Minneapolis Public Schools leadership got an earful Wednesday night at Camden High School during their first community meeting about a proposal that could close or merge up to 16 schools.
Parents asked pointed questions about how the transformation plan would help Black students and implored the district to keep Loring Elementary School in north Minneapolis and FAIR School for Arts open. The district’s three proposals for what it calls school “transformation” all involve closing both Loring and FAIR, and up to 14 other schools.
Daniel McMillan, a first-grade teacher at Loring who lives nearby and sends his daughter to the school, slammed the plan to close his family’s school.
“I feel like this is going to nuke our neighborhood. Honestly, it’s going to destroy the heart of our community,” he said. “My main question, I guess, is what will Loring students actually gain?”
District staff started the meeting by explaining why they had presented the plan, and summarized feedback they had already received.
“I want you to know I am listening and have heard you,” said Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams. “These are proposals, and the school board has not made a final decision.”
She explained that because schools do not receive adequate funding, closing buildings could help the district’s dollars stretch further.
“At present, our resources are spread across many facilities and programs, which can create variations in staffing, academic interventions, and enrichment opportunities for our students,” she said.
She described her vision for a district where students can consistently count on access to strong literacy and mathematics instruction and access to multiple specialists, including in the arts, in every school.
But many of the parents in the audience were not convinced.
La’Taijah Powell told Sahan Journal she had moved her kids from Hall STEM Academy to Loring Elementary because they had better opportunities there.
“They are able to have art. They are able to have gym. They’re able to have Spanish. They’re able to have media,” she said. “Being able to experience all of that has made their day better.”
At Hall STEM Academy, she said, art and music had been cut.
“The only thing they had was gym,” she said. “It was a STEM school, and it once had a telescope, and they was learning STEM stuff, and then the next year came around and they cut it.”
Minneapolis Public Schools budget documents show that Hall allocated funds for the equivalent of a one-day-a-week music teacher this year, and no art teacher. Loring employs a full-time art teacher, a full-time music teacher, and a half-time Spanish teacher. The district did not immediately respond to a question about the status of Hall’s STEM and astronomy programs.
Powell understands that not all schools have the same opportunities — she’s seen it for herself. But Loring has what she wants for her kids. She doesn’t want to have to move them again.
“As a parent, you want stability for your children,” she said.
Loring community pushes back on proposed closure
Loring Elementary, which feeds into Camden, is slated to close in all three versions of the transformation plan, as is Hmong International Academy. Cityview Elementary is listed for possible closure in two of the three versions of the plan. FAIR School for Arts has a partnership with Camden — for example, FAIR students will attend Camden’s homecoming this weekend.
Many parents and educators spoke against closing Loring and FAIR. Several also advocated for Wellstone International High School, which serves new immigrant students, and Longfellow Alternative High School, which serves pregnant and parenting teens and their babies.
Katie Fitzpatrick, whose children both attended Loring, said they were ahead of their classmates when they got to middle and high school because of the opportunities they’d had at Loring.
“My child in high school right now is in band as a ninth grader with students who have never picked up an instrument because their pathway schools did not offer music instrumentation,” she said. “Same with Spanish. My daughter started Spanish last year, much further ahead of her classmates in middle school because Loring Elementary had Spanish. To that end, the reason Loring Elementary had so many more specialists than the other schools in the pathway to middle and high school is because it is a school on the North Side that is being chosen by the community.”
Kajuana Shepherd said she had contemplated enrolling her son outside the district for kindergarten, but ultimately opted for her community school, Loring.
“I did that because he was going to Loring, and they have such a great reputation, specifically the special education program,” she said. “I just feel like in this whole process that there’s not a lot of transparency or talk on how this is going to affect our special education babies.”
“I moved my kids to Loring Elementary from another school because Loring [has] all the great things that I was able to experience as a child in elementary school,” said Powell. “There’s a whole bunch of Black kids that go to these schools, and we are at a disadvantage. And y’all wonder why our test scores are low, because the curriculum does not reflect who we are.”
Deputy superintendent Ty Thompson, who is leading the transformation process, addressed Shepherd’s comments by explaining that in larger schools, children with individualized educational plans have more options to be either in or outside a mainstream classroom as needed.
She also addressed Powell’s question about impacts on the Black community, acknowledging the district was struggling with limited funding.
