The current membership of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education is a particularly inept and intellectually challenged group, the worst that I have witnessed in my ten years of intensively investigating this school district.
Before this iteration of the
Board took office in January 2023, I thought that I had witnessed the worst
assemblage of Board members in the previous contingent, with such status quo
members as Kim Caprini, Nelson Inz, and Jenny Arneson (with whom current member
Kim Ellison was closely linked). And the
assemblage just prior to the latter iteration included the most objectionable individual
members whom I have witnessed, KeriJo Felder (for her egocentric claims to
represent North Minneapolis views, despite a relatively short tenure on the Northside; and ill-focused advocacy and erratic views on
major issues) and Bob Walser (the silliest, most trivial member of all of those
I have witnessed).
But this Board had a chance to
be a pathbreaking contingent:
Sharon El-Amin and Adriana Cerrillo
came to the Board with election wins in November 2020; Joyner (then going by the name, Sonya) Emerick
followed in 2022. Each of these candidates
accomplished the difficult task of winning, despite not having Minneapolis
Federation of Teachers/Education Support Professionals (MFT/ESP) endorsement. El-Amin and Cerrillo seemed to know that the
status quo must be jettisoned, as did Emerick, the latter a particularly keen
advocate for LGBTQ and special needs students.
But Sharon El-Amin, serving as
chair during the 2022-2023 academic year, oversaw a very routine and corrupt
process that led to the lamentable selection of sub-mediocre Lisa Sayles-Adams
as superintendent; Cerrillo and Emerick
showed absolutely no courage or powers of discernment in succumbing to the
degraded process that led the Board to opt for monotonic mediocrity Sayles-Adams.
Faheema (known at first as
Fathia) Feerayarre, Abdul Abdi, Collin Beachy, and Lori Norvell also won election
in 2022. All four were endorsed by the
MFT/ESP cohort, with Beachy and Norvell having particularly close ties. They never seemed to offer the promise that
did El-Amin, Cerrillo, and Emerick, although in time Abdi emerged as the best
of an otherwise lamentable contingent of Board members.
In many articles over the last
few months, I have analyzed the corrupt superintendent selection process and
the individual shortcomings of each Board member. Below I give very brief assessments of the
individuals in this particularly intellectually challenged group of MPS Board
of Education members.
District 1 >>>>> Abdul Abdi
Abdi has a background in
business and finance, an expertise he brings to the MPS Board of Education as
finance committee chair. He seems to
understand the importance of upgrading academics at MPS better than the others. But Abdi served on the corruptly conducted
MPS Superintendent Selection Task Force and, while seeming to be a supporter of
superlative Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox, he showed no courage in opposing
the corrupt process that led to the selection of Lisa Sayles-Adams.
District 2 >>>>> Sharon El-Amin
El-Amin served as Board chair
during the 2022=2023 academic year. She
was an embarrassment in conducting meetings, never mastering Robert’s Rules
of Order, but worse, she was the chief conniver whose machinations
positioned Lisa Sayles-Adams to gain appointment as superintendent.
District 3 >>>>> Faheema Feerayarre
Feerayarre is the laziest and
most technically inept member of this lamentable assemblage of Board members.
District 4 >>>>> Adriana Cerrillo
Cerrillo has a self-image as a
radical but she has been an ineffective Board member who served on the corrupt
Task Force and demonstrated no courage in opposition to the manipulations of
El-Amin or the corrupt processes that led to the selection of Sayles-Adams.
District 5 >>>>> Lori Norvell
Norvell led the corrupt Task Force,
which became so boisterous and contentious that staff of BWP & Associates
had to be brought in to mediate when Task Force members, reportedly Titilayo Bediako
and Nekima Levy-Armstrong, precipitated a voluble argument. Norvell has strong ties to
the MFT/ESP and is an agent of the status quo establishment.
District 6 >>>>> Ira Jourdain
Jourdain saw into the corruption
of the superintendent selection process better than the others and was the most
enthusiastic supporter of Rochelle Cox;
but his courage withered as the selection of Sayles-Adams went forward.
At-Large >>>>> Joyner Emerick
Emerick is an eloquent advocate for
LGBTQ and special needs students with a general inclination toward needed change; but they/she/he also succumbed to the
lamentable superintendent selection process.
At-Large >>>>> Collin Beachy
Beachy attended the spring 2023
Annual New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet and for many months seemed poised
to become a promising member of the MPS Board of Education. But he succumbed and may have even agreed
with the process that led to the unfortunate selection of Sayle-Adams, and as
chair since January 2024 Beachy as been the most autocratic, controlling force
in opposition to free speech comments from the public that I have witnessed
over ten years of intensively investigating the inner workings of the
Minneapolis Public Schools.
At-Large >>>>> Kim Ellison
Ellison has now been an
ineffective member of the MPS Board of Education for twelve years. She was a supporter of Rochelle Cox and seemed
to be poised to redeem her undistinguished tenure on the Board, but her courage
and discernment withered as the corrupt selection process ensued.
……………………………………………………………………………..
Student representatives have
served since 2015, and in 2020 an additional representative was added to the
original single student representative for each academic year. These students by definition provide a
student perspective, but they never make any substantive difference in matters
of policy that pertain to academic improvement.
The current student
representatives are as follows:
Student Representative >>>>> Elliston Rounds (North High School)
Student Representative >>>>> Leo Peralta (Roosevelt High School)
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