- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the citizens of Minnesota.

(bright music) - "R-Town," the show about Rochester, learns about the new home of the Rochester Muslim Community Circle, and we talk about the unique needs of families experiencing homelessness.

We also catch up with the superintendent of Rochester Public Schools about the challenges facing the district, and hit the climbing wall at Roca Climbing Gym.

All that and so much more coming up next on "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

(uptempo music) Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, "R-Town."

(uptempo music) The Rochester Muslim Community Circle has just opened up in a new space.

And here to tell us more about the community center and upcoming Ramadan observances is RMCC board member and interfaith lead, Jessica Al-Kali.

Welcome to "R-Town."

- Thank you for having me.

- So to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about what the Rochester Muslim Community Circle is, and how does it work to support the local Muslim community?

- So we look to providing the Rochester Muslim community with the educational and social programs.

So we are more on that end, and as well as religious programs.

- Wonderful, you just opened up the center in a new space.

I had a chance to visit it a few weeks ago.

Can you tell us a little bit about this move and what the vision for this new building is?

- Yes, we're so excited to be in a bigger space.

The very first benefit that we have is actually expanding our children's educational programs.

With the new building, we were able to accommodate more kids.

And as we continue to renovate, we will be able to open up more of those spots.

We're also providing programs for the older youth with education as well as social programs that are more targeted to their ages.

And also another thing that we were able to start adding is actually educational and social programs for adults, which is something that we were not able to accommodate before.

- I was wondering, it sounds like a really intergenerational sort of approach throughout the community.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

Something for everyone.

- Part of the move, I'm gathering, was to be able to provide more space.

What are some things that, just in the layout, that you were particularly excited about that you can now provide to the community?

- Obviously number one was the school.

Beforehand, our school was very small and we were not able to accommodate all of the community.

Another thing that we were now able to accommodate is also a place to pray.

We do have a Masjid downtown, but this provided a second location so that more people could come and be able to pray, especially on Fridays when we have our prayers.

And so that was something that was really big for us, something that we needed.

- Cool.

Muslims worldwide will be observing Ramadan this month.

Can you tell us a little bit about what Ramadan is and how Muslims new to the community can connect with RMCC during this time?

And then I guess secondary to that, how can non-Muslims in the community support and respect Muslim friends and neighbors, colleagues and youth who will be observing Ramadan this season?

- Sure, so Ramadan is the month that Muslims believe the first verses of the "Holy Quran" were revealed.

During this time we abstained from food and water from sunrise to sunset.

We're also more mindful of our relationship with God.

We increase our prayers, and we just try to become the best version of ourself.

Something else that we really focus on is charity and giving to those who are less fortunate, as well as being appreciative of what God has given us.

And as far as non-Muslims who, you know, wanna support us, first of all to say don't be afraid to eat in front of us.

(laughs) It's not a bad thing.

We're okay.

You're more than welcome.

But just understand that, you know, we might decline your lunch invitation, so don't take it personally.

And along that note, if there is a Muslim colleague or a friend that you have, plan a dinner with them.

There's nothing we love more than to break our fast with people who care about us, whether you're Muslim or non-Muslim, and share a meal.

- Wonderful, well thank you so much, Jessica, for joining us, and best wishes for you and your community this Ramadan season.

And we hope to keep in touch and keep track of all that the RMCC is doing in the community.

- Great, thank you so much for having me.

(uptempo music) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on "R-Town."

We talked to a local author whose harrowing story of survival is now a beacon of hope and survival.

We also learned about the needs and challenges faced by families experiencing homelessness in our community.

But up first we sit with Rochester Public School superintendent to ask him about the top three challenges the district is facing, and how they're approaching these challenges in this week's R-Culture segment.

(light music) - Ready?

You know what's coming again?

♪ Chompers, get your chompers ready ♪ ♪ Here we go ♪ - Car.

- [Students] Car, c-ar.

