Glacial Hills Elementary School
Summary
Launched in 2007
Serves 91 students in grades K-6
Ninety percent of students are white; 53% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and 34% for special education services
Glacial Hills Elementary is the only charter school in the county; it was founded to replace the community’s shuttered district-run elementary school
Starbuck is a “rural-remote” community (the “most” rural), home to approximately 1,200 people
Glacial Hills’ model is based on 1) strong community connection; 2) investment in special education; 3) environmental education; and 4) small class sizes
Challenges include 1) relationship with the district; 2) enrollment; and 3) staff retention
Introduction
In 2005, the small town of Starbuck, Minnesota suffered two devastating losses. First, the local hospital, a major employer in the town, closed after years of financial struggles. Less than a week later, the local school district decided to shutter Starbuck’s elementary school following years of declining enrollment.[1]
The loss of the hospital meant Starbuck no longer had one of its key economic drivers. The loss of its school meant students would have to take the bus about 30 minutes each way to the neighboring town of Glenwood. Both meant that families moving to the region were less likely to choose to live in Starbuck, portending overall population decline and greater economic uncertainty. Without these core community institutions, the long-term viability of Starbuck looked bleak.
But some of Starbuck’s residents refused to stand by. Instead, a group of local parents and residents decided to use the state’s charter school law to open a new school in Starbuck. It took local residents — including parents, community volunteers, teachers, and charter school board members — less than 12 months to apply for a charter and renovate the old hospital into a facility suitable for an elementary school. In fall 2007, Glacial Hills Elementary School opened its doors to 79 students in grades K through 6.[2]
“The town of Starbuck once again has its own community school.”
The town of Starbuck once again has its own community school. Starting a school from scratch and running it independently from the local school district has had its challenges, but the commitment of Starbuck residents to its only school has helped sustain it for more than a decade. Today, Glacial Hills Elementary enrolls 91 students in grades K through 6 and boasts math and reading scores that outperform both statewide averages and those of the local school district. Students are exposed to an environmentally relevant curriculum and share a close relationship with residents of the assisted living facility that is attached to the school. But more than that, Glacial Hills Elementary has reestablished a core community asset; one that residents are proud of, that they hope will sustain the community’s families for years to come, and that could help attract more families to Starbuck.
Community Context
The town of Starbuck, Minnesota, sits in west-central Minnesota, about 80 miles from St. Cloud.
Miles of farmland dotted with cows and crops line the one-lane highway into town until Lake Minnewaska — the state’s 13th largest lake — comes into view. Main Street, the hub of downtown Starbuck, consists of a few small cafes, a bakery, a grocery store, a general store, and several churches. Scattered throughout the few square blocks of the town center are vacant storefronts, a reminder of Starbuck’s dwindling economy.
A smaller percentage of Starbuck’s residents live in poverty compared to statewide and national averages (9% compared to 10% and 12%, respectively).[3] However, just 19% of Starbuck’s adult population holds a bachelor’s degree or higher,[4] well below the national average of 31%.[5] And the median household income in Starbuck is $46,053,[6] also well below the state and national medians ($65,699 and $57,652, respectively).[7]
These economic indicators are suggestive of a small town struggling to attract and retain businesses that provide viable employment opportunities to residents. Historically, small family farms fueled Starbuck’s economy. Today, however, most of the family farms are gone, sold to larger, corporate farms. The majority of the land is rented out and many old farmhouses are uninhabited.[8] The Starbuck residents who do continue to farm face increasing difficulty in making ends meet, and most have a second or even third job in order to pay the bills. Shifting weather patterns have caused increased snow and rain this year, and tariffs on imported materials like steel and aluminum are driving up the prices of farming equipment, at a time when farm incomes continue to drop.[9]
The limited economic activity in Starbuck makes it difficult for young people with college degrees to return to the community and find career opportunities. Many leave for college and find jobs elsewhere. However, a lot of Starbuck residents return to the community once they retire. Starbuck’s mayor, Gary Swenson, who himself returned to Starbuck in his retirement, explained: “Our young people tend to leave Starbuck for work to find jobs. But a lot of them come back.” And there are some reasons to be hopeful. As farming has become an increasingly difficult economic proposition, the local economy has slowly transitioned to one based on tourism.
