MinnPost MPR, KARE11 cover open-enrollment and segregation

Cynthia Boyd has written about open enrollment in MinnPost: Minnesota’s new ‘white flight’: school open-enrollment program.

A new University of Minnesota analysis finds that more white students than students of color across the Twin Cities metropolitan area are leaving racially diverse districts to enroll in predominantly white districts, a variation of the “white flight” of the 1970s and 1980s when white families up and sold their homes and moved away from changing demographics in urban school districts or sent their children to private rather than public schools.

Tim Post at MPR picks up on the UofM open enrollment report with Study: Open enrollment increasing racial segregation in Twin Cities schools.

Open enrollment was set up in the 1980s to let families choose the district they want their children to attend. But the study, the first of its kind in Minnesota, said one result of open enrollment is white students leaving racially diverse districts.

The university study does not question the validity of the state’s open enrollment policy, but does ask whether it has had some unintended consequences.

KARE11 covered the story the next day: Open enrollment leads to racial segregation in Twin Cities schools.

The study shows that white families in Minneapolis, St. Paul and St. Cloud tend to use open enrollment to leave diverse districts. They send their children to predominantly white affluent schools. The reverse is also true; students who leave suburban white schools for city districts are typically students of color.

Update, the Star Tribune also ran a story by Steve Brandt on 1/19: Open enrollment hurts balance in Twin Cities.

The study’s main findings:

The three large city districts of Minneapolis, St. Paul and St. Cloud each lose substantial numbers of students under open enrollment. Loss of white students to nearby districts represents a large majority of each district’s net losses.
Suburban districts losing the most students to open enrollment include a group of diverse inner- and middle-suburban districts which lose substantial numbers of students.
Districts gaining the most students from open enrollment are predominantly white districts that receive students from more diverse districts.

EMID schools would probably be an exception to this trend, though it is hard to know because EMID and other integration districts, which are schools of choice, were not included in the underlying UofM study (PDF).

Open Enrollment and Racial Segregation in the Twin Cities: 2000 – 2010

Testimony at Harambee

Harambee’s meeting last night was a much more intimate affair than the Crosswinds meeting. Though many teachers were in the audience, none testified. The only testimony was from three parents: Mike Boguszewski, Eric Celeste, and Carrie Dickson. Both the Roseville Superintendent and the new chair of the Roseville school board attended to listen. There were also fewer EMID board members present, including the chair, who had another school-related obligation.

Testimony of Eric Celeste

The board’s justification for closing Harambee boils down to “we have to close Harambee because we refuse to fund Harambee.” This board made the choice to remove both levy funding and the integration funding that replaced it from the school budget. This board failed to develop a sustainable model for financing the school as an alternative to those funds. It is not a funding crisis that is closing this school, and the best evidence of that is the proposal Roseville has put on the table to keep the school open. There is nothing that Roseville will do to fund this school that EMID could not do will a little political fortitude. I am very disappointed in this course of action.

As you know from last night, I nevertheless support EMID withdrawing governance from Harambee and Crosswinds at the end of this school year. I especially appreciate the proposal Roseville has made to take over governance of this wonderful school with its program and teaching staff intact. My 10th grader started here in kindergarten, I love this school and the work its staff do every day for our kids. I am very happy that Roseville saw the jewel in its backyard and will carry on this legacy.

But tonight I did want to say a word about integration. EMID is about integration after all, and our diversity is, as it says on the mission banner hanging in the hallway outside, valued and celebrated.

I fear that with this decision to withdraw governance from this school, integration will become a bit less central to its mission. This will be a loss, and it is a loss both here and at Crosswinds. These schools understand that integration is about more than academics, it is about the respect and friendship that our students form with each other, the understanding of various cultures they gain, and the incredible culture of this school that they build together.