- Card.

- [Students] Card.

- I think the number one challenge that we have right now in Rochester Public Schools is ensuring that every student experiences what we're calling deeper learning.

Learning that is a combination of three things, mastery, identity, and creativity.

So mastery meaning the kid is not just learning how to like cross-multiply and divide to solve a fraction, they are truly mastering the concepts and skills.

And with identity it means they're forming a connection to the learning, either with who they are today or who they might wanna be in the future.

And with creativity they're not just regurgitating the knowledge on a test or in a class, they are actually solving problems or they're making something.

- My table captains, can you show me what it's gonna look like?

- I hate to say it, but our second biggest challenge is resources.

And, of course, the one that most people think of is money, and that's been a big thing.

When I got here 2 1/2 years ago, we faced the fact that Rochester Public Schools really had a structural deficit.

We had in the district, for more than a decade before I got here, added staff at a rate that was too far ahead of our growth in student enrollment.

Our enrollment was 7% increase and our growth in staff was 31% increase.

And in school districts that are financially solid, that's flipped.

Your student enrollment, which drives your revenue, needs to be growing ahead of your growth in staff.

And so that's part of why we have had to cut hundreds of positions also since I've been here.

But we're gonna be back next fall to our community in Rochester and asking them to step up with a referendum that the school board will vote on in the coming months, because we are not resourced adequate to the aspirations that I know Rochester has for its kids.

Part of our financial problem has been the fact that most of our funding comes from the state of Minnesota, and for a long time those funding streams have not kept up with the pace of inflation.

The third I would say is a challenge, but it's also an opportunity.

It's one of the reason I'm so excited to be here in Rochester.

We serve a diversity of many kinds that I think are almost unparalleled in American education.

And I don't say that lightly, because we are an urban school district, but we're a school district that's located in the home of the Mayo Clinic and, you know, IBM and all of the many organizations that are sprouting up around that kind of intellectual hub.

And I'm proud to say we largely are the provider of education to the kids of Mayo doctors and physicians and the best scientists in the world.

And we have got incredible diversity that is reflective of any urban area.

We have people moving here from the south side of Chicago for jobs and safer neighborhoods, and they pretty much all go to our schools.

- How you get to eight?

- [All] Two, four.

- I think a lot of people don't realize that we are becoming increasingly diverse in Rochester, and we see that as an asset.

About 10% of our students in Rochester public schools are what we call multilingual learners.

The term on paper is English-language learner, or ELL.

And we say MLL for multi-language learner because we want them to retain their home language and learn the English language.

Because in a global economy and society, the ability to speak more than one language is a gigantic asset.

And so I really believe that those of us in education are building human capital, building people's capacity, and the complexity of that is exponentially increasing.

But so is our understanding of how people learn.

- The word is fork.

- [Students] Fork.

- Without K, what's left?

- [Students] For.

- The word is heard.

- [Students] Heard.

- We know so much more than we did when I started teaching 30 years ago about how kids truly master concepts and learn skills, and we are on the cusp of a revolution of using artificial intelligence to both make teaching and learning more productive.

That's gonna happen first.

But then ultimately increasing the outcomes is definitely where we're headed.

And so those are, I think, some of the things that make working in education today so exciting.

- [Announcer] For more information about this story and other "R-Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @KSMQ #R-Town or ksmq.org/rtown.

(smooth uptempo music) - Hi, I'm Danielle Teal with "R-Town Spotlight," where we cover happenings, events, organizations and amazing people in our community.

Today I have Danielle Leukam with me, and she's an author and wrote a book, "Four Pounds of Pressure: A Memoir of Rape, Survival, and Taking Back My Power."

This is a really compelling book.

Danielle, I know that it takes a lot of courage to, you know, talk about your experience and the outcome of writing a book.

Can you share your journey to producing something like this?

- Absolutely, so in 2018 a man broke into my home.

I woke up to a gun at my face.

