How BARR is reshaping our district
Dr. Alison Gillespie is the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching & Learning at White Bear Lake Area School District. She’s been an advocate for BARR since White Bear Lake Area High School implemented it in 2019. Alison is an inspirational leader, a team player and a passionate educator, and BARR Center is proud to partner with her. Here’s her first-hand account about BARR’s impact on her district.
BARR is not another thing, it’s the thing.
That’s how I describe BARR in our schools, because for us, it’s not just one more initiative. It is the framework that is helping us to rethink how we approach our schools entirely.
We first brought the BARR model to White Bear Lake Area High School in the 2019-20 school year. Since then, we’ve expanded to six schools across our district, supporting more than 2,500 students from kindergarten through high school. And the results speak for themselves.
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Our WBLAHS Class of 2024 – the first 9th grade cohort to experience BARR – just graduated with a 96.5% graduation rate, the highest we’ve seen in years and the second-highest rate in our area.
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In our high school, the failure rate for ninth graders dropped to just 4%, down from 9% just two years ago.
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At our elementary schools, 73% of kindergarten students meet reading benchmarks.
I am proud of these numbers and the student outcomes we are seeing. And I’m proud of what I hear from our educators.
They tell me BARR helps them feel less isolated and more connected to their students – and to one another. That BARR gives them a structure to support every student, both academically and holistically.
At one of our Title 1 elementary schools, the team went even further – they redesigned the entire school around key elements of the BARR model. They created “neighborhoods” of students and staff using big block scheduling to foster stronger, earlier relationships. This structure allowed for more informal connections – think quick hallway check-ins – which became intentional moments for teachers to share insight and support. The result has been a stronger sense of community – and student achievement levels among students with disabilities are now on par with their peers.
BARR is one of few initiatives I’ve seen that genuinely supports both students and staff. And in my 25-year career, I have never seen teachers support a program so enthusiastically.
As we look ahead, our goal is to expand BARR to all nine of our elementary schools.
In White Bear, BARR has pushed us to rethink how schools function in ways that make sense for educators, families and our students. These shifts have led to powerful outcomes and a dramatic shift in culture. For these reasons, it’s not just another thing we need to implement – it’s the thing that is helping us become the district we want to be.