Alternate Universe MPS Superintendent Gary Marvin Davison Terminates Bryan Fleming in Enrollment Director Position

As Alternate Universe Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), I have terminated the employment of erstwhile MPS Enrollment Director Bryan Fleming and am encouraging conventional universe MPS Superintendent Ed Graff to do the same.

 

Blog writer Sarah Lahm revealed in a recent article that Fleming runs a side business, Fleming Education Group LLC (founded in July 2015), that counsels parents on their options under the open enrollment policy prevailing in Minnesota.  His firm also provides learning specialist and tutoring referrals, and via its associated venture VIP School Solutions advises companies with employees new to the Twin Cities area.

  

Star Tribune writer Beena Raghavendran picked up the story and upon reviewing the “Thoughts by Bryan” section of the website associated with his personal venture found this statement by Fleming:

 

I want to make answering “why a private school?" in general,

and “why Breck, SPA, Blake, Minnehaha Academy, International

 School or Providence Academy?” in particular easier for anyone

exploring school placement options.

 

Raghavendran notes that Fleming then gives numerous advantages of private schools and also mentions “excellent, non-private options” such as Eden Prairie, Edina and Minnetonka, without mentioning the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

In addition to terminating the position of Fleming in an Alternate Universe that takes public education seriously, and counseling conventional universe Superintendent Graff to take like action, I have chastened MPS Board of Education Director Rebecca Gagnon (who recently lost her MPS Board of Education chair position to Nelson Inz) for her comment that Fleming does not work with any Minneapolis residents, even though Fleming’s website identifies its geographical scope as the Twin Cities and surrounding areas, including Minneapolis.

 

I have concomitantly sent a strong signal to staff at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway) that anything less than full focus on the grave problems of the Minneapolis Public Schools will bring immediate termination.  In the Alternate Universe, I have already completed a paring of Davis Center staff from the approximately 650 positions that typically prevail to 250. 

 

Via this paring, I have eliminated the Teaching and Learning Department and in its place have launched a district-wide teacher retraining program led my myself and four others that ensures mastery by teachers of the knowledge and skill sets of our overhauled curriculum, so that they can properly implement the new curriculum.  Teacher retraining also covers the new Academic Enrichment Program that in grades K-5 designates one hour per day for tutoring and academic enrichment opportunities as appropriate to each student’s performance on grade level mathematics and reading.

 

I have also disbanded the Department of Student, Family, and Community Engagement, while creating a new 100-staff Department of Family Resource Provision and Referral to serve the needs of families of our students who struggle with dilemmas of poverty and dysfunction.

 

Thus, I have followed through on my five-point program for overhauling the programs and processes of the Minneapolis Public Schools:  implementation of a logically sequenced, grade by grade, knowledge-intensive and skill-replete curriculum;  training of teachers capable of imparting such a curriculum;  program of tutoring and academic enrichment;  resource provision and referral to struggling families;  and hefty paring of the Davis Center bureaucracy.

 

I have signaled to conventional universe MPS Superintendent Graff that he must implement such a program or make his exit.

 

And with reference to the Bryan Fleming matter, I have stated clearly to all MPS staff that via the five-point program for making the Minneapolis Public Schools a model of the locally centralized school district, we will be assuring parents that the schools of MPS are becoming the best that they will find not only in Minneapolis but anywhere in the nation.

 

In the Alternate Universe wherein I serve as MPS Superintendent, I have told all staff that they must be fully focused on transforming this iteration of the locally centralized school district for the delivery of a genuinely excellent education.  They must then counsel parents that their best option will always be the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

In the conventional universe, MPS Superintendent Ed Graff must deliver this same message or follow his former employee Bryan Fleming out the Davis Center door.