Minneapolis Public Schools

[Tyler]

I'm assuming they've considered this (at least a little) but the wealthy kids in kenwood that they think will save north won't save north....because they wont go to north. They will move or go to private school.

[QuietBlue]

I'm assuming they've considered this (at least a little) but the wealthy kids in kenwood that they think will save north won't save north....because they wont go to north. They will move or go to private school.

Or go to a charter school, or open enroll in another district -- Minnesota is one of the most friendly states to interdistrict enrollment.

[fehler]

North is already empty because everyone now open enrolls to Hopkins or Minnetonka. Perhaps the thinking is "maybe if our attendance area looks more well-off, the local families will treat the local school with more respect and work to improve it."

I think any Kenwood family that can afford private school is already in private school.

[Tyler]

I think any Kenwood family that can afford private school is already in private school.

In my personal experience this is definitely not true. There is a huge contingent Kenwood area families (and I don't mean Kenwood the neighborhood, i mean the elementary school zone) that can afford private school and are happy (even enthused) with the current pathway. In my opinion those are the kids that will not go to North. A lot of these people are "public school" people philosophically, so I think many of these families will just move out of the district and into Southwest or St Louis Park or Golden Valley.

[talindsay]

Yes, that's a really key point - a lot of liberal wealthy people are "public school" philosophically, but that doesn't mean they'll take big risks about the quality of their kids' schools. They'll stay in the public schools as long as they're allowed to select a school they think is good enough, but if MPS doesn't give them the right options they'll either open enroll in another school district or they'll go private.

[twincitizen]

Updated plan released.

Strib story: https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis ... 569163152/
presentation/maps: https://www.startribune.com/read-minnea ... 569170121/

[fehler]

Interesting, no more community K-8s. The K-8s in my area (Lake Nokomis, Folwell, Field/Hale) going to K-5 may be in improvement, smaller area focus hopefully means smaller school population. It also looks like it will be easier to close schools in the future, if all the adjacent schools have the same grades/programs.

South/Anderson becomes Lake Street High. Half of Sanford's population will shift, losing a bunch to Anderson while absorbing all the Lake Nokomis students.

[twincitizen]

They do seem to have corrected some of the more obvious flaws in earlier plans. The biggest geographic "problem" remains the location of North High...it's at the very northern edge of its attendance area, drawing kids from as far south as 36th Street. For comparison, Anwatin Middle has the exact same attendance area as North High, but it sits more in the middle of that zone. And North High just isn't well-located for transit service. North High sits right between the C and D Lines (a few blocks walk from either Penn or Emerson Aves, not sure about station locations). It's closer to the 7 on Plymouth, but that doesn't serve much of its area. I still see no way how this part of the plan works unless they're bringing back yellow school buses for high school kids or designing a new Metro Transit route from Uptown to North that doesn't go downtown (which is not a bad idea on its own. With the C Line running, maybe the old 19 can come down Van White and run to Uptown Station or pair up with a branch of another route)

Not sure what the renovation status is on that school building, but if they are serious about retaining kids in the district (both from north and south), perhaps MPS should be studying a new high school location somewhere near Glenwood & the impound lot property (basically on Van White Blvd -- "Van Freeman White High School" has a nice ring to it (even though he attended Patrick Henry). Having a brand new Minneapolis high school accessible by SWLRT (and the C Line coming from North) would make good sense anyways (ignoring current budget constraints), but it would especially make sense for this attendance area. The main reason being kids from south of 394 could actually get there.

[Tyler]

In case anyone is curious how this is going:
https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/06/1 ... volvement/
(for the record I think the article itself is poorly done, doesn't even mention CDD or charter schools)

[Nick]

It did seem like an odd strategy to end the strike by committing to use a bunch of one time funding to create ongoing expenses when there was already a significant budget deficit--not sure if anyone noticed this at the time.

[MNdible]

Hard to believe that was the outcome, when the teacher's union was negotiating against a board made up of stern capitalist pencil pushers... [checks notes] endorsed by the teacher's union.

[Hero]

$976 million budget for 28000 students? If my calculator is to be believed then they are spending 34,857 per student. I have no idea what the typical student costs but that strikes me as a bit high (especially so given student performance in MPS).

[thespeedmccool]

It does strike me as mismanagement, but I really don't know what a school district's spending should look like. I'd appreciate a breakdown of their expenses and a longform Reformer piece explaining what looks normal and what doesn't.

[uptownbro]

That seems very high to me. In MN the avg was $14,000 per student in 2020. No doubt MPS has challenges that many other school districts don't but even so. A detailed break down would be very helpful to assess if its mismanagement or just the district

[Tom H.]

It would indeed be interesting to understand how and why the average spending per student is so high. I imagine that, as a legacy school district with shrinking enrollment, administrative overhead and facilities are probably overbuilt and difficult to downsize / offload efficiently.

[MNdible]

$976 million budget for 28000 students? If my calculator is to be believed then they are spending 34,857 per student. I have no idea what the typical student costs but that strikes me as a bit high (especially so given student performance in MPS).

Not sure how that jibes with this quote from the article:

The district spent $3,900 more per pupil on general operating costs in 2021 than the 15 other largest districts in Minnesota, according to MPS data. According to a state education department database, Minneapolis spends over $20,000 per student in general funds.

[Tyler]

The per pupil costs are always just general fund expenditures. This is true across the board...

The $976 million for MPS includes everything-- capital projects fund, debt service fund, food service, etc.

So yeah MPS is spending more than other districts, but not nearly to the extent that's being implied by some of the previous posts.

[Tyler]

(especially so given student performance in MPS).

Also, as an aside, this comment is exactly wrong in my opinion. The same kids who score poorly on testing are the same kids who cost more money to educate.

[NickP]

(especially so given student performance in MPS).

Also, as an aside, this comment is exactly wrong in my opinion. The same kids who score poorly on testing are the same kids who cost more money to educate.

Agreed

[Tiller]

$976 million budget for 28000 students? If my calculator is to be believed then they are spending 34,857 per student. I have no idea what the typical student costs but that strikes me as a bit high (especially so given student performance in MPS).

Not sure how that jibes with this quote from the article:

The district spent $3,900 more per pupil on general operating costs in 2021 than the 15 other largest districts in Minnesota, according to MPS data. According to a state education department database, Minneapolis spends over $20,000 per student in general funds.

This seems to imply that a large part of that $35k/student number is probably capital expenses. It could be pretty reasonable if MPS just has more end-of-lifecycle stuff to deal with right now compared to other districts. Depreciation often isn't accounted for until it's time for replacement.