An Open Letter to Kimberly Haynes (Minneapolis Public Schools Data Privacy Director), with copies to Senior Human Resources Officer Alicia Miller, Human Resources Executive Director Scott Weber, Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop, Administrator to the Superintendent and Board Ryan Strack, and General Counsel Jamie Jonassen

16 June 2025  >>>>>  Still seeking overdue, straightforward responses to Data Request #25-116 and Data Request #25-125

June 16, 2025

Kimberly---  

May this note find you off to a good start in the new work week.

..............................................................................................................................

Thirty-one days have now passed since I issued Data Request #25-116, with twenty days having ensued since I issued Data Request #25-125.

Our spectacular annual New Salem Educational Initiative banquet will occur at midweek, so that no later than next week I will have even more ample time than usual for my 18-hour expenditure of activist energies to devote to this increasingly bizarre episode;  I'll be bringing governmental and, as necessary in the course of the summer, litigatory attention to requests that should have taken a competent administration only a day, two, or three to respond with the provision of four basic items of data.  

In the course of my eleven years of intensive investigation into the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools, I have usually held to the position that the departments within the Academic Division were disastrously ineffective, while the Human Resources Division and, especially, the Finance Division demonstrated a high degree of professional competence;  similarly, those in General Counsel and others responding to Data Requests have operated with clarity and responsiveness.  But under the current administration, these latter divisions and bureaucratic entities have become suspect, as well, thus likely to gain additional analytical examination in the second addition of Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect.

Please make every effort to secure clear responses to Data Request #25-116 and Data Request #25-125, giving just the numerical figures for the total of four very simple questions posed.

...............................................................................................................................

Data Request #25-116 (16 May 2025)

According to your response to my Data Request #25-113, “Barring any further changes to the budget plan, there will be 585.3092 FTE assigned to Davis Center as of July 1, 2025.”

 

Given the above response, the essence of this 16 May 2025 Data Request, is as follows  >>>>>

 

>>>>>   Please answer the following question:  

 

Of the 585.3092 FTE that will be assigned to the Davis Center barring any further changes to the budget plan, how many will be filled by employees?

...............................................................................................................................

Data Request #25-125 (27 May 2025)

 

Please provide clear answers to the following questions  >>>>>

 

>>>>>   How many staff members were working at the Davis Center as of 14 April 2025?

 

>>>>>   How many staff members were working at the Davis Center as of 13 May 2025?

 

>>>>>   How many staff members will be working at the Davis Center when FY26 Budget is finalized?

 

 

Note  >>>>>  Please answer the above questions directly and simply, not with reference to FTEs or with extraneous information, but as posed: 

 

Please give the number of staff members, as in people who were or would be working at the Davis Center on the given dates and when FY26 Budget is finalized if all staff members were present at the three given junctures.

.....................................................................................................................

With best regards--- 

 

Gary 

 

Gary Marvin Davison, Ph.D.

Director, New Salem Educational Initiative

2507 Bryant Ave North

Minneapolis    MN     55411

http://www.newsalemeducation.blogspot.com

 

 

Author,

 

Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect (New Salem Educational Initiative, second edition, 2025

Foundations of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education (New Salem Educational Initiative, 2022

A Concise History of African America (Seaburn, 2004)

The State of African Americans in Minnesota 2004 (Minneapolis Urban League, 2008)

The State of African Americans in Minnesota 2008 (Minneapolis Urban League, 2004) 

Tales from the Taiwanese (Libraries Unlimited, 2004)

A Short History of Taiwan:  The Case for Independence (Praeger, 2003

Culture and Customs of Taiwan ([with Barbara E. Reed] (Greenwood, 1998)

Agricultural Development and the Fate of Farmers in Taiwan, 1945-1990 (Minneapolis, Minnesota:  Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1993)

A World History:  Links Across Time and Place ([with six other authors] (McDougal Littell, 1988)

Minneapolis Public Schools Academic Proficiency Rates Years Ending in 2014 through 2024

Minneapolis Public Schools 

Academic Proficiency Rates

Years Ending in 2014 through 2024

 

             2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 

All

Students

 

Math     44%  44%  44%  42%  42%  42% 35%  33% 35% 35%  

 

Reading  42%  42%  43%  43%  45%  47% 40% 42%  41% 40% 

 

Science   33%  36%  35%  34%  34%  36% 36%  33%  31% 32% 

 

Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs)

Student Proficiency Rates

Academic Years Ending in 2014 through 2024

 

Note:    Data given for the academic year ending in 2024 in the category of “All Students” only;  disaggregated data for that year will be forthcoming, as will number of students tested for all categories.

