Education Notebook

Studio Academy appeals decision

Administrators and leaders with Studio Academy, Rochester's arts-based charter high school, met with Volunteers of America-Minnesota this morning in the hope of persuading the organization to change its mind and allow the school to survive.

Up to this point, VOA has given Studio Academy little reason to hope that it will. 

A Studio Academy employee said that SA representatives had met with VOA officials this morning but a decision on the appeal wasn't immediately expected. 

"I'm sure they didn't (make a decision)," the employee said. "They have 10 days to do that."

Studio Academy was notified in March that VOA was not renewing its sponsorship "for cause," meaning that the school would not be allowed to seek sponsorship from any other organization. The decision by VOA, if it stands, is in effect a death sentence for the school.

VOA cited Studio Academy's repeated failure to meet financial and academic benchmarks over an extended period of time for its decision to withdraw its sponsorship.

Since learning that its sponsorship has been withdrawn, Studio Academcy leadership, including executive director Jody Allen Crowe, have been scrambling in an effort to avoid closure. They've contacted a lawyer, held an open house, sought sponsorship from another organization and brought their appeal to VOA in person.

Spokespeople for Studio Academy and VOA were unavailable for comment this morning. 

The Situation Room and Lincoln K-8

The photo has now become famous - of a tense-looking President Obama and his national security team gathered around a live-feed of an operation that resulted in the killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.

It was not more than two months ago that students and faculty of Rochester's Lincoln K-8 Choice School met the president in that same Situation Room during a trip to Washington D.C. That meeting was arranged by Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, who also happens to be a childhood friend of Lincoln principal James Sonju (in the photograph, McDonough is seated between Brigadier General Marshall B. "Brad" Webb and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton).

Since the president's announcement of Bin Laden's death, Sonju said he has talked to virtually every student who made that trip, reminding them that they were in the same room where history was made on Sunday.

"We're just looking at that picture, saying, 'it was pretty crazy to be in that place with some of the players,'" Sonju said.

McDonough is known as a critical player on Obama's national security team. Sonju said he knows McDonough as a friend who lived a couple houses down from his own childhood home in Stillwater, Minn. They grew up playing baseball and football together as kids and went to the same high school.

Sonju recalls McDonough as an "impressive man, very intellectual" but someone who spoke to people in an everyday language that people could understand.

"He was always a leader in the classroom or the field," Sonju said. "And it was always fun playing with him, because he always put it on the field. Just a quality individual.

Sonju says he has thanked McDonough for making the meeting with Obama possible for students and faculty, and McDonough in return has graciously replied with his own thanks to Sonju for making a difference in the lives of children.