Good evening, directors, staff, family, students, and members of our community joining us here tonight and those watching online. I will now call this September 15, 2026 working session to order. Before we begin tonight, I want to take a few minutes to ground us in why we're here. Tonight is another significant moment for Minneapolis public schools. We've been talking for a long time about the challenges facing our district, a smaller student population than we had 20 and 30 years ago. Financial pressures. Buildings and programs that don't always meet the needs of our students. And most importantly, an educational experience that is not as consistent across our city as it needs to be. Tonight, after years of analysis, listening and planning, we will be looking at what we might actually do about it. I also want to acknowledge that this is deeply personal. Schools are more than buildings They are where children grow up. They're where families build relationships. There's that where staff dedicate years sometimes their entire careers. And where neighborhoods build community and belonging. So when we talk about changing programming, moving students, or potentially closing or consolidating schools. We should never pretend that those are simply numbers on a spreadsheet Because they're not But we also have a responsibility to be honest about something else. Doing nothing has its consequences too. If we simply maintain the system we have today, the structural challenges don't disappear They come back year after year in our budget, and every year that that happens we are forced to make reductions around the edges. Eventually those reductions can ultimately reach our classrooms, our programs our opportunities, and the people who work directly with our students. That is not transformation. The goal of this work has to be bigger than balancing a budget or operating fewer buildings. It has to be about giving students what they deserve. Can we, and by we I mean all of us. Can we create a district where families know their child will have access to strong academics, enriching programming, appropriate supports and building opportunities regardless of which MPS school they attend. Can we build a system that is financially sustainable enough to protect those opportunities over time? And can we become a district that families across Minneapolis once again want to see as a district they choose? That is a standard I will be thinking about tonight. The board asked the administration to bring us options based on the parameters we established and what we have heard from our community. Tonight is not a night for decisions. We would not be voting on anything tonight. It is a night for us to listen It's a night for us to ask questions. Understand the trade-offs. And begin evaluating whether these proposals move us toward the the school district our Minneapolis students deserve. There will be disagreement throughout this process. And that's OK. In fact, with decisions this consequential, we should, we should expect them But I hope we can approach this conversation with both empathy and courage. Empathy for the very real impact these decisions could have on students, families staff, and communities. And courage to confront the very real challenges facing this district. Because ultimately our responsibility isn't to preserve a system simply because it's the system we have. Our responsibility is to build the strongest public school system we can for the students we serve today. And for the generations of Minneapolis' students who will come after them. That is the work that's in front of us. With that, Clerk Norville, will you please call the roll for the record? Director Abdi Here Director Elaine as in Director Shafty. Director Currio. And I'm mute. OK, just letting you know that she said present. She's muted. She's joining us virtually. Um Director Norville here. Director Callahan present Vice Chair Ellison present. Director Emrick here. Student Representative Porva. Student Representative Webster Chair Beachy, present, thank you. We have a quorum Please let the record reflect that Directors Emrick and Cirillo are participating in this meeting using interactive technology. Before we get to the agenda I want to offer a few reminders and notices about our meetings in this room. Board members and presenting staff, please speak slowly, clearly, and directly into your microphone to assist our interpreters and the closed captioning service. We ask that nobody cross the tables and approach the dais at any point during the meeting. Anyone who attempts to cross this threshold will be asked to leave the room for the remainder of the meeting. If there is not a chair available in the audience for you to use, it means the room is full, and we ask that you watch from the cafe where the meeting is live streaming until someone leaves. If for if for any reason we need everyone to leave the room, the exits are on this side with the double doors in the back being the primary exit Please follow any announcements and the instructions of the emergency management, safety and security staff here supporting our meeting. If you have any questions or need assistance, please ask any MPS staff person sitting along the sides of the room or in the back We meet in the public setting so our community can watch the business of their public institution be conducted by their elected officials. Disruption of any kind that prevents people from seeing or hearing the meeting will not be tolerated. If a disruption causes an interruption to the meeting, a warning will be provided, and then the meeting will be in recess until the meeting can be seen and heard. If disruptions continue, the board may need to reconvene in another space with limited seating to complete our work. We ask for your continued cooperation with these protocols I will now turn it over to Superintendent Doctor Sales Adams to introduce the presentation for this evening Thank you Chair Beachy and good evening directors student representatives, staff, and those here and watching online tonight we take um the next and important step in a process that began before some of us were even on the dais. Since December of 2023, we have provided requested information, received board direction and heard from thousands of students and family members on what they expect from their public schools as a Transformation process has proceeded. We have improved our financial situation and outlook, increased enrollment implemented important curricula and academic programs and focused on course systems and structures. MPS is on the right track, and we have positive momentum to celebrate and build upon. We also have an opportunity to address some key structural issues that have been growing over time and that significantly impact the experience we provide to our students as a system It is often said that MPS has some amazing things happening in certain schools, but it's not to scale and the experience for students across the district is inconsistent. That is simply unacceptable for a public school system that is here for all students we can and we must do better for every student, a fact I know everyone agrees on and the reason we've been engaged in a transformation process at all while there may be differences in perspective about how we do better, there are certain foundational realities in the system we operate that must be considered. Our state's public education system is built on the premise that resources follow students. This generally means two things one, you need a minimum number of students to run programming sustainably, and two, more students mean more opportunities. There are exceptions to this and there are certain types of programs funded differently by the state, but it's overall the case when a school system does not have enough students at a few schools you can generally make it work. We might do this because we want to ensure there's a public school in every part of the city, even if the current demographics aren't there. But there's a point where it's neither sustainable nor good for students when you don't have enough students at a lot of schools either because the building isn't big enough or there's not enough enrollment. This is NPS right now, as you will hear from my team, we are spread too thin and attempting to support a significant number of schools with insufficient enrollment year after year, principals and schools take the funding we provide them based on their enrollment And they must make difficult decisions to do the best of what they have available. This of course impacts the experiences and opportunities we provide to students and it creates disparities across schools. Increasing enrollment should be and is absolutely a key strategy to addressing this challenge. We have worked successfully over the past few years to bring more students in PS and to keep students here. It's been a collective effort and we need to celebrate it. Our team will detail a set of enrollment strategies as part of the transformation process shortly. However, we have so many schools that need so many students that targeted enrollment increases cannot be the only strategy to improve the student experience. We will always have a spot for every student who wants to come to MPS but it's not always at the schools they want to attend As long as our state operates in a school choice environment families have options elsewhere if there's no room in the specific school they want. You will soon hear how our proposed options pair enrollment growth with structural changes to accomplish our shared goals The options we will share this evening take the feedback we've heard from tens of thousands of students and families and paired with the parameters you've provided Our community has asked us to give them something real to react to instead of more hypothetical, theoretical or value-based questions which they previously shared with us before. We believe any one of these options would improve our district. We also want to know what the community thinks, so wherever we end up reflects their thinking and experiences. You will see that we have laid out a process that attempts to collect as much community feedback as possible with time for us to review it and to decide what to do in response Based on what I've heard, this is a clear difference from prior processes where a summary of community feedback and engagement was shared essentially at the same time as board action, meaning there wasn't any time to make real revisions from the feedback We're looking forward to hearing what people think And to use it to make changes to what we have proposed we will have several ways for the community to share their thoughts, and I ask for everyone's help in inviting as many people as possible to engage. I will repeat that we will have several ways for the community to share their thoughts, and I ask for everyone's help in inviting as many people as possible to engage. Finally before I turn it over to the presentation. I want to offer my deepest gratitude to everyone who worked on these proposals, both those who are presenting tonight and the larger team. It was an enormous undertaking while our core work of getting ready for the school year was also happening. Thank you team. With the chair's permission, I will now turn it over to Deputy Superintendent Thompson to introduce the presentation after which we will stand for questions and discussion Deputy Superintendent Thompson, please go ahead. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Beachy, members of the board student representative Webster, Superintendent Doctor Sales Adams, and members of the community. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to report out on the transformation process this evening. I will present along with some of my colleagues from the senior and executive leadership team. In the interest of presentation flow and continuity, we will not pause for introductions when switching speakers. We'll begin with a brief review of the transformation process and where we've been up to this point. We'll then review our magnet school and program pathways, walk through 3 options for optimizing the district footprint. Discuss how Footprint connects to resources and the student experience review enrollment strategies, and close with the timeline engagement plans, and next steps. Over the past 3 years, the board has provided direction regarding the transformation process, which included establishing a vision, conducting physical space study, dual language task force, and community engagement. The second resolution requested deeper analysis around enrollment, demographics costs and benefits, programming, and pathways. Most recently, the board directed administration to develop 3 options that address enrollment strategy, program size, pathways, family choice, and long-term sustainability The options before you tonight are a direct result of that guidance and reflect the board's continued commitment to aligning our system around the student experience. From the beginning, this work has been grounded in extensive community engagement. Over the last decade, more than 40,000 caregiver voices have informed district planning. Throughout this process there has been consistency regarding what families have told us is most important. Time and again, it has been academics, reliable staffing, access to opportunities and consistent experiences across the district. Caregiver feedback highlights the changes needed to create the holistic student experience our students deserve and families expect from us. Feedback calls for an MPS that is organized around student success. This means aligning people, programs, pathways, and facilities to ensure every student experiences rigorous academics receives the support they need, and has access to opportunities that help them build their identity pursue their interests, and prepare for their future It also means creating a school environment where students feel safe, connected, and valued, and where their social and emotional needs are met and skills needed for lifelong success are intentionally developed The current resolution acknowledges the need for optimally sized schools to provide the holistic student experience our caregivers are asking for. To provide that student experience that our students deserve, we consider the current MPS footprint of buildings and programs Currently, 9 MPS school buildings are not large enough to hold the minimum enrollment necessary to provide the MPS student experience for the program they serve 29 students, excuse me, 29 schools have a large enough building capacity but do not currently meet the enrollment threshold to sustain the student experience, and 21 schools have both the building capacity and necessary enrollment to fund the MPS student experience. I want to highlight that this analysis takes into consideration all of what we've learned during the transformation process about the programmatic and spatial implications of all the important core predictable spaces we have been discussing since the 2024 physical space study especially inclusive specialized services. So to say it a different way, a building can't be shown as a green or orange dot on this slide unless it can plausibly have inclusive special education. Early learning opportunities and support the enrollment necessary to sustain the MPS experience and oftentimes with room to grow. Our current programmatic reality is that we have fragmented pathways, inconsistent opportunities, schools operating below optimal size, resources spread across too many sites, and variable staffing from school to school This has resulted in students having different experiences Depending on where they attend school within our district Our staff are working incredibly hard every day to support, in support of our students. However, our resources are spread across too many sites, making it difficult to provide the same level of programming staffing, and opportunities across every school. The MPS student experience our caregivers are asking for and our students deserve is built on consistent, rigorous and robust programming. And reliable and responsive staffing which require an optimized footprint and sustainable enrollment. To ensure the foundation of the MPS student, to ensure the foundation of the MPS student experience is in place, we must optimize our footprint so that resources can be used more efficiently and the caregiver informed MPS student experience can be provided. Public education is based on a per-pupil funding model. Enrollment generates revenue, and that revenue is passed on to schools to fund staffing, programming and services for students. When resources are spread across too many sites, a greater share of funding is directed towards overhead and maintaining the structure By concentrating resources, we can reduce those costs and direct more funding to the student experience While public education continues to face funding challenges our expenses are growing faster than our revenue, and that rate of growth is in part due to our current footprint. By optimizing our footprint, we can use our resources more efficiently and create the conditions for a more consistent student experience district-wide If we do not make a change, Fragmented pathways will remain fragmented. Resources will remain spread too thin. Opportunities will continue to vary from school to school, and students will continue to have different experiences depending on where they attend school This will mean staffing reductions, program reductions and increasingly inconsistent student experiences If we do not address the structure, we can expect these outcomes to continue. The longer we maintain our current structure, the more difficult it becomes to deliver a consistent student experience across MPS. If we want different outcomes, we must consider a different structure. The board resolution directs us to present options that include enrollment strategies Program size, cohesive pathways, flexibility and choice and a timeline for implementation. Tonight, we'll provide 3 options and we'll begin with magnet schools and program pathways that are consistent across all options. We will then review 3 options that optimize the MPS footprint and are designed to increase flexibility and choice for families. Next, we'll review the enrollment strategies that can be realized through an optimized footprint and the resources it creates. Finally, we will review the implementation timeline, including opportunities for caregiver staff and community engagement The recommendations before you are designed to fulfill the direction provided by the board and ensure the student experience our caregivers want and our students deserve is realized. We are going to look at the resolution through two lenses, through fixing what is broken in the magnets and through community schools. Anchored in the current enrollment reality, we look to the future of an optimized footprint. An optimized footprint means we can better support and complete the existing magnet and programmatic pathways. In all three options for an optimized footprint, the magnet and programmatic pathways would be complete. Across all options, the current magnets and programmatic pathways continue In MPS, a magnet is a school that attracts students from across the city because of a specialized academic theme or instructional model. Rather than primarily serving students based on neighborhood attendance boundaries Magnet schools serve students who choose a particular area of focus. Some of the programs you see here have not been designated magnets in our system. Through transformation, they would all be considered magnets and receive resources accordingly. This is the American Indian best practice magnet pathway. In every magnet pathway slide, there will be a map showing all magnet schools. A flow chart showing the progression from elementary through high school. And a table across the bottom of every slide. The table shows what is consistent about every magnet school and program. You can see that all magnet schools and programs provide specialty programming and integrated learning by theme or instructional model. Transportation is provided from anywhere in the district to every magnet school There is a dedicated pathway for every magnet from elementary school through graduation. All magnet schools and programs have programming to accommodate multilingual learners and students receiving special education services. In each pathway's overview slide, you will see a QR code that takes you to the pathway web page with more detailed information about each option. In the American Indian best practice magnet pathway, students attend an Nishinabe Academy for elementary school Transition to Sanford or Northeast Middle schools depending on where they live in the city. And culminate their learning at South High School in the all nations program. And Ishinabe Academy is currently in the process of relocating to a new home and maybe expanding grade levels at that location. As those grade levels expand, the middle school