Seeds of Change Logo

Glossary

From Positive Directions for Schools and Communities, by Lisa Hinz


This glossary defines terms which can help you understand and participate in the dialogue on Minnesota's public education system.

Adjusted Net Tax Capacity per pupil unit determines the real and personal property within a district that is subject to local property taxes.

Agreements for Secondary Education (Minnesota Statute 122.535) permits school districts with less than 375 students in grades 7–12 to enter into one or more agreements to provide instruction of its secondary students in one or more school districts.

Area Learning Centers offer year-round, personalized education programs, day and evening, to accommodate the needs of learners. A wide variety of courses, leading to diplomas, are taught using alternative methods of instruction. Additional services are provided to assure each learner's success. Learners aged 12 through adult may attend.

Average Daily Membership (ADM) the average number of pupils in membership during the school year. Pupils need not be in attendance to be counted in the ADM, but they must be in enrolled. See also Resident ADM.

Business Retention and Expansion local development efforts designed to assist and encourage existing local businesses to grow.

Business Retention and Expansion Follow-up an action-oriented, strategic planning process for responding to the immediate concerns of local firms. It also develops long-range recommendations, following an economic analysis of the data from firm visits. The program is administered by the Minnesota Extension Service.

Charter School state legislation passed in 1991 allows creation of charter schools that operate as independent public schools managed by certified teachers. Authority must be granted by a local school board and the state Board of Education. Financed with regular public education money for each student who chooses to enroll, an elected board of directors of teachers, parents, and community members develops the school curriculum, manages the budget, and is accountable for results. The charter gives educators and communities the authority to design and implement a structure, teaching methods, and curriculum that improve student learning.

Co-Location see Shared Facilities.

Consolidation (Minnesota Statute 122.23) authorizes two or more school districts (that may or may not share a district boundary) to combine or merge all or part of their school districts.

Cooperation and Combination (C&C) a bill passed by the state legislature in 1989 that provides financial incentives for smaller school districts to cooperate and eventually combine with neighboring districts. Revenues come from a combination of state aid and local levies. If the districts fail to combine, excess aid must be repaid to the state.

Clustering a group of neighboring schools of similar sizes working together to exchange ideas, share resources, better use outside resources, and give each other moral support. In earlier versions of clusters, schools joined together to share the costs of in-services and share ideas. Contemporary clusters are broader in scope and vary in formality from a loose coalition to more formal and institutionalized groups. A cluster of schools, unlike an intermediate service agency working under contract to a district, works directly with their own students.

Detachment and Annexation (Minnesota Statute 122.21) authorizes landowners to request the transfer of land from one school district to another.

Diploma Opportunities for Adults Aged 21 and Over encourages those who have not completed high school to return to get their diplomas. Qualifying learners have up to two years of free state aid to finish their requirements. Many of the same education programs under High School Graduation Incentives are available to these adults.

Dissolution and Attachment (Minnesota Statute 122.22) a process used to dissolve one school district and attach that district to one or more adjoining districts.

Education Districts authorizes a group of school districts to cooperate to increase educational opportunities for students. To form, the education district must have at least five school districts or at least four districts of at least 5,000 pupils in ADM or 2,000 square miles.

Education Programs for Pregnant Minors and Minor Parents are designed to encourage parenting and pregnant teens to continue their education and receive their high school diplomas. A variety of education options are available. Child-care and transportation may be arranged.

Entrepreneurial Curriculum a coursework orientation that fosters the entrepreneurial qualities of critical thinking, innovation, and independence as desired educational outcomes for students. Integrated coursework and hands-on experience form the base of students' learning through school. An entrepreneurial curriculum is the broadest approach to school-community economic development, coupling education and development as a learning strategy.

Full-Time Equivalents (FTE) are the number of licensed professional staff employed by the district, measured in full-time equivalents. The count includes administrators, classroom teachers, and all other licensed professional personnel.

High School Graduation Incentives is designed for students who are not likely to graduate or who have dropped out of school before getting their diplomas. These learners may choose from a variety of education options to complete the requirements needed to graduate.

Interdisciplinary teaching approach organized around themes rather than one specific subject area. With such an approach, economics, English, and history might all be taught in a class about the development of railroads.

Interdistrict Cooperation (Minnesota Statute 122.541) authorizes school districts to eliminate certain grades or portions thereof and provide instruction for those students through agreements with other districts. At least three grades must be maintained locally in a school district. Pupil aids go to the student's resident district. Generally, two or three districts are involved although there is no limit.

Magnet School features academic programs with a distinctive focus based on the strengths, resources, interests, and talents of school personnel and often, the local community. Once decided upon, program focus is integrated throughout curricula and school activities, creating an overall school theme and offering students choices among traditional and alternative programs.

