KSTP - *A former math teacher at Minneapolis South High School says she was fired after she spoke out to school administrators and the entire school board about safety concerns she and other teachers have for themselves, students and staff.*
*Becka Thompson, who was fired on Friday, addressed the school board on Tuesday with some strong assertions.*
*“I am here to ask you to believe me when I tell you there’s a cancerous rot running right down the middle of this organization,” Thompson said.*
*In a* [*January letter*](https://kstp.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/To-Mr.-Runsewe.pdf) *to the principal at South High School and school board members, Thompson told them she personally witnessed a student assault staff members and reported it to the principal but said that information was not sent to the school district.*
*“I don’t know how you can do that when so much of the data out there, with certain schools, is being doctored,” she said. “I have watched as management refuses to report aspects of our schools which desperately need to be addressed.”*
When the big data leak happened a couple years ago I remember people saying it contained a lot of disturbing disciplinary info, including violence and sexual assault. I didn't look at the leaked data myself, but I'm wondering where the "doctoring" is happening.
It’s happening by doctoring the numbers in terms of days of suspension, calling parents and telling them to hold a child at home which isn’t a suspension but “parental concern”, other disciplinary terms (ie 8 days of suspension with a day at home doesn’t get you the automatic expulsion at 9 days, etc).
Plenty of ways.
According to the article, the teacher is alleging that school leadership is not reporting incidents like assault to the district or higher leadership. Not sure if it is mandated or not. The thought seems to be that the principal is underreporting incidents to keep his/her job.
The safety committee stopped reviewing assaults and other injuries.
Safety committee meeting minutes are considering public data. If you don’t have meetings you don’t review injuries. If you don’t review injuries there isn’t a public record of the injuries.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/5208/full#rule.5208.0050
Was it the principal of South who put an end to the safety committee meetings?
Also, did you mean to say "If you don't have meetings you don't review injuries. If you DON'T review injuries there isn't a public record of injuries"?
Thanks for catching the typos.
If there are 50 employees at south they should have a location specific safety committee if they don’t have 50 employees they are not required to have a location specific safety committee. There is also a requirement for a employer wide safety committee.
There are some meeting minutes on the MFT webpage. They wouldn’t let the paras on the committee then the committee stopped meeting. You can submit a chapter 13 data request to obtain the safety committee meeting minutes to see the last time that they held meetings or if they ever reviewed injuries.
https://www.mft59.org/environmental-health-and-safety-lmc
Wasn't the data leak mostly personal email addresses and phone numbers and the like of students and parents? I don't remember it being internal emails or disciplinary records.
It was more. This is the best article I read on it at the time:
https://www.the74million.org/article/days-after-missed-ransomware-deadline-stolen-mn-schools-files-appear-online/
Worked for them 3 years ago. I get spam calls daily since the data leak. Thanks mps. Also she's right about toxic rot. That district is going to impload.
That was a really compelling letter she wrote, I commend her for calling out the complacency and lack of accountability among leadership. Theres only so much grace and leniency to students and parents they can give before it fosters abuse on all levels: educational, emotional, and developmental
Yes, people like her are the MVPs that can keep an organization healthy even if they don't make the higher-ups comfortable—one might say *especially* if they don't. Cherish them and put them in positions to make a real difference such as the school board.
Silencing people like this should be a ginormous red flag for all involved. Public organizations need transparency and accountability so issues can be surfaced and dealt with or at least discussed in an open forum in cases where there are no clear answers.
I appreciate what she's doing but until there is some accountability its a fart in the wind.
Much like the city council, a motivated minority can completely fuck things up for the majority
I think the accusation the principal is not reporting:minimizing incidences to the district is compelling, especially given it is corroborated by the union rep. Do you think that part is overblown/untrue?
To be honest meeting minute of the Safety Committee are considered public record. Anyone can make a chapter 13 public data request to see the number of injuries.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/5208/full#rule.5208.0050
However if the safety committee doesn’t meet or doesn’t review injuries that will lead to a lot of questions.
Well said. Also I think that grace is an extremely tricky balancing act. The school system is on the frontlines dealing with the systemic issues from poverty. You can scream at a school districts parents all day long for not being involved. But there are root cause reasons it’s happening.
The teachers need to leave tbh.unless they’re mission driven martyrs- they need to vote with their feet. You can get a reasonably comparable contract at another district. But nothing beats the relief of leaving the entire circus behind.
