Reorganization at the Minneapolis Public Schools, March 2017

The current MPS Organizational Structure given at the website of the Minneapolis Public Schools is as follows:

 

First the following cluster is presented:

 

 

                                  General Counsel Amy Moore 

 

Our Minneapolis           Board of Education                     Superintendent Ed Graff

Community

 

                         Administrator to the Board of Education

                  Jesse Winkler

 

Then there is a vertical listing of leaders who report directly to Superintendent Graff:

 

Chief of Academics, Leadership, and Learning Michael Thomas

 

Chief of Accountability, Innovation, and Research Eric Moore

 

Chief Communications Officer Tonya Tennessen

 

Chief Financial Officer Ibrahima Diop

 

Chief Human Resources Officer Maggie Sullivan

 

Chief Information Officer Fadi Fadhil

 

Chief Operations Officer Karen Devet

 

Chief of Staff Suzanne Kelly

 

This presentation features significant differences with that given at the MPS three or so weeks ago.

 

The former presentation was mostly the same for the initial, topmost cluster, except that Strategic Projects Administrator Lanise Block was listed and linked for special reporting to Superintendent Graff.

In the older vertical formulation, Michael Thomas appeared at the top, as he does in the newer presentation, but his title in the previous rendering was Associate Superintendent, Principal Development.  Deputy Chief of Schools Stephen Flisk and Office of Black Male Achievement Director Michael Walker were listed directly under and reporting to Michael Thomas.  Both have been dropped from the listing of top leaders in the March 2017 formulation.

 

The older presentation included (then) Chief Academic Officer Susanne Griffin, Deputy Education Officer Elia Bruggeman, Deputy Chief Operations Officer Mark Bollinger, Executive Director of Communications Gail Plewacki, and Executive Director of Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability Eric Moore.  Only Eric Moore is still listed in the vertical grouping of top leaders, with the change in title as given above.

 

The most dramatic removal from the vertical list of top leaders is Susanne Griffin, who was first demoted to Deputy Chief Academic Officer and then dropped from the staff at the Minneapolis Public Schools.   

 

The most notable ascendance is that of Eric Moore.  Moore is now listed second of the Chiefs, following Michael Thomas.  All of the current leadership bear the “Chief” appellation and form the “Cabinet” of chief advisers to Superintendent Ed Graff.

 

I have high regard for Gail Plewacki and regret that she was not hired for the newly creaed Chief of Communications position;  I have yet to become acquainted with Tonya Tennessen and will be assessing her leadership in the days to come.  I met new Chief Operations Officer Karen Devet only briefly and have talked only once with Suzanne Kelly;  I will be evaluating the effectiveness of these two, and the necessity of Kelly’s position, in the days to come.

 

Otherwise, the new reorganization appears very promising to me and represents a favorable effort on the part of Superintendent Graff to rationalize leadership and assign top responsibility to a generally talented group.  Michael Thomas, Eric Moore, and Ibrahima Diop are particularly first-rate talents and supreme assets that not every locally centralized school district has.

 

Graff and Thomas were right to facilitate the exit of Susanne Griffin, a nice person well-trained in speech pathology but, as recorded in numerous articles on this blog, driven by an errant philosophy of education incapable of advancing the quality of education at the Minneapolis Public Schools during her three and one-half year tenure.

 

There now needs to be a similar staff clearance in the Department of Teaching and Learning and in all central office positions at the Davis Center (1250 West Broadway, Minneapolis) that bear chiefly on matters of pure academics.

 

Graff and Thomas should in consultation with Moore facilitate the exit of Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Macarre Traynham, examine for departure all of those with curricular responsibility for elementary and secondary education, and then put in place academic decision-makers ready to design a knowledge-intensive, logically sequenced, grade by grade curriculum and a program for training teachers capable of imparting such a curriculum.

 

Favorable moves have been made in staff reorganization.

 

Now this staff must move forward with the design and implementation of a program of educational excellence for the precious young people of all demographic descriptors living within the neighborhoods served by the Minneapolis Public Schools.