pathway may be revisited and partner with the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors or MUD. The Hmong Heritage Language and Culture pathway is designed to support students in becoming bilingual and biliterate in both English and Hmong. Like the previous slide, the flow chart begins with elementary school. And shows the pathway through graduation. The Hmong Heritage Language Pathway Program would move to Jenny Linn, where the Hmong Heritage Language and Culture Pathway Program would be housed, and district-wide transportation to the program would be provided. The Hmong heritage language and culture pathway would continue on at Olson for middle school and Camden for high school. Montessori education is designed to nurture independence, curiosity, and confidence through individualized self-directed learning experiences Students learn in multi-age classrooms where Montessori trained teachers provide academic and social and emotional development at each student's pace. Seward Montessori is currently a K-6 program. To complete the pathway 7th grade would be added in the 2728 school year. And 8th grade would be added in the 28, 29 school year creating a full K8 Montessori experience. For high school, students would transition to South High, providing cohort continuity for students who have progressed through the Montessori pathway. While Montessori programming itself does not continue at South, students remain together as they move into high school. In the global studies and humanities magnet. Students attend Ella Baker from kindergarten through 8th grade. Then transition to South High School. This creates a continuous pathway from elementary school through graduation. The pathway is designed to help students develop global awareness and civic responsibility through culturally responsive learning, service, and student-driven inquiry that connects students to their community and the world As with the Montessori pathway, the transition to South High School provides cohort continuity. For students who have progressed through Ella Baker, while differentiated global studies and humanities programming does not continue at South, students remain together as they move into high school. As part of transformation Bethune's arts programming would merge into Hall. Students who wish to continue in an arts-focused pathway would have opportunities to attend Hall, which would add an arts focus, or Marcy. Marcy would remain an arts-only magnet school. For middle school, Marcy and Hall students would Pathway to Franklin. Which would remain a steam school. Sullivan would remain a STEAM school and pathways to North. At the high school level, Fair School for the Arts and Heritage Academy STEM programming would merge into North High School. Students who wish to continue with arts or STEM programming would transition to North, creating a complete pathway through graduation No significant changes are proposed for the Spanish dual language pathway. The Spanish dual language pathway currently has an articulated path from kindergarten through graduation. Students in the Spanish dual language program would continue to attend Emerson, Green Central or Las Estrellas for elementary school. Transition to Anderson United for middle school. And complete the pathway at Roosevelt High School. This slide shows the Somali heritage, language, and culture pathway This pathway is designed to support students in becoming fully bilingual and biliterate in both English and Somali. Students attend Sullivan School for Kindergarten through 8th grade, where the Somali Heritage Language and Culture Program would be housed. Then transitioned to Edison High School. This creates a continuous pathway from elementary school through graduation. As part of transformation, Heritage Academy Somali heritage language and culture programming would merge into Edison. Students who wish to continue in the pathway would transition to Edison. And the high school programming currently located at Heritage Academy would move there as well. This complete creates a complete and sustainable Somali heritage language and culture pathway from kindergarten through graduation. This slide highlights special education programming. Unlike the magnet pathways participation in these programs is based on individual student needs as identified through the IEP process As a student's needs change. The services and settings that best support that student may change as well For example, one student may attend Riverbend through 8th grade, transition through Harrison Education Center for high school. And then continue on to transition plus at the age of 18. While another student may receive all of their special education services. Within a community or magnet school. Still others may move into or out of specialized programs at different points in their educational journey. In MPS we have and will continue to have a complete pathway for students that need it and the flexibility for students to enter and exit the programming at any time based on their individual need. The following schools and programs are not proposed for significant structural changes as a part of the transformation process. These include contract alternative schools, online learning, transition services, and other specialized educational settings While we are proposing changes to the pathways and community school structures, these programs will continue to operate and remain available to students who need them. With the magnet and specialty pathways now complete we can turn our attention to the second part of the resolution, optimizing the MPS footprint. As we consider 3 options. To optimize the MPS footprint, we are reminded of the resolution requirements to be present in all options. This led to the contributing factors in the development of the options. The following were contributing factors in all models. There were impact, capacity and boundary decisions. In all models, careful attention was given to ensuring a comprehensive high school experience, the current number of schools, the number of schools needed for projected growth, existing buildings capacity, and the number of students impacted. When ensuring each building reached the necessary minimum threshold by grade span, boundary adjustments were sometimes necessary and were carefully considered In all options, the geography of the city of Minneapolis was also considered. We will next walk through each option to optimize the MPS footprint by high school pathway. Here you see the current MPS boundaries and the three options. All options include strategic boundary adjustments. Boundary adjustments include grade span boundary adjustments within current pathway boundaries and overall pathway boundary adjustments between high school pathways. To optimize our district footprint the location of our buildings and where families with school-age children live in our city creates the need for boundary adjustments across pathways to optimize resources district-wide to benefit all MPS students In all options, the magnet pathways already discussed remain consistent, and the current 7 comprehensive high schools are the anchor of each pathway in all options. In all options there are mergers and boundary changes. There are consistencies in all community school options. Mergers and boundary changes are present in all models. Most students will not experience school building change. Most students will not. Oh, I'll repeat myself. Most students will not experience school building change. Multilingual learners and students receiving special education services will have specialized programming access in all communities and increased opportunities for inclusion. There will be pre-K options in every community. Specific to the elementary grade span, school buildings that do not have a large enough footprint for the necessary enrollment to provide the student experience are merged with school buildings that have sufficient physical capacity. Specific to the middle school grade span, there is one community middle school per high school pathway. Specific to the high school grade span, there is one community high school per pathway. 3 community high schools add specialty programming from current specialty schools and programs that are not optimally sized to ensure the comprehensive high school experience. Across options the consistency of walk zone and school choice is realized. Every community in Magnet Elementary School has a continuous K-12 pathway. Based on space, families can choose to apply to a school in walking proximity This option does not include transportation. And once a student opts into a pathway, community or magnet continuation in the pathway is guaranteed. Across all options, there is an increase in the number of students that would attend an optimally sized school meaning there is enough enrollment to generate the necessary revenue to fund the MPS student experience Here we see the increases broken down by high school pathway. Overall, currently, 53% of students attend an optimally sized school. In option one that would increase to 78%. 71% in option two and 82% in option three. This data will also be reviewed by Pathway Across all options, there is an increase in the number of students that would attend an optimally sized school meaning more students would be enrolled in schools that have enough students to sustain the staffing programming, and supports needed to fund the MPS student experience. Looking further into the data, we see the percentage of students impacted, meaning either due to a merger or boundary change, and the increase in access to an optimally sized school. For example in option one, when considering all schools, 12% of students would be impacted, resulting in moving from 53 to 78% of students attending an optimally sized school, an increase of 25% from current. In option 2, 12% of students would be impacted, resulting in an increase of 18. To 71% of MPS students attending an optimally sized school. In option 3. The amount of students attending an optimally sized school would increase by 29% from current to 82%, with 14% of students impacted. As we consider this data broken down by pathway, the calculation of the number of students impacted. is reflective of the 2025, 2026 school year and school choice. This means that if a family chose to attend a community school outside of their attendance boundary in school year 2526, And the school they attended in the 25, 26 school year is proposed to have a boundary change or merger as a result of a transformation option. That impact will show up in the pathway where the student lives. We will now review the community school pathway options in alphabetical order, starting with the Camden pathway. For each high school pathway, there will be an introduction slide that indicates the district-wide programming the comprehensive high school will host. For example here we see the Hmong Heritage Language and Culture programming continues at Camden in all options. What we will not see on the community pathway introduction slide is site-specific programming that is currently in place at our comprehensive community high schools that will continue. A few examples of this are International Baccalaureate, AP concurrent enrollment, or ABID. In other words, only programming that is magnet or available to all students district-wide like career and technical education will be highlighted here. Site-specific programming should be assumed to be continuing at this time. The table here shows how many students are currently in the Camden pathway and how many students are projected to be within the Camden pathway in each option. We also see the number and percentage of Camden Pathway students that are projected to attend an optimally sized school in each option. It is important to note that the data in the current columns is based on school year 26 enrollments and includes the choices families have made in and out of pathways. For each option however, assumptions have not been made about what families may choose, and the calculations are based solely on how many students are projected to be in the new attendance boundaries. Starting in the top row of the table, we see the current Camden pathway total number of students and the number and percentage of those students that currently attend an optimally sized school. Currently, 16% of students in the Camden pathway attend an optimally sized school, meaning there is enough enrollment to generate the necessary revenue to fund the MPS student experience. As we move across the table. We see an increase in the amount of students attending an optimally sized school. The percentages change in each option due to boundary and footprint changes. In option one, we would see an increase to 47%. In option 2, an increase to 37% And option 3, an increase to 49%. The remaining rows track the same data by student groups. For example currently, there are 124 American Indian students in the Camden Pathway. Of those 124 students, 18 or 15% attend an optimally sized school. In option one American Indian students attending an optimally sized school would increase to 39%. In option 2, 32%. And in option 3, 40% of American Indian students would attend an optimally enrolled school. Looking further into the data, we see the number of students impacted in the Camden pathway, either due to a merger or boundary change, and the increase in access to an optimally sized school. For example, in option 1, 34% of students would be impacted, resulting in moving from 16% to 47% of students attending an optimally sized school An increase of 31% from current. In option 2, 19% of students would be impacted, resulting in 37% of students attending an optimally sized school, an increase of 21%. In option 3, 30% of students would be impacted resulting in 49% of students attending an optimally sized school, a 33% increase. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. As we review the details of each option, as you see here, strategic boundary adjustments were made to balance with bordering pathways and within the current community Camden Pathway Elementary Schools. The adjustments consider city geography and alignment to Minneapolis neighborhoods. All three options would modify the footprint in the Camden pathway to concentrate resources allowing for increased staffing programming, and services for students. In all three options, there would be room for future enrollment growth as Camden is an area of the city we expect to see enrollment growth over the next 10 years. In each pathways overview slide. You will see a QR code that takes you to the Pathway web page with more detailed information about each option. Camden Pathway option one. This will be the format of the slides to show each option in each high school pathway. A map on the left shows all schools in the community pathway with the yellow line indicating the elementary attendance area. The flow chart starts with the current elementary schools in the high school pathway and flows to the community middle and high school. A dotted line indicates a boundary change. Across the bottom, you will see how all options would create additional choice. Every student in all pathways and all three options could attend their community school based on the updated updated attendance boundary with transportation provided outside of the walk zone. Or apply to attend a different community school with available space, no transportation provided. Students living in the walk zone of a different community school would get priority enrollment if there is space, no transportation provided. And the current process for applying to a magnet school would continue with transportation provided. In Camden option one. Loring students would join Jenny Lind. City View students would join Lucy Laney. By home address, some Lucy Laney students would join Nellie Stone Johnson in the north pathway. Hmong International Academy Community School students would join Nellie Stone Johnson in the North pathway. Jenny Lind and Lucy Laney would be the Camden Pathway Elementary Schools and feed into Olson. Olsen feeds into Camden. There would be attendance boundary changes for Lucy Laney Jenny Lynn, Olson, and Camden. Continuing in the Camden pathway, the second option is seen here. The choice options for every student continue as option one. The flow chart shows Hmong International Academy Community School students would join City View. By home address Loring students would join City View, Jenny Lind, or Lucy Laney. Jenny Lind, Lucy Laney, and City View would be the Camden Pathway Elementary Schools and feed into Olson. Olsen feeds into Camden. There would be attendance boundary changes for City View, Lucy Laney, and Jenny Lind. The third option in the Camden pathway would be. Luring students would join Jenny Linn. City View students would join Lucy Laney. Hmong International Academy Community School students would join with Nelly Stone Johnson in the North Pathway Jenny Lind and Lucy Laney would be the Camden Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Olson. Olsen feeds into Camden. There would be attendance boundary changes for Lucy Laney, Jenny Lynn, Olson, and Camden. As we move into the Edison pathway, as previously mentioned the intro slide for the pathway indicates the district-wide programming for Edison. Edison specific programming such as International Baccalaureate would not be highlighted here and would continue. As reviewed in the magnet portion, the Somali heritage language and culture programming would join Edison in all three options CTE programming would continue at Edison. Both would have the district-wide access and transportation. To review the Edison pathway impact, we again draw your attention to the top row where the table shows how many students are currently in the Edison pathway and how many students are projected to be in the Edison pathway in each option. We also see the number and percentage of Edison Pathway students that are projected to attend an optimally sized school in each option As previously mentioned, the data in the current column is based on school year 2526 enrollments and includes the choices families have made in and out of the pathway For each of the three options, the calculations are based solely on how many students are predicted to reside in the new attendance boundaries and would vary based on choices families make into and out of the pathway. Starting in the top row of the table we see the current Edison Pathway total number of students and the number and percentage of those students that currently attend an optimally sized school. Currently 16% of students in the Edison pathway attend an optimally sized school, meaning that there is enough enrollment to generate the necessary revenue to fund the MPS student experience. As we move across the table, we see an increase in the amount of students that would attend an optimally sized school. In option one, we see an increase to 61%. In option two, an increase to 53%. And in option three, an increase to 68%. The remaining rows track the same data by student group Looking further into the data, we see the number of students in the Edison pathway impacted either due to a merger or boundary change and the increase in access to an optimally sized school. For example, in option 1, 26% of students would be impacted, resulted in moving from 16% to 61% of students attending an optimally sized school, an increase of 45% from current In option 2, 17% of students would be impacted, resulting in 53% of students attending an optimally sized school an increase of 37%. In option 3, 7% of students would be impacted, resulting in 68% of students attending an optimally sized school, a 52% increase. