Barbara and David Skoglund sent this letter when they first heard about the situation during the week of 15 January 2008.
Dear Superintendent Phillips and Members of the ISD 622 School Board,
We are writing to express our concerns regarding your recent study committee's recommendation to leave EMID and eliminate this opportunity for our daughter and many other children in the district. We urge you to continue ISD 622 membership in EMID and to increase and improve your communication with district families and provide increased opportunities to gather, hear and consider community voices.
First - we urge you to continue EMID membership for the children. Lacking the size and resources of larger districts, EMID is the one opportunity for 622 families to enroll their children in a unique school setting. Although things have recently changed, Harambee was the only opportunity for families seeking full-day kindergarten. Harambee and Crosswinds are the only schools offering a year round calendar. The only schools offering enrichment opportunities like Bridges, the only schools with mixed age learning, and the only schools with a focus orientation. Harambee offers onsite school age day care, evening all-school events and other supports for working families. At Harambee our daughter and her peers learn about the natural and human societies in a real world setting. They learn plant science by growing plants, they learn about people different from them by sitting with them, working with them, playing with them and celebrating each other's uniqueness.
Secondly - we urge you to continue EMID membership for ISD 622 staff. Membership in EMID isn't limited to educating children whose families volunteer to be part of this innovative integration opportunity. EMID membership also provides professional development opportunities for ISD 622 staff to expand their working and teaching skills.
We are also writing to express our dissatisfaction with the process ISD 622 is using to make this decision. Members of the EMID community living in ISD 622 only discovered today that your study group has recommended leaving EMID. The study group did no studying of the families that are part of the EMID community. ISD622 has done no outreach letting us know about the study, your meeting tomorrow or your upcoming decision meeting. Only a Web savvy person could uncover that we may have the opportunity to speak for 4 minutes at your next meeting, but only a few of us may be able to speak since only 30 minutes of community feedback is cumulatively allowed on all agenda items.
Like other EMID families, we proactively researched the educational options for our child and decided that EMID provided the best match. We ask that you do quite a bit more research, that you seek the feedback from district families, before you decide to eliminate this choice for ISD 622 families and professional development opportunities and resources from district staff. We strongly urge you to remain active participants in EMID.