FAIRMONT — Collaboration and communication are key components of almost every good profession. Knowing this is what led one paraprofessional at Fairmont High School to create a book study, one that embraces those ideals and expounds on them.

Kelly Sloneker says she excited to see the book study is going strong with growing participation.

“It started last year,” she said. “I got a grant from Education Minnesota, and I wanted to have paraprofessionals, teachers and special education teachers work together. The grant got approved and then we decided on a book study, and it turned out really well.

“We had four book studies last year, and we sat people together from different schools and combined teachers, paras and special education teachers. It went really well; we had four out of five positive responses and they wanted it again.”

The responses, along with some leftover grant money, allowed the book study to continue into a second year.

“So we did four sessions again,” Sloneker continued. “Again we did a survey, and everything was rated as fours or fives. Everything is positive, they loved it and they think it’s light and engaging.”

Sloneker explained that the book study is different from others, in that there is more to the process than simple discussion groups.

“We don’t just sit around and talk about the book. We do slides and have little activities,” she said. “They have worksheets to fill out and halfway through we try to get them to stand up and move around like it’s a get to know me event.

“They all loved it. They said it’s light, easy and they’re getting a lot of ideas. Now there’s things we want to take to the [school] board and see if we can do anything or change anything and see if we can help.”

Sloneker shared some of the topics of discussion that were highlights of the most recent study session.

“I would say it was trying to figure out how we could get more communication time,” she said. “We need more time to collaborate with other teachers, because we’re really busy all day long, so trying to find that time to connect is hard. We also found we need to make sure everybody feels appreciated and that we’re all on the same page.”

As for the future of the study, Sloneker is unsure but hopeful and says there seems to be widespread support for continuing.

“I want to make sure that the community knows that we’re trying to do more things and trying to better things. There’s so many negative things going on in the world right now, and we want them to know we are trying. Our surveys are saying that people want us to do it again.”

Sloneker is thankful for those who have come alongside her to make the study a success. Those include Special Education teachers Kirsten Rosol and Kristen Tietje, and fifth-grade general education teacher Ross Long.

“I couldn’t have done it without them,” she said. “It really was a team effort.

“To me, this is a really good school, and I want to make it better. I think the better the communication, the more the kids are going to benefit,” Sloneker said.