Locals agree that Starbuck’s prime location along the shores of Lake Minnewaska is its greatest asset. Every summer, tourists flock to the lake and bring an influx of economic activity to local businesses. The local Hobo Park Campground offers RV campsites as well as access to the Starbuck Marina and other outdoor activities including swimming, tennis, softball, playground equipment, and a paved path for walking and biking.[10] The campground is such a boon to the local economy that the community is in the early stages of building a second RV park. Leaders anticipate this new park will bring an additional 50 to 100 families to the area during peak tourism season.
Aside from summer tourism, the assisted living facility employs a few dozen health care workers. The local school district is another major employer in the area in and around Starbuck, though school consolidation and closures over the past several decades have resulted in fewer jobs in the school system.
Education Context
In 1991 the three area school districts — Glenwood, Starbuck, and Villard — collaborated to build Minnewaska Area High School. Two years later, the three districts consolidated to form the Minnewaska Area School District. Initially, Glenwood, Starbuck, and Villard each maintained their local elementary school, enabling students in grades K-6 to attend school close to home, but this proved to be a temporary solution to declining enrollments and financial strain. In 2005 the district closed Starbuck’s and Villard’s elementary schools.
Today, the Minnewaska Area School District serves 1,300 students living in Starbuck and the surrounding communities.[11] The majority of students attend one of two schools: either the elementary school in Glenwood, which serves grades K-3, or the intermediate and high school campus that serves grades 4-12. The district also operates a school for students with special needs, W.I.N. Academy, and several preschool programs.[12] Glacial Hills Elementary is the only charter school in the county.
Both Glacial Hills Elementary and the Minnewaska Area School District serve a student population that is primarily white (90% and 93%, respectively) and largely descended from the Norwegian immigrants who settled the area.
Percent of Students by Race/Ethnicity
Percent of Students by Subgroup
While there is little racial or ethnic diversity in the community, both the school district and Glacial Hills Elementary serve high proportions of students with special needs. At 34%, Glacial Hills Elementary’s rate of students with special needs is more than double the statewide average. In addition, more than half of Glacial Hills Elementary’s students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a substantially higher rate than either the district or the state.
Percent of Students Scoring Proficient or Higher in ELA, by Subgroup
Percent of Students Scoring Proficient or Higher in Math, by Subgroup
Despite high rates of students in poverty and students with special needs, test scores suggest that Glacial Hills Elementary is providing its students with a high-quality education. Since 2013 (as far back as comparable data are publicly available), Glacial Hills has been outperforming statewide averages in reading and math.[13] In 2018, 71% of Glacial Hills’ students met or exceeded statewide standards in math; 74% did so in reading. These rates are above those of both the local school district and the state,[14] Notably, Glacial Hills Elementary also outperformed the district and the state in terms of proficiency rates for students with disabilities and those eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRL-eligible). In reading, for example, 52% of Glacial Hills’ students with special needs scored proficient or higher compared to 29% and 30% of students at the district and state level, respectively.
Students Scoring Proficient or Higher in Math, by Subgroup
Students Scoring Proficient or Higher in Reading, by Subgroup
School Model
Glacial Hills Elementary’s founding story is relatively unique in the charter world. Typically, founders open a charter school as an additional school in a community, to invoke competition or to provide families with an educational model distinct from that provided by the district. But Glacial Hills Elementary is the only elementary school in Starbuck; it was founded to replace the community’s shuttered school.
Glacial Hills’ teachers and leaders attribute the school’s success to four core components of its model:
Community connection
Investment in special education
Environmental education
Small class sizes
These core elements have helped Glacial Hills develop a strong academic program that supports all of its students to achieve academic excellence.
1. Community connection
Founded, built, and supported by parents and residents, the school has a tight connection to the local community. Though there was some initial skepticism — Starbuck Mayor Gary Swenson recalls that a good portion of residents didn’t expect the school to make it beyond the first few years — the school’s deep roots in the community have sustained it for more than a decade.
Beyond helping Starbuck regain its identity, Glacial Hills Elementary plays an important role in the community. As Anne Beuckens, a member of Starbuck’s chamber of commerce, explained: “I know Glacial Hills Elementary is an asset to the community. The kids will be singing down at our festival. [The music teacher] does a lot with the nursing home. It always seems to be busy with people and activities.”
The school also maintains a close connection with another of the community’s core institutions. Glacial Hills Elementary is connected by a hallway to the local assisted living facility, Holly Ridge Manor. Chris Knoll, administrator for the Minnewaska Lutheran Home that runs Holly Ridge Manor, described the facility’s relationship with the charter school: “Glacial Hills provides entertainment and activities for those in the assisted living facility. They perform a spring music program and they participate in reading programs with seniors. The students come over to Holly Ridge to trick-or-treat for Halloween. … The residents really enjoy having the school connected to their facility.”
