Welcome to Coffee with Caregivers

Please take a moment to complete this Site Council survey for MPS

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Lyndale Community School

State of the School Meeting

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October 28, 2025

Accountability,

Innovation, and

Research

Lyndale Community School

State of the School Meeting

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October 28, 2025

Accountability,

Innovation, and

Research

Agenda

Lyndale Elementary: WHO WE ARE

• Mission and vision
• Strengths
• Challenges

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OUR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

• Goals and strategies
• Sharing student progress

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TITLE I

• Overview of Title I
• How we’re using our Title I funds
• Title I and Family Engagement

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Lyndale Community School: �Who We Are

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Who We Are

Mission

Lyndale Community School exists to create success for all learners by helping each child achieve measurable growth each academic year.

Vision

Together with our community, our vision is to create a learning environment full of joy, positive relationships, and people who care for one another.

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School Stats

• Total Students: 485
• Free/Reduced Lunch: 85% (‘24-’25) - TBD for ‘25-’26
• Bilingual/Multilingual students receiving ELL services: 47.7%
• Students receiving specialized education services: 17%

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Our Current Reality

Strengths

• Strong community involvement
• Early Childhood program (Three School, High Five) that is benefiting our students entering Kindergarten
• Dedicated teachers who are committed to new learning
• PreK-5 teachers in Year 2 of Science of Reading training, EL teachers have completed training
• Diverse student population (multiple languages, ethnicities, identities)
• EL/Somali Heritage Program
• Intervention Triads for K-5
• Continued focus on Social Emotional Learning

Challenges

• Data shows our students of color are not making growth and proficiency at the same level as our white students
• Student Attendance and tardies continue to be a concern
• New transportation system created a rough start to the school year for some families
• ESSA designation from Minnesota Department of Education for Hispanic/Latino students - growth on MCAs

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ESSA Cycle and Identification for Lyndale Hispanic and Latino Students

MDE ESSA Designation - Their Calculations for Lyndale

(n=20 students or greater)

• All Students
• Black or African American Students
• English Learner Students
• Hispanic or Latino Students
• Special Education Students
• Students Eligible for Free/Reduced-Price Meals
• White Students

MDE ESSA Designation - Their Calculations for Lyndale

• While our overall proficiency levels may be lower than benchmark, most of our student groups demonstrate growth that offsets the state’s designation.
• Our Hispanic and Latino students overall growth is still under the threshold that MDE wants to see with MCA testing
• Therefore, Lyndale’s identification is “Targeted” for that racial/ethnic group of students through the North Star System

Comprehensive Needs Analysis Priorities - So Far

Literacy & Math Achievement

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School Climate

Attendance

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Additional Focus on our Hispanic/Latino Students

MDE ESSA Designation

Why Lyndale’s Hispanic/Latino Students and Not English Learners?

• These groupings are measured completely differently by MDE.
• Racial/ethnic groups are calculated with MCA/MTAS achievement.
• English Learners are calculated as a separate group with ACCESS progress.
• Lyndale’s English Learners make GREAT progress in their English acquisition as measured by ACCESS! YAY!!!

Letter from Department of Education

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lnLexRPEjxr7SXnvCB_wFZMw8mkA9Dch6gDGw-hpAm8/edit?tab=t.0

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Attendance 2024-25

n=86

n=11

n=14

n=15

n=1

n=153

n=237

Our School Improvement Plan

Link to Lyndale’s Website

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Our school improvement plan:

• Sets the goals that our school community is working to achieve
• Identifies the strategies or activities that will help us reach those goals together

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Every Minneapolis Public School is required to develop, implement, and monitor a school improvement plan.

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What’s a School Improvement Plan?

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Our School Improvement Plan

Goal 1: 2-5 Academic

The percentage of students of color 2nd-5th grade students meeting or exceeding expected growth targets in reading will increase from 39% as measured on Spring 2025 FAST aReading to 44% as measured by Spring 2026 FAST aReading.

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The percentage of students of color 2nd-5th grade students meeting or exceeding expected growth targets in math will increase from 38% as measured on Spring 2025 FAST aMath to 43% as measured by Spring 2026 FAST aMath.

