Trish Shurtz, Parent Association Communications
I have sent many e-mail messages to the MSAT Community this year. This may be the most important one I have ever delivered to you. It is a long, but very important report on MSAT; please do take the time to read it with your family.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Stewart Fox
Today I
begin with the words I shared with the community on Monday night.
Last Tuesday night's disrespectful
inaction by the NUSD Board was more than just the latest in a series of major
roadblocks placed in our school's path by NUSD.
At this point we have to face an
unpleasant certainty---that despite all of our efforts, NUSD has left us no
choice but to close MSAT. It is clear to me and to the rest of the MSAT and EnvisionSchools leadership that closing
MSAT is in the best interest of our students. This is being done for a number
of reasons including:
- Lack of facilities. We only had a promise of a
second-class facility for half our students. Given NUSD's track record of
bait and switch tactics, we have to assume that there is a strong
probability that this option will not pan out and even if it did, it would
not provide any of us - teachers, parents or students - with the quality
that we've all come to expect and deserve.
- Our teachers deserve certainty and job security. After
the meeting last Tuesday, it became clear to us and to many of the
teachers that we could not provide them with the certainly they need for a
job in the fall.
- After what we believed to be extensive collaborative
work with the NUSD staff and board, they once again showed their true
colors by not taking the action promised in meetings. They showed us that any appearance of
willingness to work with parents and the MSAT administration has always
been just an illusion.
The NUSD board created an untenable
situation for our community. What we must do now is focus on moving forward and
doing what is right by our students. We started this fight in order to do right
by them, we firmly believe that by closing MSAT and moving our students to
METRO we are keeping within that purpose. NUSD has finally shown that its real
intention all along has been to close our school, and that they have lacked the
integrity to do so openly and publicly.
I want to acknowledge just how
difficult, frustrating and maddening this experience has been for all of us.
Still, I believe there is a positive opportunity for students and some current
staff to continue to be involved in an MSAT-like experience. As you know, Envision has agreed to allow any
MSAT student to enroll at either Metro or CAT.
Furthermore, we will support students who choose to transfer to a
non-Envision high school here in the district.
Tonight we must face
the reality that MSAT is closing and focus now on next steps to ensure quality
education for our community.
We are all
saddened by this turn of events, but now must move on to be sure that the great
work we have done together bears more fruit.
The strongest evidence that we indeed had accomplished great things came
at Monday evening's community meeting.
Staff, students and parents shared their feelings in a most respectful
manner and faced the ugly reality that MSAT will close. It is unprecedented in my
experience to have people leave a meeting feeling better than when they arrived
when the topic of the meeting was closing their beloved school. Monday
night's meeting was another testament to the proposition that trust, tolerance,
good faith and working together does produce miracles and change lives.
We know as
we close MSAT that there will be a lot of grieving and emotions that are not
normal. We are all experiencing the
common emotions following a catastrophic loss that Ruth Kalter outlined for us on Monday night: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. We began to see a little of this Tuesday
at school. Clearly our students are
hurting and some don't know how to appropriately express those feelings. The staff will work with all gently, firmly,
and lovingly, as is our practice.
The staff
is hurting, too. The emotions they
themselves are feeling plus the need to model for our students and be sure that
the end of school is done in the "MSAT way" means that our capacity is
stretched. The staff, me included, do
not have the energy to carry on the fight to be sure that our story is
told. I am so proud of the parents and
students who are moving forward with many great ideas and actions to tell our
story and I will be ready to help once we close school.
I know I
can speak for the staff in expressing our gratitude to the MSAT community for
their support and assistance in building a world-class high school. It is truly an honor to serve you.
Stewart
_____________________________________________________________________________________
A letter from Bob Lenz and Daniel McLaughlin to the MSAT
community
Dear MSAT families,
students, teachers, and staff,
We want to express our
deep sadness over MSAT's closing. We are equally saddened for every family,
student, teacher, and staff member of MSAT, who found a school and a community
in which they could thrive academically and personally. In spite of this, the strongest emotion we
feel is an unwavering sense of pride in what you have worked so hard to create.
