The Travelers Cos. will provide $1.4 million this school year to support college-readiness for students and leadership training for principals, St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen announced Wednesday.
It was the first of what is expected to be several similar announcements in the coming weeks.
In November, Carstarphen said a dozen local businesses and foundations, including Travelers, had pledged to make new commitments to support the city’s schools.
The Travelers deal marks “a new era of how our corporations and businesses will be working with the district,” Carstarphen told a group gathered at Highland Park Senior High School for the announcement.
The hallmark of the new relationships will be “shared accountability,” she said. “Our success will be their success. Our challenges will be their challenges.”
Increasing private support for schools has been a priority of Carstarphen’s. She has described such support as “shockingly small” in St. Paul compared with other urban districts.
St. Paul Public Schools gets about $1 million per year in direct giving from local corporations, so the Travelers gift — some of which will be paid directly to the district and some to other service providers — more than doubles that.
In general, St. Paul Public Schools is in a downsizing mode, looking for ways to reduce institutional costs as enrollment declines.
But Carstarphen said, the district needs Travelers and other partners to invest in key areas — including college-readiness and staff development as well as reading support, cultural proficiency and easing transitions between grade levels — to get better results for students.
The new money is not being sought to reduce the district’s $25 million projected budget shortfall, Carstarphen said. “I’m not asking anyone to buy down our deficit.”
Travelers has long funded educational programs in the St. Paul school system and elsewhere in the community, said Marlene Ibsen, CEO of Travelers Foundation.
In 2008, the foundation gave $100,000 in direct support for school district programs. In 2009, the foundation will give $1.4 million, she said.
The foundation’s grant decisions are made year by year, Ibsen said, but “we’re anticipating this to be a long-term relationship.”
“The way we look at it, these students are our future work force,” she said.
The company supports Carstarphen’s goals, said Andy Bessette, Travelers executive vice president and chief administrative officer, who attended Wednesday’s announcement.
“Our goal is to help build a sustainable system,” he said.
Travelers is making a similar investment in the public school system in Hartford, Conn., its other major base of operations, Ibsen said.
In St. Paul, the bulk of the Travelers money will be spent to extend a program called AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination.
The program, started nearly 30 years ago in San Diego, aims to get middle-of-the-pack academic performers on track for college.
It focuses particularly on low-income and minority students, encouraging them to enroll in academically rigorous classes and teaching them note-taking, time management and other academic skills.
Raho Ahmed, a junior at Highland, said she never used to take notes in class. She joined AVID as a sophomore, and “now I take notes in, like, every class.” Because of the program, “I’m really thinking about going to college,” Ahmed said. “High school is not the end.”
AVID is currently in 11 secondary schools in St. Paul. The new money would help extend the program down to grades four through six.
Within five years, Carstarphen said, AVID will be in every St. Paul school, as an elective at the secondary level and for every child in grades four through six.
The Travelers funds also will be used to help create the Twin Cities Leadership Institute for Existing Principals, which would provide training for 80 existing St. Paul principals in partnership with their peers in Minneapolis Public Schools.
There are few opportunities for sitting principals in Minnesota to receive sustained professional development, said Kent Pekel, executive director of the College Readiness Consortium at the University of Minnesota, one of the partners in the new effort.
The institute will use the Minnesota Principals Academy program — which offers nearly 30 days of professional development over the course of a year — tailored to the needs of the two districts, Pekel said.
Doug Belden can be reached at 651-228-5136.
