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.

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.”

The Pioneer Press ran a story that “Mounds View Public Schools officials have decided to explore an integration collaboration with neighboring districts.” It goes on to say, “The district will team up with the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale and Mahtomedi school districts to study the idea. A formal collaboration has not been formed, but it’s on the horizon.”

Full story is here.

At tonight’s EMID board meeting Kevin Donovan (651-407-8983, mksbdonovan@comcast.net) shared the news that the Mahtomedi School Board is setting up a group to consider their integration investments, including the pros and cons of continued participation in EMID. This was just a brief announcement during the Board Forum section of them meeting, so it did not appear on the agenda. After the meeting Kevin told me that the Mahtomedi board expects the group to conclude its work and issue a report by January 2009. Note that the next deadline for pulling out of the EMID collaborative is during February 2009. Kevin stressed that Mahtomedi hopes to get parents involved in the group and told me the best way to indicate interest in taking part would be to contact the Superintendent, Mark Wolak (651-407-2001, mwolak@mahtomedi.k12.mn.us).

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).

Amy writes:

The K-12 Finance Bill was unveiled at the Capital today (Mindy Greiling’s baby).  It sounds as if the parameters surrounding how integration funding can be spent were not worked into the final language of the bill (something we were all banking on).  According to Mindy, the Task Force that was commissioned to address this failed to meet their responsibilities and it was not worked into the bill.  Be alert to watch for press regarding this.  It is being dubbed the “Minnesota Miracle.”

The Brown Power Base Project (BPBP) is lobbying the legislature for changes in the Minnesota deseg rules.

Myron Orfield, executive director of the Institute on Race and Poverty, spoke at the February 26 community roundtable held by BPBP. “Racial segregation means social segregation,” he said, noting that school boundaries and the density of low-income housing take away the chance of a good education for many blacks and Latinos. Orfield explained that many urban schools have become poorer in recent years and the level of diversity has dropped.

[...]

Currently, the state of Minnesota has voluntary integration and no power to mandate integration, said Morgan-Spencer. BPBP claims that Minnesota’s open enrollment and integration funding does nothing to desegregate schools and they said they are sending a plan to the state legislature to change that.

At the EMID board meeting last night Kathy Griebel shared the results of EMID’s survey of 622 family intentions for the next two school years. Kathy noted that these numbers ask parents to peer awfully far into the future, so they should be considered “soft” numbers. The executive summary provides a good overview of the response while the survey response shows the numbers in a bit more detail.

The bottom line is that it looks like a lot of 622 families intend to continue with EMID. If transportation were not an issue, then the attrition from 622 would not be significantly different for the attrition that is the norm for EMID. However, for over 30% of families transportation is a significant issue. EMID is, of course, working hard to resolve that issue for families.

Amy noticed that district 279 (not a part of EMID) is facing some integration issues:

I dug a little deeper and this is what seems to be the case. (I am in the Discover Phase so I really have very little information at this point. Any additional information EMID families obtain would be appreciated.) Osseo and Maple Grove are in the same school district (279) which serves Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Maple Grove, Osseo, Plymouth, Corcoran, Dayton, and Hassan. District 279 is already involved in an Integration District, but there remain several racially identifiable schools within their district. I believe the effort is to redefine boundaries within the district to create more equitable educational opportunites. As per the desegregation rule they have a Multi-District Collaboration Council which is exploring their options.

Amy provides a fantastic summary of the Multi-District Collaboration Council Community Event EMID sponsored on 2/25. The group discussed the deseg rule on which EMID was founded and then issues of students feeling disrespected and families unaware of the benefits available to them through EMID. “EMID families are encouraged to weigh in on these issues. Your feedback is appreciated by the committee.”