Among Many Summer 2026 Activities, My Priority Will Be Refining the Substantially Complete Second Edition of >Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect< ----- and Taking the Leadership and Staff of the Lisa Sayles-Adams Administration Apart Piece by Piece

At this juncture, all regular academic sessions of the New Salem Educational Initiative have been completed for the 2025-2026 academic year, leaving only mini-rehearsals with individual and small groups of students, one all-cast rehearsal, and then the banquet on Tuesday, 16 June 2026.   

 

With activities of the New Salem Educational Initiative being in the concluding phase, and with Northfield Auto Care and Tires Plus having just completed a summer vehicle readiness regimen for the Matrix, I am very much looking forward to what is slated to be a very eventful and enjoyable summer.

I will as usual stay in touch with my students, who will be reading material that I have provided for the summer, and I will meet with individual students occasionally, especially for ACT preparation and to address particular academic concerns.

But I also have a bevy of travel and research plans for summer 2026. 

Four staged plays that I'll be attending loom in late June and July  >>>>>

Dramatized performance of Lisa May Alcott’s Little Women, at the Guthrie;  August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, at the Penumbra;  then Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and Pericles, at this year’s Great River Shakespeare Festival.

Most likely in late July/early August I will make my annual trek to Texas.

Barbara and I will also most likely do our summertime travel thang, perhaps including one of our longer jaunts but also the short trips that we have enjoyed making these last several summers, including Winona but additionally other excursions within Minnesota and the border states.

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

Then, I have a bevy of written material I’ll be churning out from my study.  

For many moons, I have aspired to get back to my history of North Minneapolis research and writing;  I aspire to write a book or an “as told to” of the life of the remarkable Spike Moss;  I have also wanted to interview the older deacons of New Salem, all of whom have very enthralling life stories;  and among many other literary aspirations I intend to focus much attention on beloved Taiwan. 

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

But my priority will be refining the substantially complete second edition of Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect.

Unfortunately, the intellectually corrupt and deceptive Lisa Sayles-Adams administration will add exciting material to the second edition, most especially including her abominably written dissertation;  sham “Listening Sessions”;  deceptive claims concerning central office staff reductions;  discontinuing promising skill intervention initiatives, online ACT tutoring, and online high-dosage tutoring;  ever worsening teaching and skill-deficient curriculum as actually delivered;  and attempts to besmirch the reputation while inducing the departure of Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop.

I also intend to highlight the failure of the MPS Board of Education to address building usage (with attention to low student enrollment by comparison to capacity);  inattention to skill proficiency rates and academic quality;  and autocratic aura that has driven away many reformer types who have now given up on the district.

I will be taking the leadership and staff of Minneapolis Public Schools apart piece by piece.