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. As we review the details of each option, strategic boundary adjustments are seen in all three options to balance with bordering pathways and within the current Edison Pathway Elementary schools. The adjustments consider city geography and residential patterns. As a reminder, the QR code in the upper right takes you to the pathway web page with more detailed information about each option. Um as a reminder, as we review the Edison pathway, the choice options across the bottom of the slide remain the same as we reviewed in the Camden slides. So in Edison pathway option number one, by home address Pratt students would join Pillsbury and Dowling in the south pathway. By home address, Webster students would join Pillsbury or Kenwood in the north pathway Nellie Stone in the north pathway, or Whittier in the south pathway. In this option, Pillsbury and Waite Park would be the Edison Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Northeast. Northeast Middle School would then feed into Edison High School. There would be attendance boundary changes for Pillsbury, Waite Park Northeast, and Edison. In option two, by home address some Pillsbury students would join Waite Park. Pratt students would join Webster. By home address, some Webster students would join Nelly Stone Johnson in the north pathway or Whittier in the south pathway Pillsbury, Waite Park, and Webspur would be the Edison Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Northeast Northeast Middle School would then feed into Edison High School. There would be attendance boundary changes for Pillsbury, Waite Park, Webster, Northeast, and Addison. In option 3, by home address, Pratt students would join Pillsbury or Webster. Pillsbury, Wake Park and Webster would be the Edison Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Northeast. Northeast Middle School would then feed into Edison. There would be attendance boundary changes for Pillsbury and Webster Attendance boundaries for Waite Park, Northeast and Edison would not change from current boundaries. This North pathway introductory slide denotes the district-wide programming proposed at North and all three options The arts magnet, teen parent services, and STEM programming previously offered at Fair, Longfellow, and Heritage Academy respectively would continue at North High Career and technical education programming would also continue at North. Reviewing the top row of the impact analysis table for North. Shows how many students are currently in the north pathway and how many students are projected to be in the north pathway in each option We also see the number and percentage of North Pathway students that are projected to attend an optimally sized school in each option. The data in the current columns is based on the 25, 26 school year enrollments and includes the choices families have made in and out of the pathways. For each option, the calculations are based solely on how many students are projected to be in the new attendance boundaries. Starting in the top row of the table, we see the current North pathway total number of students and the number and percentage of those students that currently attend an optimally sized school. Currently 20% of students in the North Pathway attend an optimally sized school meaning again there is enough enrollment to generate the necessary revenue to fund the MPS student experience As we move across the table, we see an increase in the amount of students that would attend an optimally sized school. In option one we see an increase to 100%. In option two, an increase to 86%. And in option three, an increase to 100%. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. Looking further into the data, we see the projected amount of students impacted in the North pathway either due to a merger or boundary change and the increase in access to an optimally sized school. For example, in option 1, 31% of students would be impacted, resulting in a change from 20 to 100% of students attending an optimally sized school, an increase of 80% from current. In option 2, 28% of students would be impacted, resulting in 86% of students attending an optimally sized school an increase of 66%. And in option 3, 29% of students would be impacted, resulting in 100% of students attending an optimally sized school, which is an increase of 80%. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. The 3 options in the north pathway are seen here with the strategic boundary adjustments that result in the increase of students attending optimally sized schools. 100% in option 1, 86% in option two and 100% in option three. The nuance of boundary adjustments between neighboring pathways will be discussed in the comparison of student movement and Option 2 and Option 3. In option one, by home address, some Bryn Mawr students would join Kenwood. Also, by home address some Kenwood students would join Whittier in the South Pathway. Franklin would become a community school and would also remain home to the middle school STEAM magnet program. With Anne Watten students joining Franklin. By home address, some unwanton students would join Anderson, which is in the south pathway Bryn Mawr, Kenwood, and Nelly Stone Johnson would be the North Pathway Elementary schools and feed into North from Franklin for Middle School and Franklin with the Pathway to North for high school. There would be attendance boundary changes for Bryn Mawr, Kenwood Nelly Stone Johnson, and North, and Franklin would of course gain a new community school attendance boundary in addition to maintaining its citywide magnet option In option two, Kenwood would move to the southwest pathway. By home address, some Bryn Mawr students would move to the Kenwood attendance boundary, which would again be in the southwest pathway. Franklin would become a community school and remain home to the middle school STEAM magnet program. By home address and Watton students would join either Franklin or Anthony, which is in the Southwest Passway. Bryn Mawr and Nelly Stone Johnson would be the North Pathway Elementary schools, and they would feed into Franklin for Middle School. Franklin would pathway into North for high school. There would be attendance boundary changes for Bryn Mawr, Nelly Stone Johnson, and North And Franklin, of course, would gain a new community school attendance boundary in addition to its citywide magnet. As we review the flowchart for option 3, it would be the same North Pathway student movement as option 2. Kenwood would move to the Southwest Pathway By home address, some Bryn Mawr students would move to the Kenwood attendance boundary and be in the Southwest Pathway. Bryn Mawr and Nelly Stone Johnson would be the North Pathway Elementary schools, which feed into Franklin for Middle, and Franklin would feed into North for high school. As seen in the maps, the difference between option 2 and 3 would be the attendance boundary line for Bryn Mawr and Nellie Stone Johnson and in neighboring pathways. In option 2, the North pathway receives students from the Edison pathway, whereas in option 3, the North pathway receives students from the Camden pathway. The QR code in the upper right hand corner of the slide will take you to a more detailed explanation on the web page, and the map tool can be used to determine the impact on a specific resident address. The current CTE and Spanish dual language programming with district-wide access continue at Roosevelt in all three options. We will again draw your attention to the top row where the table shows how many students are currently in the Roosevelt pathway and how many students we project will be in the Roosevelt pathway in each option. We also see the number and percentage of Roosevelt Pathway students that we project will attend an optimally sized school in each option The data in the current columns is based on school year 26 enrollments and includes the choices families have made in and out of the pathways. For each of the three options, the calculations are based solely on how many students are projected to live in the new attendance boundaries, not the choices current families have made to attend a school other than their community school. Starting in the top row of the table we see the current Roosevelt pathway total number of students and the number and percent of those students that currently attend an optimally sized school. Optimally sized meaning there are enough students in the school to generate the necessary revenue to fund the NPS student experience. Currently, 62% of students in the Roosevelt Pathway attend an optimally sized school As we move across the table, we see an increase from current in the amount of students that would attend an optimally sized school. In option one, we see an increase to 75%, in option two, an increase to 81% in option three, an increase to 88%. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. Looking further into the data, we see the amount of students in the Roosevelt pathway impacted, either due to a merger or boundary change, and the increase in access to an optimally sized school. As previously mentioned the calculation of the percent of students impacted is reflective of school year 26 school choice. This means that if a family chose to attend a community school outside of the Roosevelt attendance boundary in school year 26, and the school they attended in school year 26 has a boundary change or a merger as the result of a transformation option, that impact will show up in the Roosevelt pathway. Data due to where the student lives. In option 1, 1% of students projected to reside in the Roosevelt pathway are impacted resulting in 75% of students attending an optimally sized school, an increase of 13%. In option 2, 717% I'm sorry, of students would be impacted, resulted in 81% of students attending an optimally sized school an increase of 19%. In option 3, 15% of students would be impacted, resulting in 88% of students attending an optimally sized school, a 26% increase. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. The overview of attendance boundary adjustments for the three Roosevelt options are seen here. Similar to previous pathways the adjustments include neighboring pathways and elementary attendance boundary adjustments within the current Roosevelt pathway. In option one, Lake Nokomas's dual campuses of Key Wayden and Winona would combine into one building at Key Wayden as a K through 5 school Hiawatha and Howell dual campuses would eventually combine into one building at Howell following construction Hiawatha, Howe, Key Wayden, and Northrop feed into Sanford, Sanford pathways to Roosevelt, Key Wayden and Winona attendance boundaries combined, but otherwise do not change from current. Attendance boundaries for Hiawatha, Howe, Northrop, Sanford, and Roosevelt do not change from current. In option two, Lake Nokomas's dual campuses of Key Wayden and Winona would combine into one building at Key Wayden as a K through 5 school By home address, Hiawatha and Howe students would join Key Wayden, Northrop, or Dowling, with Dowling being in the south pathway. Key Wayden and Northrop would be the Roosevelt Pathway Elementary Schools and feed into Sanford, Sanford Pathways to Roosevelt and there are attendance boundary changes for Key Wayden, Northrop, Sanford, and Roosevelt. In Roosevelt Option 3, Lake Nokomas's dual campuses of Key Wait and and Winona would combine into one building at Key Wait and SAK through 5 school. Dowling would move into the Roosevelt pathway. By home address, Hiawatha and Howe students join Key Wait and Northrop or Dowling By home address, some Northrop students join Hale or Barton in the Washburn pathway. Dowling, Key Wayden and Northrop would be the Roosevelt Pathway Elementary Schools and feed into Sanford, Sanford Pathways to Roosevelt, and there are attendance boundary changes for the Dowling, Northrop, Sanford, and Roosevelt The attendance boundary for Key Waiting would not change from current, and Doctor McMurray will now walk us through the south pathway. In the South pathway the district-wide options include all nations and multilingual students over the age of 18. In all three options, students receiving multilingual supports at Wellstone join South High School. The all nations program continues at South. The table here shows the south pathway and how many students we expect to be in the south pathway in each option. We also show the number and percentage of South Pathway students that we predict will attend an optimally sized school in each option. The data in the current columns on the far left is based on school year 25-26 enrollments and includes the school choice that families have made in and out of the pathway. For each option as you move across the table to the right, the calculations are based solely on how many students we predict will live in the new attendance boundaries by their home address. Starting in the top row of the table, we see the total number of students in all schools within the South pathway as well as the number and percentage of those students that currently attend an optimally sized school. Currently 100% of students in the South Pathway attend an optimal high school. As we move across the table, looking at each of the three options we see decreases in the number of students that would be attending an optimally sized school. The changes shown for the south pathway are reflective of our goal to achieve an overall optimally sized MPS with our existing buildings, and it demonstrates the interdependence of neighboring pathways in this part of the city. In option one, we see 81% of students attending an optimally sized school. In option 2, 91%, and option 3, 93% The remaining rows track the same data by student group. In all three options, 100% of students will be provided the MPS student experience. Looking further into the data for the South pathway, we see the number of students impacted either due to a school merger or a boundary change. We also can see the change in the number of students attending an optimally sized school. While our predicted change in the number of students attending an optimally sized school shows a decrease from our current state, we know from recent enrollment trends and demographic analysis of Minneapolis that we can expect more students to attend an MPS school in this part of the city compared to other areas of the city. Based on what we know about this area of Minneapolis and the choices families make here, we are intentionally planning for growth in this area. Again, we will guarantee the MPS student experience across all years, both now and with future growth at all MPS schools, including those in the South Pathway. As seen here in all three options, due to South Pathway's geographic location in the city boundary adjustments result in the South Pathway receiving students from neighboring pathways. This demonstrates the connected nature of pathways to optimize the overall NPS footprint. Said differently to optimize across the system with the school buildings we have and the location they were built throughout the decades, boundaries needed to shift between high school pathways. Again based on what we know about our recent past enrollment trends, And demographic patterns within the city. We expect more students to attend school in this part of the city within the next 5 and 10 years, thereby increasing the number of students at each school and increasing the percentage of the students at an optimally sized school. In option one, Bancroft, Dowling, Falwell and Whittier feed into Anderson. The attendance boundaries for Bancroft and Falwell do not change from current boundaries. There are attendance boundary changes for Dowling, Whittier, Anderson, and South. Anderson continues to pathway to South. In option 2, Bancroft Dowling, Falwell, and Whittier continue to feed into Anderson. There are attendance boundary changes for Bancroft, Dowling, Falwell, Whittier, Anderson, and South. Again, Anderson Pathways to South. Finally in option 3, the Dowling Building moves into the Roosevelt pathway shown at the bottom of this slide. Based on address, some current Dowling students will stay at Dowling and move into the Roosevelt pathway, while other current Dowling students will join Falwell and continue in the South pathway. Lyndale joins the south pathway, and its attendance boundary does not change Bancroft, Falwell, Lindell, Whittier all feed into Anderson and Anderson Pathways to South. There are attendance boundary changes for Bancroft, Falwell Whittier, Dowling, Anderson, and South. For the Southwest High School pathway, there are no district-wide programmatic additions, a reminder that existing school-specific programming such as International Baccalaureate or other early college credit courses would not be indicated here and are expected to continue. Starting at the top row of the table where we see how many students are currently in the Southwest pathway and how many students are we project to be in the pathway in each option, we also see the number and percentage of Southwest Pathway students that we project will attend an optimally sized school in each option. The data in the current columns is again based on the 25, 26 school year enrollment and includes the choices families have made in and out of the pathway. For each option, our calculations are based solely on how many students we project will live in the new attendance boundaries, not predictive of choice. Looking at the top row of the table, we see the current Southwest Pathway total number of students, the number and percentage of those students that currently attend an optimally sized school. Currently 54% of students in the Southwest Passway attend an optimally sized school, meaning there's enough enrollment to generate the necessary revenue to fund the MPS student experience. As we move across the table, we see an increase in the percentage of students attending an optimally sized school. In option one there would be an increase to 100%, in option two an increase to 90%, and option three an increase to 100%. The remaining rows track the same data by student group Looking further into the data, we see the percentage of students impacted in the Southwest Pathway either due to a merger or boundary change and the increase in access to an optimally sized school. In option 1, 8% of students would be impacted, resulting in moving from 54% to 100% of students attending an optimally sized school, an increase of 46% from current. In option 2, 8% of students would be impacted, resulting in 90% of students attending an optimally sized school an increase of 36%. In option 3, 14% of students would be impacted, resulting in 100% of students attending an optimally sized school, a 46% increase. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. As seen here in the maps, all options include elementary attendance boundary adjustments to optimize size, and the connection to attendance boundaries adjustments with neighborhood pathways continues. For option one in the southwest pathway, Lake Harriet dual campuses would combine into one building at Lake Harriet Upper as a K-5 school By home address, Kenny's students would join Armitage or Wyndham. Armitage, Lake Harriet, and Windham would be the Southwest Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Anthony. Anthony Middle School would then feed into Southwest High School. The attendance boundaries for Lake Harriet, Anthony, and Southwest do not change from current. There would be an attendance boundary change for Armitage and Wyndham. For option two in the southwest pathway, Lake Harriet dual campuses would again combine in one building at Lake Harriet Upper as a K-5 school. By home address, Kenny students would join Armitage or Wyndham. Kenwood would join the Southwest Pathway. By home address, some Lake Harriet students would join Kenwood. Armitage, Lake Harriet, Kenwood, and Wyndham would be the Southwest Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Anthony. Anthony Middle School would then feed into Southwest High School, and there would be attendance boundary changes for Armitage, Kenwood, Lake Harriet, Wyndham, Anthony and Southwest. For option 3 in the southwest pathway Lake Harriet dual campuses would combine into one building at Lake Harriet Upper as a K-5 school. By home address, Kenny students would join Armitage or Wyndham. Kenwood would join the southwest pathway By home address, some Lake Harriet students would join Kenwood. By home address, some Wyndham students would join Hale in the Washburn pathway. Armitage Lake Harriet, Kenwood, and Wyndham would be the Southwest Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Anthony. Anthony Middle School would then feed into Southwest High School. There would be attendance boundary changes for Armitage, Kenwood, Lake Harriet, Wyndham. Anthony and Southwest. There are no programmatic additions proposed at Washburn. As a reminder, the existing school programming, such as International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement courses, would not be indicated here and would be expected to continue. Washburn students would continue to have access to district-wide magnets and CTE programming just as is the case currently Starting at the top of the row on the table, we see how many students are currently in the Washburn pathway and how many students we project to be in the Washburn pathway in each option. We also see the number and percentage of Washburn Pathway students that we predict would attend an optimally sized school in each option The data in the current columns is again based on the 25, 26 school year enrollments and includes the choices families have made in and out of pathways For each option, the calculations are based solely on how many students we project will be in the new attendance boundaries. In the Washburn pathway, this results in projected enrollments in each option to be lower than current enrollment using this data set Looking at the top row of the table, we see the current Washburn pathway total number of students, the number and percentage of those students that currently attend an optimally sized school. Currently 86% of students in the Washburn pathway attend an optimally sized school, meaning there is enough enrollment to generate the necessary revenue to fund the MPS student experience As we move across the table, we see the change in the number of students attending an optimally sized school. In option one we see an increase to 92%, in option two, a decrease to 69%, and in option three an increase to 100%. The decrease in option 2 will be explained in the next slide. