On behalf of Pubic Education in Northeast (PEN), we are concerned about the future of our local schools and the vitality of the Northeast Minneapolis community. As you know, schools play a major role in creating a sense of community. Currently, a growing percentage of Northeast students attend schools or plan to attend schools outside of Northeast. This represents a loss of cohesion to our community. PEN's goal is to promote Northeast schools, and to increase connections between the community and its schools. If we are to keep our community viable and thriving, we believe we must create clear educational pathways that will maintain a sense of continuity and connection throughout our children's school years.
The realization of this goal requires the Minneapolis School Board to stand by their stated intention to offer community schools throughout the city that provide equitable and rigorous programs. We believe that the MPS Board would like every child, regardless of their economic background or where they live in Minneapolis, to have access to a safe, secure, successful school experience. Our Northeast K-8 and middle schools need to offer programs that create a natural pathway from elementary through high school. PEN strives for equity with all Minneapolis Public Schools, including viable resources to fund International Baccalaureate (IB), Advanced Placement (AP), College-in-Schools (CIS) and other programming options. Survey data and self-reports indicate that families make school choices based on extracurricular activities as well as academic opportunities, such as arts and athletic programs. Clearly, Edison High School has suffered the loss of many of these opportunities over the years. There needs to be a sustained effort to rebuild these options at Edison.
We have recently learned that there is a proposed plan to bring a contract-alternative school into Edison as a co-location partner—Heritage Academy (http://www.heritagetech.net/). We believe that this could be detrimental to the perception of Edison as a community school. Housing another school on Edison's campus creates an inherent competition between schools. Also, if Heritage Academy grows (which we understand is part of their proposed plan), this would limit Edison’s ability to expand it’s own current and future programming. Before any decision is made regarding co-location partnering, the people of Northeast would appreciate the opportunity to have a voice in how this will affect our school and our community. We believe that there are other options that the District could consider to better utilize space at Edison High School.
Edison could be the temporary home of the Northeast branch of the Hennepin County Public Library while its space is being remodeled. This would open up Edison to the community and allow all to experience Edison as a desirable place to be and, perhaps, help make Edison a school of choice for their children. As you may know, Northeast Minneapolis is the only officially-designated arts district in the City. There are hundreds of artists currently working and living in Northeast, with a good number of artists waiting for more studio space to become available. An arrangement could be negotiated between local artists and Edison to provide more arts opportunities to the students. Please, do not once again make the mistake of placing programs at Edison High School that have little neighborhood support. This has happened in the past and the results have always backfired for the school and the district as a whole!
In summary, schools have a huge impact on the livability of a community. The following are ideas that support keeping our Northeast schools, the schools of choice for our community:
- Provide pathways from Elementary to Middle School to Edison High School with IB, AP, CIS, Arts and Sports Programs. This is necessary for Edison to survive.
- Provide equitable programs and support for those programs.
- Create clear pathways that include Northeast Middle School, Sheridan Elementary, and Marcy Open to assure that more neighborhood kids are attending Edison High School.
- Provide a marketing plan to attract students to Edison High School. Furthermore, support this marketing plan with extra funding and staff recognizing that Edison has lost ground in attracting students due to inattention to its needs in the past.
- Provide support for currently successful programs and expand arts, theater and sports programming.
Before any decisions are made regarding Northeast schools, PEN would like to make sure that the Northeast community is informed about the options available and be given a chance to take part in this crucial decision-making. We believe the discussion surrounding our schools should be focused on collaboration and cooperation.
Please contact PEN and notify us of any discussions surrounding our schools in the future. PEN can be contacted via email at: PublicEdNE@gmail.com. Our phone number is 612-789-9596. We also have a website, which can be found at http://publicedne.blogspot.com.
Thank you for your leadership during this difficult time of transition for Minneapolis Public Schools.