I was zip-tied and raped three times over five hours with my son sleeping in his bedroom next door.

And I had to continue to be a mom, work full time.

But what I did do is I journaled.

So when the man was finally caught and he was sentenced to prison, I put all my journal entries together, and that's how I came up with my memoir Is basically just every time something happened, I would journal about it.

So writing the book was really cathartic for me.

- And going from moving, you know, from the journal to writing the book and sharing something that is so personal, and we know that this is a major issue in society, what compelled you to do that and be public about such an experience?

What was the reasoning behind that?

- I think there's so much stigma around sexual assault and victim blaming that I wanted to share a message that it's not the victim's fault, it's the perpetrator's fault.

And that's proven in my story.

And writing about it was so rewarding for me that I wrote more books.

I wrote a sequel memoir.

- [Danielle T.] Wow.

- So that talks more about what happened.

A thriller novella, and then also two children's books.

So I just feel like once I was assaulted, I didn't wanna stay quiet anymore and I had a lot to say, and now I've been saying all that through public speaking and through writing my books.

- And people really connect with you.

I mean, not only your voice is heard, but it's amplified other people and encouraged them to speak up as well.

What is the main takeaway you want to convey right now for something that is so critical and important in society to raise awareness?

- I think that it's I just wanna empower other people to take back their voice and their power, and just know that what happened to them isn't their fault and they're not alone, and they should be believed.

- Absolutely.

Where can people find out more information to connect with you, hear you speak, and obtain your books?

- My website is www.DanielleLeukam.com.

- Awesome, thank you so much, Danielle.

- Thank you.

- I appreciate your courage.

- I appreciate you having me here today.

- Absolutely.

This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town Spotlight."

(uptempo music) - Hello, once again.

This is Michael Wojcik with your "R-Town Legislative Rundown."

This year, 5,000 bills have been introduced.

Most of those are not going to become law.

This is similar to last year when 5,000 were also introduced, 10,000 is a record number of bills to be introduced in a biennium, and the way that these get filtered down is some just don't have the support to go anywhere, but there are also committee deadlines.

And this first deadline is going to be March 22nd at 5:00 PM.

Now what this means is if a bill hasn't made sufficient progress in the House or Senate by this point, it's basically off the table until next year unless some special rules are used.

It gets into the weeds quite a bit, but you generally have a feel for what may become law after the first deadline.

One thing that has become law is Governor Tim Walz signed a Compromise Bipartisan School Resource Officer Bill.

There are a lot of places that had concerns about the language that was put in place last year, and ultimately the compromise language means that in certain situations, school resource officers may use restraints.

However, other individuals in the schools may not.

This has been a contentious issue for some time, and at least the language now has been signed into law to clarify what is and is not allowed.

Also being discussed this year is returning lands to Native Nations.

In particular the Red Lake Nation is taking a look at regaining control of Upper Red Lake and some of the forest around Upper Red Lake.

There's also been discussions by the White Earth Band.

And finally, we were not sure last year with all of the new spending that was going on how the current budget and future budgets would be affected.

However, there was some good news in that the Minnesota Management budget officials released the February forecast showing that there was still a surplus of almost $4 billion for this biennium.

And more importantly, the ongoing spending still leaves a $2 billion surplus in the next biennium.

This has been Michael Wojcik with your "R-Town Legislative Rundown."

(smooth uptempo music) (mellow music) - Hi, this is Danielle Teal with "R-Town Walkabout."

I am with Jeremy Schaar.

Jeremy, where are we at?

I see a lot of rocks.

- [Jeremy] We are at Roca Climbing & Fitness here in Rochester.

- Sweet, and this is a super fun hotspot, especially during the winter, but also during the summer.

I heard there's some awesome classes.

Do you wanna expound on that?

- Yes, definitely.

So being in the middle of the Midwest not surrounded by rocks and all that sort of fun stuff for us, we've definitely found introductory classes are the biggest thing that help people get in the gym.

