Closing referral disparities (resolution agreement with Office of Civil Rights)

Collaborators 

Lead Organization: Rochester Public Schools

Contact: Afolabi Runsewe ; Email: afrunsewe@rochester.k12.mn.us ; Phone: 507-328-4300

Known/Likely Collaborators: RPS Racial Equity Advisory Team (Community Focus Team) ; Rochester Public Schools ; Rochester for Justice ; United Way of Olmsted County

Potential Collaborators: Diversity Council ; Mediation & Conflict Solutions ; NAACP, Rochester Chapter

Related Projects

Collaborative Leadership Fellow Program ; Developing and Executing on Cradle to Career Plan ; Diversity Council Civic Equity Focus Area ; Diversity Council Education Equity Plan ; OpenBeam Activating Technologies Project ; Rochester Public Schools Strategic Plan

Impacts 

Major Impact:  Diversity and Inclusion

PlanScape Impacts :

Level 1: Children & Youth, Diversity and Inclusion, Education

Level 2: African American, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Latino, C2C: 3rd Grade Reading, C2C: 8th Grade Math, C2C: Post-Secondary, C2C: Workforce Participation

DMC Impacts:

Community Health Impacts:

Type of Project

Planning, Programming  

2022-08-07 Beam Comments:

This project appeared to beome a component of the RPS's 2022 Strategic Plan. 

Agreement with MDHR

Link => 2011 RPS Office of Civil Right Discipline Disparity Data

RPS and OCR Agreement on Action Plan

More Info

Misc Community Focus Team Activities

2018-07-22

Link to July CFT Data Subgroup Status

2018-06-03:

Community Focus Team (Data Sub-group) recommendations on data presentation.

According to the district’s data, suspensions increased from 1,224 in 2021-22 to 1,523 in 2022-23, representing a jump of 24.4%."

RPS 2021-2022 Monitoring Reports

2018-2019 Report presented to RPS school board and comparison with 2018 reporting. 

"The district is at various points of implementing PBIS at each school, but having more consistency will better allow the district to evaluate efforts, including its latest employee training in ENVoY, a nonverbal communication technique to influence students in the classroom."

At 2017-04-19 RPS School Board Meeting the following decision was made to enhance the effectiveness of School Board's Community Engagement Committee and RPS's Community Focus Team: deploy a design team (steering committee) to co-facilitate going forward.

In August 2016, the Community Focus Team brought forward a set of recommendations. Questions from the community: What has happened since then and how do we get engaged?

4 main areas to make progress toward education equity.

Great RPS: Equity in Family Engagement Meeting. Following are some notes. 

Great Lakes Equity Center has identified 6 barriers for equity progress.

After attending the January 7 2016 RPS community meeting, I took the time to review the slide deck handed out by RPS at the meeting and found myself asking a number of questions. 

 The Rochester Public School District is taking the first steps to address a disproportionate disciplinary rate for black and Hispanic students. A community engagement session to get input and solicit involvement from community members will be held at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 7 at Riverside Elementary School. I believe that conversation is necessary but not sufficient. We need to follow up with actions. Here is a 5+1 action plan.

CMRC pausing public activities and investment potential white paper availability announcement.

Sept. 16^th: Workshop: Finding your First Customers and sell without being salesy; Sept 21^st: Workshop: Financial Literacy; Sept. 28^th: Workshop: How to Start a Business from Scratch (Part 1); Oct. 5^th: Workshop: How to Start a Business from Scratch (Part 2);

2024-08-12 PB Reporting GRAUC leads project to build prototype sim center The Southeast Minnesota Community Healthcare Simulation Center is set to open in downtown

Rochester by mid-October

Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Fight Against Hate

"Abolishing racism, hate crimes, and white supremacy isn’t a problem for one group to face alone; it’s a shared burden that requires a strong and unified response."

August 2024 Report : Age-Friendly Olmsted County (AFOC) activities implementing the Age

Friendly Olmsted County 2022-2025 Action Plan since our annual report in February 2024.

3Q2024: July 2024 Admin Message and Reports

Newsletter Highlights:

Systems Change Designation; Data Updates; Network Updates; Contributors

Home Ownership Creation Program - Prairie Ridge: "NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the Common Council of the City of Rochester, MN hereby approves the contribution of $4,000,000 to the Prairie Ridge development to support the creation of 201 for-sale homes via the Home Ownership Creation Program.

The framework defines structural racism as the “totality of ways in which societies foster racial discrimination through mutually reinforcing systems of housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care and criminal justice.”

2Q 2024: June 2024; May 2024 - Admin Message, TBE Report; April 2024 - Admin Message, TBE Report

1Q 2024: Feb 2024 - Admin Message, TBE Report; Jan 2024: Admin Message, TBE Report

Special callouts: Women in Construction; City of Rochester Equity in Development 

June 24, 2024 City Council Study Session: Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Audit per Goodenough 

Departmental Audit reports of: Human Resources; Rochester Public Library; Parks & Rec 

SASSA to receive $1M from MN to train workers for high-demand employment. 

The funding is awarded under the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Targeted Populations Workforce Competitive Grant Program.

"Example of careers they are interested in include radiology, artificial Intelligence, surgery, aeronautical engineering, psychology, sports, business administration and many more!"