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. Looking further into the data, we see the number of students impacted in the Washburn pathway either due to a proposed merger or boundary change and the change in access to an optimally sized school. In option 1, 4% of students are projected to be impacted, resulting in a change from 86% to 92% of students attending an optimally sized school, an increase of 6% from current. In option two, no students are expected to be impacted, which would result in 69% of students attending an optimally sized school, a decrease of 17% from current. When looking at option 2, we will see that there are no boundary changes that impact students, so the percentage of students impacted is 0. However, because we are only predicting the enrollments within the option boundaries and not accounting for family choice into these schools explicitly, we see that percentage of students at an optimally sized school. Decreases for this option. In option 3, 9% of students would be impacted, resulting in 100% of students attending an optimally sized school, a 14% increase. The remaining rows track the same data by student group. Reviewing the maps of all three options in the Washburn pathway elementary boundaries adjust to some in some to optimize size, and the connection with the neighboring pathways continues. In option one, Hale and Field dual campuses would combine into one building at Hale as a K-5 school Attendance boundaries for Lyndale, Justice Page, and Washburn would not change from current. There would be attendance boundary changes for Barton, Burroughs and Hale. Barton, Burroughs, Hale, and Lyndale would be the Washburn Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Justice Page for middle school and then on to Washburn for high school. In option two, Hale and Field dual campuses would eventually combine into one building at Hale as a K-5 school following construction Attendance boundaries for Barton, Burroughs, Hale Field, Lyndale, Justice Page, and Washburn would not change from current. Barton, Burroughs, Hale Field and Lyndale would feed into Justice Page and Justice Page would feed into Washburn. In option 3, Hale becomes a K-5 school. By home address, some Hale and Field students would join Barton. By home address, Hale would receive some students from Wyndham. Lyndale would move to the south pathway. There would be attendance boundary changes for Barton, Hale, Justice Page, and Washburn. The attendance boundaries for boroughs would not change from current. Barton, Burroughs, and Hale would be the Washburn Pathway Elementary schools and feed into Justice Page for middle school, which would pathway into Washburn for high school. Revisiting this information from the start of the presentation about our current programmatic footprint, you can see that with the 3 options we have moved from operating 9 buildings that are too small to hold the number of students needed to generate the revenue necessary for the MPS student experience to 2, while the number of optimally sized buildings shown in green increases The buildings in orange indicate the intentional room for growth in the areas of the city that we anticipate that growth, and it's important to note that even many of the buildings shown in green will continue to have physical capacity to grow well into the next decade. This slide is also a great reminder of discussions we've had over the last two years about how the location size, and design of our school buildings largely reflect the history of the development of the city overall with buildings going back to the 1890s and many different eras of thought since that time around the alignment of schools to the communities they serve. The three options represent a contemporary realignment with the era of school choice we're living in. To share the resulting impact of these changes on our portfolio of buildings, this slide isolates the buildings that would no longer have K-12 programming in them. It's important to note that future programmatic decisions both short and long term, will influence how these buildings continue to serve MPS, be it through offering early childhood learning opportunities, community education programming, or supporting future and overall enrollment growth. Looking at the numbers and all options, the unprogrammed buildings remain relatively consistent at 15 or 16 in each, as we have shared in multiple presentations and reports over the last two years MPS takes our role as the long-term stewards of these buildings and the important community assets that they are very seriously and have a deliberative and long range focused process for their management. I want to stress to our community. That at this time there is no immediate or and specific plan to repurpose these buildings, and the white paper we released last year provides a framework for how we would approach such a question. Also, please note that long-standing board policy dictates a thorough and multifaceted process should NPS ever want to consider any unprogrammed building truly a surplus. In terms of developing an understanding about time frames for decisions, I would anticipate that the timeframe for making decisions about existing internal NPS programming being moved to these sites, such as early childhood learning, um might happen within the 6 months following board direction on the transformation options, whereas decisions with broader or external impacts would be years in the making. We now consider the impact of an optimized footprint on the resources available to provide the MPS student experience. An optimized footprint creates the conditions to align and maximize resources to ensure our schools can provide the MPS student experience Delivering on the MPS student experience means every MPS student has access to. Consistent and reliable core and beyond the core academic resources and instruction Consistent and reliable individualized learning supports Consistent intervention staffing across grade spans Consistent and reliable social emotional supports and skill building. And consistent safety and security staffing at our secondary schools. We will next take a look at how this consistency of resources would impact each grade span in NPS. What can be different in the elementary academic experience as a result of resource alignment and efficiencies that come from an optimized footprint? Includes a consistent win what I need experience across all MPS elementary schools Wind time is a designated block in the school day during which students receive targeted support or enrichment based on individual needs. Some students participate in interventions to build specific skills while others engage in enrichment activities. In an optimally sized school, there would be enough revenue generated to staff for multiple layers of differentiation in a win model. Similarly, in an optimally sized school there are enough sections to generate the funding for a minimum of 3 full-time specialists at all sites ensuring consistent access to instruction in the arts Resource consolidation would mean programs like instrumental music can be better supported. Increased inclusionary experiences for our students with an IEP or receiving EL services are a reality of resource alignment and efficiency, along with the ability to ensure consistent reading, math, and behavior intervention at all elementary sites. At the elementary level, the alignment of resources would ensure a consistent social-emotional learning curriculum, scope and sequence is taught in each classroom and has the necessary implementation support. Through all three models, an optimal footprint ensures resource availability for comprehensive magnet theme experiences In the middle grades, aligning and maximizing resources would continue to ensure individualized learning supports for students with an IEP receiving EL services or in need of academic or behavior intervention support The academic difference lies in resource alignment to ensure grade level requirements are met at the intended level of rigor for each student. Optimally sized middle schools would have the resources to ensure consistent access to exploratory courses with the opportunity to expand on how some of our middle schools currently align exploratory offerings to the International Baccalaureate design framework. Aligning resources means social emotional supports and skill building are able to be the foundation of a consistent advisory experience. And a consistent structure for the transition from 5th to 6th and 8th to 9th grade can be systematically supported. Ensuring safe and welcoming schools can be realized by resource consolidation to provide dedicated security staff at all middle schools. At the high school level, student access to all graduation requirements every year at all 912 sites is not consistent and reliable at this time. Ensuring access to the comprehensive high school experience would mean all high school students would have access to all graduation requirements when they need them at the intended level of rigor necessary for post-secondary readiness. The comprehensive high school beyond the core experience can be realized through resource alignment to strengthen early college credit opportunities including International Baccalaureate Advanced Placement, and concurrent enrollment. The ability to maximize resources to ensure robust elective options and consistent access to athletics and activities at all comprehensive community high schools can be made possible by footprint optimization. In high school social emotional skill building means ensuring our students are ready for life after MPS. An optimized footprint means more students can have access to aligned comprehensive postsecondary preparation support and resources. What could be different in the MPS student experience at each grade span as a result of an optimized footprint is a direct result of the consistent and reliable staffing made possible by optimal school size. In this summary of what would be consistent and reliable, we consider that ensuring a consistent and reliable experience for students means that some supports may need to be increased in response to each school's each school community's needs. As seen here both intervention staffing and social-emotional support staffing are areas where student data can be used to inform the need to utilize restricted funds in a targeted manner to build additional supports at a school. A tiered approach to staffing to provide academic intervention can be an outcome of an optimized footprint. This can be done by ensuring an intervention staffing floor differentiated by grade band. In all three options brought forward tonight, IEP and EL services are always guaranteed by need, and foundational academic intervention staffing for all schools could mean every elementary school has 1 reading and 1 math intervention is guaranteed. While our secondary schools could have 2 intervention FTE. Minimum one reading guaranteed. This is different as currently guaranteed intervention staffing is only in place at our schools that qualify for title funds. At the secondary level the foundational academic intervention staffing to support academic success could also include contract-determined counselor FTE and an instructional teacher on special assignment or TOSA. With the foundation in place, student data can be used to identify additional support needed that restricted funding sources can support. The additional academic intervention support would be determined for each school community based on their student data including Fastbridge, MCA, ACT, and other district-wide aligned curriculum-based assessments. This additional staffing could include an instructional TOSA at elementary and additional reading and math intervention staff at all levels. We next consider an example of a tiered approach to social-emotional support staffing that can be made possible in an optimized footprint. In all options, IEP services are guaranteed by student need. And the foundational social emotional support staffing for elementary could include social work FTE as determined by the contract and ESP support With the ability to add layers of social-emotional support staff in response to student data. This additional support could include additional ESP support, a family liaison, elementary counselor, or check and connect staff, all using restricted funding sources. At the secondary level, the school counselor would be included in the foundational social emotional support staffing FTE being contract determined. With the ability to add additional FTE of the guaranteed social work, counselor and ESP staffing roles in response to data. We will next consider our enrollment strategies. Enrollment strategies. With the optimal footprint in place, we will be positioned to maximize resources to realize the enrollment strategies outlined in the April board presentation. As a reminder, these enrollment strategies are informed by caregiver feedback over many years The strategies are to prioritize early entry, enroll more Minneapolis residents, bridge transitions, and stabilize grade to grade retention. Prioritizing early entry means we must increase kindergarten enrollment by enrolling more Minneapolis families. Strategies to do this include pre-K access, increasing choice and delivering on the caregiver informed NPS. student experience. Currently, 5 of our 7 MPS pathways have pre-K access. Through resource alignment and an optimized footprint, we will provide pre-K in all 7 MPS pathways Current community and magnet school choice and MPS can be increased through walk zone adjustments. And finally, delivering on a consistent and reliable MPS student experience made possible through an optimized footprint will attract more families to MPS. The table here shows two ways that we look at our kindergarten entry rate. The first uses a demographic analysis which looks at the number of kindergarten students we enroll out of the total number of predicted kindergarten age students that were born 5 to 6 years previously Essentially, this analysis uses age-matched birth data to predict how many children will be available to enter kindergarten in a certain year. Because the kindergarten students of 2030, 31 are just beginning to be born, we predict the available pool of students based on past data. Shown here in school year 25-26 last year, we enrolled 44% of the students that were predicted to live in Minneapolis based on birth data alone. In contrast to the predicted enrollment rates from a demographic lens, once the school year concludes we can calculate our official enrollment rate of Minneapolis resident kindergartners using the Minnesota Department of Education data. Based on actual enrollment data from last year, MPS enrolled 60% of resident kindergartners This is a much higher rate than the 44% predicted from a demographic analysis because many resident age kindergarten students, resident kindergarten age students move out of Minneapolis before becoming school aged. We look at both of these data points as they help us triangulate data and make informed decisions To enroll more residents, we need to deliver on the on the experience families have consistently told us they care about most a consistent MPS student experience regardless of the school they attend. Meaningful school choice with magnet and community school options, and clear communication about those opportunities. We will also expand our enrollment outreach through dynamic campaigns with MPS partners so that more Minneapolis families make an informed decision to choose MPS. Here we look at our overall enrollment rate of Minneapolis resident students in MPS. As mentioned with kindergarten entry rate, we received detailed information from the Minnesota Department of Education, which tells us how many resident students we enroll in MPS. When looking at the data for 2526, we enrolled 53% of Minneapolis residents from grades K through 12. As a reminder we enrolled 60% in just kindergarten. Again Looking at data helps inform our strategies and where we can make our biggest impacts with enrollment. By understanding exactly where we are gaining and losing students, we can focus our efforts where they will have the greatest impact and make decisions that are grounded in evidence not assumptions. Our 3rd enrollment strategy in response to caregiver feedback is to strengthen transitions This will be done by providing centrally coordinated and aligned district-wide experiences at key transition years and delivering on the consistent and reliable MPS Middle School experience. The MPS middle school experience and an optimized footprint will allow resource dedication to the 5th to 6th grade transition. The middle school experience overall and high school readiness A consistent and welcoming start to middle school can include 5th graders visiting their Pathway Middle School, 6th graders visiting their former elementary schools to share about the middle school experience And middle school counselors being a bridge for Pathway Elementary schools. These activities currently happen in some pathways and resource alignment and aligned pathways provides the opportunity to standardize the experience for all NPS students. The middle school experience for all can include consistent and reliable core academic learning experiences with individualized supports. An aligned advisory experience to help social help develop social emotional skills and career and college awareness. And consistent access to exploratory courses to help students develop their identity and interests. At the bookend to middle school, high school readiness means a consistent district-wide experience for Pathway High School visits, 9th graders visiting their Pathway Middle School advisory courses. High school counselors visiting Pathway Middle Schools for course selection and to create a four-year plan for each student. And standardized high school clubs and sports promotion. Finally, our 4th enrollment strategy is to stabilize grade to grade retention thereby reducing enrollment losses between grade levels This strategy is realized through ensuring safe and welcoming schools with consistent and reliable staffing guaranteed community and magnet pathways, and delivering on the MPS student experience. Another way to envision this is that the 1st 3 strategies together will all positively influence our grade to grade retention We will continue to look at all of these strategies and use data to inform our practices. An optimized footprint of optimally sized schools ensures the resources necessary to deliver on the MPS student experience This means we will move from our current reality to our transformed future. We will move from an inefficient footprint to aligned and optimized. From resources spread thin to resources focused on students. From programs fragmented to strong programs. From different experiences to consistent experiences. From unequal or uneven opportunities to all MPS graduates being prepared, connected, and purpose-driven. Looking ahead This slide outlines the timeline for proposed implementation The first step is community feedback and consultation through October. During this phase, we will engage caregivers, staff, students, and community members to gather input on the options presented. In late October, we will bring that feedback back to the board for direction on any program changes for the 27, 28 school year. Following board action, we will begin our enrollment campaign, school choice process, and registration activities to support families in planning for the next school year. This is proposed to take place in November through January. From January through September. Our focus would shift to implementation including high school course selection, staffing and operational planning, as well as continued support for schools and caregivers, and preparing for a successful transition into the 2027, 2028 school year. And feedback gathering have been prioritized over the last few years, beginning with the first resolution initiating the transformation process in December of 2023. The process started with reviewing the feedback we've received going back a decade. It continued with surveys focus groups, one on one interviews, and more, representing over 40,000 voices. This feedback was utilized to create the updated MPS student experience and to define transformation, a districtwide effort to reimagine a district where every student thrives academically socially and emotionally through a holistic, culturally sustaining education that prepares contributing citizens As we've engaged with our community over the past few years, we've learned some key lessons from the past, which will inform the engagement process during this next phase of transformation. First, our community is asking for transparency, clarity, and detailed information about the rationale for proposals. Some of that