State Representative David Bly, MN District 25B

May is always a busy month as teachers prepare for the end of the school year and plan for next fall. It is an exciting time, seeing students finishing the year, preparing for graduation and sharing their sense of accomplishment. It’s particularly important in my school, where graduation isn’t assumed, and instead it’s a conscious choice that the students take on, day by day, credit by credit.

I also completed my last SEED 2 class, which is a class I have been teaching to Northfield School teachers for the past 10 years or so. SEED stands for Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity and attempts to give teachers experience and ideas for making their classrooms more inclusive to all types of students as well as the ability to talk with others about issues we all face in our diverse world. I learned years ago I would need to understand this in order to be a successful teacher. Fortunately for me I had two excellent mentors at St.Olaf, George and Bobbi Helling who taught me how important it is to recognize the uniqueness of each person. “You must treat them all with an unqualified high regard.” As I remember George advising me.

This year’s class was an excellent group of teachers that took the issues of diversity and equity very seriously and wrestled with them in a thoughtful way. In April, there did not seem to be time to meet so they each found some activity to volunteer for and many helped with a dinner and discussion with Latino families in Northfield. Those who participated said they found it a very valuable experience that they would use to better understand the lives of the students in their classrooms.

May 20th, the Alternative Learning Center held an Open House for next year’s ALC parents and students because we are making some changes to reach out to younger students who are struggling to succeed in school. Cheryl Mathison, and NHS assistant principal, Marnie Thompson helped them get acquainted, we showed them around, and went over our plans for next year so they’d have a better idea of what to expect.

Finally, on May 27th,we held our graduation ceremony. This year, 30 students graduated from our program, and we helped an additional 40 finish the high school graduation requirements by finishing credits they could not fit in their schedules or by making up at the high school. It is easy to develop strong friendships with the students we work with as they grow and transform and learn to take on greater responsibilities. Here two students, Josh Taylor and Adam Jacobsen pose for a graduation picture

and the staff and students visit at the reception.

May 14, Carol Overland, my campaign manager, and I attended the Minnesota Network for Progressive Action (MNPA). I’d been invited to present at their Local DFL Candidate Fair. Many members have ties to the Northfield area and hope to lend a hand in the campaign. Other candidates included Chris Halbron, Jim Carlson, Mark Solomon and Theresa Daly.

After talking about our campaigns we listened to an excellent and inspiring presentation by Mattie Weiss, contributor to the book How To Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: the anti-politics, un-boring guide to power, from The League of Pissed Off Voters. Mattie is from the Twin Cities, but has also lived in Nicaragua (where her parents, Pam Costain and Larry Weiss, worked in solidarity with the Sandinistas in the late 1980s), Bolivia and South Africa. She graduated from Swarthmore College, and organized students and staff around issues of global economic justice, local race politics, and a campus-based living wage campaign. She has also worked as a community muralist and a union organizer in Minneapolis, and as a writer and researcher for the Applied Research Center, a racial justice “think and do tank,” where she wrote and published a major report on youth organizing around the country.

Her chapter in the book, and the subject of her talk, was about the Wellstone method of engaging and organizing young voters to get involved in politics. Her practical experience began in her pre-teen years when she worked on Paul Wellstone’s campaigns with her mother, Pam Costain,
on Wellstone’s campaign. Pam who is now a primary staff member of Wellstone Action. Her aim is to turn the elections, from federal to local, and is also working on a Voter Guide project that may reach Northfield.