My hope is that Roseville take this aspect of Harambee’s legacy seriously and carry it into the future as well. I see Superintendent Tine and Board Chair Langston here tonight, I am encourage by the attention they have paid to this process, and I hope they will find ways to take advantage of the remarkable diversity of Roseville to keep Harambee as diverse as possible.

As for the EMID member districts, I just want to remind you that a significant portion of the integration dollars you will still receive for being part of this collaborative are designated for expenditure directly on students. Ever since you removed integration dollars from our schools a year ago, this direct student spending does not happen here.

These expenditures are vital to real integration in our schools, and I and others will work hard to hold you accountable for these funds. Please, use your integration funds well, make sure they are spent on students.

Thank you.

Testimony of Carrie Dickson

Shalom. Aloha. Salaam. Annyonghi-kaseyo.

I am the mother of 3 young boys who are 6, 4, and 2. My oldest is in 1st grade. Finding Harambee school, around this time 2 years ago, was a godsend born from a lot of difficult detective work. One of the many reasons we were interested in the school was integration, and the way integration works at Harambee. Students aren’t just close to each other. They are woven together as a community. Because of this, and many other reasons, I was fighting for this school before my son ever stepped foot in his Kindergarten class.

While I stand here today understanding that the relationship between Harambee and EMID must come to an end, I still don’t understand why we came to this point. I don’t understand why this board chose to fund this school differently then the rest of your schools, therefore causing it to be financially unsustainable. I don’t understand why only 1 of the 10 districts represented here lists Harambee and Crosswinds as schools that are options for their families. Why wouldn’t you tell people we were here? I can only shake my head in bewilderment.

I am grateful to Roseville who has seen the value of Harambee programming and intends to make it one of their own. I stand here before you and say, with much trepidation, that I support the transfer of governance to Roseville School District. My anxiety, sadly, comes from a significant lack of trust that comes from fighting for your son’s school since before he ever started there.

I also realize that we are now in a transition. As both a midwife and a teacher I know that transitions are difficult; I’ve spent my entire professional life helping people through them. And from both of those roles I know that one of the most important steps in any transition is a letting go. Only by letting go of our previous role will we be able to see the beauty and possibilities of our new one. So I look towards the future for Harambee with hope.

For the remaining 9 districts, you all face a transition as well. You now face the prospect of maintaining an integration district without integration schools. Integration, as you know, is still the law of the land. Whatever the state legislature decides about funding does not change that. I encourage you to look back at your own district schools. Do you have racially identifiable schools? I bet you do. Do we still have a long ways to go with integration? Oh yes we do. In the important fight for achievement and equity, please do not lose sight of integration. You cannot properly have equity without integration. I encourage you to reflect on the successes of Harambee and Crosswinds, and find ways to bring that kind of intentional integration to your school districts.

I’m going to digress for a moment and say something specific to Crosswinds that was not said last night. While it may seem that the support for the Perpich option is born out of a desperate desire to keep their beloved school as is, what I’m not sure you know is that parents, myself included, have been talking with Perpich Center since these schools faced closure last year… atleast 16 months now. We have come, through these conversations and investigation, to know that Perpich is the perfect option for Crosswinds. Its not just desperation. Its right. We have also come to believe two very important things: that Perpich can pull this off, and that they will do right by the students and teachers at Crosswinds.

Please know that teachers have not been a part of these conversations. They have not had the benefits of time and reflection that we have. Understandably, they need more information and time to come to believe what we do about the Perpich Center. I know that they will have that opportunity.

As we part ways, Harambee & Crosswinds from EMID, I will end with the four words I began with. These words, in Hebrew, Hawaiian, Arabic and Korean mean goodbye. But they also, perhaps more importantly, mean peace. May you continue the ever important work of supporting education for the future of the East Metro. May you continue with a vision of integration for all of our children. Shalom. Aloha. Salaam. Annyonghi-kaseyo.

