Dear ISLA families,

As we kick off the second week back from spring break, we are hoping to see you all at the next listening session with the Hopkins School District which is scheduled for Monday, April 9th at 6:30 pm. Please RSVP at: http://goo.gl/b9dYV3.

The purpose of this meeting will be to (1) provide you with an opportunity to hear directly from Hopkins School District;(2) receive some updates from our ISLA proposal task force on the process we are using to evaluate what’s best for our school; (3) get a chance to ask some questions of your own. Please know that we the Task Force intend on scheduling a follow up meeting for ISLA parents to come and ask questions directly to us, and provide our community an open forum to discuss our opinions and questions.

In the meantime, I’m pleased to inform the ISLA community that our Task Force is working diligently to gather inputs from key stakeholders as we continue to evaluate the Hopkins proposal.

In no particular order, here is a summary some of the inputs we are evaluating: (1) feedback from ISLA staff (teachers and administrative staff); (2) deep dive of staff compensation and benefits package; (3) ongoing discussion with Hopkins school district administrators; (4) tour of XinXing Chinese immersion school with interview of their teachers and administration; (5) tour of Katherine Curren building; (6) processing all submitted feedback and questions from Isla community received via live conversations, phone or the proposal email inbox; (7) planned/soon to be scheduled Parent Panel night with task force team; and (8) ISLA board & task force SWOT analysis.

These inputs have already been completed, are ongoing, or will be taking place soon. We thank you all for your continued understanding that this process takes time. Nothing has been decided, and we are working very hard to make a recommendation of what we believe will be best for our kids, teachers, school and community. We hope you recognize the amount of work which we are putting into it, and our sensitivity to all the concerns and interest our ISLA families have around it all.

Please continue to reach out to us with your comments and questions, you can send them to proposal.feedback@isla.school.

All the best,

Jaiah Kamara
ISLA Board Member