EMID Families tries to keep you abreast of the week to week happenings at EMID. But every once in a while a number of us get worked up about one issue or another. Here are pointers to past activities of EMID Families.

2012-2014

Dandelions! In August 2012 we learned that the EMID board again wanted to close our schools. We worked tirelessly to find partners who believed in the vital integration mission of the schools and would continue to run Crosswinds and Harambee with the mission they had been created to serve. Harambee found a home in the Roseville Area Schools and Crosswinds found a home with the Perpich Center for Arts Education, but the road was twisted and full of disappointments along the way. During the 2013 legislative session the schools failed to get the conveyance they needed, but the EMID board allowed them to be managed for one year by Roseville and Perpich. During the 2014 legislative session we finally accomplished the transfer to new management. Crosswinds was especially deeply hurt during this uncertainty, losing almost all of its original staff and half its students. We are now working with the Perpich Center for Arts Education make Crosswinds better than ever!

2011

EMID-SOS. In August 2011 parents learned that the EMID board was considering closing EMID schools at the end of the 2011/2012 school year. We began working together to save our schools and prevented these closures.

2010

Grade Structure Task Force. In February 2010 some families joined the administration of EMID in arguing for an expansion of Crosswinds to include grades 11 and 12. This discussion was tabled by the EMID board later in 2010.

2008

The departure of ISD 622 from the EMID collaborative. On 16 January 2008, EMID families found an article in the Star Tribune that alerted us to the fact that the North Saint Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale (ISD 622) school board would consider pulling out of the East Metro Integration District at its January 22nd meeting. The next day the Pioneer Press also ran a story. We quickly learned that a process that took place in a little over a month would tear at the fabric of our EMID family.