EMID Families Meeting Saturday, 1/19, 2pm

Given the Perpich meeting on Monday 1/14 and the board discussion on Wednesday 1/6, we thought it best to move our EMID Families meeting to next week. So the next EMID Families meeting will be on Saturday 1/19, 2pm at Caribou Coffee, 3100 White Bear Avenue, North Maplewood.

The agenda will include both a review of the EMID board’s deliberations, the Perpich option progress, discussion of talking points for the next board meeting, and considering how to help families with their “plan B” if options for Crosswinds don’t work out. If you would like to join the organizing, feel free to join us on Saturday 1/19.

MPR: An Imperfect Revolution, Voices from the Desegregation Era

MPR this afternoon broadcast a really interesting American Radio Works documentary: An Imperfect Revolution, Voices from the Desegregation Era. This is well worth a listen or a read. It provides some valuable insight into things we feel at Crosswinds and Harambee and may give us some legs to stand on with the legislature in arguing that Crosswinds deserves to be saved by Perpich.

When the Supreme Court heard the recent desegregation cases from Louisville and Seattle, more than 500 social scientists filed a friend of the court brief presenting research on the effects of school integration. The brief said kids who go to integrated schools tend to have less racial prejudice, and it said integration has improved school achievement for African American students.

Gary Orfield: There’s nothing magic about sitting next to a white child, but there is a tremendous difference between being in a middle class school and high poverty school.

Desegregation expert Gary Orfield points out that integration doesn’t just mix races, it also mixes social classes, and schools where there are a lot of middle class parents tend to be better schools. More affluent parents won’t put up with poor teachers. More affluent kids encourage their classmates to do well and go on to college. Orfield says schools where most of the kids are black or Latino tend also to be schools where most kids are poor.

Orfield: If you look at these highly concentrated impoverished minority high schools, those are the country’s drop-out factories: a few hundred schools where most of the kids never graduate from high school and almost nobody is prepared for college. These are places that just destroy people’s lives. And to think that we know how to equalize this with just putting some money into them is thinking something that simply is not true.

In other words, as the Supreme Court said 50 years ago, separate can never be equal.

Note, Gary Orfield is the brother of our very own Myron Orfield, who has been waging this battle in Minnesota, most recently as part of the integration task force last year.

Testimony at Crosswinds: Transition to Perpich, Meeting Monday 1/14

The testimony tonight at Crosswinds was extraordinary. 36 students, parents, and teachers testified to the EMID Board and every single one called on the EMID board to withdraw governance from the school. Nearly every testimony also indicated strong support for a transition of governance to the Perpich Center for Arts Education. The testimony was beautiful, powerful, and heartfelt; it was also being recorded and we will try to share it as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, an important announcement was made at the hearing: representatives from the Perpich Center will be at Crosswinds next Monday evening, 1/14 at 6:30pm to talk with families and answer questions about their proposal. (They will be available to teachers that same morning.) Given how much support there was for a transition to Perpich governance of Crosswinds, this will be a great opportunity to both learn what Crosswinds under Perpich may be like and how we can help bring this future to reality.

A special meeting of the EMID Board to discuss the options before them will also take place on Wednesday evening, January 16, at Harambee. The decision-making meeting of the board remains on Wednesday January 23 at 5:30pm at Harambee.

So, upcoming meetings include:

the Harambee “closure” hearing tomorrow, Thursday January 10, 6:30pm at Harambee
the Perpich Q&A session for families Monday January 14, 6:30pm at Crosswinds
a special EMID Board meeting on Wednesday January 16, 6pm at Harambee
the next regular EMID Board meeting, at which they intend to vote on the fate of the schools, on Wednesday January 23, 5:30pm at Harambee

EMID school closure hearings Wednesday and Thursday

The EMID Board hearing on closing Crosswinds will be this Wednesday at 6:30pm at Crosswinds. The hearing on closing Harambee will be this Thursday at 6:30pm at Harambee. The public is welcome to testify at either or both hearings. Some folks who wish to share the themes of their testimony and get feedback ahead of the hearings will be gathering at 5:30pm at each location, so feel free to show up early if you wish.