information has been initially shared during tonight's presentation. We will have multiple tools and resources, including a web page with details about each proposal element. An interactive map tool, which shows proposed boundary changes and other important data. We will offer a variety of ways for people to engage and provide feedback. Our in-person meetings will allow time to ask questions, provide the opportunity to share direct feedback, and we will be able to share the results of our digital engagement throughout the entire process so that both our board and the broader community can see what the community is saying. We know that not everyone has the ability to come out to in-person meetings, and the past has shown us that the majority of our caregivers want the option to share their feedback digitally or through surveys We will also engage directly with staff at significantly impacted sites, as well as connect with our ongoing parent engagement and community engagement forums including parent advisory councils and meetings with partners. We want to be clear about the purpose of this phase of engagement. Our goals are to inform the public about the options we've shared tonight Learn what people think about those options and receive feedback about what might have been missed or where things can be improved. We will then share what we've learned with the board and the public by October 20th so that it can be used to determine the final plan This allows for enough time to gather more input if needed after October 20th on a specific topic or area This is an overview of the different engagement methods and resources we will use to engage our community during this next phase of transformation. In addition to these engagement opportunities, we will also receive feedback during a public hearing, which is required prior to closing any school. While we will, of course hope to hear from as many of our community members as possible. The 3 options require, or I'm sorry, impact up to 14% of students, which will likely reflect engagement as we move through this process. As with previous engagements, we will be closely monitoring our engagement throughout the process and adjusting our outreach and engagement strategies along the way. This is an overview of the engagement and feedback timeline, and we will have more information available on our website and newsletters and across all NPS channels. We encourage our community to to search transformation on the district website for more information, including the tools and resources mentioned tonight, and you can always email answers at NPLS.K12.mn.us with questions. Chair Beachy and directors, we are now ready for questions and discussion. OK, board members, go ahead and chime in, uh, if you have some questions, um, give you guys a minute here. I'd like to, um. Actually start here as we talked a lot about um Buildings enrollment utilization finances, um, bring me into the classroom here uh if we make these changes what's actually different for our students and specifically why do you believe these recommendations are gonna lead to better academic outcomes? Uh, Chair Bucci, thank you for the question Uh, what changes for our students is really anchored in greater consistency and stability, and I'm going to pass it to my colleague, um, Executive Director McCormick to talk more in detail about this. Thank you, Chair Beachy. Thank you for the question. Currently the variability of resources means some of our schools have the ability to meet students' needs every day and some do not. So when we talk about teachers having consistent and stable staffing, consistent access to specialist intervention support, and instructional resources, they can deliver more consistent instruction More timely support, more opportunities for students So this predictable support for our educators translates directly into more predictable and reliable experiences for our students. From the teacher perspective, this means the ability to focus more time and energy on meeting students' needs rather than on managing resource gaps. Therefore, better academic outcomes would be a result of this consistent and reliable resources and our teachers' ability to focus on those student needs. So throughout this whole thing we've been talking about creating a guaranteed MPS experience and we've seen that kind of talked about over and over through here um. What does that actually mean? You know, I mean, what are the, what, what, what are the things we should be able to tell those families back there that their child will have access to regardless of whatever school they attend. Director Beachy, thank you for the question. Um, if we think about it through that lens of the consistent and reliable experience meaning both academic and social emotional needs are met in all of our schools and we drill it down a little bit to elementary, middle, and high school if that would be. Um, helpful to look at those details a little bit if we think about when I previously mentioned that wind structure, so that's something we can deliver on. We can say that, um, we can guarantee a wind structure with the right supports and guaranteed intervention staffing, then we will see those academic gains and a guaranteed experience would mean an aligned elementary schedule that all of our elementary schools. would have the resources to effectively implement. Then we can move into that middle school experience that we mentioned a couple of times tonight. So that guarantee is that developmentally responsive academic and social-emotional middle school experience that starts with the 5th to 6th grade transition. And we want to make sure that we ensure high school readiness. So this would mean an aligned middle school schedule that would include rigorous core learning, that structured advisory we talked about, and then a standardized exploratory option to all of our MPS middle schools. So as previously mentioned, right now those pieces are variable, and this connects to our enrollment strategy. It was on slide 98. That by providing that consistent and reliable developmentally responsive middle school experience across all of our MPS middle schools, we can enroll and retain more families in those middle years. And then if we think about high school, what that looks like, what's different for our students, what we're guaranteeing is that all of our 912 MPS students will have access to a comprehensive high school experience that will ensure that our graduates are prepared for their life after high school. So what that can look like is guaranteed access to early college credit that career-connected learning, and a comprehensive aligned structure for post-secondary planning. And as we mentioned, if we have below optimal size 9-12 sites, we aren't able to offer all of those um attributes of a comprehensive high school experience. With this plan, all of our 9-12 students would have access to that. All right, um, I got some more. I'm just gonna do one more here, um, for now anyway. Um, I wanna make sure that we as a board and the public understands um, something about this. Are we, are we ultimately being asked to choose one of these plans in its entirety or can they be modified based on what we're hearing from the community? So, um, so for example, can we Ultimately believe one option makes good sense for one part of the city, but elements of another option make better sense for another part of the city. So what, what flexibility do you have in some of those things? What would you need from us and, and in what timeline? Cher Beachy, thank you for the question Um, so that's a really good question. We actually do expect, um, that, uh, not, not only you all as a school board but also the community will see different strengths in different, um, options in different parts of each option, um, based on, you know, what's taking place in those particular communities and so we actually think that that's OK. Um, and that's exactly the type of feedback that we want to hear during this, um, engagement process timeline. So if we could switch back to slide 107, actually just one back. Um, here, speaking to the timeline that you're asking about Cher Beachy um, you can see that, uh, over the next month, we plan to, uh, engage in this digital engagement, um as well as community meetings, um, and various different targeted stakeholder meetings. At those meetings, we will be able to have that information and feedback from community. Um, either digitally or, uh, at the meetings and see what the responses are, um, and what we're hearing, um, what might have been missed, what's more valuable or important to one community and one option versus another option, and then the intent is to be able to bring that, uh, to those community meetings, um, live and in real time as we're going to those spaces and places. And then also we have here, you'll see on October 20th, um, the plan to bring back that. Initial report on community feedback um, here, uh, to you as well as the rest of the directors um, with the expectation that likely there will be refinement and plan development that will take place next, uh, before any potential decision in November All right, I'm gonna start sharing the floor here Director Callahan. Thank you, Chair Beachy. I have um, many comments and some important questions. Um so we directed the superintendent to bring us three options to deliver on transformation, a vision we define together as a district where every student thrives academically, socially, emotionally through a holistic cultural sustaining education. We did not ask for a list of schools to close. We asked for strategies We asked for strategies to grow enrollment to win back the 47% of Minneapolis families that are not choosing MPS. We asked for guaranteed, well-rounded student experience. We asked for cohesive, reliable pathways and flexibility for families. We asked for options. And what we received instead are three plans that 6 district staff members came up with behind closed doors that all do one thing close schools. This is nothing new, just the continued cutting and shrinking of the most important public good, and the schools on this list for potential closure, from what I could decipher because I had to get out a magnifying glass and as a board member was not given a list of these schools are Anne Watton. Bethune, City View, Heritage Fair, Field, HIA Hiawatha, Howe, Kenny, Lake Harriet Lower, Longfellow, Loring Pratt Webster, Wellstone and Winona from what I could tell. The list of schools slated for potential closure includes beloved community schools that have just received statewide accolades schools with, uh, waitlists, schools that we just pumped tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into, schools that serve young mothers and new immigrants, schools with devoted principals, educators, and families who have just welcomed students back for the start of the year. Um, and these are schools that were the very reason why so many families even live in Minneapolis And it's not just these schools. All NPS schools will be negatively impacted if these unlucky ones are closed because we've done this before and it has been done across the country. We know this will impact recruitment of new families, retention of current families. The emotional impact of this, the attrition we will see cannot be overstated. Talk about bad press. No one sees a headline for massive school closures and thinks that's a district going in the right direction, but this isn't just about bad press. This is about the failure to build a robust long term strategy for our district, a failure of the district to communicate effectively, build trust, show optimism, and believe in our public schools. This is a failure in vision Public schools are not a business or a set of assets that can be liquidated. Public schools are a public good. They are the foundation of a multiracial democracy and as you may have noticed, our multiracial democracy is under direct assault. I am in awe of our public schools and how everyone here took action during Operation Metro Surge. Minneapolis Public Schools was on the front line. Hundreds, if not thousands of our students were directly impacted. The courage, the way that educators and families protected and supported each other is astounding, and I know that this has taken a tremendous toll on MPS families. The last thing we need right now is to dismantle our schools. Closing schools will create more upheaval, uncertainty, and trauma, and the very nature of the way this plan was presented to us as a board is not reassuring. We got a slide deck where there is, uh, impacted schools which are not even stated up front. We really had to zoom in and get our strong glasses out on a map Um, and yeah, there's a lot of arrows pointing forward and a lot of check marks and bullet points, but here's what it doesn't have a robust recruitment and retention plan. A list of how many staff will be cut. There's not a description of how much money it'll take to maintain empty school buildings or a concrete plan for what will happen to the shuttered buildings. There's not an analysis of how much money the district expects to save. There's not a description of how much money it will take to retrofit existing buildings to take in students from closing schools. There is not a projection of how many families will leave the district. If this plan takes effect. There is no stated partnership with or input from principals and educators, and I was just informed during this meeting that principals got a phone call right before this meeting started saying, uh, by the way, your school might close and you have to tell your staff tomorrow and have a meeting It is not explicitly clear how the enormous school closure plan would improve our district in any guaranteed or reliable way because guess what, we've done this before. In 2020, this district asked us to trust the CDD, the Comprehensive District Design, a plan created by a transportation software company. Families, teachers community members, we said that this would create chaos and that people would leave. The district said trust us, we can. Offer so much more if you trust us. Years later, oh guess what? We admitted it was wrong. The district promised to redesign would cut racially isolated schools from 20 to 8. Guess what Today we have 21. It's worse than when we started The district promised transportation savings and bussing costs have only soared. The district promised equity through centralized magnets. Black and white families left the district disproportionately in the boundary change fallout. We can look back to 2007 as well when we did school closures. Parents were explicitly promised that school closure savings would bring K3 class sizes down to 21, and instead, uh, that year there were 35 students in many classes. Both times the district promises were contingent on enrollment assumptions that didn't hold. Um, and neither time did the district build in an accountability mechanism if the assumptions were wrong. Let me say that again, the district did not build in an accountability mechanism if the assumptions were wrong, and we don't have one now either. New independent research says school closures do not deliver the financial stability they're premised on. A rigorous 2026 Stanford University study found school closures produce no statistically significant improvement in per pupil spending or revenue. Districts see large enrollment loss following closures. It is a trigger for families to leave for charters in private schools offsetting any facility savings. Staffing levels may not meaningfully drop either, undercutting the consolidation saves money on personnel argument. This tracks with what happened here already. In 2007, families left The shuffling and distrust it caused contributed to enrollment dynamics that did not stabilize. We have felt this destabilization in every corner of our city and too much on the north side. Families, students and educators gathered here tonight. You may be recognizing a pattern and how this school district is operating Pattern recognition is a Minnesota state standard introduced in the early elementary grades. As part of mathematics and data science, Greta, keep up with your comments, please. Let's not turn this into a focusing on noticing, describing, and thinking about repeated patterns. Are you noticing a pattern? A handful of district staff not elected create upheaval with a plan in the name of better schools, cost savings or stability. The district assures the community that it will be for the best, creates a slide deck with bullet points and arrows. The district downplays questions and concerns from community members. We all watch as the plan is pushed through and the district's promises go by the wayside. We watch as cost savings do not materialize. We watch as stability does not materialize We see educators, principals, families try to pick up the pieces and adjust. We see the district fail to prioritize recruitment and retention of families We see no accountability for the decision makers at the district who created the fail failed plan. No clear learnings from the mistakes, and then we do it again. Is your pattern recognition activated yet This district has promised stability twice before in recent memory after the 2007 closures and again with the 2020 CDD and independent research on closures plus our own numbers shows these savings rarely materialize once enrollment losses are counted. Before we ask families to trust a third version of this promise we should be able to show what's structurally different this time, not just repeated language. I reject this pattern. Closing schools is short sighted. Our district cannot afford risky or rushed proposals that overlook the most critical priority growing enrollment. Only this will ensure robust long term stability. Let me be clear, we, the board have not voted on a single one of these options for closures. We don't have to accept any of these options. We have not agreed to any of them. But now the list is out. School communities are being notified on potential closures before the body responsible approving those closures has voted This is not engagement or thoughtful planning, and it is inevitably what creates distress and of course will make principals and teachers and educators feel disrespected, belittled, and uncertain. How do you manage the daily operations of your school or classroom and simultaneously find the time to fight for it to stay open? And what does it do for morale for an entire community knowing your place of work and learning may not exist next year at the command of some ostensibly important people you never see? Did I mention it's the 2nd week of school? The assumption is that displaced students will simply move to a new MPS school, but history tells us otherwise. The district widely underestimated how many students would leave after the CDD. Families who lose their neighborhood school do not reliably stay. They choose private charters, open enroll, which is easy to do. Every one of those students is a student and a dollar amount the district does not get back But there is another option, a hopeful option. This year we have recovered millions of state dollars for MPS that the finance department was unaware we were supposed to receive. Millions of dollars previously left on the table that MPS will now receive annually That is huge. And we extended the tax levy. And there is a bipartisan supported state constitutional amendment on the ballot this November that will increase school funding. Every year we report a budget gap and every year we quietly close that gap. In many years we have ended with a surplus. We are not standing in the ashes of a district with no path forward. We have lowered class sizes this year. We are stabling. That is transformational We can get rid of the CDD boundaries now. So what happens if we don't close all of these beloved schools and we don't throw our district into chaos? I and many of the people, uh, listening tonight know we'd be much, much better off, and we as a district would do the harder, slower work of actually growing enrollment the work this board directed in the first place, instead of shrinking our way toward a number on a spreadsheet Before I close, I want to answer another question that I know many people here have been wondering about tonight. I asked after I received this plan a week ago, who created this? And the answer I got back was the district's senior leadership team and the superintendent So this is us, the board kind of floating above. This is all the green is the students and families in this district. This is our staff, and here is who created this plan affecting all of the people. The taxpayers are basically the whole page. 7 total people whose day to day work by the nature of their roles is the furthest removed from a classroom, a hallway, or a family drop-off line. Those are the 7 people who decided that a minimum of 14 school communities should be dismantled, not the building principals who know the kids by name, not the