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.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Pledges for recording board meetings
We have an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is!
At the March 2008 Joint Powers meeting, a request was made of the Board by a member of EMID Families to begin video taping their meetings and making the video available on the web. This request is being considered and the staff have begun researching cameras. It looks like a digital video camera would be the most appropriate will cost around $1000.
At the last EMID Families large group meeting, it was suggested that we use this opportunity to show our collective appreciation to the EMID Administration and Joint Powers Board by raising the funds to buy the camera (or at least make a contribution to defray the financial burden on them). The camera can be used for other purposes so many stand to benefit from this purchase.
So…… How ’bout it? We have about a week to pull this off. (Remember what we accomplished in less than 17 hours prior to the 622 vote on transportation?) The Joint Powers meets next Wednesday night at 7 and we would love to present them with our pledges at that time.
Eric said he will throw in the first $100. I have a lot of mouths to feed and very little money with which to do it so I can only contribute $10. This leaves $890 to go!!!
The ball is in your court EMID Families. Pledge your support by sending a note to Amy Rostron-Ledoux we will work out the logistics of collecting the money if the purchase is approved by EMID. Together, we can make a difference for our kids and our schools!
No new integration funding language
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.”
Plant Sale
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.
Brown Power Base Project
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.
EMID Families to meet every fourth Wednesday at 7pm
Eight of us (Amy, Barbara, Eric, Heidi, Jeff, Kara, Shannon, and Tina) met yesterday at Crosswinds. Anyone who was there should feel free to add notes from the meeting in the comments. This is just a record of some of the decisions we made.
We will try for a regular time for future meetings: 4th Wednesdays at 7pm.
We are going to ask EMID to post study session packets on the web.
We are going to try to raise funds for the digital video camera EMID intends to buy to record board meetings.
The next District 622 subgroup meeting will be at 6:30 on Thursday, 3/27, at the Maplewood Public Library on Southlawn.
We are going to make a list of parents who are willing to attend member-district board meetings with EMID staff. We hope to find at least one volunteer parent from each district.
We demonstrated how to register for leaving comments on this site (see that little “register” link down to the left?). If you would like to be an author on the site (create articles like this one), then please send a note to info@emidfamilies.org after you complete your registration.
EMID proposed timeline for 622 decisions
This got buried in the notes from the 2/20 EMID Board Meeting. Here is the timeline for 622 decisions proposed to the board by EMID administration.
Results from survey of 622 families
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.
Looping proposal
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.
Coordination Update
Heidi shared a Coordination update with the group today. One proposal she makes is that the group as a whole meet again on Tuesday, March 18th at 6:30. Feel free to share your yes or no in the comments.
For the rest of this (extensive) update, read below the fold.