You may also wish to write down and share your testimony with the board (their addresses are available on the EMID Families website) or other families (just send a copy to info@emidfamilies.org).

According to board chair George Hoeppner, both hearings will follow a similar format. Superintendent Janet Mohr and Finance Officer Shari Thompson will present information related to the reason we are at the current point. After their initial comments,
there will be opportunity for public testimony.

Public testimony will follow the structure of the open forum at a board meetings. There will be a five minute limit for each speaker.

Mohr and Thompson will then speak a second time.

The board will not have discussion either of these evenings.

If board members can find an evening to meet before their January 23 board meeting, they will try to refine the criteria for selection and discuss options. That date will be made public if it can be found.

Decisions will be made at the EMID Board meeting on January 23, 5:30pm, at Harambee.

EMID school closure hearings next week

As we learned in a letter from Superintendent Janet Mohr just before the holidays, EMID will hold public hearings on the closure of Harambee and Crosswinds next week.

the Crosswinds hearing will be on Wednesday, January 9 at 6:30pm at Crosswinds
the Harambee hearing will be on Thursday January 10 at 6:30pm at Harambee

These hearings are being called “closure” hearings because for statutory reasons EMID has to “close” the schools in order to hand them off to new management. In fact, we all hope that the schools do stay open under new management, but that is not a certainty.

For Harambee the path forward looks fairly clear. Roseville (ISD 623) has presented a compelling proposal to the EMID board that would keep the school more or less intact, with much of the same staff and program, allowing current students to continue to attend. So for Harambee, “closure” will probably mean “opening next year as a Roseville public school.”

For Crosswinds the path forward is much more complicated. South Washington County (ISD 833) and Northeast Metro (ISD 916) have both made proposals that would essentially close the school as we know it. They would reuse the building for new programs with new staff and new students. However, there is a third proposal from the Perpich Center for Arts Education that would carry Crosswinds as we know it forward with much of the program we know and love and an opportunity for staff who want to stay to keep building a unique and attractive community in the school.

The complexity arises because Perpich is not a traditional public school, it is a stand-alone state agency. As such, it needs to seek legislative authority and funding to take on the management of Crosswinds. This means we cannot know whether Perpich will even be able to take on Crosswinds till the current legislative session is nearly over, in May or June.

The bottom line is that these hearings are very important to the future of our schools. We will walk a fine line of advocating for “closure” (in other words, advocating that EMID withdraw from governing our schools), while also advocating for the continued nourishment and growth of the programs developed at Harambee and Crosswinds by Roseville and Perpich.

If you appreciate the learning environment your families have experienced at Crosswinds and Harambee, it is very important that you share that appreciation with the board at these public hearings. It is very important that the board hear both our support for their decision to withdraw from governance of the schools, but also our expectation that they will work in every way possible to keep our schools open under new management.

In either case, the “closure” will give our teachers an opportunity to apply for jobs in EMID member districts. This means that even if the schools are open under new management next year, there will be significant changes ahead. EMID Families have been through so much over the past few years, it is a lot to ask of you to continue to speak out for these schools. Just know, every voice matters. Thanks for paying attention and sharing your views with the board. If you cannot get to the hearings, please consider writing to the board, their addresses are on our web site.

EMID Families Meeting Sunday, 12/23, 3pm

EMID Families will meet tomorrow, Sunday 12/23, 3-5pm in the meeting room at Caribou Coffee, 3100 White Bear Avenue North, Maplewood.

This meeting will focus on how to support the Perpich option (a.k.a saving Crosswinds as we know it) and on planning for the public hearings on school closure coming up in early January.

