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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