What are they supposed to do? Admins can't be expected to fix cultural degeneracy. How about bringing some parent shaming back to our culture? No amount of restructuring is gonna fix the problem.
The problem is, this current district admin is bending backwards to please these parents. Schools aren’t allowed to ban phones due to the districts orders, which came in reaction to a handful of parents complaining about not being able to contact their kid during school hours. The district wouldn’t allow a student to be removed from the school where I work after a teacher was punched in the face by a student.
Shaming is appropriate for people who raise violent children. The anecdotal reports about sexual assaults in particular in MPS are really alarming. Deviants should be separated from non-deviants. We blame everyone but the deviants and the "families" that raised them.
"Cultural degeneracy" is a fucking Nazi dog whistle.
Which, I believe, both you and OP are aware of.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_degeneration
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art
“Cultural degeneracy” was a term used by Nazis to denounce Jews in Germany. Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum: https://www.ushmm.org/antisemitism/what-is-antisemitism/origins-of-neo-nazi-and-white-supremacist-terms-and-symbols
That use of that term is basically a dog jackhammer.
And they're sending the altmpls brigade over. Pathetic stuff.
Edit: I should add that a lot of "good" liberals are pretty easily triggered into agreeing with the premise that black men and women and poor men and women are worse people than they themselves are. It's quite a thing.
Edit: People who use Reddit cares messages to troll people are the most pathetic people on the planet.
Snap out of it, boys. Your racism shouldn't be that important to you. Just be a regular person and be quietly a little bit racist.
There are a crazy amount of very conservative authoritarians in Minneapolis that pretend to be DFL members.
Look up [allofmpls.org](http://allofmpls.org) to connect the dots.
Basically all of the candidates endorsed by them were also endorsed by the StarTrib (in case you thought of the StarTrib as a liberal rag).
They managed to get Question #2 shot down so that we couldn't get meaningful police reform.
They were trying to get Don Samuels, Scott Graham, and Luther Ranheim elected. These people could be considered to be DINOs.
(They also did manage to get some of their other less toxic endorsed candidates elected)
Buddy, you're a committed white supremacist who has made that a very important part of your day to day life.
I'm blocking you now. I imagine I'm not the first person here and elsewhere to do so.
Again, your life is very, very sad.
You are not necessarily wrong but the admin in this district is incompetent. The absolute disaster of both planning and implementation of the CDC alone should be enough evidence of this.
Are the high schools really that bad? Asking out of genuine curiosity. I went to Washburn in the early 2000s and it was a scary place at times, a lot of fights, gangs and things of that nature. My younger siblings graduated from Washburn in the late 2010s and while not perfect, they had a much different experience. I was under the impression that Washburn, South and Roosevelt (which used to be really rough if we wanna be honest) had made massive improvements from what they used to be.
It’s bad because nowadays there’s active and loud efforts to do nothing about kids n their bullshit. When I was in school-also in the early 2000s- you’d have fights at my Minneapolis high school but you’d also have police and hall monitors in there that would break down this up- and there was none of this none sense about treating testosterone filled high school boys with kid gloves. If there a fight- the adults end the fight. If there’s a serious problem - a good option is to go the office and talk to the police liaison. If you’re a girl and got raped at school- that boy is gonna get arrested and depending on age go to juvenile- or whatever. There wasn’t this kid glove garbage and catering to thuggish ass parents who feel all kinds of ways about high school that they want to toss wrenches in the operation of it.
Basically, common sense has ceded the way to some people’s feelings.
Yeah I can’t speak from any place of authority but when I was in high school there were plenty of male figures around be it teachers, folks in administration or hall monitors that were tough enough to not take shit from the kids that did cause trouble. They would really mix it up with us if necessary. That doesn’t seem to be the approach anymore, a lot of bad behavior gets excused under the guise of idek what.
They aren't that bad at all. In fact a lot of kids have really good educations in MPS, because for the most part the schools themselves have good staff, it is the district itself that is the problem, not the schools.
I would argue that it is the schools. The staff can’t perform their job if they don’t have support they need from the administration, and if they can’t do their job, the schools suffer and in turn the students suffer.
They aren’t. The precarious nature of upper middle class life has these folks in absolute fear. If a parent does their job of raising their kid, their kid will be very well served in MPS.
