Politely pissed.

That was the vibe in a standing-room-only community meeting at Lake Hiwatha Community School, one of two gatherings last night (March 19th) for citizen input on massive coming changes to the Minneapolis Public School system.

If you’re a parent and didn’t get word of this meeting, you weren’t alone. Even though the district has been working on these changes since spring 2008, this may be the first you’ve heard of them, because public meetings only began last month, and the district seems to be relying on little more than word of mouth to promote them. (An exception is the Southwest Journal. Thank you, Dylan Thomas.)

On the table were three different proposals to reform K-8 schools, and two proposals to reform high schools. The first proposal for K-8 schools, which would have eliminated any school choice and assigned everyone to their community school, is officially dead.

Now the district is considering either:

ß eliminating many magnet schools and moving the rest of them to one central location, or
ß “zoning” magnet schools — that is, having something like four magnet schools in each of of four zones — Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest.
ß combining these two scenarios and/or other ideas.
The timeline for all these changes? The School Board votes May 12th, and expects to make changes by Fall of 2010!

Currently, Minneapolis operates 21 magnet and 27 community schools, and offers an average of 6-11 choices per family. Some families, it reports, have up to 16 school choices. It argues that too many magnets (in other words, too much choice) are underperforming, and undermining a system that has also become unweildy for famlies and the district. Also, maintenance inefficiencies are killing the whole system. Right now, said Jackie Turner, head of Minneapolis Public Schools Student Placement Services and the one leading the presentation, most district schools are at least half empty. That translates to $3.7 million annually in facilities costs it doesn’t need.

While we get that the school system needs to become more efficient in order to remian viable, many parents were skeptical that either of the moving-the-magnet-schools scenarios would save enough money ($1.4 million and $1.8 million respectively) to be worth the disruption. And there was virtually no discussion of what exactly the district would do to strengthen existing community and remaining magnet schools. (And I heard virtually no discussion of whether, in the district’s view, any community schools were underperforming. There was also no discussion of what criteria would put a bullseye on a school for potential closing.)

Mostly, the speed, scope, and, yes, stealth of change is what had parents rattled, and a freaked out constituency could dangerously undermine this process. (I mean, no word of this at the school fair? No fliers? No robocalls? Naturally they should expect outrage when the community that supports them is tapped so late in the process.) It’s a process that should put us all on the same page, as the district puts it, of strengthening our schools to make sure every child is college ready. Particularly in light of this baby boom that is going to start flooding those schools with kids in the fall of 2012. But, as one mom pointed out, right now it’s a process that feels like it is pitting us all against each other.

There’s a lot more to say on this issue, but for now, any parents who live in East Harriet and Kingfield neighborhoods (an open area) are invited to a meeting from 7 p.m.–9 p.m. Monday (March 23rd) at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 4100 Lyndale Ave. S. I’ll see you there!

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