This relationship is very much a two-way street. For example, one of Holly Ridge’s residents, who has grandchildren enrolled at Glacial Hills Elementary, goes to the school a few times a week to tutor some of the students. The close relationship that Glacial Hills Elementary and Holly Ridge Manor have forged serves to deepen the roots of Glacial Hills Elementary in the community.
Moreover, Glacial Hills Elementary recently started a small preschool program, helping to address a major gap in the community. As Swenson explained, “Child care is really tough right now … we don’t have a lot of options in the community.” Recognizing this need and wanting to be a part of the solution, Glacial Hills Elementary’s leaders launched a preschool program to serve Starbuck’s 3- and 4-year-olds. This program is not state-funded; rather, it is a service that the school provides to parents for a fee. Parents are happy with this new offering, as it not only fills a need in the community, but also ensures that young children will be ready to start kindergarten. As one parent said, “For me, it’s nice to know that [my daughter] is in preschool here, so she has been in the school and knows the teachers and stuff like that, so she’ll be comfortable to go to kindergarten. The program is structuring those preschoolers exactly how the kindergarten teacher wants them. So they already know, this is what they’re supposed to do.” Moreover, board members of the school believe that offering a preschool program could help increase enrollment, by helping more families learn about Glacial Hills.
Glacial Hills Elementary’s community connection — forming relationships with other community institutions and responding to community needs — is a core component of its model, and one that has helped it find success since its founding.
2. Investment in special education
“For a school with fewer than 100 students, four full-time employees focused on supporting students with unique emotional, behavioral, and learning needs demonstrates a strong commitment to serving well all students and their families. ”
As noted above, Glacial Hills Elementary’s special education population is unusually high. At 34%, it is more than double the statewide rate of special education identification, and 12 percentage points higher than the district. While there’s no clear reason for this, there’s a lot of speculation. Erin Anderson, the director of charter school authorizing at Audubon Center of the North Woods (which authorizes Glacial Hills Elementary), notes that a number of charter schools in their portfolio have higher percentages of special education students. She hypothesizes that this is a result of smaller class sizes in many charter schools, which can facilitate more individualized attention and less bullying. Word spreads among parents that special education students are being served well by charter schools, leading to an influx of enrollment among families with special needs students. One of Glacial Hills Elementary’s special education teachers agrees with this assessment, explaining, “Parents have found out that Glacial Hills has small class sizes and the same resources as the district to serve their students. The small class sizes are a big draw.”
Regardless of the reasons behind the large special education enrollment at Glacial Hills Elementary, school director Deb Mathias has committed to serving those students well. To do that, she hired two full-time special education teachers, a full-time speech pathologist, and a full-time social worker. In addition, Glacial Hills Elementary has several paraprofessionals who work in classrooms with individual students or small groups. For a school with fewer than 100 students, this staffing model indicates a strong commitment to serving students and their families well. Having special education professionals in the building has helped classroom teachers learn how to modify lessons and activities to better include all students. As Mathias explained, “I think that our teachers are getting a better idea about how to include kids.”
Mathias has worked hard to ensure that the school’s budget is not a barrier to hiring the right staff, and has taken advantage of federal reimbursements for special education that enable her to hire the specialized teachers her students need.
3. Environmental education
Glacial Hills Elementary is authorized by the Audubon Center of the North Woods. The Audubon Center is a nonprofit, residential environmental learning conference and retreat center, and is the state’s largest charter school authorizer by number of schools. Audubon requires all of the schools it authorizes to identify goals that foster environmental literacy. They work closely with schools to develop these goals, and support schools in developing a curriculum that takes advantage of the local environment. For Glacial Hills Elementary, that means a focus on Lake Minnewaska.
Photo credit: Glacial Hills Elementary’s Facebook page
Glacial Hills Elementary approaches its environmental education goals by embedding them into all classrooms. For example, much of students’ physical education coursework happens outside. Students have learned orienteering. During Minnesota’s long winters, students go sledding and snowshoeing. As Mathias explained, “We don’t have separate environmental education classes per se, but we try to infuse it into everyday work. And we focus a lot of our field trips on environmental work. The older kids do an overnight at one of the local environmental education centers, such as Long Prairie. The younger kids go to a wind farm. We take all the kids to the state park. We also encourage simple things: reading outside, learning outside. Our goal is to get kids to be more environmentally literate by the time they leave.”