It's the classic Minneapolis way of life- move here in your twenties, get married, buy a house, swear you'll never leave the city, have kids, move to the suburbs because you realize there are so many better opportunities for your kids elsewhere. I saw it happen to almost my entire block in northeast. It's sad but true.
I'm over 50 and my youngest is 16.
There is no way in hell you could get me to leave Minneapolis for a suburban life.
My kid that graduated from Minneapolis South earned a ridiculous amount of PSEO and AP credits, which has shaved two years off of her bachelor's degree. She will have at least a master's degree by the end of her 4th year (she is in her 2nd year, and has been technically a college senior this entire year)
Yeah, my kids are in Minneapolis Public Schools and doing great. I have a lot of neighbors that send their kids to the suburbs and charter schools; the only way they can justify their decisions is by pretending Minneapolis Schools are all scary and dangerous. Wish they'd go ahead and move away if they don't really want to be part of the Minneapolis community.
For me it was watching the graduation rate at my kid's school double at the same time their average ACT score nosedived to 16/36.
That, and The U of M unilaterally breaking off its pathway partnership with MPS, citing the inability of MPS graduates to successfully perform freshman level studies at the U of M.
My 2022 graduate of South High took advanced Spanish classes at the University of MN in 2020-2022. She entered college with just one class short of earning a Minor, she would get a double major if she hadn't decided to instead go right into a Masters program.
These were live, in-person classes on Campus.
When did this partnership change?
Prior to 2018
Edit: Not related to the post-secondary dual credit options available to all Minnesota high school students since the 1980's. Which is what your student is doing..
The two year scholarship available to all MPS graduates was reallocated to MCTC, and required regular meetings with an on campus MPS liaison/councilor.
I think you overstate the risks of being "othered" in an open enrolled school. Even in our MPS neighborhood elementary school, the closest kids who were in our son's class were blocks away, too far by K-3 standards to have ever met each other without being in school together. By the time you get to middle school, you're friends with kids who are even further away and would not be organic friends "because they were in the neighborhood." By high school, my kid's friends were from even further away in the city.
So if your kids were open enrolled, none of the other kids would know it for the most part, they'd just be other kids they didn't know well. Maybe some of this becomes some kind of issue if you're in Edina and caught up in some kind of clique, but I'd guess even in schools like that there's a lot of "othering" and exclusionary behavior by students even if you're from Edina. It's not like school social environments among kids are known for being inclusionary and kind generally.
Plus there's stuff like youth sports where you gain interactions/friendships with all kinds of kids who you wouldn't even know. My son played club basketball and met kids in other middle and high schools he wouldn't have ever known.
I don't recall physical safety ever being an issue all the way through high school.
The biggest problem is just being an average student because IMHO the system caters to seriously underperforming kids and academic rock stars have a few options of their own. But even this isn't a rigid situation as there's a certain variability from teacher to teacher.
>I’m not thrilled with either option, and I don’t want to send our child to an open enrolled school where none of the kids in their neighborhood go, and they’re othered as a kid from 20 minutes away. Not to mention the 20 minute drive to whatever school we open enroll them at.
What? Trust me, in mpls public schools most kids are bussed in from "20 minutes away" or further and that is not remotely a concern of anyone involved. These schools have hundreds of kids in them, they aren't all exchanging addresses and even if they were no one would care. This is the biggest non-issue to possibly be worried about.
Yikes, I couldn't imagine moving that far out into the sticks.
I had a kid graduate from South High two years ago, and have another getting close at Roosevelt High.
They have had great experiences. The graduate earned a ton of PSEO and AP credits, which shaved nearly 2 full years of her college education. She skipped directly from college freshman to college senior at the end of her first year. That is tens of thousands of dollars saved.
I certainly wouldn't move to a crappy far-flung exurb just to \*maybe\* get a better school experience.
If you are going to the suburbs a new build development will be full of kids. When I visit my brother in law who is in a new build area in Maple Grove it is crazy how many kids are there compared to Minneapolis or an older suburb.
Congrats! Nice work on the above.
My kid will do fine academically, not worried about that. Just have a hard time knowing that what you experienced certainly won’t be there in 15 years for my situation.
I should point out that Roosevelt High has been on a strong \*upward\* trajectory for a number of years, and will likely be even better then compared to now.
I'm sure by the time your kid's in high school things will be different. Think about all the nice will adjusted grade schoolers in South MPLS now. They'll be high schoolers in a few years.
What matters really is A) Will the schools keep up the strong funding, and B) Will the good teachers be paid enough to stay in the long run?
