My article of Wednesday (19 June 2024) focused on the big changes in the composition of her cabinet that lackluster, jealous, self-serving new Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams is on the throes of making.
I revealed that Sayles-Adams
has forced out Rochelle Cox, the superlative 27-year staff member of the
Minneapolis Public Schools(MPS) who proved herself to be the most effective
leader in the history of the district during her tenure as interim
superintendent and that Sayles-Adams has also overseen the departure of Senior
Academic Officer Aimee Fearing, who implemented Cox’s academic initiatives and
became a major advocate for knowledge-intensive curriculum and the acquisition
of subject area information and vocabulary necessary for comprehending
sophisticated reading material across a range of academic disciplines.
As of the work week of 17 June 2024, though, the MPS website listed the same membership that has existed for
many months. Cox returned to a position
as associate superintendent when Sayles-Adams became superintendent as of 5
February 2024, but otherwise the cabinet features the same membership that
prevailed during Cox’s tenure.
In this article I evaluate
the members of the cabinet who served during the Cox administration and are
still listed officially on the MPS website, in order of value to the district
and in terms of factors pertinent to the particular position occupied.
Cabinet of Minneapolis Public
School Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams
#1
Rochelle Cox, Associate Superintendent
(the position to which Cox returned when Sayles-Adams
assumed the position of MPS superintendent on 5 February 2024)
As discussed in yesterday’s article, Cox was the most
effective leader in the history of the Minneapolis Public Schools during her
tenure as interim superintendent; she
also is the only MPS associate superintendent to demonstrate any ability to
fulfill the position’s purpose of mentoring principals.
#2
Aimee Fearing, Senior Academic Officer
Fearing flourished under Cox’s leadership,
implementing the administration’s academic initiatives and making a very
promising start in moving the district toward knowledge-intensive,
skill-replete curriculum.
#3
Ibrahima Diop, Senior Officer of Finance and
Operations
Diop, who began his tenure as leader of the MPS
finance division in autumn 2016, is one of the two or three best finance
officers in the United States; within
three years, he oversaw the construction of the first structurally balanced
budget that the district had articulated in many years. Cox tapped him to serve concomitantly as
operations officer, the duties of which Diop has performed suitably.
But Diop has demonstrated little courage in his
stance toward the sub-mediocre Sayles-Adams, attending two of the sham
“Listening Sessions” and even reporting out small-group responses to the skewed
questions at one of the sessions.
#4
Ryan Strack, Assistant to the Superintendent and
Board
Strack is a master of standard school board procedure
and consistently saved Sharon El-Amin from her woeful lack of knowledge of Robert’s
Rules of Order when she served as chair of the Minneapolis Public Schools
Board of Education. Strack also has good
knowledge of the last half-decade in the history of the Minneapolis Public
Schools, but he does not have the comprehensive grasp of the deeper history of
MPS, the city of Minneapolis, or the specific history of North Minneapolis as
do I—and he gives little indication of understanding matters pertinent to the
history and philosophy of education. And
Strack, in training members of the MPS Board of Education, emphasizes standard
procedures and associations, thus lamentably contributing to maintenance of the
status quo. He is very much like a
bureaucratic, civil servant functionary who keeps a system in motion, for good
or, too often, for ill.
#5
Justin Hennes, Senior Officer of Information
Technology
Hennes seems to have been a worthy successor to Fadi
Fadhil, overseeing technology availability and utilization for classrooms and
administration. He and his staff
adroitly responded with months of diligent effort to meet the challenges
wrought by hackers during the 2022-2023 academic year.
But Hennes has proved to be among the many staff
members who went into personal vocational survival mode with the arrival of the
sub-mediocre superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams, either recording or reporting
out small-group responses induced by the skewed questions in the lamentable
“Listening Sessions” of spring 2024. He has
been one of many senior staff who have revealed very soft backbones and who are
mired variously in ignorance, denial, or outright intellectual and moral
corruption in maintaining a wretched system of education at the Minneapolis
Public Schools.
#6
Josh Downham, Lobbyist
Downham effectively makes the case for funding the
public schools and gets great credit from Minneapolis Public Schools leaders
for doing so. But in moving forward with
a “mo’ money” mantra, Downham either consciously or unconsciously provides a
major assist in maintaining a wretched system of public education with appeals
for funding in the absence of needed change.