As most of you know,
working with the Novato Unified School District (NUSD) has been tremendously
difficult. Over the last five years, NUSD has falsely attacked MSAT frequently
and dealt with EnvisionSchools and MSAT in bad faith. No matter
how Envision and the MSAT community tried to cooperate, the NUSD Board
continued to create an untenable situation by putting insurmountable obstacles
in our way.
As a result, we, with
the full support of the MSAT community leadership and the Envision Schools
Board, decided to sever ties to NUSD and to merge as many MSAT families and
teachers as possible into our other schools.
We want to acknowledge how incredibly difficult this change must be. The
Envision Schools Board will consider an action item to close MSAT at its Board
Meeting on June 12, 2007.
As educators we strive
to make a difference but we often wonder if we do. No one associated with MSAT
or Envision Schools should ever doubt this fact. Often the gift of crisis and
loss is that students and parents tell us about the difference we make. On
Monday, June 4th, at the MSAT community meeting, we heard how MSAT
has transformed lives. That night, the MSAT community showed that the work we
all pour our hearts and minds into is making an extraordinary difference - even
in the face of incredible challenges and dire consequences. This became crystal clear, as one after
another, students, parents, and staff stood up and said, "This school changed
my life or my kid's life, I am going to Metro!"
We were proud to hear and to see that our vision and model for education
transcends politics and bureaucratic concerns.
Stewart and his
leadership team thoughtfully facilitated a meeting that allowed all of us to
cry, be angry, and eventually, at the conclusion, leave hopeful. We feel
privileged to be a part of the MSAT community.
A parent shared these thoughts with us about Monday's meeting, "Thank
you, all of you, for pulling together an inspiring evening. Although the
loss is still hard to comprehend, it was really helpful to go through the
process as a community and emerge feeling more hopeful and looking forward to
the future."
MSAT has shown us that the work we do everyday to build community around a transformative
educational experience pays huge dividends. Our work leads to results like
these at MSAT:
- The Western Association of
Schools and Colleges (WASC) Accrediting Commission for Schools recently
awarded MSAT a six-year term of accreditation, the best possible outcome
and extraordinarily rare for a 4-year-old school.
- 68% of MSAT's first senior class has been accepted to at least one
4-year college with over $800,000
awarded in financial aid.
- The senior class boasts a
National Merit Scholar and student acceptances to schools such as
Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCLA.
- MSAT students consistently
produce strong student work and exhibitions.
- MSAT is one of two schools in
California awarded a Dissemination Grant from the
California Department of Education to disseminate its best practices
to other public high schools.
On June 16 at 1:30 pm, MSAT will graduate its senior class, many of them
the first in their families to head to college. We hope that you can join
us at the College of Marin, Indian Valley Campus, to celebrate
this tremendous milestone.
Onward,
Bob and Daniel
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man
stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and
again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually
strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who
spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph
of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid
souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt
____________________________________________________________________________
INFORMATION YOU MAY NEED:
Transferring to non-Envision
Schools: Angela prepared a handout for the
meeting with contact information and basic instructions for transferring to
local area public high schools. Please
email Angela aknudsen@es-msat.org if
you would like to get more information.
MSAT is committed to helping MSAT students make a smooth transition to
whichever school they choose.
There were
several sign-up sheets available on Monday night and we want to give those of
you who were not able to attend the meeting an opportunity to add your names to
these lists by replying to this email and putting the title of the group in the
subject line. Please include your full name and phone number.
North Bay Charter: Some members of our community are interested
in pursuing the possibility of opening a new charter high school somewhere in
the North
Bay. Regina Rus will be heading up
this effort, and will be in contact with you through the list.
MSAT/NUSD History: We have been working on documenting our history with the NovatoUnifiedSchool District.
A brief overview was provided at the meeting to help us understand how
we arrived at this tragic outcome.
Anyone who would like to know more of the details of our relationship
with NUSD can sign up to have it emailed to you.
Envision Information: Please see item below for Saturday, June 8.
EVENTS:
At the
meeting, announcements were made about the following events that you may want
to attend.
Wednesday, June 13, 7:00 pm: There will be a combined CAT and
Metro Open House at the new Metro site.
Directions can be found at this page:
http://www.envisionschools.org/page.php?page_id=52&PHPSESSID=2c3e7965acaf53ab332202cafda6cdbd
More information will be coming.
