The Minnesota House Education Policy Committee held a hearing on integration policy at Crosswinds yesterday, 9 July 2013. The hearing included:
Lisa Larson on MN law with regard to bonding of Crosswinds (0:15:40)
Myron Orfield describing the history of segregation, integration, and re-segregation in Minnesota (0:25:10)
Bryan Bass describing the program at Crosswinds (1:06:35)
Parents Tami Bayne-Kuczmarski and Kelly DeBrine with students Juan Jimenez, Sam Larson, and Nate Celeste testifying to the effectiveness of Crosswinds (1:26:08)
Kathy Griebel describing the program at Harambee (1:46:12)
Jocelyn Stein testifying to effectiveness of Harambee and Crosswinds (1:50:25)
Bruce Hagerty providing background about the EMID Board (2:11:50)
Shari Thompson sharing financial background about EMID (2:24:30)
Janet Mohr thanking the committee for its consideration (2:32:43)
Some final remarks by legislators (2:43:39)
A big thank you to Committee Chair Carlos Mariani Rosa for selecting Crosswinds as the site for this important hearing.
Video of the hearing is available on YouTube. Slides from some of the presenters are included below.
Thank you to all who participated in the EMID Families petition to the board over the past several weeks. We collected 269 signatures on a petition that asks the board to approve a management plan with Perpich:
The East Metro Integration District (EMID) is considering a management agreement with the Perpich Center for Arts Education to allow the Crosswinds Arts & Science School to stay open for the next school year. We petition the EMID school board to:
Allow Crosswinds to remain open under Perpich leadership beginning in the 2013–2014 school year.
We also took this opportunity to survey those of you with students at Crosswinds, and 87% of those who responded to that survey said they planned to stay at Crosswinds if Perpich was allowed to manage the school next year!
A report with the full results is available on our petition page.
Please don’t forget this is a big week for Crosswinds. We need families to come to these events and demonstrate that we stand with Crosswinds. Join us for as many of these events as possible, all of them will be held at Crosswinds:
Tuesday, 7/9: House Education Policy Hearing on Integration at 11am.
Wednesday, 7/10: Special EMID Board Meeting to consider Perpich management of Crosswinds at 5:30pm.
Next week will be a big week for Crosswinds, there are three events that are very important for our community and we hope you can join us at as many as possible!
Tuesday, 7/9: House Education Policy Hearing at 11am.
The House Education Policy Committee will hold a hearing at Crosswinds about integration policy for Minnesota from 11am-2pm on Tuesday. This will be a chance for this committee to hear about the successes and failures of integration policy here in EMID and at Crosswinds. It is very unusual for a legislative committee to meet like this outside the legislative session and we are incredibly privileged that Chair Carlos Mariani has decided to make Crosswinds the venue for this important hearing. Testimony will include U of M law professor Myron Orfield, former EMID board chair Bruce Hagerty, our own Bryan Bass, and many others including students, parents, and teachers.
Wednesday, 7/10: Special EMID Board Meeting to consider Crosswinds at 5:30pm.
The EMID Board will hold a special July board meeting on Wednesday to consider a proposal from the Perpich Center for Arts Education to manage the Crosswinds program next school year. This would require that the EMID Board leave Crosswinds open, as they decided to do for Harambee, and contract with Perpich to run the school, similar to the contract they agreed to a few weeks ago for Roseville to run Harambee. This is a last chance to keep Crosswinds open next year. The board will have a work session at 5:30pm and start its regular meeting at 6:30pm. Public testimony is welcome at the start of the regular board meeting.
Thursday, 7/11: Crosswinds Carnival!
The Crosswinds Carnival will be a great chance to spend time with the whole Crosswinds community on Thursday! For students the fun will start at 2pm, but everyone is welcome to join in after school from 4-7pm. Please make sure your student has a signed permission slip allowing them to stay after school that afternoon if you plan to join us or to pick them up later.
