District 197 Integration Funding on Chopping Block

As struggles over the state budget proceed at the Capitol, students and parents in the Mendota Heights area face continued uncertainty regarding funding for the East Metro Integration District (EMID) in which School District 197 participates.

One of ten school districts that participate in EMID to further voluntary integration amongst St. Paul public schools and nine neighboring school districts, District 197 contributes to EMID’s operation of the integrated Harambe Elementary in Maplewood and Crosswinds Elementary in Woodbury with the designated funds.

The roughly $500,000 District 197 receives in integration funding each year is also used to provide staff training in cultural competence and operate individual student programs. Integration funding also assists with the operation of Garlough Environmental Magnet School.

More than a third of Minnesota school districts currently receive integration funds, and integration districts like EMID remain one of the state’s primary answers to legal requirements calling for the desegregation of schools. The requirements go all the way back to 1954's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court, which made school segregation illegal.

Minnesota state statute requires that monies from integration funding be used “for students to have increased and sustained interracial contacts and improved educational opportunities and outcomes designed to close the academic achievement gap between white students and protected students.”

But Republican lawmakers argue that the success or failure of such a mandate cannot be measured, and that the roughly $100 million spent annually on integration funding is dispersed with no oversight and ill-defined goals.  

Some local educators and parents in Mendota Heights and the surrounding area, along with the Department of Education, are asking that the funding be maintained.

Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius, former superintendent of the EMID district, said that integration funding is still an important part of the state’s education mission in one Minnesota Public Radio report.

EMID has paused their search to find a replacement superintendent for Cassellius due to the funding uncertainty.

“Overall, what people don’t understand is that integration really does benefit their children–of all races,” said Cristina Gillette, EMID board chair and a parent of two children at Mendota Elementary School. “It was decided long ago through our courts–integration is a good thing–and we should work towards that goal, work to keep it going.”

Jay Haugen, superintendent of District 197, said the success of the Garlough Environmental School is an example of how well integration funding works.

“(Garlough) went from having 260 students to having 410 students in just a few years. That’s why integration dollars (are meant) to pay for magnet schools,” Haugen said. “You turn them into your best schools and naturally everyone wants to attend that school, and so it gets integrated.”

Haugen said that District 197 has a student population comprised of just over 35 percent minority students, with the percentage growing.

"We get a little more diverse every year," he said.

At District 197's June 6 school board meeting, Cristina Gillette reported that under one plan supported by the Legislature, EMID would lose approximately 40 percent of its budget. While Gov. Dayton vetoed the plan, Gillette and Superintendent Haugen are both anticipating changes.

“Integration funding will still be on the chopping block. Until that (a statute requiring it) is repealed and taken away, it all exists and is still there,” Gillette said. “But it’s incredibly vulnerable. We know the Legislature doesn’t want to have integration funding.”