Wellstone International High School is located in Minneapolis and serves multilingual and multicultural students ages 17-21. The school aims to make students college and career ready through an aligned curriculum, community partnerships, blended learning in math, literacy programs, and native language support. Key elements of the redesign include accelerated English courses, native language and world language courses, expanded afterschool and summer programming, a blended learning approach to math utilizing online and teacher-led instruction, counseling support, and partnerships with local colleges and workforce programs. Data shows growth in math scores through the blended learning model.

1. Wellstone International High
School Program Re-Design
MELED Presentation
November 6, 2015

2. “Never Separate the Life you Live from the Words you Speak.”
-Paul Wellstone
Wellstone International High
School
• Traditional High School
• Minneapolis Public
Schools
• Located: 3328 Elliot
Avenue South,
Minneapolis, Minnesota
55407
• Serves ages17-21

3. Introductions
• Dr. Aimee Fearing Principal
• Mr. Ali Kofiro School Counselor
• Mr. Chris Castellano School Counselor
• Ms. Melissa Persson ESL and Reading Teacher
• Mr. Gytis Liulevicius ESL and Math Teacher
• Mr. Paul Kroshus Instructional Specialist
• Ms. Josephine Moreno World Language AP Spanish Teacher
• Mr. Mohamud Noor Director of Confederation of Somali Community
• Ms. Jennifer Leazer Multilingual Department, MPS

4. Wellstone Students Are…
• Emerging Bilinguals and Multilinguals
• Multicultural
• Change Makers
• Future Scholars
• Future Workforce

5. Wellstone International High School
• Mission
The mission of Wellstone International High School
is to develop globally competent students through
rigorous coursework, acceleration in English
language acquisition, graduation pathways, and
access to support and enrichment services.
• Vision
– Every student college and career ready.

6. Program Re-Design
1. Aligned, Rigorous Curriculum2. Community
Partnerships
3. Blended Learning Mathematics
4. Literacy Program
5. Native Language Literacy
"I saw as a teacher how, if you take that spark of learning that
those children have, and you ignite it, you can take a child from
any background to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment.“
-Paul Wellstone

7. Aligned, Rigorous Curriculum
• Individualized curriculum that promotes
acceleration in targeted areas of math, literacy
and English language
acquisition. Implementation of WIDA Model
Performance Indicators (MPI) within
curriculum for each course.
• GOAL: Wellstone will be meet or exceed
nationally normed growth percentiles based
on ACCESS scores

8. Accelerated English Courses
• EMERGING LITERACY (BLOCK CLASS)
• BEGINNING READING
• BEGINNING WRITING
• INTERMEDIATE READING
• INTERMEDIATE WRITING
• ADVANCED READING
• ADVANCED WRITING
• ENGLISH 10
• SPEECH AND DEBATE

9. Internationals Network
for Public Schools

10. Native Language Literacy
and World Language
• Asset-based programming includes
offering courses that build off
students' strengths.
• This year, we offer Spanish for
native Spanish speakers as well as
Arabic for native Arabic speakers
and Arabic as a second language.
• Courses:
– AP Spanish 5 and 6
– Arabic I and II
13 students passed AP
Exam
30 students received
bilingual seal

11. Community Partnerships
• At Wellstone, we understand the cornerstone of our
community school is to engage stakeholders including
community-based and nationally-based organizations as
part of our programming.
• In the past two years, Wellstone has connected, developed
and nurtured relationships with partners to provide more
access to college and career opportunities.
• Current partnerships include, International Network for
Public Schools, Minneapolis Community and Technical
College, Confederation of Somali Community, People’ s
Center Health Services, Generation Next, Augsburg EAST
program, and World Savvy.

12. Extended Learning Opportunities
• Saturday School
– Staffed by Community Partners
• Open School on student-release days
• Summer Learning
– Extended past summer school
– Experiential learning
• College and Career Opportunities
– Coordinator
– Experiences off-site

13. Afterschool Programming

14. Blended Learning in Math
• Students have a blend of time with a teacher at the board, and students
working on their individual online assignments. Students use a variety of
learning approaches to learn mathematics in different ways. Independent
learning and persistence through problem solving is a foundation of this
program and a necessary skill to be college and career ready. Students are
expected to articulate their processes and defend their answers in
English. Each student has access to a laptop device.
•
• In Wellstone’s blended learning math program, students will have the
opportunities to:
• be challenged mathematically;
• accelerate their learning;
• learn skills important for success in college;
• learn from dedicated expert teachers;
• learn in a way that is best for them as individuals;
• achieve college credit in our College Algebra course.

15. Blended Learning Math Data

16. Literacy Program

17. Counseling
The success of students at Wellstone is most positively impacted
by the support of school counselors. Both counselors are
bilingual and represent the largest demographic groups of
students. Counselors are focused on the whole student,
academics AND social-emotional. The work of the school
counselors is intensive but is most rewarding
College and Career Preparedness100% of
students will be introduced to their graduation
pathway in Fall of 2015. 100% of students will
undergo a review and monitoring of their
graduation pathway throughout the year.

18. MCTC Partnership

19. D3 Program (Diploma to Degree)

20. JAG (Jobs for America’s Graduates)

21. Technology Focus
Integration of Technology through
• Core Curriculum
• Resources
• Communication
• Instruction
• Data

22. Athletics
Minnesota State High School League Soccer
Teams

23. Contact Information
Dr. Aimee Fearing 612-668-5107 aimee.fearing@mpls.k12.mn.us
Mr. Ali Kofiro 612-668-5116 ali.kofiro@mpls.k12.mn.us
Mr. Chris Castellano 612-668-5102 christopher.castellano@mpls.k12.mn.us
Ms. Melissa Persson melissa.persson@mpls.k12.mn.us
Mr. Gytis Liulevicius gytis.liulevicius@mpls.k12.mn.us
Mr. Paul Kroshus paul.kroshus@mpls.k12.mn.us
Ms. Josephine Moreno josephine.moreno@mpls.k2.mn.us
Mr. Mohamud Noor 612-605-3222 X101 mnoor@csc-mn.org
Ms. Jennifer Leazer 612-668-5348 jennifer.leazer@mpls.k12.mn.us