A lot of non-climbers think about climbing gyms, it can be kind of intimidating, especially if you haven't come in the space and see all the different levels of kids and all different abilities.

So we do offer very beginner classes, especially for kids, that we offer every month.

And often our classes will include a membership during the time of the class, 'cause the big thing about a climbing gym, it's kinda a little different than other facilities.

The more you come in, the more fun it is.

And the biggest thing that people find is this is a super social environment, and that's the bigger draw to what we do is it's very social.

People are talking, hanging out.

It's one of the few places where people put their phones away and then engage in the activity and are talking more with each other versus, you know, in-between sets or whatever if you're on your phone or whatever.

Rochesters a big family town.

This is the perfect family sport.

We get full families here.

We get comments from parents all the time where this is the only place their kid will talk to them.

We do have parent-child classes, so you can take a class with your child and learn how to do all this stuff together, which is super fun.

Again, we have those every month.

- [Danielle] Where can folks find out more information about the classes and membership?

- [Jeremy] The best place is on our website, which is ClimbRoca.com.

- Awesome, thank you so much, Jeremy.

- Yeah, no problem, thanks for coming in.

- This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town Walkabout."

(mellow music) (bright music) - We are joined today by Erin Sinnwell, executive director of Family Promise, to talk about challenges faced by families experiencing homelessness in our community, and the work of Family Promise.

Welcome to "R-Town," Erin.

- Thank you, thanks for having me.

- Can you tell us a little bit about the history of Family Promise, and what you do?

- Absolutely, we've been helping families experiencing homelessness since 1999.

We were previously known as IHN, or Interfaith Hospitality Network.

We are one of 200 affiliates.

There's a National Affiliate Family Promise, so there's 200 different shelters throughout the nation.

They went through a name change, therefore we went through a name change.

We are not affiliated with any religion, even though it sounds like that.

We utilize volunteers and church spaces, but we are not a religious organization.

- Can you share a little bit more about the ways in which homelessness is impacting families specifically, and some of the unique needs that families experiencing homelessness are facing?

- Yeah, I feel like a lot of times when families come to us, they are what we would call doubled up.

So they might be living with family or friends for a short period of time.

We do occasionally have families that are living out of their vehicles.

A lot of times they're in hotels.

Sometimes they might be on the street or they may be camping, but it seems like a lot of times we're finding that families are doubled up.

We can have three families at a time, and we always have a wait list, unfortunately.

Before COVID we were 12 to 15 families, and right now we're right around 40 families.

So the need has definitely increased since COVID in our community and nationwide.

I know that from '22 to '23, family homelessness rose 16%.

And, you know, we are the only family shelter in Rochester, so it's definitely a different need than some of the other organizations can provide.

- [Nicole] Yeah, can you tell to us a little bit more about that specific role that Family Promise has in supporting families?

- Yes, so we have a case manager that works with our families.

They can stay anywhere between 30 and 120 days in our facility.

They're provided a furnished bedroom, meals, education, and case management during that time.

Our life skill classes are my favorite part of our programming.

So families in shelter are required to attend life skills twice a month.

Anyone who's graduated from our program can continue to come back as long as they would like.

Families go and we have a shared meal, and then there's an education time for adults on something such as like financial literacy, health and safety, meal and food prep.

We've had a couple new partnerships where we've had stress management, mental health, and accessing mental health.

So we really feel that that education part is important, and it is what keeps our families from entering back into homelessness once they graduated from our program.

- Yeah, that sounds really comprehensive.

Sort of meeting the needs outside of the immediate need, obviously, of having a place to stay.

There's been a lot of conversation over the last few years, of course, as you know, working in this space, around homelessness in our community.

A lot of that conversation has been around the shelters, shelter beds.

What are your thoughts on some of the limitations of that conversation, and what are the different needs that families have when it comes to talking about shelter and shelter beds?