Parents appreciate this aspect of Glacial Hills Elementary’s curriculum. One parent said, “When we toured here, they mentioned the environmental focus for the kids. And they really deliver on that, I think, with field trips and different projects. The kids are outside a lot. They do things that none of the other schools do.”
4. Small class sizes
Mathias has a commitment to keeping class sizes small, with no more than 20 students per class. Class sizes currently sit closer to 15. This is a huge draw for many of Starbuck’s parents and families. One parent explained, “There was nothing negative about Minnewaska, but the positive part of this school was the smaller class sizes. I felt like all of my kids could benefit from that.” Another parent agreed, citing the hands-on approach that teachers can take: “Since the class sizes are smaller, [the teachers] can go to [the level of the students] more so than if you’ve got a huge class of 30 kids. So that’s a big advantage.” According to Holly Ridge’s assisted living director Dawn Roen, the small class sizes also help create a strong, family-like culture: “The teachers know everything about the students. They know their families, they know who struggles and who needs more support. They really give their all to the kids, all the time. They all do.”
The three defining characteristics of Glacial Hills Elementary’s model are mutually reinforcing: The small class sizes and environmental education focus help facilitate the school’s emphasis on meeting the unique learning needs of its special education students. The small classes ensure greater individualized instruction for all students, and the environmental education focus offers students the opportunity to learn in different environments. Being out of the classroom can help calm behavior issues and offers students a more hands-on learning experience, making it an ideal model for students with particular learning needs. In addition, the connection with Holly Ridge Manor is beneficial. As one special education teacher noted, “It has been helpful to student development to have Holly Ridge so close. The special education students work well with the older adults.”
Challenges
Though by all accounts Glacial Hills Elementary is a strong school with deep community support, it has faced a few challenges.
1. Relationship with the district
When Glacial Hills Elementary first opened its doors in fall 2007, many residents were supportive but pessimistic about its long-term potential. As both Mathias and Mayor Swenson described, there was a subset of residents who didn’t think the school would last beyond a year or two. While there was not an organized effort against the school, not everyone in the greater Minnewaska area was excited about it, either. Mathias explained, “The district didn’t make it difficult, but there were people within the district who had negative attitudes toward the school and that attitude was pervasive. … like the district refused to let us use the old elementary building, even though it was empty.”
Many school staff, parents, and community leaders described a decades-long rivalry between Starbuck and neighboring Glenwood that still creates some tension around Glacial Hills Elementary. It’s unclear why or when the rivalry originated, but the consolidation of Minnewaska Area High School and the subsequent consolidation of the Glenwood, Starbuck, and Villard school districts has not erased the memory of the communities’ older residents, who well remember the rivalry. One remnant of this tension is the fact that the Minnewaska Area High School is located neither in Starbuck nor in Glenwood, but almost exactly halfway between the two towns. When the district closed Starbuck’s and Villard’s elementary schools, leaving just one elementary school in Glenwood, many Starbuck residents resented having to send their children on a 30-minute bus ride to go to school — especially a school located in Glenwood.
Some of the resistance came from a concern about limited resources. As one parent said, “I think there was some resistance at first, because I’m sure they were concerned about how many students [Glacial Hills] would take from [the district] to begin with. There was some animosity because of concerns about funding and what they were going to lose.” This attitude remains under the surface in some of the relationships among adults in the community. One parent described his experience: “Unfortunately, we’ve gotten some negative feedback for having our kids here [at Glacial Hills]. Minor things that you can tell the attitude of some people — not everybody — is that there’s a school here and you’re taking some of the funding out of the big school.”
This relationship is beginning to shift. In 2018, Minnewaska Area Schools hired a new superintendent, Chip Rankin, who has made a concerted effort to connect with Mathias and others at Glacial Hills Elementary. As Rankin explained, “I see the Glenwood-Starbuck rivalry, but Minnewaska needs Glacial Hills. We couldn’t take the 91 kids from Glacial Hills and have a place for them. There are no openings in any of our classrooms. We have no additional seats. The kids from Glacial Hills would send class sizes over 30.” He also sees the importance of forging a stronger partnership, since Glacial Hills students typically transfer to Minnewaska Area High School after sixth grade. Referring to the district’s mascot, Rankin said, “They’re all going to be Lakers someday.”
