Current Minneapolis Public Schools Board of
Education Membership: Worst in a Decade
This edition of Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota provides information pertinent to, and a critique of the performance of, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education.
The current composition of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education is the worst that I have witnessed, of many terrible iterations, in the course of my eleven years of intensive investigation into the inner workings of the district.
The current state of the MPS Board of education is traceable to events of the week that began on 27 November 2023 and ended on 1 December 2023, whereby the Board, having against my counsel left the selection to a Superintendent Search Task Force, completed an errant sequence of actions that led to the disastrous selection of Lisa Sayles-Adams as the new superintendent.
Sayles-Adams and Sonia Stewart (currently Deputy Superintendent, Hamilton County Schools [Chattanooga TN]) and Lisa Sayles-Adams (currently Superintendent of Eastern Carver County Schools [Chaska MN area]) were the two candidates recommended by the 17-person Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Search Task Force. The creation of a Task Force was a mistake, as were all aspects of this failed spectacle that were associated with a conventional search.
My recommendation, for emphasis making reference to A.J Crabill’s advice for the Board to utilize a search firm only for logistics and candidate vetting, was to abjure conventional processes, understand Rochelle Cox’s unique talent, save time, get on with the mission, and hire her soon after she received the appointment as interim superintendent.
With exceptional energy and acuity, Cox and staff had superintended the introduction of a new math curriculum (Bridges/Number Corner) that for the first time in recent memory was followed across all grade levels at all schools; for reading/language arts, a similar uniformity of curriculum was followed in a process that discarded the Benchmark Advance curriculum and began trials that eventually resulted in the adoption of the UFLI (University Literacy Institute) curriculum in favor of a new curriculum currently under trial. During Cox’s tenure as interim superintendent, she and staff also moved with new vigor to ensure faithful implementation of the reading intervention programs Groves, PRESS (“Pathways to Reading Excellence”), and LETRS (“Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling”). Academic and Strategic Initiative staff introduced high dosage tutoring provided by the firms of Carnegie and Axiom, online ACT training and, most importantly, 133 three-person professional teams (one licensed teacher, two trained Education Support Professionals [ESPs]), each team responsible for addressing the academic needs of 75 students lagging below grade level and having not experienced growth in reading or mathematics skills for two successive quarters.
I maintained that position in the aftermath of Cox’s contract extension on 7 March 2023 and endeavored to advocate that the Board, observing brilliant presentation after brilliant presentation of unprecedented academic initiatives, to appoint Rochelle to the long-term position before the timetable was set, but to no avail.
The invitations to apply went out on 5 September 2023; the application window closed on 5 November. Twenty-five (25) people applied and BWP Associates (the search firm unfortunately hired by the MPS Board of Education) recommended five (5) to the Task Force for interviews; the Task Force recommended Stewart and Sayles-Adams to the Board as a whole.
As should have been predicted, the Task Force phase was critical and corrupt.
Any objective assessment would have at the very least recommended Rochelle Cox among the two or three referred to the Board as a whole.
But clearly there were connivers on the Task Force who did not want Cox’s name put forward, knowing that she would have a very good chance of getting the vote: My assessment was that she had the votes of Ira Jourdain, Kim Ellison, Joyner Emerick, and Abdul Abdi--- so that only one more vote for Cox would be needed before a potential cavalcade of votes might result in a clear majority.
After the corrupt decision by the Task Force, I recommended to Board members that they reclaim control of the process and at the very least include Cox’s name for consideration. The vote took place on Friday, 1 December; no such reclamation occurred, even by those who were the most in favor of Rochelle Cox’s academic initiatives and in favor of her gaining selection as long-term superintendent.
The 1 December vote went 8-1, a rather confusing development since Adriana Cerrillo had advocated energetically for Sonia Stewart during the discussion phase; only Ira Jourdain, though, cast his vote for Stewart.
Only a dozen or so people were in the audience--- very unusual, since such gatherings are often teeming with all manner of folks and their particularistic interests. One could have proverbially heard the proverbial pin drop throughout the meeting, including when the decision was made and officially announced--- even more unusual. The strong suggestion is that this Board move is unpopular and Sayles-Adams will begin with little enthusiastic backing from staff or community.
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Apparently, the discussion and debate within the MPS Superintendent Search Task Force turned very boisterous and acrimonious, with just a few members dominating the debate. MPS Board of Education Director and Clerk Lori Norvell, as chair of the Task Force, eventually called in staff from BWP associates, the search firm who identified five candidates from 25 applicants for recommendation to the Task Force, to mediate the discussion.
I do not at this point have a firm conclusion as to how only two candidates were recommended by the Task Force to the entire MPS Board of Education with the exclusion of Rochelle Cox’s name, but according to reports the majority of participants either supported her as the number one candidate or wanted her name recommended to the entire Board; supporters included the principal, the teacher not officially representing the MFT--- but maybe even the official MFT representative and probably the Education Support Professional (ESP [teacher’s aide), with whom Cox has developed an excellent relationship), at least three of the five community members, and the three students (including the two MPS Board of Education Student Representatives).
There is, then, a high probability that two or three voluble members prevailed in limiting the options to two candidates, not reporting Cox’s name out to the entire Board; Abhorrently, neither the Task Force nor the MPS Board of Education as a whole consulted senior staff and cabinet members in making their calamitous decision. Many staff members were in tears as the decision of 1 December was made.
During the Lisa Sayles-Adams administration that began on 5 February 2024, the Minneapolis Public Schools have sunk to the nadir of my witness since beginning an intensive investigation into the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools eleven years ago:
An initial Sayles-Adams “100-Day Plan turned out to be no plan at all.
“Listening Sessions” were held in spring 2024 that featured sham questions designed to elicit favorable responses from the very few community members who attended these events staged by Sayles-Adams and her sycophantic staff.
Board retreats and meetings led by consultants have resulted in no plan for addressing the wretched academic performance of MPS students; and those meetings have likewise produced no plan for addressing building usage under conditions of declining enrollment that by the year 2035 is projected to witness the district moving from the current approximately 29,000 students to roughly 23,000 young people enrolled in the district.
The fiasco that is the Lisa Sayles-Adams administration will be among the exhaustive coverage that I I will provide in the second edition of Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect.
Please proceed now to the articles below, whereby I give information and analysis of the current Board membership.
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