 

                    2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022  2023  2024

 

African                      

American

 

Math         22%  23%  21%  15%  18%  18%  9% 10%   8%     8%      

 

Reading     22%  21%  21%  21%  22%  23% 19% 18% 16% 15%      

 

Science      11%  15%  13%  12%  11%  11%  11%   8%   6%   6%    

 

American

Indian

 

Math           23%  19%  19%  17%  17%  18%  9%    9%  10%  12%     

 

Reading       21%  20%  21%  23%  24%  25% 20% 22%  19% 18%    

 

Science        14%  16%  13%  12%  14%  17%    9%  9%    7%  12%  

 

Hispanic/

Latine

 

Math            31%  32%  31%  29%  26%  25%  12%  12%  12%  11%   

 

Reading         22%  21%  21%  21%  22%  23% 19%  18%  16%  12%    

 

Science          17%  18%  21%  19%  17%  16%  10%  11%    9%   8%             

 

Asian

American

 

Math            48%  50%  50%  49%  50%  47%   46%    39%  25% 26%   

 

Reading        41%  40%  45%  41%  48%  50%   54%  49%  33%  31%      

 

Science          31%  35%  42%  35%  37%  40%   43%   36% 27%  28%

 

White

 

Math            77%  78%  78%  77%  77%  75%    62%   61% 65%   68%   

 

Reading       78%  77%  77%  78%  80%  78%    74%   71%  72%   73%   

 

Science         71%  75%  71%  70%  71%  70%    61%   60%  59%   61%

The Administration of the Minneapolis Public Schools Led by Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams Is Making Misleading Claims Regarding the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget

Academically fraudulent (see my articles on her abominably written dissertation) Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams appears to have implicated Data Practices and Records Management Officer Kimberly Haynes, Senior Human Resources Officer Alicia Miller, Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop, Human Resources Executive Director Scott Weber, and MPS Assistant to the Superintendent and Board Ryan Strack in an effort to mislead the public---  and the members of the MPS Board of Education---  regarding the number and type of staff reductions that have been made at the Davis Center (MPS central offices, 1250 West Broadway).

 

Several problems have arisen regarding the integrity of those staff reduction claims  >>>>>

 

>>>>>   Three different figures have been given for Davis Center staff reduction percentages:

 

1)  14.22%, made in a document presented at the 22 April 2025 MPS Board of Education Committee of the Whole;  

 

2)  11.74%, made in a document presented at the 13 May 2025 regular business meeting of the MPS Board of Education;  

 

and

 

3)  and 13.8%, remarkably made by Ryan Strack at that very same 13 May 2025 MPS Board of Education regular business meeting---  and reiterated in personal communications to me by Strack and Kimberly Haynes.   

 

>>>>>   In addition to the conflicting claims as to percentage of staff cuts, there is the matter of the figures not actually being made on the basis of Davis Center employee staff cuts at all, but rather on the basis of the number of FTEs (Full Time Equivalencies) assigned to the Davis Center.

  

Based on information provided to me, reductions in FTEs for employees actually working at the Davis Center constituted less than a one percent (1%) reduction---  00.17 % (zero and seventeen hundredths percent)---   between 14 April 2025 and 13 May 2025;  and figures of sufficient clarity have not been provided to conclude what even the reduction of FTEs for those actually working at the Davis Center will be when the FY26 Budget is finalized.

 

Further, I have issued two formal Data Requests endeavoring to secure figures for actual staff reductions (in people---  Davis Center employees---  not FTEs) and have followed up with courteous entreaties to Haynes to provide the requested figures. 

 

I am still waiting.

 

My Data Requests are of a type that should be readily made to the public, and of the kind that the MPS Board of Education should be expecting in deciding whether to approve the FY26 Budget at the looming Tuesday, 10 May 2025, regular monthly business meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

Failure to follow Minnesota statues pertinent to public data leaves the Lisa Sayles-Adams administration at the Minneapolis Public Schools vulnerable to litigation.

 

Extracts from documents pertaining to the apparent attempt of the Lisa Sayles-Adams administration to mislead the public are given below  >>>>>

  

 

Minneapolis Public Schools

FY26 Budget

22 April 2025

Committee of the Whole

 

“Position Change Analysis”

 

“Staff based at the Davis Center are being reduced by 14.22%, with the most significant reductions in the Association of Minneapolis School District Professionals (13.70%), Minneapolis Association of Confidential Administrators (12.32%), Minneapolis Association of Administrators and Supervisors (10.04%) bargaining units, and in non-represented staff (16.67%).”

