Sustaining success in education: State commissioner visits TrekNorth, Bemidji Middle School to learn about academic achievements, Native American curriculum

BEMIDJI -- The leading figure in Minnesota education visited schools in Bemidji on Thursday, leaving with a yellow-and-black beaded lanyard given to her by sixth-graders, and with a better sense of what is and isn’t working at the city’s schools.

Minnesota Department of Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius split her time between TrekNorth Junior & Senior High charter school and Bemidji Middle School, bumping elbows in between-classes traffic, dropping in on classrooms studying the food chain or the Ojibwe alphabet.

Cassellius visited Trek first, the most recent stop on the commissioner’s tour of Minnesota schools that have received the “Reward” designation -- reserved for the top 15 percent of Title I schools -- in four or five straight years. Trek, the only Reward School in the area, earned the label in September for the fifth year in a row.

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/news/education/3876889-sustaining-success-education-state-commissioner-visits-treknorth-bemidji