Wednesday, June 13, exact times TBD: On the last day of school, a luncheon for the
students and staff to celebrate MSAT's success and say goodbye together will be
catered by the MSAT Parent Association.
If parents/guardians also want to attend, you are welcome, but we would
ask you to bring a bag lunch for yourself as the logistics of being prepared to
cater to an unknown number of parents are beyond us at this time!
Saturday, June 8, 8:30-10:00 am: Envision Schools Chief Executive
Officer Daniel McLaughlin will be at MSAT to answer any questions you may have
about the allegations of budgetary violations brought against Envision by
NUSD. Envision's CFO Chris Pelgrift will
not be able to be there as he is participating in an event on that date that
has been planned for 6 months. He will
make himself available in the following week to anyone whose questions are not
answered to your satisfaction at this meeting.
If you plan to attend, please
reply to this email and ask to be added to the Envision Info group list we
started on Monday night.
Saturday, June 16, 1:30 pm: The MSAT Commencement Ceremony will
be held on the green at IVC. If you are
not a family member of a senior or have received a special VIP invitation, you
are welcome to attend but we only have seating for 400 so you will have to
stand or bring your own seating.
Remember that the green is quite pitted with gopher holes so be prepared!
Invitation to meet Metro
parents: The Metro PA has invited any MSAT
parents who would like to join them at a restaurant owned by a Metro family in San Francisco.
Please contact MSAT parent Kate Regan kate242@pacbell.net for dates and
details.
MEDIA COVERAGE:
Both the
Marin IJ and the Novato Advance covered the story of MSAT's closure today.
http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_6070892
http://www.novatoadvance.com/articles/2007/06/06/news/news02.txt
The Advance
also published letters to the editor from MSAT families, including MSAT
sophomore Joanna Lamstein. These letters
were written before MSAT's closure became inevitable, but are worth reading for
their descriptions of the high quality education MSAT has offered.
http://www.novatoadvance.com/opinion
If you are
interested in responding to these articles with letters to the editor, or if
you have other ideas for telling our story to the larger community, please
email Ruth Kalter rkalter@sbcglobal.net
to receive a copy of a letter from Bob Lenz regarding our media strategy at
this point.
We will end
this email with testimonials that were sent to us about what it was like to
attend the community meeting Monday night.
When I walked into the library at
MSAT last night, I still had hope that something could be worked out to save
our school family. Soon after the meeting began, I realized in my heart what my
head had figured out some time ago: no matter what NUSD says, it will not act
on its promises. There are no solutions that will let us stay in Novato for 2007-08. This
year has been like living in the "Peanuts" comic strip: the NUSD is
Lucy, perennially holding up that football for Charley Brown, then yanking it
away at the last moment. That realization brought me quickly to despair.
It got worse. I watched and listened
as our leaders, both staff and parents, talked about the death of their vision,
our vision, and I began to cry. Then they began to cry. I have never seen so
many grown men weep in public before. And that was even before the students
rose to speak about how MSAT was life-changing for them.
In over 30 years of going to school
meetings, this was the most emotional time I had ever spent. My eyes fill up as
I sit here at my computer the next day. MSAT is so much more than a job to our
staff, so much more than a school to our kids.
I try to focus on our symbol, the
phoenix. The mythical phoenix, when wounded by a foe, dies and rises from the
ashes, becoming immortal and invincible. And it only has to do it once every
500 years! So we've had our blow, and it is time to move on. I am made hopeful
by the graciousness of Envision Schools in welcoming us to Metro. My husband
has already written "MSAT in Exile" on our cars. We will never again
have the experience of starting a high school on the beautiful IVC campus, but
we do have an opportunity to begin a new chapter of MSAT's book, using what we
have learned. May it be 500 years before we have to write "The End."
Christine C. Sleight, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Speech language pathologist
_______________________________________________________________
We wanted
to thank the leadership team and Envision for the Monday night meeting.
