Earlier this week the EMID Board held a board meeting. Lucky for us there were a couple parents who attended. They learned that the EMID Board is considering closing our schools permanently!

One parent tells me they contacted our superintendent, Jerry Robicheau, who said he had “fully expected” the board to close the schools this week. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that, expecting this kind of action, he never once reached out to families for help defending our schools. I am afraid we have no help coming from that quarter.

Another parent took the time to write the following message. If you care about the future of EMID schools, please read it!

Finally, if you want to strategize with other families about what we can do, please come to an emergency meeting of EMID Families tomorrow, Saturday 8/27, at 12:30. We will be meeting at 1993 Lincoln Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55105. Call Mary Hess at 651-236-7592 or email mhess@luthersem.edu for directions.

Here’s the message from a parent who was at the EMID Board meeting…

You need to know, I went to the EMID School Board meeting tonight (August 24), and they are actively considering closing both Harambee and Crosswinds, and “repurposing” the integration funding money back to the individual member districts. During the public comment portion, it was pointed out that beyond the original integration mission, EMID has now become uniquely successful along several fronts: ADD ADHD and special needs kids; the arts and science and environmental science magnet focus; the year round calendar; the focus on academics/arts vs sports; IB for the middle school years; etc etc etc., and that EMID is the ONLY option for many parents to enable their kids to have access to those attributes. BUT, it seems like most of the various home district superintendents just see that pupil money flowing with the kids to EMID and they want it back, and the Board is more or less falling into line.

A timeline was set up by the Board to make a final decision in November on whether or not to close the schools. The other options mentioned come from a study that was done by DMC, a consulting firm the Board hired earlier this year, and include keeping things as they are, or seeking some “third party” to operate the schools. It was clear that the Board does not even think it can consider the first option of maintaining the status quo. The second option, which could mean getting charter status for example, was not even mentioned until one of the Board members brought it up – so at least now it may be on the table. But the overwhelming sense was that the Board is already in a mode of assuming that they WILL vote to close the schools, it is just a question of when.

What is spurring all of this is the pending probable reduction or elimination of “integration funding” by the state legislature. In addition, the Board believes that actual test data do not show that EMID schools have necessarily succeeded in their original mission, which was integration. They are using the “achievement gap” as the indicator of success – meaning that overall test performance of children of color has improved or is roughly equal to performance of kids who are in the ethnic majority. However, as parents we understand that true “integration” is not measured just by these scores – and it is impossible to say how much better kids from St Paul or other higher percentage minority districts are doing in EMID than they would have done if they had stayed in their home districts. However, none of that seems to matter – the superintendents seem to have successfully “spun” the whole concept of EMID’s success on the closure of the “achievement gap”; that gap has not narrowed significantly; and so they can make the case that EMID has failed in its mission, and so that money should just come back to the districts.

A schedule was tentatively set for a series of Board meetings between now and November to deliberate all of this, and we’ll need to check with Mary Ojile the EMID secretary to get final dates, times and locations – here are the dates they talked about:

1. Sept 14 a working session of the Board to further discuss options;
2. then the regular Board meeting on Sept 21 to further deliberate;
3. then the October 19 meeting where they will actually take a vote to recommend closure (or one of the other options);
4. then a statutorily mandated “public comment” meeting a couple of weeks after that, which gets triggered under state law whenever a school is voted to close;
5. then the Nov 16 meeting to take the final vote.

If they vote to close along the lines they discussed at the meeting I attended, this year we’re in right now would be the last one.

If you know, or regularly get in touch at all, with any other Harambee or Crosswinds parents, now is the time to move and act and get ourselves organized to come to these meetings. Pass the word at the “back to school nights” that are coming up. Also, call and email, repeatedly, all of our home district Board members who are the reps to the EMID board. Here’s a list, so forward this to everyone you know — this is real and imminent.

As I mentioned above, my take on this is that the EMID Board is going to try to blame the legislature funding reductions, but it’s much more layered than that — those home districts have always been envious of EMID and now that they think they have an “out”, they want to pull the plug and regain those students and the money that flows with them — especially St Paul district. The ONLY thing to counter the superintendent-led pressure to close will be political pressure from parents and families — and real “in your face” overwhelming attendance at those meetings over the next three months. Some of these Board members are up for re-election on November 8 — that’s one of the other few pressure points parents may have, organize against or for them in the election depending on their support or lack of it.

Here’s the list. Call or email your appropriate Board member ASAP — you know how opinions like this are formed, it is important to hit them early and often if parents care to save the schools. Phone numbers and email links:

• Forest Lake Area Schools (ISD #831): Karen Morehead, 651.464.3577
• Inver Grove Heights (ISD 199): Phillip Prokopwicz, 651.485.9603
• Roseville Area Schools (ISD 623): Kitty Gogins, 651.481.0500
• South St. Paul Schools (SSD 006): John Vujovich
• South Washington County Schools (ISD 833): Jim Gelbmann, 651.739.5575
• Spring Lake Park (ISD 16): Marilyn Forsberg, Clerk, 763.784.7751
• St. Paul Public Schools (ISD 625): John Brodrick, Treasurer, 651.645.7500
• Stillwater Area Schools (ISD 834): George Hoeppner, Vice Chair, 651.351.8433
• West St. Paul (ISD 197): Cristina Gillette, Board Chair, 651.905.9957
• White Bear Lake Schools (ISD 624): Lori Swanson, 651.429.1408

I knew this whole issue was going to be coming, but I thought we’d have at least this whole school year to deal with this discussion — well, looks like not. At the very least, and IF the money is defunded by the legislature, we have enough money to get a year’s grace period — the EMID fund balance right now (cash on hand) IS ENOUGH to stay open for another two school years, at least, through 2013 — or even longer depending on the timing of the funding cut that could come from the legislature: in actuality EMID has enough balance to last basically one full school year PAST when the funds get cut off — one of the Board members, Jim Gelbmann, pointed that out tonight — but if the superintendents hold sway, they’ll want that money back now, and will not want to wait for the legislature to actually even act (which the earliest, I think, would be next February), and it will be “nuclear winter” for EMID after this school year.

Further, since EMID was formed as a legislative district, now is the time to get your MN State Rep involved – I did not put the contact info for all of our house and senate reps here, because they’d be from all over the east metro area, but you can google to find out your rep and then make a call.

Also, now is the time to email everyone you know directly to get on the “mailing list” for this EMID Families forum, and encourage others you know to check it out – if you’re reading this, then you may know we have used this for the past year or two to communicate among ourselves, inform ourselves on what’s going on, rally for upcoming events, post opinions about school issues, etc., and it could be used as a key information “place” for this issue. It can help be a bridge between Crosswinds Site Council active parents, and Harambee parents – although my understanding is that there hasn’t been that active of a Site Council at Harambee, but that now perhaps that will be helped by the PIE group.

So, we need to take this viral… it may be the only way. We are 800 EMID families — we need to be in the room at these Board meetings. If folks like us, and others who know how to get things done, don’t pick up the ball, the game’s over. Plan to come to those meetings! Make your voice heard!

…That’s serious, folks. If you want to be part of defending EMID schools, please join us tomorrow!