Education beat: Lakeville school has called in the dogs

A Lakeville elementary school has been testing the use of canines in certain classrooms, with positive results.

At Tuesday's Lakeville school board meeting, Eastview Elementary Principal Taber Akin and Holly Ryan, a school psychologist from Kenwood Trail Middle School, presented the results of several pilot studies recently conducted at Eastview.

The studies used trained "resource dogs" to help special education students, kids with reading difficulties and those with school-related anxiety.

One student in the study was a girl who struggled to make transitions from one activity to the next. After working with a dog, she "decreased the number of prompts [needed to transition] by 96 percent, which I'd say is pretty darn successful," said Ryan.

In another example, first-graders reading below grade level were much more motivated when they practiced reading aloud to a dog.

"It's just pretty magical. It really is," said Ryan.

Board member Roz Peterson said she "looked forward to seeing a proposal, and I'm sure we'll pass it with flying colors."

Erin Adler

A new study by the Minnesota Department of Education shows that 72 percent of kindergartners were deemed ready for school, up from 60 percent in 2010.

Each year the department assesses school readiness of students during the first eight weeks of kindergarten. Areas include: physical development, the arts, social development, language and literacy, and mathematical thinking.

"Students who have access to high-quality early learning are more likely to start fully prepared and then stay on track academically," said Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds were less likely to be fully prepared, according to the Minnesota School Readiness Study. This year, the Legislature approved $40 million in scholarships to help low-income families find high-quality early learning programs.

Kim McGuire

A study out this week shows that charter school enrollment continues to increase nationally and here in the Twin Cities.

For the first time, more than 20 percent of all public school students in Minneapolis and St. Paul attend charter schools, according to a study by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

That's certainly not the highest percentage in the country — that title goes to New Orleans where about 70 percent of all public school students attend charter schools. In Detroit, that number is 51 percent and in Washington, D.C., it's 43 percent.

The study shows that in the past year charter school enrollment grew in Minneapolis by 7 percent and by 10 percent in St. Paul. One in five students in the Twin Cities attend a charter school, according to the report.

Joe Nathan, executive director of the St. Paul-based Center for School Change, said the growth in the Twin Cities charter school enrollment can be credited to the expansion of successful schools like Harvest Prep and Hiawatha Academy and the addition of new schools.

Kim McGuire