Name: Stephanie Johnson
Age: Declined to share
Neighborhood: South Minneapolis
Stephanie Johnson, a Minneapolis Public Schools parent, teaches reading at Minneapolis College.
“My students are people whose K-12 experience wasn’t great, or they’ve been out of school for a long time,” she said.
To get a better sense of how her students’ MPS experience might be shaping their entry into college, Johnson took a year’s leave from her Minneapolis College position to become a reading interventionist for Minneapolis Public Schools.
Johnson had spent time on MPS site councils and in parent-teacher organizations, as well as a classroom volunteer. As a teacher, she observed firsthand how a revolving door of district leadership and insufficient support for teachers affected the student experience.
“I’ve long wondered, honestly, how is it that I see the number of students that I do at the college level needing this support,” she said. “There’s not just one reason. There’s many.”
She concluded that the students’ whole Minneapolis Public Schools experience, including academic support, elective offerings and instability among district adults contributed to their reading deficits.
“Part of this MPS experience too is making sure that they have the reading and math support in each building that they should have,” she said. “Fulfilling what should be the basic level of a foundation of academics, of learning, of leaving school not necessarily loving to read for pleasure, but having the reading skills to thrive in the world — that students aren’t graduating with that is a shame. It’s a shame and it’s unacceptable.”
Sahan Journal spoke with candidates in late September, after the district announced three “transformation” proposals to close up to 16 schools and before the superintendent and school board announced they would withdraw those proposals. Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams warned difficult decisions would still lie ahead. Those decisions will fall to the next school board.
Johnson is running for an at-large position on the school board, which represents voters in every part of the city. Voters will elect two at-large representatives. She spoke with Sahan Journal on Sept. 29. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why are you running for Minneapolis school board?
Primarily because I believe in serving my community, and this is an area that I know a bit about and I’m passionate about. And there’s a need.
Let’s talk about the transformation process. What were your initial reactions to the proposals?
Mostly soaking it in, I would say, and then looking further into the details of each plan. I would say I don’t feel strongly about any of them. I was anticipating, to some extent, a conversation about school closings would also be included, which we know it was. I watched the school board meeting, so I would say mostly my reaction was more of just taking in information.
Where do you see opportunity in the transformation process, and what concerns do you have about school transformation?
I think there’s opportunity in that actual decisions are being discussed in what seems like a long time coming. This work has been done over the last few years, and with a lot of input, a lot of consideration from all different aspects of the district, of input from families and caregivers and staff. I think the district’s intent, with a focus on the MPS experience, is an important one.
There’s new information that seems to be rolling out all the time since then, so it’s sort of a moving target — which in some ways I think probably is promising too, meaning that this is a work in progress, and we’re working on this, and we’re working at trying to communicate it better too.
One of the things I think was missing: There were a lot of numbers thrown out, but what I think could be more helpful for MPS families is to have an actual, real-world situation as what this “MPS experience” they’re talking about would be or could be, and comparing it to what it is now. It’s one thing to say “making sure that all students at all schools are getting the same opportunities.” Well, what does that mean specifically?
I think what would be more helpful, and I think that they’re thinking of but it hasn’t been made as clear, is to compare, say, a general student schedule across the district at all levels. How would that be different with this MPS experience? What would a typical schedule then be? I think that’s a starting point.
I also think what needs to be included in this is a comparison in staffing, and I think there would be great value for families to see very clearly. For example, pick a middle school, and what was the staffing at that middle school three years ago? What was it two years ago? What was it last year? And what is it today? My family’s experience is one story out of thousands. So I’m speaking of the knowledge that I have from that. But in our family’s experience, there’s quite noticeable differences just in the staffing alone. What’s most notable is the dwindling of staff, the dwindling of leadership in the building, fewer adults leading, fewer teachers. The district has also noted, for example, interventionists in both reading and math, and how they have not been able to fully support those positions in all schools.
I think those specific visuals where you’re actually making it just really like it’s real. It’s one thing to look at numbers in totality. It’s a whole other thing to look at a specific building and do a comparison year to year, how they’ve had to reduce the individuals who are caring for our students each year because they’re spread across so many locations. This is one piece to a much larger puzzle, but it’s a real thing. I think putting them into a more personal perspective can help people understand, or at least understand in a different way, where the district is coming from and the reasoning behind these decisions that they are working toward.
