To make things a little easier on everyone, we decided at our meeting last night to set out a regular meeting date for the whole school year. So, mark your calendars!

EMID Families will meet on the first Tuesday of every other month. The change from Wednesday and to bimonthly takes into account the feedback we got from our survey last month. We also decided to alternate between Harambee and Crosswinds. The dates are:

Tuesdays at 7pm…

• December 2 at Harambee
• February 3 at Crosswinds
• April 7 at Harmabee
• June 2 at Crosswinds
• August 4 at Harambee

More details about each meeting, including what room to look for, will be sent out prior to each meeting.

Mary Cecconi, Executive Director of Parents United for Public Schools, will be speaking to the EMID Community on Monday October 20th at Harambee!

As parents we understand the need for sustainable, dependable, and adequate dollars to support public education. House File 4178, the “New Minnesota Miracle Bill,” calls for a significant increase in spending for our schools. This bill will not pass by luck, but by the work we in the community are willing to do on its behalf.

On Monday October 20th Parents United for Public Schools, the League of Women Voters and the Minnesota PTA will be joining together to present information about HF 4178 to the EMID Community. Come to listen and learn what the passage of this bill can do to enhance student achievement in the state of Minnesota.

We need to understand what challenges our schools face and how investing in them will benefit our state. We also need to understand the cost of disinvesting. Finally, we need to understand this well enough to explain the need to our friends and neighbors AND ask those who are seeking election this fall where they stand on it.

Please join us on Monday October 20th from 6:30-8 pm at Harambee to learn more about HF 4178. Democracy works best when we are all a part of it! Hope to see you there. Childcare will be provided. Light refreshments will be served following the presentation.

The EMID Joint Powers Board meets on Wednesday April 16 at the Crosswinds School (Water House). The “work session” starts at 6pm and includes a presentation about Crosswinds by principal Roger Kocinski and a discussion of the video recording proposal raised by an EMID Families member last month. The board meeting itself starts at 7pm and includes budget, computer use, bullying, and integration plan agenda items. Don’t forget this week’s meeting is at Crosswinds (not Harambee).

Harambee Elementary School wants to invite you to an important parent meeting for this Thursday, April 17, from 6 to 8 p.m. The meeting will discuss the possibility of changing to a looping format in our classrooms (looping is one grade level of students working for two years with the same teacher) instead of the current Multiage setup that is currently in place at Harambee. This idea needs to be discussed and your opinion needs to be heard on this subject. If you need childcare, please let us know by Wednesday. Please call Doreen Blohm at 651-379-2507.

The plant sale at Harambee is underway. Orders are due by Wednesday, April 9th [UPDATE: the deadline is now Friday, 4/11]. If your family is like mine, the order form is long lost. Here are electronic copies of the plant pictures and the order form. Today I can (almost) believe spring is on the way.

Kristin Black wrote in this week’s Harambee Life that she is looking for parents to be part of the multiage/looping exploration. Contact Doreen Blohm at 379-2507 if you would like to take part.

I wanted to share with you that a task force is being formed to explore ourcurrent curriculum delivery format — “multiage” (two grade levels of studentsworking together) — in relation to “looping” (one grade level of studentsworking together for two years with the same teacher following them to thenew grade level). A proposal to explore this was brought from the teachingstaff to Site Council and the administrative team in January and was then sharedat the February school board meeting. The task force will be formed and willwork from March 2008 until June 2009 to explore stakeholder support for apossible move to looping in fall 2009. This group will ultimately make a recom-mendation to the school board based on their findings. The task force will in-clude representation from families, teachers from all grade levels, specialists,and administration. If you are interested in serving on this task force, pleasecontact Doreen Blohm at 379-2507. Monthly meetings will begin in March,2008 with the exact meeting schedule to be decided upon by the task forcemembers. The timeframe for exploring this proposal is lengthy so that there issufficient time to complete research, hear from all stakeholder voices, and shareprogress along the way. Your input and opinions in relation to this proposal arevery important; thank you for considering helping with the task force.

When a few of us went to the EMID Joint Powers Board meeting in February we learned of a proposal to remove the multiage classroom approach at Harambee in favor of a “looping” approach. This surprised us and we spent a good bit of time discussing these plans with Kristine Black. Kristine has been good enough to share the timeline she provided to the board.

Please note, she will be looking for parents to participate in this review. Please let Principal Black know if you would be interested in taking part.