Although we assembled for an unhappy reason, the manner in which you organized
the meeting allowed us as parents and student to begin to process what still
seems to be incomprehensible. As we walked into the group, it was as if
we were at a funeral - in a way we were. We were feeling a tremendous
sense of loss, mixed in with anger, disbelief and profound sadness. It
was touching to see everyone who led the meeting equally deeply affected by
this experience. It was particularly moving to hear Bob Lenz talk about
what MSAT meant to him and how it evolved into this incredible school in four
short years, in spite of the hostile environment perpetuated by NUSD.
Hearing both the parents and students talk was also deeply healing. Many
good ideas were brought forth by those who spoke. At times we cried and
other times we laughed. But through it all, a small flame of hope and
optimism slowly kindled inside us. In spite of what we felt when we
arrived, and the emotions that flowed through us during the meeting, we
left in a very different state of mind. We walked out feeling much more
hopeful that the spirit of the school will live on, but just in another
incarnation - METRO. We felt a great deal of relief that many of our
questions were answered. But more importantly we felt a kinship to the
community and had the faith that it will continue to be a source of support and
inspiration as we move into this new phase. The meeting was
transformative. Contrary to what we expected, we all went to sleep that
night beginning to feel a sense of completion and hope for the future.
Thank you leadership team and Envision for putting together an excellent
meeting - in the MSAT way!
Daniel J.
Sonkin, Ph.D.
Mindy S. Rosenberg, Ph.D
_________________________________________________________________________
Dear Ruth,
As
I shared at the meeting Monday night, I'm a Marriage and Family Therapist
intern, working at a local agency and a local private school. MSAT has been an
excellent referral for my families with middle-school children. Many of my
families have children who could benefit from an alternative learning
environment, due to different styles of learning, or a desire to be challenged
in a fresh way. I am not only deeply moved with emotion because my own son is
affected, but grieving the loss to many families in Marin county that can no
longer benefit from this wonderful opportunity. I believe NUSD is making a
grave mistake in losing this expression of education in our community.
I
am also filled with much gratitude to Bob Lenz for his vision and hard work,
Stewart for taking the vision and running with it, all the MSAT staff for
caring, you Ruth for committing your life to this purpose, and all the parents
who have worked so hard. I do not see this as a failure, but a great success,
because we have a graduating class, and most fall 2007 seniors, many juniors
and sophomores, and possibly freshman, will continue at Envision schools. The
character that has been encouraged and promoted in these children will have
eternal value, as children continue their education in college, enter the work
force and influence their own children. We are sure to have teachers birthed in
this school, who in turn will influence the education system, and future
generations.
With deep gratitude, Lori Conroy
________________________________________________________________________________
Although
I consider myself to be one of "fortunate" parents because my son
Sean has had the honor of finishing 4 full years at MSAT, will be graduating
next week and has been accepted into the college of his choice, I felt
absolutely compelled to attend last night's meeting. My son and I have
participated in the ongoing struggle with NUSD for the last several years and I
wanted to attend last nights meeting because I was hoping that I could help
figure out the next plan of action to keep MSAT alive. I was ready to continue
the fight. However, once Stewart began to speak I realized that there was
no more fight, no more struggle. My heart became heavy and tears began to flow.
All I could think about for a few minutes was the fact that my son was not at
my side hearing the news, the emotions, his fellow community express their
fears, concerns, anger, and sadness. I wanted him next to me so badly.
As the
evening went on I felt everything... heart break, anger, grateful... and
particularily so bad for the people I know who have put in SO much hard work to
make MSAT happen. It was truly heart breaking to hear many of them speak
last night. To see tears in Bob's eyes, Justin holding back his speech to get
his composure, and the sadness, frustration, and anger from others was
overwhelming. To listen to students speak from their heart about how much their
school means to them was inspiring but reinforced my dissapointment and
sadness. Especially listening to students who felt scared and abandoned.
I went
home last night to break the news to my son and my daughter.... after the
silence, after the expression of anger, we were all what I called
"MSAD".
Today,
the day after, I feel sad and mostly angry at NUSD (which is not a new emotion
for me at all). I have been holding my tongue for years and hope that now I
will have the opportunity to tell them all how I really feel. I haven't
been able to work much today. I would like to find a way to get the word out to
the community in which I live that paints a true picture of what has happened.
Pam
Manning
You can also read a blog posted by Charles Bergeman
at http://philosophmoric.blogspot.com/2007/06/charter-school-in-novato-california.html