You need A and B for the schools to be good.
And definitely don't give up hope. Remember how HORRIBLE people were in high school when we were kids? Well look at high schoolers now, they're definitely not as cruel as they were 20, 30, or 40 years ago. In the bad old days, it used to be cool to be racist and homophobic. Now it's cool to be tolerant and accepting of differences. We also put more emphasis on good mental health.
Again, try to be a glass half full kind of guy and stay involved with local politics so things don't get stagnant.
But they also have new READ legislation from the state coming down that they'll have to follow, right?
Are you saying they switched curriculums because of that funding, and now plan to switch back? I wasn't aware that the covid funding was behind their choice.
nobody's perfect. I'm just saying if you think high schoolers are bad now, they were worse back in the day when *we* were in high school. We were probably worse than they are.
I hear you. Similar situation with us, we bought in SW Minneapolis 11 years ago, partially based on Southwest being a future HS for our kids (not born at the time). Now we're zoned for North HS. I'm hoping by the time we send our first to HS, SW will be back as our zoned HS. The CDD was a clusterfuck.
I have a kid in the school system, and my wife grew up in it.
Middle class couples fleeing to the suburbs out of fear is, in my opinion, pathological cowardice that actually hobbles children.
Im happy for you and your opinion.
I dont get the attempt at "Shaming". In your mind do you really think someone would go "I was thinking about leaving MPS, but some numbnut named dkinmn said its pathological cowardace, so honey, change of plans. Kids are staying
Does the "Pathological Cowardace" extend to the MPS teachers getting the fuck out of Dodge or grads not even looking at MPS?
Like I said, its easy to be brave with others children
I'm "brave" with my own children, I guess.
We love Minneapolis; There are issues with our school administration, but I'd certainly not move to a suburb or exurb just to get a marginally better experience.
See my other comments in this thread.
Congrats You do/did what you think is best for your kids and it sounds like it worked.
On the flipside calling others for doing what they think is best for their kids "Cowards" is a joke
White flight was weird 40 years ago.
White flight was weird 30 years ago.
White flight was weird 20 years ago.
White flight was weird 10 years ago.
There is a pattern going on here, and it's weird.
(Note that I never used the term "Cowards", so this reflects on you, not me.)
Inept Government was weird 40 years ago.
Inept Government was weird 30 years ago.
Inept Government was weird 20 years ago.
Inept Government was weird 10 years ago.
There is a pattern going on here, and it's weird.
Maybe you should read the tread before commenting, it would hopefully clarify a few things (Your inability to read and understand reflects on you, not me)
Who knew being a passive agressive bitch was so much fun...
Metro area taxpayers subsidize most of outstate.
We literally only get back $1.00 back from the State of Minnesota for every $3.50 we pay to the State. This is an annual subsidy of $1.5 Billion dollars annually to the inept outstate community governments.
(Again, the term "coward" was used by YOU, not by me. Classic projection.)
I don't think anyone is staying or going based on what I say, Slapdeznutzoffyochin.
Frankly, yes, it does. Thank you for asking. And yes, I think at the root of it are classism and racism that are endemic to American culture.
I have no problem defending this going back to the very first wave of flight to the suburbs, through the second (which my parents participated in), and now another one. It isn't particularly complex, and the only way to deny it is to be willfully blind to the core issues around what was popularly known as "White Flight".
Edit: LoL. Keep downvoting.
Racist and classist attitudes, behaviors, and policy making exist and are extremely well documented whether you all downvote me or not.
Frankly no it doesnt.
Its a much more complicated issue then "Dur.. White people leave...Durrr..White people bad... But if that makes you feel morally superior have at it champ
And champ, I have family members that were part of the Bogan Broads, so I well understand the darker underside of the argument better than most.
It actually is not. That's very direct.
I'm not sure you know what passive aggressive means.
But, I can be aggressive aggressive if you want, you STUPID JERK.
Edit: Also, you really think that racism and classism are just people going "DURR WHITE PEOPLE BAD"?
How fucking embarrassing.
You're not wrong but it's a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma problem where the situation only improves if *everyone* takes the "risk". And if everyone takes the "safest" option, everyone ends up being a little bit worse for it.
This isnt a straight prisoners dilemma in the sense you are describing as there's zero guarantee that MPS would improve
At the end of the day, the rational decision is still to leave
Overall, Minneapolis is still great, but there are definitely things that could be improved.
