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.