Mastery Learning organizes learning around significant outcomes that are sequenced to students' readiness. It assumes that learning is a function of time and opportunity, not innate and unalterable abilities.

Multi-Aged Classroom an alternative to the age-graded approach which brings together students of several ages. Like the one-room schoolhouse, students are grouped within the class according to developmental stages and are allowed to stay with the same teacher or group of teachers for more than one year. The class is often divided into small group and individual activities, with advanced or more mature students helping younger or less skilled students while teachers rotate among the smaller groups, giving more individualized attention.

Open Enrollment allows students Kindergarten through 12th grade the opportunity to apply to attend a school outside the district in which they live. Parents or guardians are responsible for transporting their children to a bus stop on the border of the nonresident district. The nonresident district will then transport the students to the school. Low-income families can be reimbursed for transportation costs.

Operating Expenditures are district and school administration, district support services, regular, vocational, and exceptional instruction, instructional and pupil support services, operations and maintenance, food service, pupil transportation, and other operating programs. Not included are community service, capital outlay, building construction, and debt service.

Operating Funds Balance a measure of the district's financial condition at the end of the school year and of resources available for future years. It is the sum of undesignated balances on June 30 from four operating funds (general, food service, pupil transportation, and community service), excluding statutory operating debt. This balance is then divided by that school year's resident pupil units.

Outcome-Based Education (OBE) a learner-centered, results-oriented system founded on the belief that all individuals can learn. What is to be learned is clearly defined with progress based on demonstrated achievement of specific learner outcomes rather than classroom hours, courses, or credits completed.

Postsecondary Enrollment Options provides 11th and 12th grade students, who qualify for the postsecondary institution of their choice, the opportunity to take college courses for high school credit. The program gives the student choice of a wider variety or more advanced courses than may be available in their high school at no cost to the student for tuition, fees, and required textbooks. If all colleges are at least 40 miles away, a student may request a postsecondary course be offered at the high school.

Pupil-Staff Ratio the average daily membership of all students (both residents and nonresidents) who were enrolled in the school district, divided by the number of professional staff.

Resident Average Daily Membership (RADM) a count of students in the district in which they reside; some of these students may attend school in other districts. Resident ADM counts are used in calculating property tax levy limitations.

School-Based Business an enterprise that is owned and controlled by the school in which students gain experience as workers or managers with profits returned to the school.

School-Business Partnership an agreement between a school and a business to define some mutual goals and work toward them to improve educational opportunities, benefit business, and support broader community goals.

School/Community Economic Development serves a school's primary purpose of student education while also strengthening the local economy. From school-business partnerships to entrepreneurial curricula, the main reason is to improve the quality and meaning of education for students.

School-Incubated Business teaches students the skills to research, plan, establish, operate, and own an economically-viable business that is theirs when they graduate. The school provides classes and teachers and occasionally the facilities for student business ideas to be realized.

School-Within-A-School offers students and their families choices alongside the traditional age-graded, subject-focused classroom within a single school. The school-within-a-school can be distinguished from the traditional classroom by curriculum focus, teaching methods, or the way the classroom is organized, often using alternatives such as the multi-aged classroom or a magnet school focus in science or the arts.

Shared Facilities collaborations by schools with social service agencies, nonprofits, governments, and private companies to share equipment and technology, lease space, share support service, and plan new buildings to better serve youth and communities while spending fewer tax dollars.

Site-Based Management refers to increasing the decision-making power of people closest to the effects of those decisions, at the school site. In a site-base managed school, educators and administrators in the school make decisions about budgets, hiring, and curriculum, although the extent of such decisions varies by district.

Total Quality Management (TQM) a concept from business being applied to education. It emphasizes involvement of people within and outside a school—administrators, teachers, parents, students, and community members—in a continuous process of educational improvement by meeting customer expectations of quality. Customers in the TQM process include teachers, parents, and students.

Year-Round School reorganizes the traditional September-June calendar and its three-month summer vacation into a schedule of more continuous schooling with more frequent, shorter breaks to better use school facilities and to minimize students' "summer learning loss." Breaks are used by many schools to offer intensive, specialized courses to students and community people as well as to provide remedial support to students needing additional help.


Back to Table of Contents...



- Support for this publication was provided by the Minnesota Extension Service's Project Future in cooperation with the Center for School Change, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota, and the Blandin Foundation. -

Produced by Communication and Educational Technology Services, University of Minnesota Extension.

In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, this material is available in alternative formats upon request. Please contact your University of Minnesota Extension office or the Extension Store at (800) 876-8636.

University of Minnesota Extension is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, or sexual orientation.