Creatures of the Establishment: Greta Callahan, Collin Beachy, and Lori Norvell
Collin Beachy, Chair
Collin Beachy, Chair
At-Large Member
612-668-0447
Collin.Beachy@mpls.k12.mn.us
Term: 2023-2027
Collin grew up in Staples, Minnesota; he received a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education & Coaching from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota and a Master of Arts in Autism Spectrum Disorder from Concordia University in St. Paul. In a 25-year career as teacher and coach, Beachy served for a number of those years as a special education teacher and equity lead at Transition Plus in Minneapolis Public Schools.
Gary Marvin Davison Critique of Collin Beachy as a Member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education
Beachy grasps Robert’s Rules of Order better than did Sharon El-Amin during her year as chair of the Board, but he still occasionally needs Administrator to the Board Ryan Strack to assist him in moving an evening’s agenda forward.
Beachy is fair in his treatment of his fellow Board members, acknowledging each according to the order in which they have hit a button indicating desire to speak and for the most part allowing each to take ample time to ask questions to those who make presentations before the Board.
But, led by Beachy, this is the most authoritarian Board that I have witnessed as to limiting the type of comments that the public is allowed to make in the official time for making Public Comments prior to proceeding with each business meeting. Beach and the Board have also established a physical barrier that keeps the audience at Board meetings at a distance.
In terms of initiatives that should have taken place in the academic program and defining and moving the Transformation process forward, very much including the clear need to close or repurpose many MPS buildings, Beachy has chaired a Board with a stark lack of accomplishments.
Beachy has strong ties to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and demonstrates a reluctance to oversee any programmatic changes opposed by the union.
Lori Norvell, Clerk
Lori Norvell, Clerk
District 5 Member
612-919-8136
Lori.Norvell@mpls.k12.mn.us
Term: 2023-2027
Lori Norvell represents District 5, covering areas in South and Southeast Minneapolis. In a 20-year career, she taught for eight years in the Minneapolis Public Schools, as a substitute teacher, Special Education Assistant, and middle school math teacher; her assignments included positions at Nellie Stone Johnson Community School and Anthony Middle School. Norvell has three children, two of whom graduated from Washburn High Schoool and another who is currently a Washburn student.
Gary Marvin Davison Critique of Lori Norvell as a Member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education
Norvell is strongly backed by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. She demonstrated considerable resistance to the unprecedented initiatives during the July 2022 though January 2024 tenure of Interim Superintendent Rlle Cox and has not offered any leadership as to the matters of academic progress and the long-looming but ever delayed Transformation process.
Most lamentably, Norvell was chair of the disastrous Superintendent Search Task Force and thus highly culpable for the selection of Lisa Sayles-Adams as MPS superintendent.
Greta Callahan
Greta Callahan
District 6 Member
612-668-0049
Greta.Callahan@mpls.k12.mn.us
Term: 2025-2029
Greta Callahan grew up in Southwest Minneapolis and still lives in this area covered by District 6. She attended the Minneapolis Public Schools and has a son who graduated from Southwest High School in 2024. Callahan received a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in elementary education from Augsburg University and taught kindergarten at Bethune Elementary from 2011 until 2020. She was the President of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, Local 59 from 2020-2024.
Gary Marvin Davison Critique of Greta Callahan as a Member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education
As former head of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), Callahan maintains the resistance to standardized tests, efforts to improve teacher quality, and an overemphasis on small class sizes as booster of academic success that one would expect from an MFT stalwart.
And in the aftermath of a studiously well researched report by professional demographer Hazel Reinhardt concerning the decline of the school age population, Callahan argued irrationally that marketing and other nonacademic strategic maneuvers can bring students back to the district in such numbers as to counter the demographic reality.
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