Please reach out to each and every Crosswinds parent that you know and make sure that they know that there is a ‘welcome’ reception Monday evening, July 12th at 6:30pm, for the new EMID Superintendent, Dr. Brenda Cassellius. This will be an excellent way to introduce her to the Crosswinds Family and to show her how supportive our families are.

I you would like to see 11th and 12th grade at Crosswinds, so that your kids could have their full high school years here, then please take a look at our grade structure task force pages. This won’t happen without some very active parents, so lift your voice if you want to see it become a reality. We have put talking points and sample letters on the website. Take a look!

The next opportunity for face-time with the EMID board will be Wednesday, 17 March, at Harambee. Even just being present can help the board understand our support.

Alert! The EMID item has been removed from the June 23 school board meetings of Distict 622 and Roseville. The superintendent of 622, Pattie Phillips, has refused to bring the item to the board this months since she could not get the final wording of the MDE/EMID/Roseville/622 agreement for the board agenda which was sent out last week. The item will now appear, we are told, next month. Roseville, which does not usually have a July meeting, will nonetheless call a special meeting of the board in July to consider this matter.

Bottom line: none of the plans have changed since the “summit meeting” of these four parties earlier this month. Only the date of the relevant board meetings has changed to July. There is no need to attend these two board meetings this month for EMID issues.

Shari Thompson has noted that even if 622 were to pull out of this agreement at this late date, MDE has assured EMID that transportation for any legacy 622 kids currently enrolled in EMID schools would be fully covered. If this were to happen, those kids would just be, technically, “open-enrolled” instead. It is unlikely to come to this, though. Everyone expects 622 to honor the principals and elements of the agreement with MDE and Roseville and EMID on 6/4.

For it’s part, EMID will go ahead with its announcement to parents on 6/24. They feel parents really need to know about this resolution and can’t wait for a set of July board meetings. So those of you in 622 should expect letters next week.

A meeting this morning of the superintendents of ISD 622, Roseville, and EMID schools with a representative from the Minnesota Department of Education has produced an agreement on how the three districts will structure the attendance of district 622 students at EMID schools. This agreement will be considered for ratification by the 622 and Roseville boards of education on Tuesday, June 23rd.

The agreement states that any 622 student currently enrolled in an EMID school will be allowed to “age-out” of EMID. This means they can continue to attend EMID schools through the completion of the EMID curriculum at Crosswinds. Their transportation costs will be covered by the state with no charge back to the families.

Siblings of current EMID students from 622 will be allowed to “open enroll” in EMID schools though an arrangement with the Roseville schools as EMID’s fiscal host. Their transportation will be paid for by EMID, but EMID will charge families a portion of those costs back ($250/year/student up to a family maximum of $600/year, all charges waived for families of kids receiving free or reduced lunches).

Any other students who want to attend EMID schools from district 622 will also be welcome to open enroll on the same terms as siblings, even if nobody in their family has previously attended an EMID school.

Again, just to be very clear: this agreement has not yet been ratified by the school boards in question. It is a very positive development, but we will have to await actions of these boards for final word. EMID plans to send out notices to families on June 24th, after the agreement has been ratified.

This is a much more positive result than many were expecting. It demonstrates that 622 is not intent on preventing attendance at EMID schools and it underscores the wonderful support we are getting from Roseville as our fiscal host. If you are available on the evening of Tuesday, 6/23, it would be great to attend one or the other of these two district board meetings to both ensure the agreement is ratified and to thank these school boards for their support of our kids being able to continue attending EMID schools.

At our EMID Families meeting this week we learned of a new plan afoot for 622 families in EMID, this time being pushed by MDE.

The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has woken up to the situation of existing 622 families in EMID and is working on a plan to help make continuing with EMID schools possible. The open enrollment option that EMID had been working on had one severe drawback for many families, it would require them to subsidize transportation of the kids to EMID. Both open enrollment at EMID and the transportation arrangement that EMID was trying to work out would have been unprecedented in the state, so MDE had to be involved in making way for these options. Now that MDE is awake to the situation they have determined that another course would be simpler, no open enrollment, no costly transportation, instead they would simply allow 622 families who already have a child in EMID to continue sending their children to EMID schools with fully subsidized transportation (in other words, free to the families) until they graduated from EMID or decided to leave the district for other reasons.

This plan differs from open enrollment in that other families, who have not yet had kids attending EMID schools, would not be able to send their kids to EMID. The MDE plan applies only to families currently enrolled in EMID, though it would allow younger siblings to take advantage of EMID. EMID would not be allowed to open enroll other students from 622 or any other district.

This plan is very good news for existing 622 families in EMID. It means your kids can continue at Harambee and Crosswinds without any extra transportation cost. We got this message from Shari Thompson in the EMID administration:

EMID has not had the authority to open enroll students directly to our district and all of this is precedent setting for EMID as well as the state. While we would welcome attendance from all ISD 622 families, our first commitment is to continue to serve our current families which includes the much needed transportation services for students. Please be assured that this issue is of the highest priority to us and we are continuing to work to resolve the situation. We are hopeful that we can come to final resolution with MDE very soon and as soon as we have that information we will communicate it to all families.

Note, this plan is not yet a done deal. Details may shift. The MDE commissioner has yet to sign off on the plan and other details need to be settled with EMID and 622. We are sharing this because we believe that some information is better than silence, but we hope you understand that the outline of this plan could still shift before the dust settles.

Longer term this plan does close down some creative options for EMID to expand its appeal as an open enrollment destination for families across the metro area. EMID is actively working with other integration districts across the metro to find areas where common effort can increase the opportunities and efficiencies of all the districts.

UPDATE: A reader asked me “Do you know Eric what that means for new families that are registered for next year already?”

The answer from Shari…

“Unfortunately we don’t yet have an answer to this question. EMID will make the argument that these families applied for enrollment to the EMID schools while we were all (EMID, ISD 622, and MDE) under the impression that open enrollment was the best viable option. We are awaiting word from MDE before we can continue the dialogue with them.”

Jeff traded some email with Dr. Wahlstrom today. He said he is considering attending the Feb. 3 meeting, or might send Kathy Griebel or Shari Thompson. Jeff let him know that we’d love to see him there, but he wanted to be honest and let him know our attendance is not that great, so he would know we are not a huge crowd. Please join us! Let us know you are coming by leaving a comment on this entry!

Remember… Tuesday 2/3, 7 pm at Crosswinds! We will probably meet in the health/cooking room (first floor, straight back, under the stairs).

The EMID Joint Powers Board meets on Wednesday 5/21 in the Harambee Multicultural Learning Center. The agenda is available. Though it does not include anything directly relating to our “hot” areas of interest, it would still be great if someone can get to the meeting and provide notes to EMID Families.