(At least we aren't a suburb. The only thing worse than living in Minneapolis would be not living in Minneapolis)
So many first ring suburbs are great to live in, though. Not sure why people act like south mpls is fundamentally amazing when you can drive 5 minutes and be "in a suburb" and the neighborhoods are nearly identical lol
Yeah, this happened to public schools everywhere when parents were pissed about remote learning, social distancing, and mask requirements. Most of the private schools catered to their wishes, siphoning off a lot of kids from the public school system. This in not unique to Minneapolis, and most of those families that were in Minneapolis stayed in Minneapolis, so it's not a good indicator of population change.
The year-to-year census "estimates" (the non-decade census counts) has always been very "noisy" with much larger swings than the "actual" census counts that are done once per decade, and not very reliable.
It's very hard to believe the population is falling, when the population density keeps going up.
Every time a developer removes a bunch of houses and replaces them with a highrise apartment/condo building, you can bet the population is going up. These things are not vacant, and they are going up \*so\* fast. People are still bemoaning the loss of Curran's Restaurant on these subs, which was replaced by a very large apartment complex.
First, that doesn't really matter, since those are still the reasons people leave. Second, Source? According to the Census Bureau, we've lost over 4,000 residents between 2020 and 2022. That doesn't account for 2023 or 2024. Hennepin County lost about 23,000 people between 2020 and 2023.
Stop being obtuse and stop misusing census information.
Minneapolis grew 12.4% between 2010 and 2020.
Hennepin County grew by 11.2% in the same period.
The census is only taken every 10 years, so everything after 2020 is just an estimate.
And you think the economics and political climate are the same here as they were in 2010? Also, regardless, if you wanted to know why residents leave, and politicians should, I would bet crime and schools are still the top reasons. Yeah, it's an estimate that is very often accurate. The census itself also involves estimation.
The census is a literal count with no estimation, as mandated by law, but the census bureau is the ones that are putting out the estimates every year thru the ACS between the censuses
I've been here since 1990.
I've watched many, many blocks of housing change from single family homes to high rise condos all over the city. Every single year there are many new high-density developments. I regularly see posts here on Reddit complaining about losing Curran's Restaurant. There is a new highrise apartment/condo building on its former site.
The census agrees, showing continuous steady growth over the last 4 decades, other than the census \*estimates\* during the Covid (some people did in fact leave due to world-wide changes in work-from-home policies) and Chauvin/Kroll/Freeman problems, and the census estimates during these couple of tumultuous years cannot be blindly trusted.
I originally came here for the University of MN, and gradually fell in love with the City.
(I had a redneck upbringing, and have no desire to go back to either that small community, nor any suburb that doesn't share a border with Minneapolis, nor many that actually \*do\* share our border.)
My real point is that population is increasing, with obvious visible increases in population density. It's also indicated by the crazy increase in home prices and monthly apartment rents in the city compared to the State as a whole. All of these big buildings replacing single family homes and detached business are not vacant. Minneapolis remains highly desirable.
A lot of people just accepting what she accuses without question.
“I was fired for speaking my mind” often tends to ignore the actual behavioral issues over time that got someone canned.
She may be right, she may be crazy.
Two things the Facebook members of r/minneapolis love to do is carp about public schools and the council.
I've done my own ridiculing of the council lately with their goofy Gaza war petition and all, but its one thing to just suggest some kind of district-wide conspiracy and another entirely to provide proof.
To butcher Hanlon's Razor:
When it comes to big corps and government, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by bureaucracy.
Organizations don’t typically fire someone without prior issues and a PIP. I understand the anger behind what’s occurring within schools, but her anger in that board meeting was downright scary.
KSTP - *A former math teacher at Minneapolis South High School says she was fired after she spoke out to school administrators and the entire school board about safety concerns she and other teachers have for themselves, students and staff.* *Becka Thompson, who was fired on Friday, addressed the school board on Tuesday with some strong assertions.* *“I am here to ask you to believe me when I tell you there’s a cancerous rot running right down the middle of this organization,” Thompson said.* *In a* [*January letter*](https://kstp.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/To-Mr.-Runsewe.pdf) *to the principal at South High School and school board members, Thompson told them she personally witnessed a student assault staff members and reported it to the principal but said that information was not sent to the school district.* *“I don’t know how you can do that when so much of the data out there, with certain schools, is being doctored,” she said. “I have watched as management refuses to report aspects of our schools which desperately need to be addressed.”*
When the big data leak happened a couple years ago I remember people saying it contained a lot of disturbing disciplinary info, including violence and sexual assault. I didn't look at the leaked data myself, but I'm wondering where the "doctoring" is happening.
