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Brookview principal highlights belonging work and reports 65% drop in behavior referrals
Summary
Principal Brett Stringer told the Stillwater Area Public Schools board that Brookview Elementary’s priorities this year were joy, high expectations and accountability; he reported roughly 610 students, stronger multilingual engagement and a 65% year‑over‑year decline in recorded behavior incidents while flagging the impending loss of a half‑time assistant principal.
Principal Brett Stringer told the Stillwater Area Public Schools Board of Education that Brookview Elementary’s year centered on three themes—"joy, high expectations and accountability"—as the school works to strengthen culture and student outcomes. He said the school serves about 610 students from pre‑K through fifth grade and highlights wide linguistic diversity: staff count 27 languages spoken in the building and about 12% of students currently receive multilingual support.
Stringer described concrete leadership structures used this year, including an instructional leadership team (“built”) and an operational team (“bolt”), regular BAR (behavior, academics, restorative) processes and use of a "green room" data practice to intervene proactively. He credited those systems and clearer expectations with reducing classroom disruptions: "we've seen a 65% decrease in behavior incidents," Stringer said, and added that the reduction has kept more students in class and learning.
The principal also emphasized the role of engagement specialists funded through the district’s Achievement Integration Plan. He named Miss Ali as Brookview’s Somali engagement specialist and described her work as a family liaison who supports communication, classroom activities, accommodations for prayer and Ramadan, and outreach that increases student belonging.
Stringer acknowledged gaps the school plans to address, including a staff demographic profile that does not mirror the student body and slower than desired reading and math trajectories. He said the school piloted a new literacy curriculum this year and will continue to monitor FastBridge and MCA results to measure impact.
Stringer warned the board that budget pressures mean Brookview will lose a half‑time assistant principal shared with Lake Elmo next year, reducing administrative capacity for coaching and operations. Board members thanked Stringer for the update, asked about cultural programs (a culture/cooking club and inter‑school partnerships), confirmed that the district‑wide sense‑of‑belonging survey covers students in every elementary building, and sought transferable practices other schools could adopt. Stringer pointed to common language about expectations, restorative responses and repeated reinforcement as the practices he would share.
The presentation concluded with board praise for teachers during staff appreciation week and an invitation for continued community promotion of Brookview’s work.
