At issue was a clause in the current JPA (Article 12, Section C) that is marked in bold below:

Except for transportation revenue not specifically designated by the State for EMID School District use, each Member District shall transmit to the EMID School District all pupil-based state aide and local tax levies received by the Member District. Pupil-based aid and local levies include, but are not limited to, general education revenue, integration revenue, and capital building and capital equipment revenue.

This clause grants the board the power to capture levy dollars from member districts without any requirement to get member district boards to agree to the capture. Or not. It is somewhat vague, and that was the problem, according to Jay T. Squires, the lawyer the board hired to look at this more closely. Squires recommended that they spell out exactly what power the JPA grants the board. The options included (1) allow each member district to send whatever levy money it wants, (2) require that each member district send $646 of levy funding (matching the Saint Paul levy amount), or (3) require that each member district send 100% of levy funding, unless they vote in their local school board to send less (or even nothing). Board member Kitty Gogins of Roseville suggested an option (4) allow the EMID board to determine what portion of levy funding each district must transmit to EMID. Her point was that this was how the board was already planning on treating integration revenue, and there was no reason to treat levy dollars differently from integration dollars.

The ensuing conversation made it clear that the EMID board is dealing with a crisis of trust. Some board members simply don’t trust the EMID board to act in the interest of each and every local member board. As a consensus began to emerge for the Gogins proposal, Karen Morehead of Forest Lake and Lori Swanson of White Bear Lake argued that the only way to give the EMID board such clear authority would be if such a decision to determine levy funding amounts required a unanimous vote of the EMID board. John Brodrick of Saint Paul and John Vujovich of South Saint Paul pointed out that requiring a unanimous vote would be poor precedent and worse governance. Any single member district could then block all progress on future EMID budget models. It became clear that some on the board were guarding the collaborative and constructive nature of the EMID board while others were seeking to guarantee that no decision of the board would ever be contrary to their local interests.

Gogins eventually proposed that instead of a unanimous vote the JPA stipulate a four fifths supermajority. The board agreed to Cindy Nordstrom’s (Inver Grove Heights) amendment to make this a two thirds majority of the full board instead. The eventual change to the joint powers agreement will be cleaned up for the board and sent out by email, but it reads roughly like this:

Except for transportation revenue not specifically designated by the State for EMID School District use, each Member District shall transmit to the EMID School District all pupil-based state aide and local tax levies received by the Member District as follows:

1. All pupil-based state aid and local levy dollars shall be transmitted to EMID except as qualified by subparts 2 and 3 below.
2. With respect to local excess levy revenue, the EMID board shall determine what portion of levy revenue received by Member Districts shall be transmitted to EMID.
3. With respect to integration revenue, the EMID board shall determine what portion of integration revenue received by Member Districts shall be transmitted to EMID.
4. Decisions of the board with respect to subparts 2 and 3 above shall be made by a two thirds vote of the full board.

This is excellent news for EMID families since it at least puts the EMID board in a position to design and maintain a sustainable funding model for our schools and EMID’s shared programs. Of course, the board will still have to excursive this authority, and before it can do that it will have to get every member district board to approve this new Joint Powers Agreement. Still, this is clearly as step in the right direction. It was especially heartening to see the board really grapple with the need to consider workable governance and sustainable funding as high priorities for the JPA. EMID is a collaborative endeavor, and tonight it felt like the majority of the EMID board was hard at work building the trust this collaborative needs to thrive in the future.

The East Metro Integration District #6067 School Board has named Janet Mohr the district’s new superintendent. Mohr is currently the director of special education for EMID and the director of mental health for Northeast Metro 916. Mohr will succeed Interim Superintendent Dr. Jerry Robicheau, who announced his retirement. “Please join me in welcoming Janet Mohr to the position of EMID superintendent,” says George Hoeppner, the EMID School Board chair. “We are looking forward to working with Ms. Mohr.”

Prior to her special education role with EMID and her mental health role with Northeast Metro 916, Ms. Mohr served as the director of the rural education leadership program with the Minnesota Association of School Administrators from 2006–2008 and the superintendent of Frazee-Vergas (MN) Public Schools from 2001–2006. During her career, Ms. Mohr has held a number of administrative and teaching positions at districts such as Detroit Lakes Public Schools, the Buffalo Valley (ND) Special Education Cooperative, and Frazee-Vergas Public Schools. She has a Ed.S. degree from Minnesota State University Moorhead, an M.S. from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and a B.S. from University of Wisconsin-Superior.

We need families to sign up to testify for integration at a hearing next Wednesday, April 4, at 8am at the Capitol’s (tentatively scheduled for Room 5 of the State Office Building). Your voice is critical at hearings like this, please consider speaking up!

The Integration Task Force reported out over a month ago, Rep. Garofalo allowed one of the dissenters to testify last month, but finally, a hearing has been scheduled for the whole task force report and the legislation that Rep. Mariani has authored.

Families, parents or students, can simply tell their own stories. Testimony will be brief, only two or three minutes, so you don’t have to prepare very much. Just tell a story about how use of integration money, the money that makes EMID possible, makes difference in your child’s learning. Remind the legislature that if this funding goes away, then these opportunities you and your child benefited from will be to others. EMID schools are on a break next Wednesday, so if students are willing to testify, this will make a big impact on legislators.