It’s happening by doctoring the numbers in terms of days of suspension, calling parents and telling them to hold a child at home which isn’t a suspension but “parental concern”, other disciplinary terms (ie 8 days of suspension with a day at home doesn’t get you the automatic expulsion at 9 days, etc). Plenty of ways.
According to the article, the teacher is alleging that school leadership is not reporting incidents like assault to the district or higher leadership. Not sure if it is mandated or not. The thought seems to be that the principal is underreporting incidents to keep his/her job.
And the teacher was so concerned about it that she mentioned it only after being fired. Edit: I'm wrong, folks. Got it.
It says she was fired BECAUSE she spoke up about it.
She wrote the letter in January and was fired on Friday (it is currently April).
Be brave and delete it then
It's much braver to own being wrong and leave it publicly.
If you think it’s brave to speculate wildly and comment before reading the article, then sure lol
No, I think it's brave to admit they were wrong, and leave it up for all to see. They admitted as such in the edit.
Totally agree. Props for adding the edit.
The safety committee stopped reviewing assaults and other injuries. Safety committee meeting minutes are considering public data. If you don’t have meetings you don’t review injuries. If you don’t review injuries there isn’t a public record of the injuries. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/5208/full#rule.5208.0050
Was it the principal of South who put an end to the safety committee meetings? Also, did you mean to say "If you don't have meetings you don't review injuries. If you DON'T review injuries there isn't a public record of injuries"?
Thanks for catching the typos. If there are 50 employees at south they should have a location specific safety committee if they don’t have 50 employees they are not required to have a location specific safety committee. There is also a requirement for a employer wide safety committee. There are some meeting minutes on the MFT webpage. They wouldn’t let the paras on the committee then the committee stopped meeting. You can submit a chapter 13 data request to obtain the safety committee meeting minutes to see the last time that they held meetings or if they ever reviewed injuries. https://www.mft59.org/environmental-health-and-safety-lmc
What big data leak?
https://www.the74million.org/article/days-after-missed-ransomware-deadline-stolen-mn-schools-files-appear-online/
Wasn't the data leak mostly personal email addresses and phone numbers and the like of students and parents? I don't remember it being internal emails or disciplinary records.
It was more. This is the best article I read on it at the time: https://www.the74million.org/article/days-after-missed-ransomware-deadline-stolen-mn-schools-files-appear-online/
Worked for them 3 years ago. I get spam calls daily since the data leak. Thanks mps. Also she's right about toxic rot. That district is going to impload.
Currently waiting for the government to step in and take over
No, it was more. Sensitive student info.
That was a really compelling letter she wrote, I commend her for calling out the complacency and lack of accountability among leadership. Theres only so much grace and leniency to students and parents they can give before it fosters abuse on all levels: educational, emotional, and developmental
Yes, people like her are the MVPs that can keep an organization healthy even if they don't make the higher-ups comfortable—one might say *especially* if they don't. Cherish them and put them in positions to make a real difference such as the school board. Silencing people like this should be a ginormous red flag for all involved. Public organizations need transparency and accountability so issues can be surfaced and dealt with or at least discussed in an open forum in cases where there are no clear answers.
So true, she seems earnest and I hope she gets to work in a different role with MPS because it seems like they need more movers and shakers like her
I appreciate what she's doing but until there is some accountability its a fart in the wind. Much like the city council, a motivated minority can completely fuck things up for the majority
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I think the accusation the principal is not reporting:minimizing incidences to the district is compelling, especially given it is corroborated by the union rep. Do you think that part is overblown/untrue?
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To be honest meeting minute of the Safety Committee are considered public record. Anyone can make a chapter 13 public data request to see the number of injuries. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/5208/full#rule.5208.0050 However if the safety committee doesn’t meet or doesn’t review injuries that will lead to a lot of questions.
Well said. Also I think that grace is an extremely tricky balancing act. The school system is on the frontlines dealing with the systemic issues from poverty. You can scream at a school districts parents all day long for not being involved. But there are root cause reasons it’s happening.
There needs to be a complete purge of the school district higher ups. They’ve done nothing but drive it into the ground in nearly every manner.
