Today the EMID Joint Powers Board (our version of a school board) voted to affirm that: “After significant listening and gathering of stakeholder input, it is recommended that the Board not conduct a feasibility study to expand grades 11 and 12 at Crosswinds.” Chair of the Board, Bruce Hagerty, emphasized repeatedly that this action was not intended to shut the door on the notion of 11-12 at Crosswinds, but was only a “very narrow” action to kill the feasibility study. Read on for the gory details, including a few other bits of news from the board meeting.

The board took the action on 11-12 in the context of an upcoming strategic planning process being proposed by Superintendent Cassellius. This strategic planning process will make no assumptions, everything is on the table and anything may change in order to better meet whatever vision is laid out. In fact, by far the longest discussion at the meeting revolved around just this point: how much should the board limit the freedom of the strategic planning and future board actions?

This arose as the board considered an amendment to the motion to kill the 11-12 feasibility study. As some of you may recall, the original action item included a second sentence: “It is further recommended that the Board discuss the overall grade configuration for the EMID schools within its upcoming strategic planning.” Board member Jim Gelbmann of South Washington County proposed either striking that sentence, or better yet, replacing it with one that would give parents more confidence in the continuation of grades 9-10 at Crosswinds. This amendment eventually proposed changing the second sentence to: “It is further recommended that the strategic planning process provide a long term plan and, if financially feasible, 10th grade will continue to be offered through the 2012/13 school year.”

Mr. Gelbmann was reacting, in part, to concerns expressed by parents during the open forum at the beginning of the board meeting. Four parents described their anxiety and uncertainty to the board, and one specifically called on the board to deal with the rising panic by making a formal vote of commitment to 9-10 for at least a couple years. This amendment was an attempt to demonstrate just such a commitment.

It was noted by some that such an amendment was not really necessary. They argued that since the strategic planning process will not conclude until the Spring of 2012, there would be no way to make changes to the grade structure until at the earliest Fall 2012. Mr. Gelbmann pointed out that this still left current 8th grade families uncertain of whether they would be able to attend 10th grade at Crosswinds in 2012/13. Without that certainty, he feared, many families would opt out of Crosswinds after 8th grade.

While two or three board members were supportive of the amendment, the majority were hostile to it. They cited the superintendents meeting last Wednesday (did anyone get to that meeting?) where some lingering bad feelings (a sense of “surprise”) about even the years-ago expansion to 9-10 surfaced. They pointed out that such an amendment would be fairly meaningless since a future board could just rescind the decision anyway. In the end, the board voted down the amendment.

Mr. Gelbmann then proposed to just strike the second sentence. One board member, seeking clarification about what such an action would mean, said, “by removing this sentence we are saying that the strategic planning process will still consider the grade structure issue but we just won’t say that it is being considered.” After some discussion, the board unanimously passed this amendment, leaving itself with just the motion described in the first paragraph above as a result.

While Chair Hagerty stressed the narrowness of this action and the potential for the 11-12 issue to be reconsidered during strategic planning, a number of other board members were much more comprehensive in their dismissal of 11-12. They mentioned the meeting last week where superintendents expressed not only “deep issues” with expansion to 11-12. One said he sensed “no support” among superintendents of the other districts for 11-12 at Crosswinds, another said there was “no hope” for 11-12. It was reported that the superintendents went so far as to suggest that EMID had better be concerned about the 120,000 kids in all partner districts rather than just the 900 in EMID schools.

Bottom line: 11-12 is dead, for now at least, probably for a long time. While 9-10 is alive for now, the board refused to express a commitment to those grades though the 2012/13 school year.

There were a number of other issues raised at the meeting that might be of concern to families.

– The statewide task force on school integration has begun meeting and will hold five listening sessions around the state before January, the closest to most EMID families will be on Monday 11/15, 6:30-8:30pm at Ramsey County Library, 2180 North Hamline, Roseville, MN. More information can be found at: http://integrationtaskforce.blogspot.com/. This task force may have a large impact on the future definitions of desegregation and integration in Minnesota and the funds that support programs like EMID.

– Dr. Cassellius introduced the draft of an “EMID Family and Community Engagement Support” guide that helps families find “pathways” from Crosswinds back to schools in their districts. She noted that while the Crosswinds website has information about charter and other options, the guide would only describe public schools in member districts because doing more than that would be “too expensive.”

– Dr. Cassellius said she was forming a District Parent Advisory Council to generate better parent engagement and communication with a broader array of parents. This council will include parents from both EMID schools and parents from member districts whose students did not attend EMID schools. (I am curious, have any families been contacted about being on this council? I know that it has not even been mentioned at Crosswinds Site Council yet, which seems odd.)

The meeting was very long, not wrapping up until well after 8pm. I’m afraid I didn’t have the heart to stay for the board’s Work Session where they were to discuss the strategic plan. In fact, I was so upset by the end of the meeting that I behaved quite inappropriately and later apologized to the Chair. Mike, however, made an eloquent last attempt to get the board to express some support for 9-10 when the Chair recognized him for some comments after the debate on the 11-12 motion. Maybe if someone else stayed for the Work Session they could fill us in on what happened there.