#7
Alicia Miller, Senior Officer of Human Resources
Miller has risen quickly in Human Resources in the
three years of her tenure at the Minneapolis Public Schools. She quickly restored order and efficiency in
a division that former Human Resources senior officer Candra Bennett had left
in shambles. Miller has also proved
adept at negotiation with the Minneapolis Federation of Teacher (MFT) and
Education Support Professionals (ESPs).
But, while Miller only participated in one of the
sham Listening Sessions, at that one (held at Anwatin Middle School) she
shamefully served the same role noted above for Hennes and Diop and has shown
of indication of being more the careerist than the servant of student needs at
the Minneapolis Public Schools.
#8
Michael Walker, Associate Superintendent with
responsibility mostly for overseeing high schools
Walker was an adept dean of students at Roosevelt
High School and is skillful in interactions with students. A failure in his current position and in his
previous role as head of the Office of Black Student Achievement, Walker should
return to a site-based, student-interactive role.
But inasmuch as Walker has seemed less willing to do
the bidding of Sayles-Adams, his days at the Minneapolis Public Schools are
probably numbered.
#9
Laura Cavender, Associate Superintendent with
responsibility for overseeing multiple elementary schools
Cavender (an MPS veteran who has served as principal
and multiple administrative positions), though having weak academic training,
has shown concern for improving academics and seemed to be a promising staff
member under Rochelle Cox’s leadership;
but she has caved just as readily as others with the arrival of
Sayles-Adams.
#10
Sarah Hunter, Executive Director of Strategic
Initiatives
Under the leadership of Rochelle Cox, Hunter seemed a
highly promising presenter of objective data, including that which revealed the
abysmal academic proficiency rates of MPS students in key demographic
categories, and she worked closely with Cox and Aimee Fearing in forwarding the
move toward knowledge-intense, skill-replete subject area mastery and
improvement of teacher quality.
But Hunter has emerged as the woeful Sayles-Adams’s
righthand senior staff member, participated in all of the sham Listening
Sessions, and shamelessly enacted the pretension of summarizing the skewed data
gathered at these sessions. Hunter is
now among those most culpable for cowardice and obsequious behavior upon the
arrival of the monotonic mediocrity, Sayles-Adams.
#11
Donnie Belcher, Executive Director of Communications
and Marketing
The essential functions of Communication and
Marketing seem to have been adequately maintained since Belcher took over for
Julie Schultz Brown at the end of the 2021-2022 academic year.
But Belcher shamefully played the loyal servant of
Sayles-Adams, attending all of the Listening Sessions, not playing much of a
role except to shine a sycophantic smile at every shibboleth uttered by her new
boss.
#12
Meghan Hickey, Executive Director of Student Support
Services
Hickey is better than average as compared to past
occupants of the position as head of Student Support Services, but the
activities of this office should be better coordinated with those of
Community and External Relations and Equity/School
Climate.
And Hickey is guilty of acquiescence to the
lamentable meetings overseen by Sayles-Adams and played much the same
obsequious role at the farcical Listening Sessions as did Belcher.
#13
Tyrize Cox, Executive Director of and External
Relations
Cox is not effective in her position and is guilty in
the manner of Belcher and Hickey.
#14
Derek Francis, Executive Director of Equity and
School Climate
Francis is not effective in his position and is
guilty in the manner of Belcher, Hickey, and Tyrize Cox.
#14
Shawn Harris Berry, Senior Officer of Schools
Harris-Berry was a failed principal of North High
School, elevated according to the Peter Principle to a office administration. She is an academic mediocrity who never
should have been placed in central office positions with oversight pertinent to
schools.
And she has been a lamentable toady in the manner of
Belcher, Hickey, Tyrize Cox, and Francis.
#15
Yusuf Abdullah, Associate Superintendent with
responsibility mostly for overseeing middle schools
Abdullah was a miserable principal at Patrick Henry
(now Camden) High School who discouraged students to opt out of the Minnesota
Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs), like Harris-Berry elevated according to the
Peter Principle to central office administration. He is an academic mediocrity who never should
have been placed in a central office position with oversight pertinent to
schools.
And he has been a lamentable toady in the manner of
Belcher, Hickey, Tyrize Cox, Francis, and Harris-Berry.
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