If you are interested in testifying, please send an email asking to be added to the list of testifiers to Jody Withers and Rebecca Peichel, staffers for the Education Finance committee that Garofalo chairs.

Anyone interested in discussing the hearing and practicing their testimony is also welcome to join us for an impromptu EMID Families meeting on Saturday (3/31) at 1pm at Eric and Mary’s home (1993 Lincoln Avenue, Saint Paul). Please RSVP so we have an idea of how many people to expect.

The PDF adjustment recommendations are a bit hard to sort out, so here are some of the impacts described by that document.

Structure of Education

Harambee would see the elimination of the magnet foci specialists ($53,340) and their music specialist ($103,000).

Crosswinds would remove one of its four houses (no mention of which one or what this restructuring would look like). This would eliminate math, science, social studies, language arts, and AVID in that house ($264,000). Presumably this would increase class sizes as well, but again, no details about that.

Crosswinds would also move from a seven to a six period day, reducing language, technology, pays ed, music, visual arts, and theater budgets in the process ($253,215).

Special Education

The loss of a house at Crosswinds also results in the loss of one special ed position there ($60,860). Another three educational assistants for special ed are lost due to “restructuring” ($93,156).

Harambee reduces all educational assistants by one half hour a day and eliminates a media/clerical assistant ($31,130).

If the board approves “Tier 2″ cuts then Crosswinds would eliminate another educational assistant in special education ($33,168) and Harambee would lose two intervention specialists ($49,130 each).

Intersession and After School

“Increase participations fees for intersession programming, $12,000.” If we assume 2/3 of the current roughly 800 students attend three intersessions, this works out to something on the order of a $10 increase per child per intersession.

“Restructuring of after school, $34,000.” It sounds like they suggest only having after school during quarters 2 and 3 (not 1 and 4) and only for five of the eight weeks of each term, plus increase the fees for that amount of time.

Administrative Cuts

“Elimination of Director of Teaching and Learning Position, $129,920.” That would be eliminating Greg Keith.

“Eliminate TOSA position” ($59,218 at Harambee, $54,000 at Crosswinds). These “teachers on special assignment” have served as almost an assistant principals at our schools and their elimination results in significant additional burden for our principals.

“Reduction of 10 percent in consumable supplies, $28,750.” More money out of teacher pockets and longer supply lists at the start of the school year.

Overall the cuts fall very heavily on Crosswinds, but then crosswinds has also had traditionally more expensive operations. If both tiers of cuts are approved by the board then Crosswinds would see an $868,000 cut, Harambee a $402,000 cut, district wide cuts would be $394,000, and member services would lose $90,000.

Please do look at the “Budget Adjustment Recommendations” for full details.

If you are unable to attend the forum you may email your comments to Mary Ojile who will pass them along to school school board members or send mail to board members directly.

More details about his passing and family plans are in the Pioneer Press.

According to the Pioneer Press, Kersten got the chance last week to air her views before the state Senate Education Committee. The task force, meanwhile, has been unable to get the same lawmakers who appointed half its members to take up the report.

New in this story is news that Rep. Mariani, who was also a task force member, is drafting a bill:

Rep. Carlos Mariani, DFL-St. Paul, echoed Thomas’ sentiments. “There should be a hearing,” he said. “The clock is ticking. We have a committee deadline coming up in three weeks.

“This is a pretty significant task,” he continued. “We’re talking about $100 million. We’re talking about racial equity, which is a very important topic, and integration, which has a rich history in this state.”

Mariani is having the panel’s proposal drafted into a bill, which he plans to introduce later this week. He has no guarantee the committee will hear it.

The next Community Council meeting is this Saturday, March 3, from 8:30am-Noon at Harambee. Everyone is welcome, even if you were not able to attend the first meeting.

During this Community Council meeting Robicheau will be asking participants to respond to and discuss the following questions regarding the draft strategies:

1. Do the draft strategies address the overarching goals; a) close the racially predictable achievement gap, b) foster an integrated learning environment?
2. Do the draft strategies reflect the values of EMID?
3. Do the draft strategies honor the Guiding Change Document approved by the board?
4. Do the draft strategies honor the input from the February 4 Community Council?
5. Do you see any gaps in this document? What recommendations would you offer?

Everyone in the EMID community is welcome to both meetings, whether you have “signed up” for the Community Council or not. However, if you have not yet signed up it would be very helpful if you let either your principal, Dr. Robicheau, or Sharon Radd know you plan to be there. The administration is trying to get a good count so they can have the space prepared adequately.

Update: On Thursday March 1 Robicheau shared these further docTable 6 Small Groups 2–4.pdfuments from the first Community Council meeting. “This is the feedback from the flip charts complied at the February 4th Community Council meeting. Each document represents one tables notes.” These additional documents may be a response to criticism leveled at the process from some participants stating that the “themes” shared earlier (above) did not seem to represent the output from the first meeting.

• Table 1 Notes
• Table 2 Notes
• Table 3 Notes
• Table 4 Notes
• Table 5 Notes