The EMID Board met yesterday and approved a plan by Roseville to operate the Harambee school next year. Because of the legislature’s failure to act earlier this year, the EMID board decided to delay its closure of the school until 2014, keep the school open, but hand all operational responsibility over to Roseville. The net effect for families should be that Harambee will pretty much feel as it always has. For the most part the staff won’t change (though they will become employees of Roseville), transportation will continue to be provided, and the year-round schedule will continue. Kathy Griebel plans to continue as principal. See 0:34:55 in the video of the meeting below for the Harambee discussion with Roseville Superintendent John Thein.
The situation for Crosswinds will be addressed at a special board meeting next month (7/10, 5:30pm at Crosswinds). While some board members asked that the meeting include options for both Perpich and South Washington County to take over Crosswinds, one board member reminded them that they had received a copy of an email from 833 Superintendent Keith Jacobus stating that South Washington County had no interest in running an integration program at Crosswinds next year. Since an integration program is the only option allowed to Crosswinds without legislation, EMID Superintendent Janet Mohr confirmed that only Perpich was preparing a plan to run the school in the Fall. That plan will be presented and discussed in July. See 1:55:30 in the video of the meeting below for the questions the board raised when considering calling the special meeting.
Video of the entire meeting is available on YouTube and includes many items not discussed in these notes.
The EMID Board meets again on Wednesday 6/19, 5:30pm at Harambee.
The packet for next week’s EMID Board meeting held a surprise for those reading closely: EMID Superintendent Janet Mohr is leaving us to become the Executive Director of the Board of School Administrators on 8/1. Even though she will have served for less than 18 months, she is actually the longest serving superintendent EMID has had since Carl Wahlstrom left the position in the summer of 2010. Since then we had Brenda Cassellius for six months, Jerry Robicheau as an interim for one year, and now Jan is leaving after a brief stay. This highlights the chaotic nature of EMID governance, if nothing else (note WMEP has been in the news lately as well). More about Jan’s departure can be read on page 38 of the packet.
The EMID board plans to consider Roseville’s proposal for Harambee at the meeting next week. However, the agenda does not include a discussion of Crosswinds and Perpich. Instead, the board plans (see page 41 of the packet) a “special board meeting” on 7/10. This special meeting will include consideration to amend the resolution closing Crosswinds and consideration of a management agreement for Crosswinds.
If you have not already done so, please sign our EMID Families petition asking the board to allow Crosswinds to stay open under Perpich leadership next year!
This means the week after July 4th will be a very busy week for Crosswinds. We are anticipating a hearing of the House Education Policy Committee on 7/9, a meeting of the board on 7/10, and the Crosswinds carnival on 7/11. Stay tuned!
We have heard a board member say that the families who come to board meetings are a small fraction of families attending the schools and don’t represent the feelings of other families. Please sign our petition to let the EMID Board know clearly that there are many families and friends of Crosswinds who believe the school should stay open under Perpich leadership. If you want to see Crosswinds open next year, please sign our petition today, so we can share your signature with the EMID board next week.
As we prepare for a hearing of the House Education Policy Committee at Crosswinds (probably on July 9th, details to come) we decided we wanted to be a bit more visible. Check out our t-shirts, buttons, and bumper sticker and stand up for integration!
Note, the t-shirts are a limited edition only available until next Monday, June 10th!
To celebrate summer and the work we have ahead of us for Crosswinds and Harambee, EMID Families has decided to produce two limited edition t-shirts. These will be great to wear to the legislative hearing we expect to host at Crosswinds in July, or to various year-end events around the schools.
These t-shirts will only be on sale for one week, until Monday 6/10! Get yours while they last!
You can get a yellow shirt that declares “Integration for Minnesota. Watch us grow!” for $12, or a very special black shirt that just shows off the dandelion symbol for $14.
Thanks to Carrie Dickson for coming up with the dandelion theme EMID Families has adopted to let everyone know we won’t be stopped and plan to spread our story.
