Article #5 in a Series >>>>> Warning to Decision-Makers at the St. Paul Public Schools >>>>> Don’t Make a Mistake Similar to That Made by the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education in Selecting Lisa Sayles-Adams as MPS Superintendent

A Cautionary Tale from the Failed Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Search That Resulted in the Sub-Mediocre, Mean-Spirited, Deceitful Lisa Sayles-Adams Becoming MPS Superintendent as of 5 February 2024  >>>>>   Look to Fridley for the Superior Talent Represented by Rochelle Cox and Aimee Fearing

 

Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendents from the 1980s include Richard Green, Robert Herrera, Peter Hutchinson (officially, his organization [Public Strategies Group] constituted a collective superintendent), David Jenkins, Carol Johnson, Thandiwe Peebles, Bill Green, Bernadeia Johnson, and Ed Graff.  They have all been failures;  in particular, none of these superintendents articulated a viable plan for providing necessary skill acquisition for students facing grave economic and associated challenges;  but further, none of these superintendents succeeded in providing knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum for MPS students as a whole.

The history of failure of superintendents in Minneapolis and urban school districts across the nation makes the ascendance of Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox to the leadership position at the Minneapolis Public Schools a development of supreme importance.

Cox created a substantially new cabinet that included an entirely new contingent of associate superintendents, given a directive carefully to monitor academic programming and results at the specific schools for which each is responsible.  There was a new math curriculum (Bridges/Number Corner) that for the first time in recent memory was implemented across all grade levels at all schools.  And for reading/language arts, a similar uniformity of implementation was guided by the primary curriculum (Benchmark Advance), with students facing particular struggles at schools that have confronted such challenges for years receiving highly intentional skill development on the basis of programs known as Groves, PRESS (“Pathways to Reading Excellence”), and LETRS (“Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling”).  High dosage tutoring was provided by the firms of Carnegie and Axiom.

At the behest of Cox, Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing led an effort to bring subject area substance to grades pre-K through 5, so that student verbal skills would be developed, as they should be, in the context of logically sequenced readings in history, government, geography, multi-cultural literature, and the fine arts;  accordingly, students would develop vocabulary across a multiplicity of subjects that lie at the core of advanced reading development. 

Cox and staff also added online high-dosage tutoring and online ACT training for the 2022-2023 academic year, with in-person highly intentional tutoring in the offing for academic year 2023-2024;  The latter initiative featured 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.  

Rochelle Cox was an interim superintendent with a chance to provide an unprecedentedly high quality of education for students at a locally centralized school district, particularly those facing challenges born of a brutal history that has created and maintained conditions of cyclical familial poverty for many decades at the urban core.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

But the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education badly bungled the search that resulted in Lisa Sayles-Adams becoming MPS superintendent as of 5 February 2024.

In autumn 2022 A. J. Crabill of the Council of Great City Schools sent the previous iteration of the MPS Board of Education.  Seemingly against expectation of key members of that Board, Mr. Crabill counseled members to use a search or a law firm only for vetting and handling logistics:  He conveyed his conviction that astute Boards are always in readiness when the need arises to select a new superintendent and should always be cultivating internal candidates.

The previous Board, especially as impelled by four key members, ignored Mr. Crabill’s advice and endeavored to put in place a suggested time table for a very conventional process in selecting the next superintendent.  The members of the current Board, which with new members elected in November 2022, in large measure followed the signals of the previous Board and charted a very conventional search, except that on 7 March 2023 the voted to extend the contract of Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox. 

With Board members gave hope that they understood the historically unprecedented nature of the extraordinary initiatives authored by the Interim Superintendent and executed brilliantly by her staff.  Rochelle Cox led the Minneapolis Public Schools forward toward a model for urban public school districts across the United States.

An astute Board would have heeded A. J. Crabill’s advice, gone in-house, and asked Rochelle Cox to become the long-term superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools.  Such a Board would never have given their decision-making responsibility to a task-force that included 14 (of the 17 total) members not elected by the voters in the district. 

That task force was tumultuous, eventually necessitating members of the search firm BWT Associates to mediate among acrimonious members.  Two loud members of that task force came to dominate the committee and prevented Rochelle Cox’s name being reported out, along with Sonia Stewart and Lisa Sayles-Adams, as one of three finalists for consideration by the whole Board.

But the task force was formally just charged with recommending candidates to be considered as finalists.  The Board could have added Cox’s name to the list of finalists, so that the whole Board would have had the ability to assess her record compared to the other candidates.

But the overweening influence of two task force members prevailed.  Not a single member of the MPS Board of Education objected to being given the options of two mediocre candidates, Stewart and Sayles-Adams.  Sayles-Adams won on an 8-1 vote.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

The insecure Lisa Sayles-Adams proceeded in the months of late spring 2024 to demonstrate that she is the typical education establishment functionary whose paramount goal is to preserve her sinecure.  Jealous of Rochelle Cox’s accomplishments, Sayles-Adams made clear that Cox would not be welcomed back (after 27 years at the Minneapolis Public Schools) for the 2023-2024 academic year;  she also jettisoned Senior Academic Officer Aimee Fearing and Senior Information Technology Officer Justin Hennes.

Sayles-Adams appointed Ty Thompsen as new MPS Deputy Superintendent.  Thompson is the second mediocrity that she has appointed who has similar training to herself;  the other is Tia Clasen, tapped to fill the position of Senior Academic Officer.  The appointment of Thompsen brings to the district an academic mediocrity but who adds to the bureaucratic burden with another salary ranging over $200,000.  And these two lamentable appointments come in the aftermath of Sayles’ Adams’s hiring of Tom Parent, who has red flogs waving from a sexual harassment settlement during his tenure in the St. Paul Public Schools, as MPS Senior Operations Officer.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

The St. Paul Public Schools (SPPS)  Board of Education hired BWP Associates, the same firm with a highly questionable track record that led the MPS superintendent search, to lead the SPPS superintendent search.

BWP Associates has a unique chance at redemption by recommending that the SPPS Board look to the Fridley district for the talent represented by Rochelle Cox as prospective superintendent and Aimee Fearing as academic officer.  Those two would be fully capable of proceeding with the initiatives begun at the Minneapolis Public Schools, with prospects of transforming SPPS into a model district for others serving students living at the urban core.