Meeting with 3 Superintendents!

Today we met at Excel(last minute change again, sorry) with the Superintendent of KISD, Out-going Superintendent of EK, and the in-coming Superintendent as well. They explained that the position they are in, is to re-examine how they've been "doing business" and make sure that what they are doing is good for Kentwood and for the students in the district, and following the new rules pertaining to the legal opinion from the KISD Schools of Choice program. Kentwood says they are trying to work through this and make it possible for incoming freshman who have a sibling at EK already to use other spaces (unused spots from their lower grades) through Schools of Choice, first, then focus on other incoming freshmen without siblings. Then, after they make those decisions(after May 5 or 7) those who don't get into EK as freshman can use Sect. 106 to try and get approved that way, which requires a release from your home district.
Mary (current EK sup.) said she would then recommend that we (in small groups)take tours of the home district high school, to gather information and observe for ourselves what's going on and what makes us uncomfortable, and take your observations to a meeting with the district (in our case-G.R. superintendent). She stated that, 1st hand knowledge and personal feedback will support our cases so much more than just saying that we don't want our kids in that school on a piece of paper.
The meeting was helpful in seeing that Kentwood is on our side and they really do want to work this out. They said they would advocate on our behalf with our home district, to help us get our kids released, if necessary. The KISD superintendent said he wanted to see the list of kids who were already registered at EK, from our school, so I think that we planted some seeds with him as well.
We also made sure that we said that we thought this last minute decision on the part of KISD was wrong to implement so late in the year, especially since the kids from Excel who intended to go to EK had, for the most part, been registered at our school, been to orientation, and some had been paying on the 9th grade East Coast trip since last fall.

Things you can do:

• Pertaining to Schools of Choice: forms which they want us to submit again, will be available in the office later this week.
• Read the article in the GR Press coming out tomorrow(reporter was in attendance at meeting)
• Write letters to JC Huizenga about your need for a charter HIGH SCHOOL.
• If you have a sibling child at EK, you still must fill out a sect 106 form for them(if that's how they got in in the first place). Write on the top that you have an incoming freshman, too. Then, fill out Schools of Choice for your incoming freshman child and write that they are a sibling of another child attending already.

At the end of the meeting they were all asking us to let them see what they could do with Schools of Choice spots for our kids. We were encouraged.

Confused? Call Dan Bartels or Dr. Knoester for questions, or check with EK Administration.

There will be a meeting with Jeff Clark from NHA the 1st week of May to discuss more from the NHA side of things, with Excel parents. Watch for this notification, soon.

Thank you.