Didn't anybody catch the article in Star Tribune on the Saturday that the district was considering or plan to keep Jefferson open and merging the Emerson Dual Emersion Program with the one at Jefferson. The facilities planning group was not charged with dealing with programs, options, choices, but with working with the best facilities for the entire district. It appears that there may have been plans to make changes in the facilities plan by the administration which may or may not have been shared with the facilities planning group. Poor communication if this is true. I liken all this to the 80s when 18 schools were closed. Are all you critics of MPS going to tell me that MPS did not achieve national reputation during this time? Yes the achievement gap did not close as well as we all would have like. However there were many circumstances that may have caused this problem. One never knows. However I think that MPS can get back on the path, but we need to be constructive critics, and not just negative critics. I have a question for many parents, are you concerned about not just your child's education but also the children's children? Too many parents have stated just keep my school open for the next couple years and my child will be out of the system and then I don't care what happens to it. I think that is the prevailing atitiude of our citizenry. This type of attitude drives the school board crazy. People are attached to bricks and mortar. When my daughter was at Lake Harriet Open school and it was slated for closing that was fine with my family. However some people who wanted to keep the school program at Lake Harriet and keep the building open started to make anti-semetic remarks about our family as well as against our profession. This is the tone of some of these discussions, we should be focused on what is best for kids and next generation of kids that are coming behind us. Talk about how best to work with the system, because it is here and not all the kids have choices about where they can go. I would like to see a busload of kids from the Southwest go as a school to another school with the same learning style and spend several weeks there sharing life experiences with kids from a completely different neighborhood. Too many people talk about diversity but they are completely unwilling to do anything about it. The refrain is I want diversity but I want my neighborhood more. Life is full of changes and subjecting our kids to life experiences may be the best thing for them.
eli kaplan Linden Hills Chair, Citizens Budget Committee for School Board REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
