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Transportation Update & Survey Summary

Fall Bus Route Information

Please be on the lookout for information for your 2024-2025 bus route. Jessica will communicate stop times and locations to families who requested busing in mid to late August. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out transportation@isla.school.

Transportation Survey Summary

Thank you to the 156 parents and caregivers who took the time to provide feedback via our annual Transportation Survey. The feedback you provided to the Committee is incredibly helpful and guides the Committee as it works to make improvements each year. Below is a summary of the feedback.

What is going well:

• Great, consistent, and timely service for most routes!
• Families like their drivers.
• Grateful to have the Here Comes the Bus App working consistently on most routes.
• Families really like the convenient location and safety of their neighborhood bus stops.
• Families are pleased with the improvements over last year and throughout this year.

Opportunities:

• The largest identified opportunity is in operational communication (i.e. route changes, delays, lack of response to emails).
• Hopkins & SLP families are concerned about the potential of changes to bus stops in 2 years (legacy transportation area).
• Families outside the transportation boundary (e.g. Bloomington and Minneapolis/Richfield east of 35W) would like to have busing.
• Route 8 experienced significant inconsistencies this year.
• Concerns about student behavior on the bus.
• Better maintained fleet of buses.
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We look forward to continuing our work to provide safe and convenient transportation for ISLA students. Some of our current Transportation priorities include:

• The Here Comes the Bus app will continue to be the main real time communication tool and is a top priority. All bus families should download and use this app! It’s the go-to place for tracking your bus each day. Additionally, for those days when the app isn’t working (this sometimes happens when there’s a substitute bus) we would like to strengthen existing community back up systems for bus status. Most routes already have a text chain or Facebook group in place and we’d like to build on that grass roots communication by ensuring everyone along the route is connected to these great family resources. We’ll be looking for a point person for each route to set up and maintain the backup text chain or Facebook group. If you’re interested in being your routes’ point person please reach out to transportation@isla.school.
• The Committee will analyze ridership, routes, and bus costs with the intent to provide more certainty to families in Hopkins/SLP regarding their stops past the 2025-2026 school year. Additionally, the Committee will be looking at when expansion into NW Bloomington will be possible.
• Jessica has built a strong relationship with Pride, our transportation provider, and she will continue to leverage her relationships to strengthen processes between Pride and ISLA to improve the quality of bus service for our families.    
• Our new Executive Director, Molly, and the administration team will be focusing on behavior and social and emotional support this year and this emphasis will extend to transportation.
• ISLA will continue to work with Pride to communicate any issues with the bus fleet. The Transportation Committee will make a form available on the Transportation page of the school website for any concerns to be raised.

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ISLA PTO’s Spirit Store is OPEN!

Click here to order!

‍!!! Note your student’s name & grade !!!

Last day to order is this Sunday 7/28!!!

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Each grade level has an assigned color!

All grades are allowed to wear black.  

Kids can wear these shirts instead of uniform shirts.

Also available in adult sizes!

Kinder: Yellow

1st Grade: Blue

2nd Grade: Green

3rd Grade: Red

4th grade: Orange

5th grade: Purple & white (for classroom tie dye project)

All School: Black!

ISLA Sweatshirts: (hooded and full zip) - All School!

Questions? Please contact spiritstore@isla.school

***The Spirit Store is provided by the ISLA Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) for families to purchase uniform approved shirts and sweatshirts and show their school spirit! The Spirit Store is a fundraiser for the PTO, and proceeds support PTO sponsored events such as the back to school picnic, provide funds for classroom supplies and field trips, and also supports the LA program.

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Bilingual Bookmaking Class for 8-12 year-olds

This class is being taught at the MN Center for Book Arts by our very own Cori Adams!

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Click here to register for Thursday, August 1.

Click here to register for Saturday, August 17.

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More PTO News!

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With half of the Summer behind us, the PTO Board is filling our LAST THREE chair positions! We are hoping to have a full board before school begins as we've already hit the ground running as we prep for the '24-'25 school year. You do NOT need to know all things ISLA to be on the PTO Board. This is 100% the way I was (and still am) able to learn more about ISLA happenings, meet more families and that my kids have been able to make more friends, even outside of their grade levels. The prior chair, along with the whole Board will be there to help support the transition and help find your way around... And likely have some fun together!! This photo is from when a few PTO Moms went to a Schitt's Creek themed drag brunch together!! We had an absolute blast together!! Work hard & play hard!

Below you will find an overview of our PTO Board Members as well as open positions. We are so excited to see returning faces and some new friends stepping into these roles.‍

Chairperson: Jenner Moretto
Secretary: Caitlin Edstrom
Fiesta de la Primavera co-chairs: Jenner Moretto & Caitlin Edstrom
Treasurer: Michael Schulte
Spirit Store co-chair & Uniform Exchange: Elizabeth Sundal (NEW)
Spirit Store co-chair: Jenna Perrin (NEW/Transitioned from prior Board role)
Community Events: Open (Existing resources & transitional support available from our past Community Events chair, Jessie More.)Fundraising co-chair: Leala Christenson
‍Fundraising co-chair: Open (Existing resources & ongoing support available from our current Fundraising co-chair Leala Christenson.)
Room Parent Coordinator: Nancy Kenevan
Volunteer Coordinator: Amy Kilgore (NEW)
LA Team– Host Family Coordinator co-chair: Therese Sparkins (NEW)
LA Team– Host Family Coordinator co-chair: Mychelle Nunez (NEW)
LA Team– Tio Family Coordinator: MK Scipioni (NEW/Transitioned from prior Board role)
LA Team– Marketing Coordinator: Open (Existing resources & ongoing support available from the 4 others on the LA Team!)
LA Team– LA School Coordinator: Mabel Paredes-Nichtova

You can view more about the PTO Board and its open positions on the PTO Website. The PTO Chair, Jenner Moretto and I are also available to chat further with ZERO obligation to sign up– Please feel free to ask any and all the questions you may have! We'll all be along for this ride with you as we work together towards the same goal of supporting our kids' education and the school community. Your role as a volunteer or on the PTO Board does not mean you need to be volunteering all day, multiple times a month/year. Sometimes it can be 1hr/month, 1hr/week or 1hr/day if you're looking for that!

My point is... We are all human. We are all parents, most work full time or have additional volunteer positions, responsibilities and LIVES... But we work together to build the role around the current needs of the chair and school. ISLA is a public charter school that can only fully thrive with the help & support of parent/caregiver involvement. Below, I've listed a few ways you can contact Jenner & myself with any thoughts, ideas, questions, etc.  Looking forward to a great school year!!

‍Jenner's contact info: Email: PTOChair@isla.school
Phone/Text: 612-501-2559
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenner.moretto
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Caitlin's contact info: Email: PTOSecretary@isla.school
Phone/Text: 651-263-4079
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caitlin.edstrom/

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Chess Camp at ISLA!

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