teachers, ESPs, nurses, bus drivers, not the caregivers or families. And Minneapolis families deserve to know exactly who is calling for these huge disruptive unnecessary school closures and I'm clearly stating on record that I find these options offensive as well as the time we have put in as a board towards transformation, and it's offensive to our critical thinking skills as a city. We have seen this before, and I ask all of us here to go back to the drawing board to figure out how we will recruit and retain our families in the Minneapolis public schools by continuing to stabilize this district and offer programming families are asking for. Build it and they will come. People, people who believe in public schools do not try to abruptly close them. I did not run for board to be handled or to be handed a done deal. I ran because I believe public education in this city is worth fighting for, and 3 options that close more than a dozen schools is not what we asked for, and it is not what I will accept without a fight. Before we turn a single family's life upside down, uh, we all deserve answers to a few questions and I would really love to have answers to these by the next business meeting. Number 1, what is the exact dollar amount you anticipate saving from closing? In each specific school. Number 2, what percentage of displaced students do you project will stay in MPS if we close these schools? And what is that projection based on? Please show us the data, not an assumption Number 3, how many new students would it take to enroll at each of the potentially closing schools to make its budget sustainable and offer a guaranteed student experience? And what is the actual recruitment plan to help us get there? Um, so those are three major questions I have. Um, I am, there are no guarantees in anything we were presented tonight. Um, I am extremely concerned about this engagement plan because If we are voting on a plan, no one talked to us about this timeline. Nobody said, hey, hey Greta, can you be around on these dates to engage with communities? Nobody did that to tell staff tomorrow to have already called principal. Polls when we did not vote on it for years I have been saying this board has no power. This board has no power. A district staff is running this district and, and this is just a perfect example of what we're seeing tonight. These three plans are offensive. Um I rest. Thank you for the time. Director Emrick. Have a seat. I Yeah Actually, director, we're gonna have a student representative Web um Korva go next. Student represent. Oh, I go, OK. So I was a little sick so I didn't get the full presentation but um I'm just gonna continue off from what I know. Uh, how exactly will this fix? The broken uh school pathways. That's that's my first question. I have a multiple, multiple questions. Um Also, when we close the, if you guys do close these schools, are you guys gonna be laying off the people that work there or you guys gonna be moving these uh staff and teachers to other schools that you plan to, uh, have students go to? Um, also wouldn't it make more sense for us to work on the schools that are struggling to make them more, uh Make students and families wanna go to those schools so they can stay up. Uh, I feel like if we just work on the schools that are already, we shouldn't be working on the schools that are already up because, you know they're already maintaining what they have. We should be working on the ones that are struggling so we can have, um. What is it called, uh, uh, operating cost efficiently for like per student. Um, and yeah, I've I honestly, I feel like it really comes back to we need to have more students and we have to work on what makes these students stay in these schools, how can we make it so we can attract more students to all schools in general. Uh, student, student representative Korva, thank you for the question, questions, um. Wrote them down as best I could so if I get to the end, you might have to remind me if that's OK. Uh, in regard to the question about broken pathways, um, for each of the proposals, so these are. Our response to the board's request to develop different proposals and options. Each one of the pathways, either be it a magnet pathway or a community school pathway, has a clear through line from kindergarten and potentially pre-K all the way through 12th grade. So what we had before was sometimes you might have a magnet school but the students didn't move together onto a high school, um, or you may have a program, I don't have the maps right in front of me, but there were different programs where you may have transportation, but then that transportation will be interrupted before you finished a high school, so not all students would have the opportunity to continue. So the intent with all of the pathways was to present different options where there would be a means for students if they entered into a pathway either because it's their community school or by choice because they chose something else or because they chose a different community or different magnet school they had the option to go through the entire program kindergarten through 12th grade. I'm going to Allow Senior Officer Miller to respond to the question about staff impact. Um, through the chair thank you, Student Representative Corva for the question Um, so at this stage I expect many staffing changes would be resolved through our contractual transfer and reassignment processes. Our commitment is to through the budget and staffing processes exhaust every contractual pathway before proposing any reduction. Ultimately though, the district's final staffing picture is shaped by 3 primary variables. So first, families enrollment choices play a significant role in staffing allocations The 3 enrollment options presented tonight were intentionally designed as directed by the board to give families flexibility and choice, um, and those subsequent enrollment decisions will directly influence school FTE allocations Second, we, as we are currently structured, a large portion of many schools' budgets are discretionary and schools make those decisions each spring because discretionary allocations vary by school and directly shape staffing needs. We cannot guarantee final staffing numbers until principals complete the work and the board approves the full budget. And then finally but relatedly, staffing allocations flow from the annual budget that's presented to the board each year in the spring. Well, we do begin each year to operationalize contractual staffing processes that accompany the proposed budget so that we can fulfill our contractual commitments, um, and those processes can begin and end on time. No staffing decision is final until that budget is ultimately approved by the board in June Um, so I know that doesn't answer your question with closure, um, but those would be choices that are largely before the board, um, for their consideration either in the school transformation process or the budget process in the spring. Um, finally, through the chair student representative Corva, the question that you had around focusing on some schools and then, um, focusing around, uh, if I'm paraphrasing correctly, making students want to stay, um, is, did I say it incorrectly Uh, well, yeah, stay, but also have students wanna go there, like have families wanna come to Minneapolis like, oh, this school is great. I want my students to go there, uh, and like they can have a good time Make friends, you know, all that, all that stuff. Thank you. Um, so thank you for clarifying that. So I think that speaks to, um, recruitment and retention, um at our schools. And so something that we have had tens of thousands of families have told us over a very long period of time is that what will make them come to Minneapolis and what will make them stay in Minneapolis. is that we provide consistent and reliable student programming and staffing year to year. So families want to know that their teachers are gonna be there, that they're gonna have the programs that are important, that they have the sports and activities that, um, I think, you know, especially as kids get older in high school and middle school, kids get really excited about being connected. And that those are some of the things that are most important and a really difficult piece about that um is that because of the way that public schools are funded, um, there are costs associated with that and so as part of the resolution it also uh asked us to look at um school size and how the size of a school impacts our ability to be able to provide these opportunities and so when Schools are of a certain size or when a certain number of students are together in a place, then that allows us to be able to sustain our staffing, sustain our programs and do the things that families have said we'll bring them to Minneapolis and keep them at Minneapolis And so that's one of the tricky pieces about this is we have to focus on the entire district, which is, um, in order to make sure that everyone can have the optimal student experience does mean having a smaller footprint in order to make sure that every single student in all parts of our city are able to have the academic and social-emotional um experiences that they deserve. All right, Director Emrick. Thank you, uh, Chair. Um, first of all, Superintendent and all of you who have presented these Proposal drafts to us this evening, as well as those of you who are not presenting but who worked on them. I wanna extend my deepest thanks and gratitude for the work you've produced. Um, my view is that you followed board direction exquisitely because as I read through the slides and then as I heard you presenting tonight, it was very clear to me that you began with the student experience the pathways, the programming. Um, the, the core and beyond, social-emotional supports, um, individualized services for students who need or require them. And then you looked at the resources that we have available to us as a district, staffing, facilities, communities and you utilize that along with the data that we've painstakingly collected over years to start building out what that guaranteed experience could look like for our students as equitably as possible throughout the city. And from that process emerged answers to the questions about how do we best utilize our facilities for this purpose. I can see that delineated in your process. I can see that you didn't sit down and say we're gonna close 10 number of schools, which ones are they gonna be? I can see that the answers, um organically emerged as we considered our resources and how we can best use them to deliver what our students deserve to all of our students. Um, I ran for school board because I experienced in my personal life and in my communities that students with disabilities are disproportionately segregated. They're over segregated in schools. That it happens to black students significantly more often than other students both in and outside NPS and that it's a primary contributor to the school prison nexus. We know from Hennepin County data, for instance, that almost 90% of minor students or minor uh, children who are charged with a crime and are over the age of 12, but because of age. Or mental health status are unable to continue with typical legal proceedings. Almost 90% of those students had already been identified for special education before the age of 12, which means before they were in the criminal legal system, they were in our systems, our systems in NPS and in other Hennepin County schools Districts. Um And I have directed myself 100% of the time in the time that I've been on the board toward trying to figure out how fewer of those students end up in the juvenile justice system because it's horrific We know it's horrific when kids are detained and locked up because we just spent the last year trying to prevent it from happening. But it's been happening for far longer than it's been in the news in Minneapolis to different demographics of children, and it is the first and sometimes the only important thing to me when I'm thinking about decisions because kids do not deserve to be locked up, period. And any place that we can control the number of kids that that happens to is a place where I wanna turn my attention, so Having said that, I actually have some really specific questions, uh, that will help me continue the work of shaping these proposals. Um, and I do have a number of them, and I don't mind rapid-fire answers. Um, I can, we can always come back and talk about answers but I wanna make sure all my colleagues get time on the mic. Um, but in particular, I wanna talk about the Camden pathway because when we, uh, look at the Uh, impact analysis, um, and I think that slide 30 if you wanna pull it up, um, we do see a disproportionate impact in that part of the city in terms of both the number of students projected to be impacted, um, across these options and the final number of students we anticipate, at least at this iteration of the plan being in, um, optimized. Uh, schools, right? And so my question is sort of holistic, like, what, what are we planning as far as trying to mitigate some of the inherent equity impacts? I understand, um, just to be clear that it's a priority to keep both Camden and North open, and I agree with that. Um, and I understand that because it's a historically disinvested in part of the city and You know, through all systems we're working with a set of conditions that, you know, we didn't necessarily create, but we do have to address them. So that would be my first question. Mhm. Uh through the chair, Director Emrick, thank you for the question. Um, I, I hope that I'm answering it thoroughly, so please let me know, um, if I, if I may have missed something. But when we look at where what, where Camden is currently, Um, and actually let me back up a little bit. So throughout this process um, I know that we had mentioned prior, but it was a lot of information this evening. Uh, we talked about how important, um, it was, um, our understanding of looking at potential options to present. Uh, was how important it is to ensure that we continue to invest in public schools in all areas of Minneapolis and all of our communities. And so that is um how we've gone through this when looking at every single comprehensive high school pathway. To make sure all areas of our city remain invested in, um, and committed to at, at present, uh, based on enrollments, we have 16, approximately 16% of our students in the Camden pathway that attend an optimally sized school. So when you see um some of the movement um it it does it does mean that in all of the options there are um more students moving into optimally optimally sized schools but because of the numbers uh. It, it seems quite large if that if that's proportionately what you mean, and I can defer to Dr. McMurray to give a much more um data rich response if you would like. As a yes, um, so one thing that Deputy Superintendent Thompson mentioned and that is you also mentioned is that just across our city it looks differently demographically depending on where you are and so within each pathway you will see different groups of students impacted more or less based on the demographics of our city. So what you are noticing in the Camden neighborhood is reflective of the students that live there. In each in each option Yeah, I understand. And I understand that when you look at sort of like the proportionality, um, you know, we're seeing, uh, a significant amount of growth in the right direction for that, uh, pathway and part of the city. I also know that if we're talking about trying to get everybody on You know, sort of equal footing with each other. You know, you still have this part of the city that's, that's not starting at the start, same starting line as everybody else And so I'd be interested to, and this, this may iterate through the plan, but I would want attention paid to how do we make sure that those students that are um, You know, either still gonna be more impacted right? Because we know that the impact is going to uh, affect families, students, communities. So there's gonna need to be more support in place, um, where there is greater impact. And then also we are still gonna end up with fewer, though way more than right now, but fewer students in those optimized schools So, you know, I think of things like Are we gonna guarantee extra family liaison FTE? Are we going to have um somebody who is assigned just to Camden, um that pathway to do enrollment, um, growth, targeted work and sort of have some specialized, uh, staffing hours going into, you know, an initiative like that Kinda how are we going to help mitigate the, the fact that they're still gonna be starting behind the, the starting line? Uh, through the chair. Thank you, uh for that additional question, Director Emrick. So a couple, a couple of things there. One thing to note is that because of this, um, because of the proposed options and the potential for footprint consolidation it does mean that we have more available resources to give to all of our schools, but also understanding that some of them, although not yet optimally sized would still have the, the MPS student experience that our caregivers um have said time and again is what they want for their students to receive both academically and social-emotionally. And so on slide 89 or 88 to 90, it um speaks to this specifically. I'm sorry, I'm just trying to pull it up. Um, on slide 89, um, it does talk about foundational staffing that all schools would get and then um. Additional, uh, staffing or supports that some schools could have based on data and thinking about what you, um, in this example, it's speaking more, um, around academic data, but what in this, when you're talking about maybe transitional supports and needs, that is one of the areas that is in the engagement strategy. And so there, there would be if this were a chosen option, I think some of this depends on what would be selected if the board were to select one of these options or a different option, then we would then be able to focus on what sort of additional tiered supports could be provided to buildings that were impacted, uh, more so than others. Awesome. Thank you. Um, on the, um, kind of question of Camden, and this is just, I'm just asking questions here. Um, was there any discussion of potentially locating specialized arts program, like pulling that pathway through to Camden? I know that they have a pretty epic legacy theater program there. There seems to be a lot of arts interest there. Um, and I wonder if that Has potential to bolster the enrollment to add up that pathway, but that may have already been looked at. I was just curious if it had been considered The chair, through the chair, Director Emery, thank you for the question. Um, so these, uh, 3 potential options and proposals that we brought forward were our best thinking in regard to how to be responsive to What was required in the resolution as far as the consideration of what would be necessary for the holistic size to be able to offer the student experience, and I don't have the criteria in front of me, but all of the criteria in the resolution. Um, in this next phase of engagement, our, um, our hope is that we would hear from, um, our community regarding, um, any of their feedback about things that they might want to tell us that maybe we hadn't thought of or could be looked at differently. And so we do expect, um to receive feedback. Awesome. Um, well, put that one on your list. Um, uh, OK. A question about the walk zones. So I just happened to, in my house, live a couple blocks from Lucy Laney, um, one of the best schools in the city, and, uh, but it looks like I would not be in the Lucy Laney boundary, but because I live two blocks away, if I wanted to send my kid to Laney. I could, is that right? Thank you for the question. Um, yes, so if you are within the walk zone then you would have priority for that to be a school choice. OK. And then my follow up to that is, would um, would my kid then get to complete that pathway through 12th grade because we live, if, if we wanted to. Thank you for the question. Yeah, so once you are in a pathway of your choice, then you would be able to continue the pathway all the way through if desired. The one caveat to that is that that would uh, transportation would not be provided in that sense that was a walk zone priority. OK, OK, got it. Um let me see here. Sorry, just looking at my notes. Um OK. Does this plan, now I'm talking about Spanish dual language, does this plan address the concerns with the building size of Emerson, which has long been something that we've been hearing about? Thank you for the question, Director. I'm, um, one of the the, um, pieces around dual language immersion is ensuring that we have the space, um, that is required to expand for Spanish dual language immersion. The year before last, the dual language task force had several recommendations, and one of them was regarding to space. So this year I can share a few updates. Um one, Green has