Birch Grove school board members proudly display the VOA Governance Award plaque the school recently received. From left to right are: Krystal Singleton, Sara Knottski, Skip Lamb, Kathy Lawrence, Sarena Nelson and Judy Motschenbacher. Photo:  Diane Blanchette

From the Cook County News Herald - January 25, 2019

Birch Grove Community School, located in Tofte, received the Volunteer of America (VOA) Governance Award for the complete 2017-2018 school year.

The school was rated on 12 different categories pertaining to the compliance of state and federal statutes/laws as well as other criteria. Birch Grove accepted this award at a VOA conference on Thursday, January 10th.

School board members include: Judy Motschenbacher, Skip Lamb, Kathy Lawrence, Sara Knottski, Sarena Nelson, Krystal Singleton, and school director Diane Blanchette.

Birch Grove Community School is sponsored by Volunteers of America of Minnesota (VOAMN), one of the oldest non-profit organizations in the state. VOAMN practices a model of charter school sponsorship based on rigorous, continuous improvement processes, and they have created selection criteria to ensure that they only work with top-quality charter schools whose mission and purpose align with their own.

In 2015 and 2016 BGCS received the High Quality Charter School award from the Minnesota Department of Education. The school has also received the “Student Growth and Achievement Award” from the Northwest Evaluation Association as well as received the Minnesota Department of Education and Finance Award ten times.

Academically, the school received 100 percent proficiency in the MCA Math score in 2014, and recorded a 92.9 percent reading proficiency score in 2012.