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Submitted by crossingbarriers on Wed, 05/12/2010 - 17:33
Eden Prairie Education Project.
Immigrant student leaders, parents and community advocates from Eden Prairie, Minnesota have been working in their community to improve the quality of education immigrant students receive in the public schools. The Eden Prairie School District Project is specifically directed at issues such as lack of quality English Language Learners curriculum, lack of parent communication, lack of cultural sensitivity and lack of a healthy school environment for students to succeed, students receive poor curriculum in math, English, reading and writing and students are not encourages or challenges to enter advance classes.
Student leaders trained parents and youth so they can advocate eliminating the systemic problems they faced in the schools. In addition the students made a training video for teachers and administrators in which immigrant students spoke passionately about the challenges they face in Eden Prairie schools; students designed work-plan for the school district to follow in order to improve the policies and practices that are holding students back, and the establishment of Eden Prairie Parent Workshops which teaches parents about current issues within the system and how to address and find solutions in a constructive way.
With all of this progress, the school district still resists to change. The administration is coming up with policies to hide the achievement gap instead of addressing the issue school by school, they decided to change the school boundaries and disperse this population this also affected many mainstream parents negatively. By moving these students around will not decrease the achievement gap because they process, procedures and culture that is failing these students are still in place and not changed?
“I got involved in the project, because I was having difficulties navigating my way through the system on my own.” Rukia Abdi former student of Eden Prairie High School , explains why she started working with the Eden Prairie Education Project.