At the board meeting this week it became very clear that neither the South Washington (ISD 833) or Northeast Metro (ISD 916) proposals would allow the program at Crosswinds to carry on. Even though the Perpich proposal is in very early stages and would be very difficult to pass (requiring not just our board to approve, but also the Legislature and Governor), it is the only remaining hope for carrying forward the spirit of Crosswinds.

The closure hearings are required of EMID by statute. While we hope the schools will not actually close, from a state perspective EMID is “withdrawing” from the schools. These hearings will be the public’s chance to be heard with regard to this change.

Please join us if you want to help us consider strategy and next steps as we try to save our schools.

EMID Board receives two new proposals for Crosswinds

Last night the EMID Board spent nearly its whole meeting considering proposals for the future of Crosswinds. They heard again from District 833 (South Washington County) as well as hearing new proposals from District 916 (Northeast Metro) and the Perpich Center for Arts Education. The most exciting proposal of the evening was Perpich, so be sure to read more about that below. Superintendent Jan Mohr also shared a “school closing rating scale” to be used to judge the various proposals. It asked that each of these criteria be judged on a scale of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (highly satisfied):

Proposal represents a political subdivision and meets MMB statues.
Proposal is not a legal or financial risk to EMID.
Proposal accounts for staff and employees in a responsible manner with consideration to contracts and statue.
Proposal’s impact on change to current students and families.
Proposal’s timeline for transfer of governance.
Proposal aligns to vision of EMID.

Superintendent Keith Jacobus returned from District 833 (South Washington County) without any new details for the 833 proposal from last month. He did stress that it was now clear that District 833 could not commit to the “program” of Crosswinds. In other words, while aspects of what Crosswinds does, like year-round education, IB curriculum, arts and science focus, were attractive to South Washington County, these elements, if continued at all, would probably be parceled out among other schools in the district. There would be “no Crosswinds as a school” that holds all of this program together. In other words, 833 is mostly interested in Crosswinds as a building to fill with whatever program it most needs to meet demographic demands. Jacobus also stressed that 833 would be much more comfortable receiving the building in 2014 than 2013, which is when the EMID Board was hoping to hand off the school.

Superintendent Connie Hayes of Northeast Metro 916 Intermediate School District, brought the 916 proposal for governance of Crosswinds before the board (more details in Northeast Metro 916 makes a proposal for Crosswinds). This proposal did not even anticipate using the whole building. 916 would only be able to use half the building and even that they would need to gut and renovate to meet their needs. Given the amount of investigation that needed to go into determining the feasibility of such a renovation and the engagement of a partner for the other half of the building, Hayes also said that 916 would not be able to take control of Crosswinds in 2013 and suggested 2014 as a more reasonable handoff.

The final proposal of the evening came from a team representing the Perpich Center for Arts Education. Pam Paulson, Carlondrea Hines, and Debra Kelley presented Perpich’s proposal to take over Crosswinds to the board. More details are in Perpich Center for Arts Education makes a proposal for Crosswinds and some wonderful insight into the synergy between Perpich and Crosswinds can be found in this public testimony by Dan Larson. Perpich proposes to take on governance of Crosswinds with much of the program, teaching, and student body as it is. They see a great deal of common ground between the Crosswinds mission and methods as they have been, and the goals of the Perpich Center. Some big questions remain (getting approval and funding from the legislature and planning for transportation, for example), it was clear that Perpich is eager and ready to launch an aggressive process to make a takeover possible in 2013. In fact, when repeatedly asked whether a 2014 handoff would be better, the Perpich team responded that they preferred to move fast and accomplish this transition on the original timeline proposed by the EMID Board. If funding realities or EMID made a 2014 transfer necessary, they assured the board that could work as well.

After hearing these proposals, Jim Gelbmann, the EMID Board member from South Washington County, proposed that the EMID Board immediately vote to delay the transfer of Crosswinds to any outside entity until 2014. He felt that by stating immediately that Crosswinds would remain under EMID governance next year the board would be providing assurance to parents and staff that they could count on one more year of stability at Crosswinds. No mention was made of how unstable such “stability” would feel given that two of the three proposals being considered would end the school as we know it. However, the board was reluctant to consider such a drastic change without public input and more chance to understand the impact. After some discussion, Gelbmann withdrew his proposal.

