Respectfully, Eagle Ridge Academy Executive Director, Dick Tater

Before I get started here, I would like to thank all the dedicated readers who stop by everyday looking for a new post ... sorry, but the powers that be at Eagle Ridge Academy have been silent all summer thus a lack of new material. Besides, did you really expect them to communicate their plans for the new year with us lowly peons within any reasonable amount of time before the start of the school year?

Finally today, the heraldic trumpets majestically announced a proclamation descended from the heavens from the overlords of Eagle Ridge Academy.

Parent Update - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Parent Update

Here's my response:

Baaaaaaaa, baaaaaaaaa, baaaaaaa. I am but a mere sheep. I bow to your omniscience.

Or at least that is the response the great ones at Eagle Ridge Academy must be expecting as they have no respect for the intelligence of the Eagle Ridge Academy community. Take your time to examine this ridiculous missive and see if you’re as dumb as they think you are.

The letter is three pages long, but really contains only a half a page of original content. The remaining two and half pages are filled with contact information and a reprint of the mission and vision statements of Eagle Ridge Academy.

Here is a list of the changes being made to both schedule and curriculum:

1. Art in the middle school now meets every day all year long.
2. Middle school students will now have a semester of Spanish.
3. Band will be offered during lunch for middle and high school.
4. Lunch is now 50 minutes long, and there will be only two periods of lunch.
5. No study hall.
6. No focused studies.
7. No morning meeting.
8. All classes will meet five days a week.

Here is a list of what we don’t know about these changes:

1. Is there middle school music? And will it meet every day all year long? Or was music eliminated from the middle school curriculum? If so, how is that justifiable for not only a classical education but in a school that supposedly uses the Core Knowledge sequence as a basis for its curricular decisions? And is art and/or music five times a week for a whole year a sound educational decision or an efficient use of time?
2. Is middle school Latin a year long class or only a semester like Spanish in the middle school? If it is only a semester how does that support the classical model of Eagle Ridge Academy, and how does language acquisition benefit from exposure only one semester out of the year? If Latin remains a one year class, are you then telling me that my student will be studying two foreign languages at the same time … in middle school? Isn’t that a bit much? And why Spanish at all? How does this decision benefit the students educationally or fit in with the mission and vision? Or was this decision based on a financial reason? Perhaps the board hired a full-time Spanish teacher for a part-time high school position and felt this was the best way to justify a full-time salary.
3. In the fifth year of operation the high lords of schedule making have decided to eliminate band from the regular schedule thus forcing kids to forfeit lunch, and their only chance for a break during the school day since morning meeting and study halls have also been cut. Is this really what’s best for the kids? It’s one thing for an adult to work during lunch, but you’re asking kids as young as eleven to do so? And the letter says nothing about choir has that been eliminated altogether? Is this really the hallmark of an academically rigorous, time-tested classical, liberal arts curriculum? Is this really what you want to advertise to parents looking at schools like Providence, Blake, Breck, Eden Prairie and Edina? Do you really want to say that the schedule was too confusing for parents and too difficult for the administration and teachers to figure out, so we took the easy road and essentially gutted the musical performance program?
4. Fifty minutes for lunch. Really? You’re going to give squirrelly middle school students almost an hour for lunch? Who’s supervising a potential of 150+ middle school students and a potential of 200+ high school students for almost two hours out of the school day? Especially in a lunch room that is bordered by classrooms and has open access to the rest of the building. Have fun herding the cats.
5. The amount and level of expectation regarding homework has been a constant complaint from parents of Eagle Ridge Academy. Students who seek out the Academy for their middle and high school education are typically well-rounded individuals who excel academically but are also involved in sports, music, church, charitable activities, etc. All of these activities require time and while the Academy was established to provide an academically rigorous curriculum it was never meant to do so to the detriment of the activities that support the school experience and character development of its students.

Study hall at Eagle Ridge Academy was created in answer to parents' concerns about school work overtaking their children's life. While study hall can be messy in execution and is universally hated by teachers, it did provide students with a midday break to work on assignments and to seek help from teachers when needed, because the homework load is heavy and expectations are high at Eagle Ridge Academy. Apparently the teachers have complained enough to have it eliminated. Is this how you want the school to be run? Aren’t the teachers there for your children? Do they get to eliminate educationally appropriate ideas because they don’t like it and they have to work harder? Is that a creative approach to problem solving … axing what we don’t like? What’s the next step then … dumbing down the curriculum because there is no time to complete all that is expected and the kids are stressed because there is no break during the day?

And wasn't study hall where student served detentions? How does the elimination of study hall affect the discipline policy or has that been gutted as well?

6. Focused studies have been eliminated with no explanation given. I’m sure that it is difficult to organize, but in the academically charged atmosphere of Eagle Ridge Academy, it was a nice change of pace and an opportunity for kids to explore elective type offerings in a school that doesn’t offer electives. Focused studies were also a unique marketing tool for the academy. But like study hall, it appears that no thought was put into the decision, and if there was, no one bothered to let the Eagle Ridge Academy community know about it.
7. Last year, all I heard at board meetings were tired diatribes about “communication”. However, the school has eliminated one of the prime sources of communication by nixing the morning meeting. Morning meeting was a chance for the school to come together as a community to share school announcements and reminders, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, celebrate student birthdays, etc. Reminders about forms due, upcoming events, sports team scores, etc. were shared with all students and backed up by the Daily Update sent home to parents by email. Eagle Ridge Academy does not have a PA system and the administration has apparently deemed it not important to share how the school will inform students of these daily announcements.

Nor does the administration bother to inform us how it plans on enforcing Minnesota state law requiring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at least once a week https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/statutes/?id=121A.11 . For a school that was established to foster an appreciation for the United States of America and her unique role in the world it might be important to inform the Eagle Ridge Academy community how it plans to honor both the state law and the founders’ vision of the school.

8. Finally, we have been given the grand pronouncement that all classes will meet five days a week. As far as I know, only middle school music and art met on alternate days as did all levels of band/orchestra and choir. Since there are only sparse details on the new composition of classroom, instrumental and choral music at Eagle Ridge Academy, I’m not quite sure what the administration hoped we would glean from this arbitrary statement. Maybe it was included to fill space in an attempt to make the content section look bigger.

All the changes made have been bathed in the patronizing light that you, the parent, can’t understand the schedule and are cloaked in the platitude that all was done to support the mission and the vision. The administration expects that you will blindly follow along even though they offer no supporting evidence as to how these changes support the mission and vision of Eagle Ridge Academy and how these changes and the subsequent unanswered questions are less confusing than what was already in place.

PS ~ If you would like to read two letters from a school administration and board that honors and respects its community, please see these recent examples from Nova Classical Academy:

http://www.novaclassical.org/files/2008-2009/general/intro_admin.doc

http://www.novaclassical.org/files/2008-2009/board/Exec%20Dir%202%200.doc