond. Because of the middle school practices implemented by school counselors, students can continue building relationships with their peers and improving their skills to recognize their own behaviors.

Tony hosts town halls for every grade in Jefferson Elementary School, designed for students to go over bullying prevention. He also hosts his fourth and fifth graders for additional events on cyberbullying. 

Sonya orchestrates orientation with Kellogg Middle School teachers for her to meet every sixth grader in the building. She also meets with the elementary school counselors to know more about the incoming students before she meets with them.

Kristina has embraced the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) reward system (they call it Dakota Dollars) — a digital currency that is distributed by building staff when they see kids demonstrating good examples of safe, respectful, and responsible behavior.

After these foundation meetings have been established, school counselors can provide more welcoming environments for students who know what they’re experiencing is bullying. From there, more attention can be focused on managing relationships, respecting boundaries, and developing critical emotional skills. All of this can be done because the groundwork was laid by these school counselors prior. 

RPS school counselors recommend parents/caregivers connect with their students and be curious about what their kids are experiencing at school — ask questions, and take things seriously when they bring them up. Regardless if a student or parent/caregiver brings up a concern, RPS takes these reports seriously.

“Anyone is always welcome to reach out to school counselors or even principals about a concern,” Sonya said. All schools use the Speak Up feature to anonymously report bullying instances.