Opportunities: One thing that stood out to me was an emphasis on enrollment starting with pre-K. I think that’s a great opportunity moving forward.
I see some level of school closure as needing to happen. I don’t have a number in mind. I’m not locked into 15 or 16. But I do think that that has to be on the table, that that is part of the consideration. But that said, there could be opportunity with some school buildings and reutilizing those as, for example, a type of community hub, that can be, for example, rented out for different things. Childcare can be included. MPS could create even a birth-to-12th-grade pathway. There could be opportunities there if we get creative.
The school board had previously discussed expanding the Spanish immersion program as part of the transformation process, but it was left unchanged in the proposals. What do you think is the current status of the Spanish immersion program, and would you like to see any changes there?
I don’t feel like I have enough information on that to give a thoughtful answer. Other than, if the school board did say this, then they should follow up on that.
If you had to vote today on whether to move forward with the presented transformation plans, how would you vote?
My takeaway from the presentation was that the district leadership was open to altering the options. The options weren’t locked in, and because of that, I don’t have a vote on all three of those. As I mentioned earlier too, new information, more details are coming out. If indeed a vote is going to happen, I feel that there is a possibility that what they are voting on will not be what was first presented.
If this process were delayed until you joined the school board, what would you need from a transformation plan to vote yes?
More information, for sure. One of the concerns, and certainly there’s value in it, is that if MPS moves forward with these school closings, families will leave the district. And while that’s not a fact, because it hasn’t happened, could it happen? Of course. Could it also happen that families leave if the district does nothing? That’s true, as well.
It would be interesting to see breaking down — either in the different areas of the district, the district as a whole, specific schools, wherever that information exists — that after the CDD [Comprehensive District Design, a 2020 plan that which changed school programming and reassigned many students to new schools], when it seems the greatest number, in most recent history, of families left the district, what schools did families leave? What parts of Minneapolis showed the most movement out of the district? I think that information carries value in this decision-making process.
I’ve seen the question thrown out asking why families are leaving. If the district is asking this question, if they have information collected on that, that’s important information, too. I think it concerns me to base any sort of decision on generalized extremes of “families will leave because the district did this again.” I think there’s just so much more to this. And that said, I think there’s so much more that even needs to be shared.
Minneapolis Public Schools has been in the news a lot lately over the district’s handling of its troubled finances. What steps do you think need to be taken to get the finance department on track, and what is the school board’s role in that?
There does seem to be a need for better oversight. It seems that that is happening, has happened to a certain extent, but for obvious reasons, it needs to continue. The school board, I feel, is limited in what they can do, but another opportunity again for checks and balances is important and needed moving forward — because the financial stability of the district, everything is riding on that.
Painful budget cuts have been a feature of each of the last three years. What do you think is the root cause of those budget deficits, and what does the district need to do to become sustainable?
Well, a lot of the talk is the rightsizing of the district, adjusting the footprint of the district, and I think those are all players, for sure. But there are also things out of control as far as funding from governmental sources, which seems to be becoming much more complicated. That’s not a direct piece that can be controlled by the board, but it’s concerning. There’s no easy answer, and it’s nothing as a candidate for school board that I can make a promise to.
What’s another issue that’s important to you that we haven’t gotten a chance to talk about?
The school experience, being spread thin within each school, has been a concern for a long time. Without making changes to that, it seems that inevitably more and more families will leave. Whether it’s because, as you mentioned, more families wanting access to Spanish immersion — if that’s not available for the number of families that want it, families are going to go elsewhere.The opportunities for students have been less and less over the last handful of years because the resources are few and far between, and they continue to be cut.
Tied to all of this is the stability of the district. Stability has been mentioned when it comes to the new pathways, to closing schools, and how that shows Minneapolis as not a stable place to be, not a stable school district. But there’s also lack of stability in buildings, and that’s a great concern. When teachers and staff don’t feel like they’re under stable leadership, that their position is stable, the trickle down is to students and their families. When you have district leadership or individuals who come and go, leave positions — I think it’s true for the school board too. It’s not necessarily that when someone is elected to the school board they have to serve term after term after term. But there’s stability lacking at every level in MPS, and that is being felt by families, whether directly or indirectly. Stabilizing it in all ways is what’s going to, I feel, set Minneapolis Public Schools into the future on better footing, and growing into that school district that so many people are dreaming of, hoping for. But there’s a great deal of things that need to happen first.
