Alternate Universe Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Gary Marvin Davison Initiates New Family Resources and Relationships Program, As He Pares 400 Positions at the Davis Center (MPS Central Offices, 1250 West Broadway)

As Alternate Universe Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, I am today initiating a new Family Resources and Relationships Program that will fulfill the fourth of my five programmatic components for carrying this iteration of the locally centralized school district toward excellence in education.  I have in the three articles that next appear in succession as you scroll on down this blog described the programmatic initiatives that I am taking for the first three components, those of

1) knowledge-intensive curriculum,  2) teacher training, and 3) academic remediation (tutoring) and enrichment.  The other two components of my program for academic excellence are 4) family resource provision and referral and 5) paring of the central bureaucracy at the Davis Center (1250 West Broadway).  The latter point will be the subject of my next article;  the former is the subject of this exposition.

 

Actually, this article also foreshadows the looming exposition on bureaucratic paring by making clear this aspect of the new Family Relationships and Resources Program:  I am forthwith eliminating 400 positions at the Davis Center while creating 350 new positions in the Family Relationships and Resources Program.

 

Only one of these new positions, bearing the title Family Relationships and Resources Coordinator, will have an office in the Davis Center;  the others will all be located at school sites, with roughly 5 positions in each of the approximately 70 schools of the district.  The prime responsibility of each of these positions, to be called Family Resource Specialists, will be to develop relationships with students at their respective school sites and with the families of those students.  These specialists will follow a sequential pattern of developing relationships with students, counseling students in the event of behavioral infractions, communicating with families as to student needs and responsibilities, developing relationships with family members in each student’s residence, and serving as resource agents for meeting the needs of families directly or with the assistance of external agencies.     

 

Both the coordinator and the specialists will be a part of the new Department of Academic Achievement, in which most Davis Center positions will now be located.  Coordinator and specialists will communicate to students and families the philosophical thrust of the school district under my leadership, with paramount focus on knowledge intensity and excellent teaching.  Those serving in the Family Relationships and Resources Program will explain to all students and parents the importance of knowledge and skill acquisition, the absolute dedication of all school staff to the provision of an excellent education according to my clear definition, our absolute dedication to the academic present and futures of our students, and our willingness to help in any way that we can to meet the needs of students and families so as to prepare every young person to receive the knowledge that we will impart.   

 

I envision a future for the Minneapolis Public Schools in which all students and families embrace and are prepared to receive the excellent education that we will be providing.  In such an atmosphere, most behavioral problems will abate, School Resource Officers will be phased out, and all focus will be directed to the accumulation of knowledge and skills delivered in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.  Students and families will be thoroughly engaged in the magnificent world of knowledge, focused on the great purposes of K-12 education (cultural enrichment, civic engagement, and professional satisfaction), thrilled with the post-secondary preparedness of our graduates, and convinced of our mutual friendship and common mission to promote the academic and therefore life success of our students, their offspring, our agents of a better world.

 

Successful programs and organizations move forward on the basis of firm prime principles.

 

I have been clear as to the philosophy that guides my programmatic initiatives. 

 

Let me further clearly offer the following:

 

I love young people.

 

I am alive in the world of knowledge.

 

I thrill at connecting the young people whom I teach to the wonderful world of knowledge.

 

I believe in ethical conduct, modeling ethical conduct, and nurturing young people and adults so that they act in ethical and loving ways.

 

These principles will suffuse the Family Relationships and Resources Program and all aspects of the Alternate Universe Minneapolis Public Schools. 

 

In the months to come, the Alternate Universe MPS Family Relationships and Resources Program and the other initiatives that I have articulated will via the K-12 Revolution supplant the innervated structures now crumbling around conventional MPS Superintendent Ed Graff and the conventional MPS Board of Education.