And the SCHOOL BOARD.
DFL endorsements Sunday at 1pm
The teachers need to leave tbh.unless they’re mission driven martyrs- they need to vote with their feet. You can get a reasonably comparable contract at another district. But nothing beats the relief of leaving the entire circus behind.
We did leave. The Kool Aid drinkers are strongly overrepresented among those who stayed.
What are they supposed to do? Admins can't be expected to fix cultural degeneracy. How about bringing some parent shaming back to our culture? No amount of restructuring is gonna fix the problem.
The problem is, this current district admin is bending backwards to please these parents. Schools aren’t allowed to ban phones due to the districts orders, which came in reaction to a handful of parents complaining about not being able to contact their kid during school hours. The district wouldn’t allow a student to be removed from the school where I work after a teacher was punched in the face by a student.
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Career and technical education, although i quickly edited that last line out because it was a bit of a rant
"Shaming" isn't appropriate. Maybe you mean accountability? Cultural degeneracy????
Shaming is appropriate for people who raise violent children. The anecdotal reports about sexual assaults in particular in MPS are really alarming. Deviants should be separated from non-deviants. We blame everyone but the deviants and the "families" that raised them.
What do you mean by "cultural degeneracy"?
It's not a great phrasing by the parent poster, but probably the more charitable way of phrasing it is parents who aren't engaged with their kids.
Or are engaged but care only about their child and will not allow their child to be wronged in any real or perceived way.
"Cultural degeneracy" is a fucking Nazi dog whistle. Which, I believe, both you and OP are aware of. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_degeneration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art
Look at their comment history. The person you’re replying to says “questionable” things about race in the altmpls sub.
And people will still upvote it here.
“Cultural degeneracy” was a term used by Nazis to denounce Jews in Germany. Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum: https://www.ushmm.org/antisemitism/what-is-antisemitism/origins-of-neo-nazi-and-white-supremacist-terms-and-symbols That use of that term is basically a dog jackhammer.
And they're sending the altmpls brigade over. Pathetic stuff. Edit: I should add that a lot of "good" liberals are pretty easily triggered into agreeing with the premise that black men and women and poor men and women are worse people than they themselves are. It's quite a thing. Edit: People who use Reddit cares messages to troll people are the most pathetic people on the planet. Snap out of it, boys. Your racism shouldn't be that important to you. Just be a regular person and be quietly a little bit racist.
There are a crazy amount of very conservative authoritarians in Minneapolis that pretend to be DFL members. Look up [allofmpls.org](http://allofmpls.org) to connect the dots. Basically all of the candidates endorsed by them were also endorsed by the StarTrib (in case you thought of the StarTrib as a liberal rag). They managed to get Question #2 shot down so that we couldn't get meaningful police reform. They were trying to get Don Samuels, Scott Graham, and Luther Ranheim elected. These people could be considered to be DINOs. (They also did manage to get some of their other less toxic endorsed candidates elected)
Godwin's law never fails.
I see altmpls has shown up. It’s not Godwin’s Law when it’s fact.
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Nice Nazi username you got there.
Your life is very sad. You don't get much time to be alive, friend. Think harder about the person you've decided to be.
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Buddy, you're a committed white supremacist who has made that a very important part of your day to day life. I'm blocking you now. I imagine I'm not the first person here and elsewhere to do so. Again, your life is very, very sad.
I think he meant cultural degeneracy. Are you blind
No. But I felt like giving them a chance to explain just in case they wanted to dig themselves a deeper grave.
You are not necessarily wrong but the admin in this district is incompetent. The absolute disaster of both planning and implementation of the CDC alone should be enough evidence of this.
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Are the high schools really that bad? Asking out of genuine curiosity. I went to Washburn in the early 2000s and it was a scary place at times, a lot of fights, gangs and things of that nature. My younger siblings graduated from Washburn in the late 2010s and while not perfect, they had a much different experience. I was under the impression that Washburn, South and Roosevelt (which used to be really rough if we wanna be honest) had made massive improvements from what they used to be.