Please note, these shirts will only be printed if we reach a total minimum order of 25 yellow shirts or 10 black shirts by June 10th, so order now. If you choose the “free shipping” option, then Eric Celeste will deliver the shirt by hand to a future EMID Families or Crosswinds meeting for you.
Parents United for Public Schools is an organization that helps Minnesota families become effective advocates for their schools. In this week’s legislative update they wrote about “the power of parent advocacy”:
Necessary legislation was not completed, leaving the two schools in the position of being shuttered in the coming year.
However, the story is not over by a long shot AND if you want proof that parent advocacy works, look no further. …
House Education Policy Chair Mariani, Rep. Isaccson, Rep. Ward, Rep. Fischer and Sen. Marty came to the board meeting to discuss the current situation. The legislators were there because of these families. Not because the families had threatened or pouted but because they had consistently led the charge for the rightness of continuing the state’s vision.
While we are very proud of our efforts, we were saddened that on the final days of session, the Senate could not avoid the consequences of the behind-the-scene tactics of a few senators. Since the end of the session, parents and students came together to debrief the session and talk about what we learned.
Last night’s EMID board meeting at Harambee was an amazing experience for those who were there to see it. In addition to an hour of family testimony, five legislators spent well over an hour sharing their perspective on the legislative session and the options for next steps with the EMID board.
Many family members testified about the lessons they learned during the session. These included the fact that we learned the buildings were bonded to host integration magnet schools, that the legislature must approve conveyance to any other party by a 60% vote, that Minnesota supports integration in the form of a renewed integration plan, that hidden processes impede democracy, that we can talk to our elected officials, and that families will not give up their efforts to save our schools. The final testimony was the reading of a letter from Dan Shulman, lead attorney in the lawsuits that led to the creation of integration districts in the 1990’s, stressing that Minnesota law still demanded integrated education and the actions of the EMID board might put everyone back in court once again.
Superintendent Thein of Roseville assured the EMID board that with their support Roseville would make sure Harambee opened in September to welcome students back. The EMID board voted to support the efforts of Roseville and there was a lot of confidence that, one way or another, Harambee would remain open.
Representatives Peter Fischer (Roseville), JoAnn Ward (Woodbury), Jason Isaacson (Vadnais Heights), Carlos Mariani (Saint Paul), and Senator John Marty (Roseville) shared their view of the session with the board. Rep. Isaacson said, “taking care of Crosswinds School died in the Senate… just so we are clear about this it was attempted in several times in several ways and it didn’t go through… I’m going to tell you what’s not going to happen: South Washington will not receive that school, period… we have the backing of the Speaker on that.” Rep. Mariani connected the situation at EMID with the wider support of integration exemplified by the new integration legislation. Sen. Marty asked for all the parties to work together to find a solution for Crosswinds. Rep. Fischer described the lengths the House had gone to in negotiating with the Senate, sharing the accountability language and a whole set of questions he’d like to see answered. Rep. Ward spoke from her work in education about the importance of a variety of schools for diverse students and families. All of the legislators very firmly asked the board to find a way to keep Crosswinds open for the 13-14 school year.
The clear, consistent message from these five legislators was that the board should do for Crosswinds/Perpich what they were clearly so willing to do for Harambee/Roseville.
Rep. Mariani also told the board he planned to hold a hearing of his House Education Policy Committee at Crosswinds in July (probably on 7/9). In many ways, this meeting felt like a preview of that hearing, though with the roles of board and legislators reversed.
The board did finally make a “consensus” decision to allow Superintendent Mohr to investigate with Perpich and MDE the feasibility of running the Crosswinds program next year. If this looks possible, the board will hold a work session on 6/12 to learn the details of the proposal.
Some (poor quality) audio recordings of the meeting are available. Part One includes the families testimony and the description of Roseville’s efforts on behalf of Harmabee. Part Two includes the exchange of the legislators with the board.
