Promise Sallis learned how to ride a bike in gym class. She practices boxing. She takes lots of walks. For 16-year-old Promise, it’s an essential part of her education.
“Gym gives me more energy to actually go on with the rest of the day,” she said.
But next year, Promise and her classmates at Longfellow Alternative High School may have to take gym class online. The budget cuts in Minneapolis Public Schools are slated to eliminate positions for her gym teacher, art teacher and four other positions at Longfellow.
“I feel like us not having a teacher in the room to help out with that type of activity is not going to give us all the education we need,” Promise said. “Computers just make you lose your train of thought.”
Raniya Williams, 19, recalls taking gym class online during the pandemic, which she said was not as much fun. In-person gym classes help students feel more connected to the activity and each other, she said.
“It’s a way to let out whatever feelings you have,” she said. “Doing that online is not going to do that.”
For the third year in a row, Minneapolis Public Schools is facing extensive budget cuts, about $40 million in total this year. The original recommended budget proposed cutting $50 million, but administrators found an additional $10 million available for next year after discovering a coding error in the special education funding.
“I never thought we’d be happy about a $40 million deficit, but it’s better than $50 [million],” said school board chair Collin Beachy at a May 5 finance committee meeting.
Schools were able to use those additional funds to plug some gaps, but others remain. At Longfellow, a small alternative school that serves about 40 pregnant and parenting teen girls, the core content area teachers were originally slated to be cut to half-time positions — which would have moved even more classes online in subjects like English, math and science.
With the new funds, most of those positions were restored to full-time or nearly full-time, so the students will be able to take their academic classes in person. But the current budget proposal still cuts Longfellow’s budget by nearly a third, from $1.8 million to $1.2 million. Students aren’t sure how it will work to take online classes in art and gym — state graduation requirements that also let them work off steam and express themselves.
“I was really happy that it keeps all of our classes, our teachers,” Rosa De Jesús Vasquez, a 17-year-old Longfellow student, said of the new budget proposal. But she noted that some staff members are still slated for cuts. “Our community is not fully healed.”
“The opportunity to move and to play in phy ed is really important for young moms in particular, as well as arts — the ability to have creative expression,” said Lindsay Walters, a Longfellow counselor.
“I feel like we’re at functional, which is a big improvement,” said Lauren Tolbert, Longfellow’s science teacher. “But we’re still losing six people, six positions, and it’s really hard to imagine how that can have the level of care and connection that we’ve always had which makes us successful.”
Raniya said learning about the budget cuts “broke my heart, to be honest.” Even with some positions restored, several of her favorite staff are slated to be cut — including two educational support professionals who are Black women like her. One in particular reminds her of her grandmother and provides advice she needs to hear.
“Districts already don’t have a lot of Black women,” she said. “Every time the budget cuts come, they’re the first ones to get cut off.”
The newly found money allowed the district to restore most funding for adult education, previously slated for large cuts, and provide more funds to elementary and secondary schools.
The district originally had planned to cut about 250 full-time equivalent positions this year. After discovering the new money, about 150 positions will be cut. At the same time, the district will add some new teacher positions as it invests in smaller class sizes, a requirement of the teachers union contract ratified in November.
The budget cuts come as the district overhauls its finance department, where a district-commissioned report recently outlined widespread dysfunction, and several staffers faced disciplinary action after $3 million for an employee health account was diverted into another district account.
At the same time, Minneapolis Public Schools is preparing for what it has called a “transformation” process to identify how to best serve its current student population, which has declined significantly in the past two decades. The district has said that process could include school closures and consolidations.
In a May 12 school board meeting, South High School student Liv Mueller expressed frustration with the repeated budget cuts.
“Every year we’ve been forced to suffer more and more losses of our favorite teachers and classes,” she said. “More often than not, it seems that we, the students, must fight for our right to a strong education.”
A supportive school for teen moms
Longfellow Alternative High School is a small program within Minneapolis Public Schools serving both teen moms and their young children. While the moms attend high school, their babies attend child care at the other end of the building.
It’s a small high school, but the students need extensive services. About 30% of the teen moms are classified as homeless or highly mobile.
Geneva Dorsey, the dean of students, described a series of support systems for the students: an on-site health clinic, mental health services, mentorship, child care, curb-to-curb bus services and a post-graduation plan.
“We need more resources than a bigger school, because of the population that we serve,” she said. “We’re not only just serving the students, we’re serving their babies too.”
Longfellow also hosts activities for the students, including a “mom prom.” Recently, Longfellow staff held a special graduation ceremony for a student returning to Ecuador with some family members who were being deported.