We now have a little breathing space for the holidays, but January will be an extremely busy month. Perpich will be moving to flesh out its plans with meetings with administration, staff, families, legislators, and even the Governor, so keep your eyes peeled for opportunities on that front. But EMID also has to begin to touch some statutory bases in order to make a 2013 handoff of Harambee to Roseville and Crosswinds to whoever possible. This includes:

9 January, a public hearing on the necessity and practicability of closing Crosswinds School.
10 January, a public hearing on the necessity and practicability of closing Harambee School.
23 January, the EMID Board meeting at which they will take action on closing the schools or transferring governance to another body.
23 January, if necessary, begin action to transfer title of the buildings to third parties.
20 February, if EMID ceases school operations at end of 2012/2013, this is the date by which the EMID Board has to officially notify employees.
In March EMID has to take further actions with all teachers with regard to withdrawal and termini nation and tenure.

The language above is pretty scary, with all the talk of “closing.” Clearly EMID is doing what it can to hand off the schools and the situation with Harambee is pretty clear (it will be going to Roseville, more or less intact). But from the state’s perspective even this sort of “transfer” or “withdrawal” is the same as a “closure” with regard to EMID. EMID is getting out of the business of schools. Look for more details about these dates as they approach.

Insight into the synergy between Crosswinds and Perpich

At last night’s board meeting Dan Larson gave this very moving testimony about the links between Crosswinds and Perpich.

As a parent of both Crosswinds and Perpich students and a teacher in a former EMID district, I feel I have a unique perspective to share about the impending Perpich proposal and my enthusiasm for its possibilities.

As an educator, I recognize the academic success that Crosswinds has accomplished. In the two of the past four years, Crosswinds has surpassed the state average in graduation reading scores for the state. This is quite the accomplishment considering a free and reduced lunch rate hovering around 50 percent.

But the soul of Crosswinds is its culture of inclusion. It is a unique culture that I have not witnessed in any other environment in 20 years of teaching. Students do not segregate themselves by skin color, activities, or the clothes their wear. They are a blend of backgrounds that have been guided into one cohesive family by an outstanding staff and program.

I know this because before my son came to Crosswinds, he was described as socially awkward, odd, different, and all buzzwords you read or hear on the news describing young men doing unimaginable things. He was required to have a full time paraprofessional; we were informed that his teacher did not feel safe around him, and we were asked to supply our own mode of transportation to after school church activities because of parent concerns.

We came to Crosswinds as our last hope. At the end of his sixth grade year and first year at Crosswinds, it was time for his annual IEP meeting. The school made the recommendation that he be removed from his IEP because he did not exhibit the issues and behaviors that were documented in our home district. I believe that staff had worked a miracle.

At Crosswinds, he was accepted and was introduced to a curriculum that was innovative and rich with arts and rigor. After finishing at Crosswinds, he was accepted at the Arts High School at the Perpich Center for the Arts. There he has received an academic and art instruction that is unparalleled, and recently, he has been accepted to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago which is regarded as one of the top art schools in the country. These schools changed his life, and I will be eternally grateful.

With this in mind, I believe these schools are a perfect match for each other. Their arts focus gives students with the desire to create an avenue and expert instruction. There is not a football or hockey team to overshadow their accomplishments. They are valued and validated every day through curriculum and programing. By giving the building to another, it would be just another school with a focus that could change the next time a new superintendent is hired, or if he or she reads a book or attends a conference on the next initiative in education. The unique programming and the school’s soul would be lost.

I encourage the board to do what is best for our children that are creative and vote to continue the schools culture, mission–and yes, soul–by approving the transfer of governance to Perpich Center for Arts Education. Thank you.