Congratulations, February MPS Shines winners!

Each month, staff have an opportunity to nominate their colleagues for MPS Shines. Winners are randomly chosen from the nominations and receive recognition across MPS newsletters and social media, a coffee mug and other prizes.

Help us congratulate February's MPS Shines winners:

Seraj Farabi-Iverson, IT field support technician

"Seraj is a knowledge sharer who improves team performance by actively transferring expertise, information, and experience to colleagues within MPS IT, saving money and time, and contributing to a collaborative learning environment. By sharing knowledge with other IT employees, Seraj helps MPS IT to increase productivity, streamline processes, and provide better and more timely support to MPS staff that have IT problems.

Collective knowledge is one of our most valuable assets that ensures our overall operations run smoothly and effectively, contributing to our success. Our team's knowledge can only grow if employees actively and consistently share knowledge with each other." - Colleen Koll

Cory Roseth, school improvement specialist, accountability

“Cory has been instrumental in supporting our school, delivering valuable data that informs our instructional decisions. He consistently goes above and beyond to tailor his efforts to meet our specific needs, dedicating time to create comprehensive data dashboards that accurately represent all of our students. We deeply appreciate his collaboration, dedication, and commitment to helping our school community achieve our School Improvement Goals. His contributions have been invaluable, and we are truly grateful for his unwavering support." - Liliana Rodriguez

Caden Salo, sixth grade ELL teacher, Andersen United Middle School

"Caden is a true advocate for all students but most especially for English Learner students. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and in his position as an EL teacher he serves not only the students on his case load but all students in the classroom. In addition, he communicates with their families and reaches out to them weekly to see how he can best support them as he believes in the whole student system of support.

At Andersen, about 300 of the school’s 1,000 students have arrived in the country in the last three years. Some of the Spanish-speaking students enroll in Andersen’s dual-language program. Another offering for Spanish-speaking students: a Spanish debate program, which allows students an opportunity to excel academically in their native language. Caden works countless hours after school with these students and one other teacher and he goes to all their tournaments and then organizes special treats for them when they win as a celebration. This is not part of his job, he does it because he cares so much.

Working with Caden for the past 2 years has undoubtedly made me a better teacher. I have a better understanding of all my students and by his example, I reach out to support more families, too. We have both attended Native American student celebration nights on our own free time to support our students and he has taught me a lot about Native American students and their background since he grew up North of Duluth and is a strong advocate for Native students and attended the march for Murdered & Missing Indigenous Girls in 2024. Caden was nominated by a student for being a teacher who best shows the International Baccalaureate (IB) values of inquirer and communicator." - Freda Caldwell