Jul 1, 2025

Article #2 >>>>> >Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota< Volume XII, Number One, July 2025

Recommendations of Schools for Closing or Re-Purposing: 

The Failure of Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams and the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education to Address the Issue of Building Usage

 

As indicated in Article #1, Board members are only now with extreme timidity even broaching the matter of school closings or repurposing.

 

I recommended to the Minneapolis Public Schools Board (MPS) Board of Education this past December 2024 that the following schools of the Minneapolis Public Schools be closed or repurposed. 

 

The result would the closing or repurposing of nine (9) MPS schools.

 

Schools are given in clusters for geographical proximity that make logical their combination so as to close or re-purpose one or more of the buildings in the cluster. 

 

The first figure given for each of these schools is ratio of students enrolled by comparison to building capacity, with the second figure representing percentage of students enrolled by comparison to building capacity. 

 

Elementary Schools

 

These schools of low enrollment should be combined so that two of the four schools would be closed or re-purposed  >>>>>

 

Cityview                                                       

>>>>>   167 : 712  (24%)

Nellie Stone Johnson                                 

>>>>>   176 : 713  (25%)

Hmong International Academy 

>>>>>   167 : 712  (31%)

Lucy Laney

>>>>>   311 : 711  (41%%)

 

These schools of low enrollment should be combined so one of the two schools would be closed or re-purposed  >>>>>

 

Hall                                   

>>>>>   173 : 489  (36%)

Bethune                                                        

>>>>>   246 : 519  (47%)

 

These schools of low enrollment should be combined so one of the three schools would be closed or re-purposed  >>>>>

 

Folwell                             

>>>>>   319 : 863  (37%)

Bancroft                                                       

>>>>>   365 : 665  (55%)

Hale                                  

>>>>>   316 : 539  (59%)

 

These schools of low enrollment should be combined so one of the two schools would be closed or re-purposed  >>>>>

 

Lyndale                                                         

>>>>>   233 : 631  (47%)

Kenwood          

>>>>>   380 : 731  (52%)

 

 

Middle & K-8 Schools

 

These schools of low enrollment should be combined so one of the two schools would be closed or re-purposed  >>>>>

 

Anwatin                                                        

>>>>>   321 : 807  (40%)

Franklin                                          

>>>>>   288 : 655  (44%)

 

These schools of low enrollment should be combined so one of the three schools would be closed or re-purposed  >>>>>

 

Northeast                                      

>>>>>   506 : 936  (54%)

Sullivan                                                         

>>>>>   599 : 1,230  (49%)

Andersen  

>>>>>   877 : 1,530  (57%)                                     

 

 

High Schools

 

The high schools of the Minneapolis Public Schools present the most awkward situation for closing or re-purposing.

 

North High School has an enrollment that is only thirty percent (30%) of capacity;  however, the nearest high schools to North (Camden and Edison), while also not presenting very efficient building usage, are high enough to make combination with North difficult, and in the case of Edison issues of historical and geographical identity also weigh against combination with North.

 

The building housing North High School, therefore, might be divided for repurposing part of the building, or perhaps combining Franklin Middle School and North High School within that same building could be a solution.

 

North                                              

>>>>>   506 :  1,678  (30%)

 

 

Camden                                         

>>>>>   857 : 1,414  (61%)

Edison

>>>>>   897 : 1,395  (64%)

 

 

Roosevelt High School has an enrollment that is only fifty-one percent (51%) of capacity;  however, the nearest high schools to North (South and, especially, Washburn and Southwest) have fairly large enrolments as percentage of capacity

 

The building housing High School, therefore, might be divided for repurposing part of the building, ideally giving space to government or private entities that provide services contributing to the health and well-being of students. 

 

 

Roosevelt                                       

>>>>>   1,048 : 2,051  (51%)

 

 

South                               

>>>>>   1,464 : 2,092  (71%)

Southwest                                     

>>>>>   1,484 : 2,092  (71%)

Washburn

>>>>>   1,582 : 1,730  (82%)

 

 

Evaluating building usage is a task that should have begun at least three years ago, at the time when Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox had an in-house study done of the matter, a study that anticipated the more detailed report recently given by demographer Hazel Reinhardt.  Both studies provided powerful evidence that within ten (10) years low birth rates and major reductions in school-age populations will result in a decline of Minneapolis Public Schools enrollment from the current approximately 29,000 students to an enrollment not likely to be more than 24,000.

 

Closing schools has been done many times in the history of the Minneapolis Public Schools;  a bevy of schools were closed twenty years ago.  Among them were Shingle Creek Elementary, North Star Elementary, Willard Elementary, and Lincoln Middle School.

 

That this particular Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams and this iteration of the MPS Board of Education have failed to take action is one of the many indications of a school district laboring under the poorest leadership I have witnessed in the course of my eleven (11) years of intensive investigation into the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

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