Mathias appreciates Rankin’s outreach. “Chip has been great about bringing us into the fold. He invites us to board meetings and came and toured the school. He’s really worked to initiate and maintain a relationship.”
Though things are trending up in terms of the relationship here, its historical strain has made it challenging for some students as they transition from Glacial Hills Elementary into the district high school. As one Glacial Hills Elementary teacher said, “It would be nice to communicate with the junior high teachers at the district so that we know what they are expecting. We’ve never really had that communication with the district.” And one of Glacial Hills Elementary’s special education teachers described some barriers that exist for students with special needs as they make that transition: “It’s a really hard transition for kids when they go to the district. There’s a big adjustment period. It would be nice to have a better system in place for transition meetings to support students as they move from Glacial Hills into the district.”
2. Enrollment
Charter schools are funded on a per-pupil basis, so the larger the enrollment, the more funding they get. Larger enrollments also enable charter schools to achieve economies of scale (for example, adding two or three students to a class would bring in additional revenue but not require hiring an additional teacher). Because enrollment drives the school’s budget, maximizing and stabilizing enrollment is critical for the school’s financial stability.
Photo credit: Glacial Hills Elementary’s Facebook page
Enrollment at Glacial Hills Elementary has fluctuated pretty significantly since it opened. In its first year, the school enrolled about 80 kids. It reached its peak at around 125 kids during the 2015-16 school year. Enrollment seems to have settled around 90 for the past few years. The school isn’t operating at capacity, however. School board members acknowledge the importance of stabilizing enrollment for the schools’ long-term financial viability and have delayed plans to build a gymnasium given the recent fluctuations. Mathias says she would like to get enrollment back over 100 for the school to continue to be financially sustainable.
She hypothesizes that the biggest factor leading to enrollment declines at Glacial Hills Elementary is that “there’s nothing to draw people to Starbuck. There’s no big industry. Unless you have a relative living here, there’s no reason for people to come here.” In addition, the Minnewaska junior high and high school campus has started expanding into lower grade levels — it recently added fourth grade to that campus, so it now serves grades 4-12. This has resulted in a loss of some of Glacial Hills’ older students, as they opt to transition to the district high school campus at the same time as their peers, rather than completing sixth grade at Glacial Hills Elementary and transitioning into the district as the “new kid” two years later.
In addition to some traditional efforts to boost enrollment — like mass mailings and establishing an advertising committee — the board of Glacial Hills hopes that the new preschool program could also help attract more families.
3. Staff retention
Glacial Hills Elementary has benefited from a core set of staff members who have been with the school since the beginning. Three of the school’s current teachers and the school’s receptionist have been there since day one. Mathias joined the team during its second year of operation. Several board members have also provided consistent leadership over time. This core set of staff members and leaders has helped to ensure consistency of the founding team’s vision and of the school’s model from year to year.
Aside from this core group, however, Glacial Hills Elementary has experienced some staff turnover. Some of this turnover is due to teachers retiring (some, who retired when the old Starbuck elementary closed, came back to teach at Glacial Hills Elementary and have subsequently retired for a second time). In other cases, Glacial Hills Elementary has lost staff due to its lower salaries. One teacher explained, “Some teachers left because of the money. If I left and went to the district, I could probably make about $20,000 more.”
So far, Mathias indicates that she hasn’t had too much trouble filling vacant spots. She posts on the state board of education’s website and has a good relationship with a local teacher college, the University of Minnesota, Morris. Most teachers tend to be from the area and are looking for a small community and a small school environment. Even with the relative ease of filling open positions so far, teachers note that the turnover can have a real effect on the school’s culture, given its small size. The music teacher, who has been with the school since its founding, retired at the end of the 2018-19 school year. Referencing this loss, one teacher said: “The music teacher has been here since the beginning, but she’s retiring this year. She’s been a big driver of our community involvement and our relationship with Holly Ridge. It’s yet to be seen how the school atmosphere will change with her gone.”
Conclusion
For more than a decade Glacial Hills Elementary School has been a symbol of hope for Starbuck’s residents, and proof that the community can recapture its sense of identity even in the face of losing two major institutions. Ideally, the presence of a high-quality school could attract new families to Starbuck, which could help drive some much-needed economic growth. In the meantime, the school’s roots are deep in this community, and it is this connection to the residents of Starbuck that many credit for its success. As school staff members, families, and students look to the future, they see reason for optimism, even as they work to forge a stronger relationship with the local school district and address ongoing challenges including staff turnover and fluctuating student enrollment.