Dear ISLA Families,

On behalf of the ISLA Board of Directors, we would like to thank everyone who reached out to us, or joined us in person at the first listening session, to share your feedback and questions pertaining to the Hopkins proposal. We recognize that many of you have lots of unanswered questions, and we appreciate your patience as we work through this together.

Without a doubt, ISLA is a fabulous community with amazing children, teachers, staff and families.  We each carry a strong sense of pride and passion for our school’s mission, the quality of immersion IB education our children are receiving, and the strong sense of community we enjoy.  These are incredible values to have in a school which none of us want to lose. Representatives from the Hopkins administration provided praise for our school and clearly expressed the collective wish to maintain those qualities which set ISLA apart as a successful IB/Immersion public school.  Superintendent Mhiripiri-Reed stated, “we respect ISLA and its mission,” and she made it clear that there are no intentions to interfere with our school mission, IB curriculum, teachers, administration, or many other important individual elements which define our program.  (Please refer to the videos of the session.)   1) https://youtu.be/6aHUGVnO1oI ; 2) https://youtu.be/5CxUSfUPkdk; 3) https://youtu.be/hXym4bVgH0c; 4) https://youtu.be/_Rst4teEBfA

As we stated during Wednesday’s listening session, a task force committee has been assembled to work through the feedback and questions we are receiving pertaining to this proposal from Hopkins.  The task force committee members are myself, Jaiah Kamara (Task Force Lead, ISLA Parent & Board Director), Martin Hoff (ISLA Parent & Board Director), Claudia Holzbauer (Kindergarten Teacher), Sarah Devers (6th Grade Teacher), Jason Grais (ISLA Parent), and a PTO representative (who has yet to be named). 

The purpose of this task force is to be a liaison between the ISLA community, ISLA Board, and the Hopkins representatives.  It is important to clarify that this task force is not a decision-making body as it pertains to the Hopkins proposal.  Our objective is to listen to the feedback and questions of our community, and work diligently to provide intelligent and sensible answers for our community.

After processing all the feedback we have received from our ISLA community, there are very clear themes in which most of the feedback can be organized into.  In the interest of not presenting you only with the questions, and the full intention of providing you with more details in the near future, I will attempt to provide brief responses below.

Given the unprecedented nature of Hopkin’s proposal (a district absorbing a charter school), we are unable to answer all your questions immediately.  Please rest assured that we are committed to diligently and intentionally responding to all your outreach in an organized, community focused way.

As we continue to work through the many questions we have already received, our task force plans on providing regular communication in the ISLA newsletter.  I would like to encourage you all to continue to reach out to us with your feedback and questions, and we will do our best to respond to them in an organized, community focused way.  All communications pertaining to the Hopkins proposal should be sent to proposal.feedback@isla.school.

As we continue to evaluate if this is a good fit for ISLA, and encounter a growing list of things to do, we absolutely welcome your effort.  If are interested in being more involved, please do send us your name and best contact information.  We will put you on a list and be certain to reach out when we have a need.

Kind Regards,

Jaiah Kamara.

ISLA Board Director

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FAQ Hopkins Proposal