added a 1st grade section. Uh, Las Estrellas added a 6th grade, I'm sorry, a kindergarten And I'll also say that Las Estrellas currently has a space to expand if we needed to go from a K5 to a K8 model. Um, Anderson also has room for more students if, um, needed. Um, that said, we have very few students on the waitlist and we have space at Las Estrellas We also then have pathways in the south and the north OK, great. Um, similarly to my question or just maybe suggestion about arts programming at Camden, um, I did wonder if, um, when Montessori and also the current Ella Baker, um, magnet programming, uh, uh, Global studies and humanities weaves into South High, um is there any, um, Uh, plan to look into whether there would be thematic programming that could encompass um, those programs. I was a South High open kid, um at least as I remember South High, there are students who are, I would say, aggressively curious, and I wonder about something like an inquiry-based global competencies, experiential humanities type programming and whether that's something that could sort of continue that pathway for those students. Thank you, Director Emrick. Um, I'll answer that question in two parts starting with Montessori. Um, Montessori High School programming does exist, but it's very rare. Um, if you look across the country, there's roughly like 5000 Montessori schools and about 150 are Montessori high schools. Um, about 20 of those are in public education because the model of Montessori doesn't necessarily fit in the system of like a high school setting, so it's very rare and. Complicated and sometimes doesn't serve students um as well um as a comprehensive high school in terms of um so that's kind of more the Montessori approach in terms of uh Ella Baker um there would be a cohort completion so students are together and South has a variety of electives and is a comprehensive high school um so there are electives that students could pursue. OK, well, add add inquiry-based slash humanities slash global competencies uh to your list of things to engage around and consider because SOC is really special in that way. Um, OK interventionists. So when we're talking about one of the outcomes of, um, These plans being that we would have um more guaranteed access to interventionists at every, at least every elementary school. Um, would we be looking at having a cohort that works out of Davis and then is assigned? My question really is in the past we've seen, um, inequitable distribution of interventionists across the city, and how would we make sure that we weren't, um, facing that same situation again. Through the chair, thank you, uh for the question, Director Emrich. I, I don't know that we have. Been talking right now about a specific model um when thinking about a cohort going to various schools or anything of that nature. It was really focusing on how do we look at the feedback that over 40,000 families have told us and one consistent piece that they have said is they would want consistent and reliable staffing, um, both for intervention and for acceleration and so in these three proposals what you will see is that is part of. What all schools would receive and then in addition, in a tiered model uh, based on student data, particular schools would have the opportunity for additional interventionists um, but as far as assigning where, how they were staffed that, that was, um, not our reading of the resolution Got it. That would be something that would be important to me is when we're looking at this predictable staffing how do we make sure we don't end up with vacancies at some of the um schools and areas of the city that are already gonna be um experiencing the greatest impact and that have been experiencing the greatest impact of not having enough resources and being spread too thin for a long time. Um, OK, I'm almost done Just a couple more. Um, media centers, libraries, I don't know if we touched on those in the slides. Um what are, would there be an impact as far as guaranteed um, half or full-time media centers for students? Through the chair. Through the chair, thank you, Director Emme. Um, one of the things we've talked about a little bit with library media specialists is, um, the number of books in terms of like if schools merge so we could utilize those books in multiple spaces, um, but we're not yet at a at a place around predictable staffing to talk about what LMS, um, school allocations would increase, decrease, or stay the same. Got it, thanks That's another one that's interesting to me. I know it's really important to a lot of folks. Um, OK, uh I want to ask a little bit about, I know that, and I'm very happy to see that we are talking about increased opportunities for inclusion for both students with IEPs and students who receive EL services. Um, can you tell me, I realized we could talk for hours, right But could I get just a few bullet points about what you expect that to look like when we say increased opportunities for inclusion, uh, what does that mean To the chair, director Emrick, thank you for the question Um, so, when we look at optimally sized schools, that also means that we would have more classrooms. So for example, right now we have some schools that have one or two sections of a grade level. It makes it very difficult for students that may have an IEP or EL learners to be able to have um Authentic inclusion opportunities as much as we would want to because there are so few different classrooms or spaces based on grade level that students could go to. And so with schools that are more optimally sized that would have maybe 3 and 4 sections, there are more ways that students can have increased inclusion where they can still get the support that they need for their specific learning needs and the other. Students that may not be an EL learner or ML learner or may not have an IEP can also get the support they need from their teachers so that everyone can learn in those inclusive spaces. It, it's very difficult when you have, um not enough sections to make sure that you can provide the support. So just to clarify, um, what we're talking about is just the number of spaces available, um, in a school. By spaces I mean like classroom communities right, uh, physical classrooms means that students who maybe have different needs. could be accommodated in different ways in different classrooms and also you wouldn't be putting like a critical mass of students with IEPs or who receive EL services into one classroom and then have just a large demand in terms of specialized services for that one classroom to be able to absorb Correct. Last one, and this is not a question, this is just a quick comment. Um, I know this is already on your radars. I know you're already doing this as um, I just wanna make sure that we're engaging BPAC specifically. Um, they have been such champions as far as, um, making sure that they are providing us with. Information and guidance about what uh they are needing and I just wanna make sure that we're being really responsive and plugging in and partnering as well as I'm sure a number of other targeted groups we're, we're making sure we're engaging our communities in all kinds of ways. And I know Donnie, you're totally on it, but I just wanna throw that out there just to make sure. And again, I just want to say thank you. To me this is very courageous, and to me this is something I've been hearing about from hundreds if not thousands of our families since I was campaigning They're tired of us kicking the can down the road They are tired of us We know that one of the ways that we address equity in our district year over year is to try to reallocate resources from the schools that have more to the schools that have less. And what we are now finding in these last few years is there's nothing left to reallocate. The schools that have historically had more don't have any more for us to take the pressure and stresses being felt across the district. I don't think there's any one person who wants to close schools. If there was a different way to do this, collectively, we would have figured it out by now. Hm Director surreal Thank you, chair Um, I just want to say, you know, it feels like deja vu right during the CDD. And, um, I, I appreciate everyone's uh. Perspective questions and I would like to just Um, say that Director Callahan and I do appreciate the questions that you brought up and hopefully we get answers to that. Uh, because at the end of the day, right, it's very important to see exactly how much exactly that we are saving, right, to, um, bring these proposals forward, and I also appreciate, uh Director Bachy that you said how much influence, right that we're gonna have to shape these three proposals Um, but at the end of the day, um, this is hopefully gonna be driven by community. And uh my question and concern is specifically to community engagement. Uh I don't know, um, I would like to see a, a, a more clear plan presented to us to understand what are the opportunities for, you know, community to provide their, um, input in this because this is very heavy and uh I don't know. I don't, I don't think just one meeting with community will be able to um Um To understand the density of these proposals. So I don't know if we have a clear uh map out of how many events we're doing, how many, how many round table uh conversations we're having, um. Is there a plan for that or I don't know. Can somebody please respond to that? Through the chair, Director Cirrio, um, if you go on the MPS website, we currently have a calendar of events available The community meetings are expected to start September 30th through October 9th. We have one planned at each pathway, and there will be childcare interpreters available. Additionally, the schools that are, um proposed to close or or merge, one of the reasons why communication was shared with staff at those sites is because it did not feel appropriate to have this exploratory conversation. Without first connecting with our staff, imagine, um, being at one of those sites and it's absolutely true that no decision is being made tonight. However, we are talking about specific commu um school communities and it felt inappropriate and disrespectful to have even an exploratory conversation without reaching out to the staff. So I did wanna share that and then beginning tomorrow morning at 8:15, we have meetings with the meeting starting and I will last for the next two weeks with the impacted sites that have been named tonight. Outside of that we will um be working with our PACs. We will also um be adding additional meetings, but currently between the impacted sites and the seven pathway meetings I think we're at probably about 20 meetings between now and October 16th. And in addition to that, Um October 20th will just be a checkpoint. So October 20th we will share, um, who we've heard from, where we are, uh, the, the digital engagement tool that we have, we will be able to share, um, as Deputy Superintendent Thompson mentioned, we will be able to share that feedback. Um, I will name that, um, our REA team does amazing work, but in order to, uh, code and create those reports, it takes time. And then I also want to name that the resolution mentioned possible implementation in the 27, 28 school year. Um, typically our enrollment process for families opens November 10th, and while there is, I'm sorry, not November 10th, mid-November I meant to say every year, um, is when that process opens. In order to be respectful to families, there is no great time to have these hard conversations but if the board is gonna move forward with any option to start in the fall, now is the time to have that conversation so that pretty quickly, whatever. Decision is made, we are prepared to then um begin working with families to based on their, their choices. So happy as always to receive additional feedback as we move through the process. But considering accessibility considering the initial window of mid-November, this is the timeline that we're currently working with and are flexible and open to change, um, as usual as we go through this process. Wonderful. Thank you I appreciate it. I know that information is on the website, you know, but it's just like so many of our families uh don't even know that yet, so I, I feel like I appreciate that information just ensuring that we do, uh. Reach out to, to our families, our students I don't know how students are being engaged as well um, student, you know, councils, it should be that we are reaching out to, uh, the most affected individuals which is our families, right, our students, and I appreciate the, uh, outreach also to our stakeholders right, but at the end of the day, it's our families and our students. Thank you. Thank you Director Cerrio I did wanna share for students, um, we do have, uh communications going out tomorrow morning directing people to all of those resources. I do also wanna share that our website, um, is accessible in our primary languages. So, um, just wanna. That for families who are looking to access access this content in other languages, um, and again we will be providing interpreters so that this can be a multilingual conversation, um and students will all high school students will receive an email tomorrow morning directing them to where they can share their feedback, um, and those, those forums. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Director Abdi Thank you, thank you, chair, uh. Staying with that Is one month really enough to give families, I'm a parent also, and uh, those changes really affected a lot of families, uh. So is communication one month really enough? With this magnitude of school closures Uh, Cherubichi Director Abdi, I can give some perspective on this. So it's something that we've looked at when we saw that in the data, I think you all saw a range of how many students were potentially impacted that gives us the audience that we need to engage most directly with. So spending the time to talk to the I think it's between 12 and 14% of students who we project to be impacted. Um, is going to be the baseline of where our engagement will happen. Additionally what we've heard over and over and some of us who have been here before was the engagement was happening and then it was like, here it is, vote. That is not what this process is. This process is to hear initially what are people thinking and then bring it back to you all so you can, so you can affirm what you've heard or contradict what you think because we're going to take that initial burst of feedback which we, we do, we will get. And either say we haven't heard from a certain student group, we haven't heard from a student in a particular school area, we need to do deeper and more to be able to understand the path forward The other thing to think about with this time window is whatever decision is or is not made, there will be some closure by a point of November. And move forward whether or not it's a change or it isn't a change Everyone will know that and we'll move right into our enrollment window. So I don't think it's just that it's that one month, it's that one month of initial feedback to see who we heard from. Maybe we've heard from a particular demographic sufficiently but haven't in other areas and we've got to. Uh, do some real specific targeted outreach. So that's an opportunity to report back on an initial window of feedback and then decide again it will happen here at a work session Here's what we've heard and from whom, and then that can be a point at which we take guidance from you all about how to move forward. If I recall that resolution that we passed it. The first item was To really look for ways to increase Pre-K attraction or like really Enroll those students to the places that we needed them. We don't really Uh, universal offer pre-K, I know that, uh, and it's been asked so many times on me and my northeast side, uh, some of those schools why we don't offer it pre-K. But we started the option is of uh the presentation of uh school closures and all those things uh. The What concerns me is those students that are shifting, uh, for example, heritage shifted to Northeast, uh, Edison. Nor'east doesn't have infrastructure right now as South has it. Sullivan has it and Sullivan. The way it's going to be shifted is either to the Northeast or go to the. North High which makes them they commute. Maybe triple or something like that. Are we ready to lose those students as a district? Through the, through the chair, thank you for the question, Director Abdi. Um, I'll start with the pre-K question and then I might need a little bit more clarification around the potential different options and, and what that may look like to better understand. Um, with pre-K, so, um, when thinking about our enrollment strategies as you mentioned, um and the feedback that you've heard, um, through, uh constituents that, that, that you talk with, um, we've you know, seen the same around the desire for there to be pre-K options, uh, in all of our communities which we don't have right now. So, we have not gone into detail, uh, today about what that would be, but what we have looked at is looking at our space across the district and our ability with reduction, uh, potential reduction of footprint to be able to offer expanded pre-K to ensure that we have pre-K, um, in all of our pathway sites. Uh, once a decision is made by the board, then we would be able to go into detail exactly about what that pre-K could look like, but because the different options and different pathways present different opportunities, um, it's not quite possible yet to say exactly what that would be beyond um, that there's a commitment to ensure that there's increased access there. Uh In slide 14, if you bring it up. Right now, uh, American Indian students that goes to the Northeast goes to Edison as well. With that path you're going to be kept. And those that are already in Edison High School, are they going to be changed back to the south, or? Through the chair thank you for the question, Director Abdi. Um, so with the, um, American Indian best practice magnet pathway, we have the Anishinabbe Academy, and as you referenced, we have the students that either attend Stanford or Northeast depending on their address. So students that are in the magnet pathway, if they live in Northeast, have the option right now, and we would believe that they would continue to. Have the option that if they live in the Northeast um or the Edison excuse me, pathway, they could choose to go to high school there as their community pathway or if they wanted to continue um with a more immersive um experience they would be able to attend the South All Nations program um which does offer more than our um other sites. OK, I, I'll come back to that. I'm, I'm fine now. Student representative Webster. Um, I just wanted to ask, uh, are we as board members invited to the meetings that y'all are talking about? Yeah To the chair, thank you for the question, Student Representative Webster. Uh, yes, you are invited to the meetings um, and all of our students and community are invited um, to the meetings that were mentioned by Executive Director Belcher and can be found on our website. Director Norville. Thank you, Chair. Sorry, I was trying to organize my notes because I'm all over the place. Um First of all, I wanna um Director Emmerich, thank you so much for your, um, for your comments and your questions. A lot of the things that you said were things that I've been that I was thinking about and I was writing notes about, so thank you, um, thank you for articulating so much of that so well, um. Change is so hard and I know we have, we all have a lot of feelings about it and it is hard and. We can do hard things and sometimes we have to and um I don't wanna I don't wanna close schools. I don't want to do any I also would like to speak without being interrupted we've had a lot of side chatter tonight and it's been really distracting for me. Um So We've got some hard decisions to make as a district, as a board, as a community, and what I would like to say is from my understanding, we ask the superintendent as a board For her and her team, which is not a large team when you think about the superintendent's cabinet, we asked them to come up with options for us so what was presented to us I wasn't expecting like specifics like um like I didn't know what was gonna be in the report. I was expecting those specifics though like so let me rephrase that I didn't know what would be in the report but I was expecting to see specifics in there and so um So I wanna thank you for the time that you put into it. I wanna thank you and your team, um, for the work that you put into it. I think you were very thoughtful um, and. I think it gives us a lot of information We are still in discussion about this. No decision as we've said, no decision has been made. And while we're on. That topic of decision. I think that some people are under the impression that this is a rash decision and that we're we're moving very quickly I know that I've been talking about this in this