 

FY26 Proposed Budget

Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop

13 May 2025

Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education

Monthly Business Meeting

 

“FY26 Department Allocations Review”

 

Significant reductions were made in the non-school facing portion of department allocations to minimize the impact on students directly as much as possible.

 

Positions based at the Davis Center are being reduced by 11.74%, with the most significant reductions in the Associations od Minneapolis School District Professionals (15.45%) and Minneapolis Association of Confidential Administrators (12.32%) bargaining units, and in non-represented positions (16.67%).

 

Sum of Current Year FTE                            >>>>>                  678.8521

 

Sum of Next Year FTE                                 >>>>>                  585.3092

 

Sum of FTE Difference                                >>>>>                 - 93.5429  (negative 93.5429)

 

Sum of FTE Percentage Difference          >>>>>                 - 13.78  (negative 13.78)

 

 

Data Request of 27 May 2025

 

Please provide clear answers to the following questions  >>>>>

 

>>>>>   How many staff members were working at the Davis Center as of 14 April 2025?

 

>>>>>   How many staff members were working at the Davis Center as of 13 May 2025?

 

>>>>>   How many staff members will be working at the Davis Center when FY26 Budget is finalized?

 

 

Note  >>>>>  Please answer the above questions directly and simply, not with reference to FTEs or with extraneous information, but as posed: 

 

Please give the number of staff members, as in people who were or would be working at the Davis Center on the given dates and when FY26 Budget is finalized if all staff members were present at the three given junctures.

 

Data Request of 16 May 2025

According to your response to my Data Request #25-113, “Barring any further changes to the budget plan, there will be 585.3092 FTE assigned to Davis Center as of July 1, 2025.”

 

Given the above response, the essence of this 16 May 2025 Data Request, is as follows  >>>>>

 

>>>>>   Please answer the following question:  

 

Of the 585.3092 FTE that will be assigned to the Davis Center barring any further changes to the budget plan, how many will be filled by employees?

 

 

Data Request of 15 May 2025

 

Please provide clear answers to the following questions  >>>>>

 

>>>>>   How many staff members worked at the Davis Center as of 14 April, 2025?

 

>>>>>   How many staff members were working at the Davis Center as of 13 May, 2025?

 

>>>>>   How many staff members will be working at the Davis Center when the reductions to the FY26 Budget are finalized?

 

 

Email from Kimberly Haynes  >>>>>

 

Hello,

 

Please see below for information that is responsive to your request. Additionally, based on emails I have received from you outside of this portal, I have provided a copy of the data sets used to prepare the budget presentation at the Regular Business Meeting held on May 13,2025 and the Committee of the Whole Meeting on April 22,2025. Please note that the presentation on May 13, 2025, reduces the positions being impacted at Davis Center to 13.78%.

 

Within the Excel file, the sheet labeled “ByPersonnelAreaName” allows you to filter changes by work location for more detailed analysis. However, please be aware that the sheet organized by division, labeled “byDivison” does not align with the public presentation. This is due to its reliance on an outdated organizational structure and the absence of an additional analytical step that is required to reconcile the figures.

 

Another important factor worth pointing out is that budget decisions relating to position reductions are based on positions and full-time equivalencies, rather than people. As I mentioned in my response to Request #25-92, in some cases, we are closing positions that are currently vacant so there will be no employee impacted in these cases, however, there is still a reduction to the planned resources.

 

The data being provided represents is the current FTE of positions located at the Davis Center for FY2025 as well as the planned budgeted FTE of positions located at the Davis Center for

FY2026.

 

1.        How many staff members worked at the Davis Center as of 14 April, 2025?

 

§  There were 678.8521 FTE assigned to Davis Center as of 14 April, 2025. Of these FTE, 607.015 FTE were filled by employee

 

2.       How many staff members were working at the Davis Center as of 13 May, 2025?

 

§   There were 678.8521 FTE assigned to Davis Center as of 13 May, 2025. Of these FTE, 606.015 FTE were filled by employees.

 

3.       How many staff members will be working at the Davis Center when the reductions to the FY26 Budget are finalized?

 

§  Barring any further changes to the budget plan, there will be 585.3092 FTE assigned to Davis Center as of July 1, 2025.