Dorsey has been at Longfellow’s teen mom program for more than a decade. She says she’s still in touch with many former students. Their message is consistent: “The school and this program motivated them to be more than what other people thought they were going to be and could do because of the fact that they had a child young.”
If not for Longfellow, Rosa said, she’d either attend online school “or probably drop out.”
When the initial budget proposal rolled out, with teaching positions reduced to half-time, Dorsey worried many students would quit.
“I truly think a lot of the students would have [given] up and dropped out,” she said. “Some of them indicated that, in their own words, that I’m not going to come to school and do half in person and sit in a room and do the other half online. That’s not right, and that’s not fair, and that’s unjust. And why us?”
Several students told Sahan Journal they had trouble concentrating on online classes.
“You lose focus easier when it’s online,” Promise said. “Especially Longfellow, since we are moms, we already got a lot on our mind.”
Promise, who hopes to become an obstetrician and gynecologist, discovered she was six months pregnant as a middle-schooler in Texas.
“I couldn’t pay attention because a lot of students were talking about me, so I wasn’t really getting all the education that I need,” she said. “So I kind of just dropped out for a little bit.”
Promise gave birth to her daughter, N’kyma, at 14. She spent her ninth-grade year moving from one city to the next with her baby, unable to attend school until she landed in Minneapolis. Now she lives at a shelter with her daughter. She was thrilled to return to high school at the end of last school year — and loves her teachers at Longfellow.
After the additional funding was found, she was happy to see that some of her teachers’ positions had been restored. But she’s concerned that the slated cuts could still hurt her academically.
“I have worked my way up to getting all my credits in a lot of classes,” said Promise. “But I think I would really fall back and slow down with getting all that stuff if we’re missing a lot of teachers that actually help us understand our work.”
Tolbert said she worried the loss of her colleagues would weaken the support system for students and make it harder for her to do her job.
“I do tons of hands-on awesome science with students, but the reason I’m able to focus on that is because there’s support staff who are helping people when they’re overwhelmed by something going on outside of school, or just got some terrible news,” she said. “There’s just all these behind the scenes things that need to be in place for learning to happen.” Now, the school will be losing two-thirds of its support staff, she said.
In a statement, Minneapolis Public Schools said that the district provides more financial support for Longfellow than is generated by the student enrollment, though that support would decrease next year.
“MPS central office staff will work closely with Longfellow Alternative High School to provide support as the school navigates a reduced level of budget support,” the district said. “In the coming school year, students will also have access to an online platform that will provide them with all courses needed for graduation and expanded choices compared to what was offered in the past.”
Advocating for their school
Longfellow staff were deliberate about how they shared the news of the proposed budget cuts to their students.
“Most of our students are dealing with so much outside of school that to add a layer of stress that impacts what might be the most stable part of their current lives — we want to be mindful of when we did that,” said Walters. “So when we did it, it was also presenting them with this is where things are at right now and things are not final until the school board gives their seal of approval.”
The teachers did not ask any students to speak at the school board meeting, she said, but many volunteered to do so. Nine students — about a quarter of the student body — attended the April meeting, a production that involved intricate teacher logistical coordination of transportation, car seats and diapers. Promise attended with N’kyma. Though she isn’t a fan of public speaking, she said she wanted to speak on behalf of her teachers.
After the core teacher positions were restored, a handful of Longfellow students returned for the May 12 school board meeting to advocate for the rest of their school staff.
Rosa told the school board that gym and art class should not be moved online.
“Online classes cannot replace the support, connections and encouragement that we receive that we get face-to-face from caring teachers,” she said during public comments at the school board meeting Tuesday. “In schools like ours, that impact is even greater because we’re not just working hard for us, but for our children.”
Javonna Brown, a 15-year-old Longfellow student, also spoke.
“I’ve had a lot of problems with schools in my past, and I’ve never liked any school the way I like Longfellow,” she said. “Ever since I’ve been attending Longfellow, I’ve been showing up to school almost every day. This school is more than a school to us. This is the same place where us young moms can continue our education while also learning how to take care of our babies and build a future.”
Without the security guard and associate educators slated to be cut, Javonna said, the students would not be able to accomplish their goals. “Cutting our staff may save money now, but it could cost students their education, stability and future opportunities.”
Tolbert, who attended the school board meeting with her students, said that engaging in the budget process “might be one of the most impactful learning activities of the year.”
Walters agreed. “Seeing them here and really using their voice to advocate for what they want — if we can teach them anything, it’s that,” she said. “Those are muscles they’re going to need the rest of their lives.”
The school board will vote on a final budget June 9.