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Strategy to achieve our goal:

-PLC Cycles - LETRS / CORE training

-Intervention Triads for reading and math

-UFLI / Advanced Word Study Implementation

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Our School Improvement Plan

Goal 2: Student Well- Being

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MPS Student Climate Survey - Peer to Peer: Overall positive response rate for window #2 will increase from 67% (Spring 2025) to 77% (Spring 2026)

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We will disaggregate for student group

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Strategy to achieve our goal:

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• EAGLES Matrix- common expectations and language
• Wayfinder: at least 1 lesson a week in classrooms, including specialist
• Use of Waypoint assessments to measure student social emotional learning progress
• Identified students participated in social emotional learning groups weekly with social workers

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Our School Improvement Plan

Goal 3: Effective Staff

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25% of our licensed teachers will participate in elective peer observations for collaboration by Spring 2026

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Strategy to achieve our goal:

• Peer observations
• Team meetings
• More frequent informal observations by admin and instructional specialist

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Our School Improvement Plan

Goal 4: School Climate

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Attendance at the Lyndale International Night will be maintained as measured by attendance taken from the event.

Strategy to achieve our goal:

Effective communication

• Monthly Teacher Newsletters
• Talking Points
• Coffee with Caregivers
• Weekly School Updates

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How We Measure Student Progress

Assessments help us answer questions such as:

• Are we teaching what we think we are teaching?
• Are students learning what we intend for them to be learning?
• Are all students improving and being appropriately challenged?

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Some of the assessments our students will take this year are:

• TS GOLD, IGDI
• Fast aReading and aMath
• Bridges Unit Assessments
• Benchmark Unit Assessments
• UFLI/Advanced Word Study Assessments
• School Climate Survey
• Waypoints assessments (SEL)

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We want to make sure our students are learning as much as possible, so we use state and district assessments to determine their strengths and areas for growth. The results of these assessments help us figure out how we can better support our students in the classroom.

Throughout the year, we’ll share information with you about how your student is doing in the classroom.

We’ll do it in the following ways:

• Parent-Teacher conferences on October 14th- 15th, 2025, and February 13th, 2026.
• Quarterly report cards sent home with students
• Ongoing communication with families regarding growth and progress

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How We’ll Share Student Progress with You

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Title I

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What is Title I?

Title I supports our School Improvement Plan, and the funding we receive helps us reach our goals.

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Title I is a federal program that provides money to schools and districts to help them ensure all children have an equal opportunity to get a high-quality education and achieve proficiency on our state’s academic standards and assessments.

For this school year, we received $240,588 in Title I funding and $5,904 in Title 1 Family Involvement.

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We are required to use Title I funding to improve the academic achievement of all students and engage YOU, our families, in that process!

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Lyndale Community School is a schoolwide Title I program, which means all our students are able to benefit from the services we provide with our Title I funding.

How We’re Using our Title I Funding

Curriculum and Instruction Support

• Staffing:

Associate Educators

Family Liaison

Interventionist K-2

Interventionist 3-5 (district Title)

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Family Engagement

• Food at Three Family Events
• Food at parent engagement events (Site Council, Coffee with Caregivers)
• Transportation for families to attend conferences
• Student Engagement Activities (presenters)

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• Request information from the district about whether your student’s teacher meets State licensing approval for the grade and subject being taught, is teaching with a waiver, and/or has certification for the field being taught
• Request information about the qualifications of any paraprofessional providing instruction
• Know how your child’s school is rated on its state test scores
• Expect regular communication with your school in a language that you can understand
• Work with other families and staff to develop a compact between our school and our families
• Help plan how money for family involvement should be spent
• Work with teachers, other families, and the school principal to develop a family engagement plan
• Ask for a meeting with your school principal or your child’s teacher at any time

As a family member in a Title I School, you have the right to…

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Opportunities for Families to be Involved!

We want your input on our:

• School Improvement Plan goals and strategies
• Family Engagement Plan
• School-Family Compact

You can find all these documents on our school website!

We’d love to see you at the following school events:

• Parent-Teacher Conferences on October 14th and 15th, February 13th
• Welcome Back Event
• STEM Night: January 22nd 2025
• International Night: May 21st, 2025
• Coffee with Caregivers (Site Council): Second Tuesday of the month

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• Participate in Coffee with Caregivers (Site Council)! Our Coffee with Caregivers meets the second Tuesday of every month. We discuss our SIP, School Budget, and engagement.
• Talk to your child’s teacher about events and issues that may affect your child’s work or behavior.

School Staff Information

Principal

• Meghan O’Connor

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Assistant Principal

• Kendra Kecker

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Family Liaison

• Kelly Holdgrafer

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We appreciate you!

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