 

This completes MPS’ response to your request.

 

Thank you,

 

Kimberly Haynes

 

Data Practices and Records Management

 

Minneapolis Public Schools

 

 

Email from Ryan Strack  >>>>>

 

Dr. Davison,

 

Below please find the requested information from our HR system regarding positions with the Davis Center as their job location.

 

 

Sum of CurrentYearFTE	Sum of NextYearFTE	Sum of FTE Difference	Sum of FTE Pct Difference
678.8521	585.3092	-93.5429	-13.78%

 

Thanks,
Ryan

Contemplating Walden Three

A Concise Treatise by Gary Marvin Davison

 

The seminal ideas of B. F. Skinner, presented in such works as the scholarly Behavior of Organisms (1938) and Contingencies of Reinforcement (1969); and the mass market Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971); more than those any other scholar serve as a guide to forging a better future for humankind as we move forward in the twenty-first century. 

 

The scholarly works provide in elaborate, sophisticated detail the highly intricate schedules of reinforcement, undergirded by the fundamental principles of positive reinforcement, punishment and negative reinforcement (the termination of aversive [punishing] conditions) that determine, along with neuro-physiological conditions present in particular human organisms at birth, why people do what they do.

 

I have long contemplated Skinner’s behaviorist principles and conceptualized innovations upon those tenets:

 

In my view, the fundamental truths of Skinnerian principles should be accompanied by a fuller account of how human cognition and decision-making function in the context of those principles;  and by a literary reimagining productive of a beneficially functioning society, Walden Three, might be established on behaviorist principles operating in the year 2025, seventy-seven years after the great psychologist wrote Walden Two. 

 

Cognitive processes clearly play a role in determining human behavior.  Most people imagine that these processes indicate free will options being exercised by people acting upon the power of volition;  in fact, when making decisions at any given temporal juncture, people are reviewing their stored memories for the most similar circumstances they can cognitively locate so as to determine the most positively rewarding action to take at the present moment.  Ultimately, people act not on the basis of choice, but on the basis of a decision-making process that seeks to avoid punishing outcomes, to relieve any prevailing aversive conditions, and to produce the most rewarding physical, emotional, and spiritual results.

  

The ideal community of Walden Three would be located in circumstances of natural beauty and operate according to practices most likely to promote and sustain the most pristine natural environment possible.  People would be highly conscious of how their personal habits affect their own health and that of others, so that abundant aerobic exercise, highly nutritious and fibrous diet, and psycho-emotional outlets are part of their regular routines.  Personal and community libraries would be stocked with great literature and abundant multi-subject information, available in both digital and hard copy formats.   Opportunities and an instilled attitude conducive to the discussion of matters of great political and ethical importance would be pervasive, upon the basis of knowledge-intensive, skill replete public education that is free to all from early childhood to the post-secondary stages.  Those conditions of ill-health that cannot be avoided even after the best preventive health measures have been taken would be countered with supreme health care available without cost to all.  An abiding community ethic would encourage people to select vocational activity most synchronous with their own talents and interests, and most likely to promote the best interests of the community.  The economy would function much as those in the democratic socialist nations of the world, maintaining the individual profit motive with equitable pay and a wide array of social services available to all citizens.

 

The participants in the ideal community of Walden Three should promulgate their precepts and practices to serve as a guide to the larger society, so that the latter becomes the highly developed democratic socialist society of the future.

In Praise of Liberal Capitalism as the Systemic Conduit to Democratic Socialism

A Concise Treatise by Gary Marvin Davison

 

In the liberal capitalist democracies of the world, those of the numerically dominant middleclass wake to a potential Eden.

 

Those in their youth and middle age and, increasingly, those in their early elder years, at the median rise in good health and frame of brain, especially if they have taken advantage of the knowledge that has evolved under capitalist dominance over the course of the last two centuries as to health, diet, and exercise.

 

These middleclass beneficiaries of capitalist innovation go to their place of employment, earn a salary of $75,000 or more and often put that together with another in the family for a combined total of $150.000.  If they have seized the advantage of opportunity to select a job that is compatible with their values, they will work happily at this means of employment for 40 years or so, with options to move from place of employment under the circumstances of liberal capitalist democracy.

 

When these lucky occupants of society’s middle class in a liberal capitalist democracy go to the supermarket, they may select from a cornucopia of edibles from the region of their residence, their state, the nation, and the world---    this as a result of the agricultural productivity under the Green Revolution induced by research, innovation, and economic efficiency in the advanced liberal capitalist democracies of the world;  and the advances in shipping and marketing also made possible by these economic and political systems.