Sincerely,
PEN Committee Members:
Dean DeGroot, Northeast Middle School/Patrick Henry Parent
Bridget Altmann, Edison Staff
Jenny Arneson, Waite Park Parent
Jenn Bennington, Waite Park Parent
Mike Iacarella, Edison Staff
Vicky Iacarella, NE Community Member
Mandy Larson, Edison/Pillsbury Staff
Tammy Rusnacko, Waite Park/South High Parent
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Marcy Open parents of children who will be attending high school in 2010 are NOT willing to send their children to Edison instead of South. This is probably true of students who will be freshmen in 2011 as well. Edison will not be a viable school by then--there is simply no other way to put it. Parents of younger children at Marcy who and who live in NE are eager for Edison to become the kind of school they want and will be eager to help make it that. However, the district and board members and Jill Davis and Pam Costain should not force this year's 8th grade class to sacrifice their high school careers in an effort to "save Edison." All this mandate will do is force more families out of the district. The board and distict needs to understand that you cannot save a school by hijacking kids from another school. Also, many parents send their kids to Marcy BECAUSE it is a pathway to South. Changing that pathway will seriously damage Marcy's attendance untill Edison becomes a viable school. Finally, why does no one address the astounding statistic that 45% of NE kids end up at St. Anthony? Why are there not more efforts going in to correcting that detour instead of forcing the families that have made a committment to MPS to settle for a lesser school? Please someone get these people to see the light!
ReplyDeleteIn response to "Anonymous:" The differences between South and Edison are not as great as you may think. Before you assume that Edison is a "lesser school," you may want to take a closer look. Edison and South are certainly very different schools, but "lesser" is in the eye of the beholder. Of course South will always be available to Marcy Open families, the district will simply not bus kids from NE to S, which makes a tremendous amount of sense to me.
ReplyDeleteThat said, regarding the comment about loosing NE kids to St. Anthony...this is one of, if not THE primary reason that PEN exists. Believe me, not only has this "astounding statistic" been addressed, it has become somewhat of an obsession to many of PEN's membership, especially those of us who send our children to Waite Park, where half of our 5th graders flee to St. Anthony every year. Please do not think that this is not of primary importance to the NE community at large, and PEN in particular.
My children attend Waite Park and are on the pathway to attend NE Middle and then Edison. I am an active PEN participant.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that PEN is advocating in this letter or other communications that Marcy families should be forced to Edison. Rather, PEN wants strong pathways to exist between the schools so that Edison is an attractive option to everyone.
PEN’s mission is to make all NE public schools strong and we advocate for pathways that make sense. I have seen great progress at Edison over the past 2 years and have confidence in the academics offered and the staff who work there. When one follows his/her classmates to a place with strong programs and strong staff, what is there to fear? Though my children are younger, I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.
Sadly, change doesn’t just happen. At some point, more students will need to choose Edison in order for the school to thrive. Edison cannot wait 4+ years for the younger families to arrive. I believe this is the dilemma the school board is attempting to resolve and the problem PEN is currently discussing.
Ultimately, it is my hope that students will WANT to attend Edison and not feel the need to opt out of our community through South (or Henry for NE Middle families) or St. Anthony. While there are no easy answers, I look forward to ongoing brainstorming on this topic.
It's easy to just go with the old myths and rumors about various schools. If you look at the Washburn phenomenon just 1.5-2 years ago, folks were bailing out due to the rumor mill. When the District and Washburn leadership decided to basically force locals to attend Washburn, you had a community realization that there really wasn't a "boogyman" at Washburn after all! Bottomline, if you have a critical group of families that decide to go to a school, magic happens. Also, since the fresh start at Edison, you have one of the most enthusiastic, motivated educational staff team in the District at Edison! They have made great strides, so don't rely on old tapes for your information! Check them out!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to comment on the library piece of the letter. When our library over north was renovated they just closed it and didn't relocate but directed community members to the other nearest libraries, which weren't very near. This did impact the ability of kids without the mobility to get to another library as the resources they used at the library were unavailable to them. I encourage PEN to work with the Library Board soon as these decisions are made in advance if they are interested in keeping library services available to the immediate area and opening up the school to the community.
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