- Well, as I said before, we only have three bedrooms, which is, when you think about it, in Rochester, that's the only shelter for, you know, for families experiencing homelessness.

Even for adults, though there are are not enough beds at the warming center, they often are full.

They have decided to partner with the Salvation Army to use their space during the winter months so that there are enough beds.

I know that Olmsted county is trying, they're working on getting more shelter and more beds.

- You had mentioned something earlier just about the nature of homelessness with families, and I know this impacts individuals as well.

I think for people who may not be working in this space and may not know that much about what it's like to be experiencing homelessness, can you talk to us a little bit about housing instability just generally, and sort of the different ways that homelessness presents itself?

I think people often think about sort of the visible things of people on the street or, you know, in a public space.

But, yeah, there are other ways in which that experience is happening.

Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

- Yeah, so families come to us, you know, for a variety of reasons.

I mean, it's not always what people think.

It's not someone did something wrong so then they, you know, become homeless.

It can be losing a job, it can be a divorce.

We're finding a lot of times too there could be illnesses, disease or sickness.

You know, we have a lot of families could have a lot of medical debt.

Job loss is another reason.

So families come to us and, you know, it's definitely on a case-by-case basis.

You know, everyone's story is different.

Sometimes we have families that English is not their first language, so that comes with a whole different set as well of, you know, connecting with an interpreter, making sure you have proper documentation.

Two, you know, affordable housing is the hardest one.

Rochester lacks affordable housing.

It's not for lack of trying.

I know the city and the county is, you know, doing things to alleviate that.

Security deposits, down payments on apartments, you know, when it has to be like one month or, you know, two months, it's just really a big obstacle for families.

And depending on your family size, sometimes we have families that could have six family members or 12 family members, and then the number of bedrooms that you're required to have for that family size, the price can really go up.

- Thank you for sharing that.

Recently the city passed an ordinance around banning public camping and, of course, that directly impacts homeless community members who are camping and in encampments.

While the city council has agreed that the fines aren't going to be enforceable, what will be the impact, do you think, of this ban, and how will it impact families?

- It's not very often that we find that families are camping, but it does happen sometimes, or families being in their vehicles.

Of course, Family Promise's stances that we would not like to criminalize, you know, homelessness.

You know, if there's no other place for families to go and there's not any other options, I would think that that wouldn't be something that we would be talking about once there are more shelter beds and there are more options.

You know, of course we're not naive.

I know, you know, there are safety concerns and that everyone in the community needs to be safe and healthy, and maybe there's different laws and restrictions around it, like the number of individuals that could be in a camping area, or the amount of time that they're allowed to be there.

Giving, you know, the correct services, you know, making sure that there are people going out and checking on them.

So I understand, it's kind of a touchy subject, and I know, you know, that it sounds like, like you had mentioned from the police department and the city council that it is not their goal, you know, to be finding people.

And so hopefully it, you know, isn't going to be an issue based on what they've said.

- Okay, thank you.

As we're wrapping up here, where can community members learn more about Family Promise and support your work?

- Yeah, we have a website, so you can definitely go to that.

We have volunteer opportunities.

We're gonna be moving to a new facility in June, which we're really excited about.

As I mentioned, at the current facility we can only have five families, and at the new space, it'll be in southeast Rochester behind Air Insanity, we'll be able to have eight to 12 families.

So we're really excited to be able to increase our capacity.

And once we're at that spot we'll have a lot more volunteer opportunities.

Whether it be helping us move, providing possible meals, movie nights, game nights, we're just really excited to have a lot more opportunities.

- Wonderful, well, thank you so much, Erin, for your work and for joining us today.

And thank you all for joining us today.

I hope you learned as much as I did about all that's going on in our city and the people making it happen.

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #R-Town.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara, host of "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

We'll see you next time.

(gentle bright music) (bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the citizens of Minnesota.