seat for 3 years. We have been talking about this as a board for 3 years, so to me that's not quick. It feels fast right now because we have this timeline because if we're like we're thinking. If we want to make this change by the next school year then we know what that timeline looks like for November right? for enrollment and so I think it feels um that can make it feel a little bit rushed um but I just wanna remind everybody we have been talking about this for a very long time and in that time we were doing other work as well like hiring a superintendent and you know so anyway all of that um. I really appreciate the um the clarity on the student experience and how we're looking at that across the entire district. I've shared this before in my own experience with my children uh when we moved here we had two different experiences with middle schools all within Minneapolis public schools and we had to ultimately choose do I want my kids to be in. A bigger school where they get foreign language multiple times a week they can take choir and band and then they still get fayed and you know they have all these options right? or do I want my children in a smaller school that's a little bit you know closer knit tighter whatever but then they they got Spanish once a week. Come on, you know, like they can't learn it that way and so we're giving, we're trying to give all of our students that experience of having those options, um, because that, that doesn't work for everybody to have like the smaller experience or more like a um, you feel like you're still in elementary school when you're really in middle school, right? Because you're not getting to change classes and all that so I really appreciate the um the. The presentation on the consistency across the board for that experience for our students because I think it is important and it does go back to the feedback that we've heard from families about wanting band, wanting languages, wanting you know, these different magnet pathways. All of that, so I, I, I really do appreciate that, um, a couple of questions that I did have, uh, can we get I was looking for the current numbers of the schools like in terms of, um, optimal sizing what I found when I, I did the um the QR code, you know, and why during the presentation I was looking at it and I saw like what the projection was but I'm wondering what it is. Currently, if we could get that, um, I'm just curious where some of the schools fall, like how close are they or how far away are they from that number, um. And then, oh, on, um, the slides that had the, the one I had up was 33 because I believe Director Abdi or someone was talking about it, um it's the one for Camden, but it's on all of the slides that has the options for the different pathways at the bottom where it talks about those choice options I think it was Director Amrick was talking about this um, about the walk zone priority, um. With all four of those options, home community school, different community school, walk priority, magnet schools, is it, is that in order of priority or is it like how will that be determined if there's only so much space out of school, right? Through the chair. Director Norville, thank you for the question. Um, I, I wouldn't say that it's I have to distribute. I wouldn't say it's necessarily an order, but there is an order to it, um, so thinking about our home community school so that's the school based on your zone, you know same as we've always had, where if it's your community school, then that's your school where you, where we're counting you as, right, based on your address, that's where you go. Um, you have transportation unless you know you're a walker and live in that area. And then when we look at the walk zone priority, so, um, skipping over one, it says students living in the walk zone of a different community school get priority enrollment if there's space. So when we think about right now we have a lottery system, um, for student or I'm sorry for families to select choices, and there are different weights. So then, um, what we're envisioning because part of the resolution was about increasing choice um for families is how do you operationalize this One of the ways is to, you know, obviously continue to or not obviously but continue to make the commitment to wherever you live in your community school and then giving a walk zone priority, so a weighted priority to families that live in a walk zone, but Because what we've often heard, and I think that sometimes board members you might hear the same, is that I'm right here or I live right on the border and it's closer this other school, but of course when you have to do school boundaries, lines have to be drawn somewhere and so this um priority waiting would say you wouldn't get transportation because you're telling us that you live in the walk zone, but then you would have priority to attend that school. Um, and then different commu community schools is, um, that's, that's a process still that we have right now through our lottery system um, and again we would continue to have a process and that's something that, you know, could be looked at. I imagine we might get feedback around that, um through the survey. And then no transportation would be um provided same as we do now because that's a family's choice based on space and then finally magnet schools, which again is a choice but does provide transportation. What I think what we would um anticipate uh if one or a combination or however um this may come forward to a board decision, um, but a potential next step when you're saying. Um, I forgot your exact words. Like, how do you figure out who goes where and get the numbers right? Uh, is that, um, Some of that in a transition we would need to be responsive to and and look at. So that goes, I think sometimes we think about the waitlist. What is the waitlist telling us in this list of priorities and then how do we make sure that we staff appropriately because we know that we have had some enrollment gains over the years. We want to continue those and one of our enrollment strategies really um is our, our main one is to listen to what families have told us to give them what they have asked for, and this is one of those ways. Thank you. Thank you, um, and then. Um as our student representative mentioned, I had on my list to ask if you would let us know about the community, um, meetings and events that are happening We just get a list of those, um, and then, um, the last thing really is, you know, this is. um I, I'm looking forward to future discussions. I know you all are gonna come back next month. We, um, we're going to be having more time to talk about this before um, we do have a potential vote and, um, and during that conversation something that I am curious about um, and so if you all haven't, you've probably already thought about it, but, um, I'm curious about implementation for what however we vote what happens will that implementation Um, or will, you know, will we talk more about that I guess it's a discussion I'd like for us to have Would any implementation that we vote in favor of be phased in all at once combination? Like what would that, what could that maybe look like, um, and in terms of thinking of impact with the community as well. So that's just something I just want to put on our radar. So thank you, chair, and again thank you all very much. Thank you for your work on this Director El Amin Thank you, uh, Chair Beachy. So I have a couple of questions here just. Um, again, just reminding us as a board that we have been talking about this for years, the transformation and what we were expecting the superintendent and her team to do, and the information that you brought back tonight did exactly that. It, it brought us the three options It showed us the impact, and that is what we asked for. So I wanted to say thank you too as well to the team. My question comes again. I think that the time frame. Um, from when the parents are supposed to know about it, when community is supposed to know about it, it's definitely too short when we're talking about um, closing schools, we have to get families, we have to get the input from the community, so I think that's too short of a period for what we are saying could happen. I wasn't expecting, um, the names of the schools tonight either. I, I was looking for options. I was looking for things, but I wasn't expecting this detailed information here tonight. My concern again as I've always talked about is academics and when I look at what was presented here tonight making these changes it's stated here on page 84 um when it talked about the footprint to the resources and optimized footprint creates the conditions and resources to deliver on the MPS student experience that means the core and beyond the core academic resources and instructions that means individualized learning support. Intervention staffing, social emotional support and skill building safety and security staffing for all of our students That is what this transformation has meant to me. It's making sure that all of our students have an opportunity to excel, that all of our students have resources in their classroom, that our black and brown children can read and write. And can have the resources that all other schools do too so when I think about transformation when I signed up to be on the board, academics was always a priority for me and it still remains a priority Do I wanna close schools? Absolutely not, but we cannot continue to do what we've been doing. That's not an option for us. So I want us to really think about what is the reason we signed up to make sure that our children are educated. We signed up to make sure that our teachers have the resources that they need to be able to educate our students, but information a procedure, um, when we're talking about closing schools, we have to have buy-in from the parents. We put a lot of money into these schools, Bethune, to be on a list with all the money that has been put into it, we have to have community buy-in. So my, my ex superintendent um would be again for us to look at that timeline to really be um. Consider what the parents are going to go through, the changes that they will have to make, the changes that our staff would have to make too as well. But the goal here for me, what I want to see. Is our black and brown children reading scores, math scores going up, and for them to have an opportunity to have all the resources that some of the other schools have that we do not have on the north side we've had many, many, many many uh meetings where parents, teachers, educators come up and talk about what students don't have talk about the absence of gym teachers, talk about the absence of the hot lunches, talk about all the things we don't have. Well, that's what we get when we don't have the funding and we're spread so thin. So if we're really talking about the work and making sure again that we give the best experience, there is going to be some change. But we do owe it to our families to give them more than 2 months if we're talking about closures with the school we've been talking about it. We could have given something like this before we went on some, uh, summer break. We could have talked about it more in detail at the meetings. What I would like to see is for this information to go back into the spaces with the community and let's talk about it and then bring that information back and make some decisions. So, thank you. Vice Chair Allison Yes, thank you, um, thank you so much for this. You guys brought back exactly what we had asked you to do. I know you spent all summer working on this, and I, I, I, I felt it was very detailed, um, and I think I have enough information. Most of my questions have been asked but I just wanna, um, say some, some of the things I've been wondering about. Well, and I think, um, Senior Officer Sonic, you answered this. I was, I was surprised not to see an expansion of the Spanish dual immerse dual language emerging. I think you, um, answered uh. That question and I'm just gonna run through all of my stuff and I because I don't need a lot of answers to anything um one thing that has come up and I that I hope um that I've wondered that I hope you hear about as we engage community in the next month um is we celebrate um Somali Hmong, um, Spanish language and culture, um. Specifically at South and Edison and Roosevelt, um, but I've heard people ask about something like an Afrocentric specifically maybe even at North and so just something to think about and I was hoping that we could do that as we make changes to, um, some of our programming here if that's something we could consider um I'm a little concerned about 21 year olds in a school at South with 14 year olds Um, if we put, what is that Wellston at South, um that's just something I'd like to hear more about um, how we're going to make sure students are safe Um, other than that, I would just wanna thank you um, for bringing back this information. I think it was very detailed. I'm glad that, um, you showed us the percentage of students that would be impacted by any of the changes that we make if we choose this And so I'm looking forward to the engagement and, um so that's all I have for tonight if you wanna thank you. All right, um, I had a, um, quite a few other questions. A lot of you, um, hit on them earlier today so I, I appreciate that, um, uh, so I don't wanna um, necessarily go back to all of them, but I do. Wanna go back to talking about our staffing, and I do wanna know what the implications of these proposals are and um how we're gonna protect some of the continuity and relationships that teachers work so hard on the way we're creating with their families if if this is something that's gonna be implemented. How are we going to protect our teachers? Um, thank you, Chair Beachy, for the question. Um, that is something we have been having a lot of conversation about as we've been processing through, um, the three options. I will name, um, most of our collective bargaining agreements but so specifically, um, ASME, which is our clerical staff, um, two of the contracts for the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, both the education. Support for professionals, um, Amber through 22 teachers and then also our SEIU culinary and wellness teams, so who make up, um, a good bulk of who serves in our schools every day they do have contractual processes in place for what happens when school commun communities merge. Um, and generally the language, um, already in the collective bargaining agreement is that when school communities merge, seniority lists merge at schools as well. Um, so we don't yet know until we know how. How families are going to make choices, individual decisions made by school communities, exactly what those FTEs will look like, but I will say that the contractual process does have the staff following their students. Any reallocation of FTE would of course be a decision that comes out of budget, but they generally would follow their school communities. So, um, if we ultimately prove some changes going back to the academics here, what, what, what measures are we, are you gonna be looking for to determine if this is actually working and when should we reasonably be able to expect to see some results from this? Chair BC, thank you for the question. So some of the metrics that we would be looking to use to measure success of the academic input would be our academic data that we regularly report on, in addition to caregiver feedback, student feedback about their experience, and then in addition as we embark on, um, looking at a new strategic plan in our future, that, that would be a way that we would be reporting out our successes as well. Um, to one of. Director, um. Callahan's points. How much of our structural financial problems do these recommendations actually solve? And, and how, how confident. How confident are you that they're gonna create some lasting financial stability so that's not just buying us a few more years so we're back here again. Chair Chair Beauci thank you for the question. Um, so, What I, what I can say is that through looking at the various options and the reduction, the potential reduction of our footprint, that does allow us the ability to funnel then more resources to the schools. And so, we do have the resources to be able to say here before all of you today that if we were to um choose one of these options or, you know, a combination of, as, as you mentioned, asked about, and, you know, however we get the feedback back from the community. Um, that we would be able to fund the options. I think an important piece that was, um, brought up prior, um, by Director Callahan, uh, is that what we know about school consolidations and. Closings, you know, across our nation is that it's, it's not something that's like a huge cost savings and I think something about our process is and our understanding of the resolution from the school board is that hasn't been the intent. The intent has actually been to use the resources that we have to give families the experience they have asked us for. For a very long time and that we agree that our students deserve and to try to figure out the best possible ways and we're hoping to learn more from um you know the community but the best possible potential ways to solve those problems because once we're able to do that then in the way that our you know school funding works I I won't go into all the details. About it, but just that it's a, you know, it's a per pupil funding and so by having more students that allows us to say, yep we can with confidence understand that based on how many students will attend schools and what we're projecting and predicting that we will be able to provide that consistent and reliable academic and social emotional experience to all of our students in all of the places Alright, last one for now, um, you were just talking about the resources if this is if this transformation is talking about us using our resources more, more more efficiently, where should students and families actually see these resources show up? And how quickly Thank you for the question. Um, so the slides that and I apologize, I don't have it right, um, in front of me to know which. If we look at Slide 89. Thank you. Um, that, that is where we talk about where the resources will show up. So through the evaluation of the three different options before you, we know that we can provide that foundational staffing for academic, the foundational academic intervention staffing and the foundational social-emotional support staffing Those models can be realized with what we brought forward tonight. So we would be able to say that we can go um we can get started on thinking about a foundational staffing and then the data informed additional staffing with those restricted funding sources so our families could expect that of us and then following up on your previous question that we're ready to start. Planning for that consistent and reliable experience that we know is is able to be provided by consolidating the resources to be able to say this is what our middle school schedule is going to be and this is how these are the the experiences that our students will have in middle school. These are the experiences our students will have in elementary school and in high school All right, well thank you everyone for your participation tonight. Um, we obviously are gonna be continuing to discuss all of this in our upcoming meetings. And as time goes on, um, Information about opportunities for community engagement and timeline and updates for the transformation process are available on the minute minute at the MPS website. Before we adjourn I just want to start by saying that as many of you have here, I want to say thank you to Doctor Sales Adams and her entire team. What we thought what we saw tonight represents an enormous amount of work analyzing data, listening to our community, modeling different possibilities, and trying to bring all of this together for us to consider. I know this has not been easy work and I want you and your team to all know that we see it and we appreciate it. And to our families, students, staff, and community. Tonight is not the end of this conversation. In many ways it is the beginning. We're gonna continue listening asking questions, and working with you as we determine what the final decision should look like. There will be difficult conversations ahead as I said, and there will be disagreements, but I hope we don't lose sight of the opportunity in front of us to build a stronger more sustainable MPS where every student has access to the opportunities they deserve. At the end of this process, I don't want us simply to be able to say that we made difficult decisions. I want us to be able to say that we made a difference. That we left Minneapolis public schools stronger for the students we serve today and those who will come after them Thank you to everyone who is a part of this tonight and who will continue to be part of this work. With that, this meeting is adjourned. Yeah