“Our current reality is that we are not providing consistent foundational academic experiences and resources to all of our students,” she said.
“The Black community knows that,” called out Alex Leonard, a former Camden High School counselor.
“And so we hear you, and we’re saying that,” Thompson said.
Tensions rise
The meeting was scheduled to conclude at 7:30, but district staff kept it going to hear more feedback.
Leonard stepped up to the mic.
“I have a hard time listening to a conversation about resources in a community that’s constantly experiencing limited resources and doing amazing work,” he said. “Who are the district leaders that are going to stand up for Black children in this community specifically? Who’s going to stand for the North Side, given that we continue to bear the brunt of things, the brunt of the impact?”
Tensions rose as the meeting continued.
“Can we keep the mics going? Because I feel like your responses are not helping,” one parent said after a lengthy response from a district staffer about before- and after-school care. District staff agreed to pivot and let more community members speak, rather than responding to their feedback in real time.
Courtney Bell-Duncan, the executive director of a local education consultancy organization, asked why the school board was not present.
“I appreciate that y’all are taking notes, but they need to be in the room because they are the ones that have to make the decision,” she said. She said that when the district considered closing North High School in 2010, the district held forums with school board members present. “The board sat right in these seats, and they listened. And in the end, they voted 4-to-3 to keep North High open.”
Some parents in the audience echoed Bell-Duncan’s question. “Where is the school board?” they called out.
Sharon El-Amin, who represents north Minneapolis on the school board, waved from the audience and introduced herself. No other school board members were present.
Ryan Strack, the district’s senior executive officer, explained that open meeting laws prohibit a quorum, or majority, of the nine school board members from gathering outside an official meeting. He said six more community meetings are scheduled.
One community member described the district’s plans as redlining, which drew applause from the crowd. People in the audience repeatedly called out for district staff to add “redlining” to the notes they were taking projected on the screen, and expressed frustration when it did not appear. After multiple requests, district staff added the word to the notes.
Some feedback centered on language and cultural pathways. The current plan lays out pathways for Native American culture and Hmong, Spanish, and Somali language.
Leeaja Smith, a Camden student, asked for a Black cultural pathway as well.
“Why does everyone have their own pathway except for us Black students?” she said. “I’m here to stand up for us youth as an advocate to get us a Black culture pathway.”
Erika Sass, a teacher at Hmong International Academy, expressed gratitude that her school’s language immersion program would regain its magnet status, which means that students could bus there from all over the city. The school is slated to close and move its Hmong language and culture program to Jenny Lind Elementary School.
“No disrespect to Jenny Lind, the Swedish opera singer, but she isn’t embodying that there’s a dual language Hmong program in the school,” Sass said. She suggested that the district consider a different name for the merged school. She also said staff at her school, from cafeteria workers to janitorial staff to teachers, would like to know what might happen to their jobs.
Some speakers asked about access to the arts, and pointed out that Camden’s theater and music programs have seen cuts in recent years. Many parents spoke against the proposed closure of FAIR. One teacher advocated for a fine arts pathway.
Joletta Edwards, who leads the district’s parent advisory council for homeless and highly mobile families, was one of the parents speaking in favor of FAIR School for Arts. Like the other parents, she said that her child had struggled at other schools before finding an environment where she thrived at FAIR. Edwards previously told Sahan Journal about the difficulties her children experienced when teachers and classmates did not understand their living situation.
“My child has been bullied, beaten, harassed, thrashed, and everything else that you can name at these other schools ever since she was able to go to school,” Edwards said. “Now that I got her in the school that we chose, FAIR, now she can be herself. Now she had a friend over. She hasn’t had a friend in life. … She’s thriving from these small class sizes that you all seem to think is the problem. But we chose FAIR for a reason, and we would like to keep that going, please.”
At the end of the meeting, Sayles-Adams thanked everyone for their “clear, critical feedback” and emphasized that no decisions had been made.
“We want to hear the feedback,” she said. “That is honest and that is true, and we will be bringing that back to the school board.”
Tell the school board what you think
To provide input on the transformation plans, you can fill out a survey or attend a community meeting. Meetings are scheduled at high schools throughout Minneapolis Sept. 30 through Oct. 9. Childcare and interpretation in Spanish, Hmong and Somali will be provided. You can find more information here. The school board is expected to vote on Nov. 10.