 

In their moments of leisure, middle class people have an extreme variety of options, from the technological to the intellectual to the natural;  these options may be exercised at the level of the home, community, town, city, state, and the nation;  and they may be seized as opportunity to travel globally, to witness the astounding beauty and cultural variety that exists across the world.

 

Living in a liberal capitalist democracy affords one the material means and the temporal space to contemplate the highest ethical principles for living happily and altruistically.  One can imagine life at Life’s best.  One can construct a future in which the downside of capitalism, with potential for class and environmental exploitation, is turned back upward with solutions to what humanity at worst has wrought.

 

Thus, liberal capitalist democracy offers humanity the opportunity to seize the many advantages of the system for application to the solution of the dilemmas created under that same system and forge a future most advantageous for all.

 

None of this would have been possible under primitive communism, slave society, or feudalism;  the advantages of liberal capitalist democracy make possible the creation of the next dominant stage, at which people live equitably and with common joy, according to a sense of purpose guided by the principle of Justice and Joy for All.

 

We already have certain societies---  those of Scandinavia and Taiwan---  that have advanced very far along the continuum that would lead toward the ideal society.  Liberal capitalist democracy made this advance possible, along with specific serendipitous features of those societies that have propelled them to the fore of human development.

 

The role of liberal capitalist democratic policies in forging these ethically most advanced societies raises the question as to whether liberal capitalist economic principles will continue to exist as the human ideal is approached, so that highly advanced democratic socialist society in which common human concern oversees a liberal economic system made ever more humane will in fact be the highest form of politico-social arrangement for humanity.

 

The highest development of liberal capitalist democracy will have made possible the dominance of democratic socialist principles and given humanity the best chance for Happiness.  

Introduction to a Multi-Article Series >>>>> Minneapolis Public Schools Davis Center (Central Office) Staff by Position and Salary

In the articles immediately following this introduction, readers will find a listing of all Minneapolis Public Schools Davis Center (Central Office) staff members by position and salary.

 

Staff members at the Davis Center total 568 (five hundred sixty-eight) by my current calculation;.  sixteen additional staff members may occupy positions at the Davis Center, but as I clarify the actual figure, I am proceeding with the figure of 568 (five hundred sixty-eight) as reference for most of the comments and data that I provide in this series.

 

The figure of 568 would be a reduction of 26 (twenty-six) staff members from the figure of 594 (five hundred ninety-four) that prevailed eight months ago, in September 2024;  this would calculate to a 4.38% reduction.

 

The figure of 584 would be a reduction of 10 (ten) staff members from the figure of 594 (five hundred ninety-four) that prevailed eight months ago, in September 2024;  this would calculate to a 1.68% reduction.

 

Both figures (4.38% and 1.68%) would be far short of the 14.22% reduction claimed in the FY 26 Budget document presented by Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams and staff at the 22 April 2025 Committee of the Whole meeting of Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education. 

 

The claim in that document is that “Staff based at the Davis Center are being reduced by 14.22%” for fiscal year 2026. If the latter claim is valid, further cuts will be made in staff by comparison to the mid-April figures on which the current series is based.

Current median salary at the Davis Center is $83,291.

The 568 five hundred sixty-eight) Davis staff members are given by category of salary received, as follows.

 

 

Over $200,000

 

6 (six) staff members

 

$180,000 to $200,000

 

4 (four) staff members

 

$145,000 to $170,000

 

14 (fourteen) staff members

 

$125,000 to $145,000

 

32 (thirty-two) staff members

 

$100,000 to $125,000

 

116 (fourteen) staff members

 

$90,000 to $100,000

 

55 (fifty-five) staff members

 

$80,000 to $90,000

 

75 (seventy-five) staff members

 

$70,000 to $80,000

 

86 (eighty-six) staff members

 

 

$60,000 to $70,000

 

28 (twenty-eight) staff members

 

 

$50,000 to $60,000

 

71 (seventy-one) staff members

 

 

$40,000 to $50,000

 

64 (sixty-four) staff members

 

 

$30,000 to $40,000

 

8 (eight) staff members

 

 

$20,000 to $30,000

 

7 (seven) staff members

 

 

Under $20,000

 

2 (two) staff members

 

…………………………………………………..

 

Total   >>>>>   568   (five hundred sixty-eight) staff members

 

…………………………………………………..