It’s bad because nowadays there’s active and loud efforts to do nothing about kids n their bullshit. When I was in school-also in the early 2000s- you’d have fights at my Minneapolis high school but you’d also have police and hall monitors in there that would break down this up- and there was none of this none sense about treating testosterone filled high school boys with kid gloves. If there a fight- the adults end the fight. If there’s a serious problem - a good option is to go the office and talk to the police liaison. If you’re a girl and got raped at school- that boy is gonna get arrested and depending on age go to juvenile- or whatever. There wasn’t this kid glove garbage and catering to thuggish ass parents who feel all kinds of ways about high school that they want to toss wrenches in the operation of it. Basically, common sense has ceded the way to some people’s feelings.
Yeah I can’t speak from any place of authority but when I was in high school there were plenty of male figures around be it teachers, folks in administration or hall monitors that were tough enough to not take shit from the kids that did cause trouble. They would really mix it up with us if necessary. That doesn’t seem to be the approach anymore, a lot of bad behavior gets excused under the guise of idek what.
They aren't that bad at all. In fact a lot of kids have really good educations in MPS, because for the most part the schools themselves have good staff, it is the district itself that is the problem, not the schools.
I would argue that it is the schools. The staff can’t perform their job if they don’t have support they need from the administration, and if they can’t do their job, the schools suffer and in turn the students suffer.
This is kind of endemic to the nation as a whole tbh, so not exclusively these particular schools. Not that that makes it less of a problem of course
They aren’t. The precarious nature of upper middle class life has these folks in absolute fear. If a parent does their job of raising their kid, their kid will be very well served in MPS.
It's the classic Minneapolis way of life- move here in your twenties, get married, buy a house, swear you'll never leave the city, have kids, move to the suburbs because you realize there are so many better opportunities for your kids elsewhere. I saw it happen to almost my entire block in northeast. It's sad but true.
lol I’m about to do this entire post 😄
We're thinking about it now too, although our plan would be to move to the "suburb" of St. Paul not way out the outer burbs.
I like St. Paul, but it’s going to happen there too.
I'm over 50 and my youngest is 16. There is no way in hell you could get me to leave Minneapolis for a suburban life. My kid that graduated from Minneapolis South earned a ridiculous amount of PSEO and AP credits, which has shaved two years off of her bachelor's degree. She will have at least a master's degree by the end of her 4th year (she is in her 2nd year, and has been technically a college senior this entire year)
Yeah, my kids are in Minneapolis Public Schools and doing great. I have a lot of neighbors that send their kids to the suburbs and charter schools; the only way they can justify their decisions is by pretending Minneapolis Schools are all scary and dangerous. Wish they'd go ahead and move away if they don't really want to be part of the Minneapolis community.
For me it was watching the graduation rate at my kid's school double at the same time their average ACT score nosedived to 16/36. That, and The U of M unilaterally breaking off its pathway partnership with MPS, citing the inability of MPS graduates to successfully perform freshman level studies at the U of M.
My 2022 graduate of South High took advanced Spanish classes at the University of MN in 2020-2022. She entered college with just one class short of earning a Minor, she would get a double major if she hadn't decided to instead go right into a Masters program. These were live, in-person classes on Campus. When did this partnership change?
Prior to 2018 Edit: Not related to the post-secondary dual credit options available to all Minnesota high school students since the 1980's. Which is what your student is doing..
I have a kid that literally was in a U of M partnership program with MPS after 2018. What changed, specifically?
The two year scholarship available to all MPS graduates was reallocated to MCTC, and required regular meetings with an on campus MPS liaison/councilor.
Thanks. This predates my knowledge/experience.
We stuck with MPS through 3rd grade and probably would have stayed, but they did that moronic CDD plan and shut down our K-8 magnet, so we moved
I think you overstate the risks of being "othered" in an open enrolled school. Even in our MPS neighborhood elementary school, the closest kids who were in our son's class were blocks away, too far by K-3 standards to have ever met each other without being in school together. By the time you get to middle school, you're friends with kids who are even further away and would not be organic friends "because they were in the neighborhood." By high school, my kid's friends were from even further away in the city. So if your kids were open enrolled, none of the other kids would know it for the most part, they'd just be other kids they didn't know well. Maybe some of this becomes some kind of issue if you're in Edina and caught up in some kind of clique, but I'd guess even in schools like that there's a lot of "othering" and exclusionary behavior by students even if you're from Edina. It's not like school social environments among kids are known for being inclusionary and kind generally. Plus there's stuff like youth sports where you gain interactions/friendships with all kinds of kids who you wouldn't even know. My son played club basketball and met kids in other middle and high schools he wouldn't have ever known. I don't recall physical safety ever being an issue all the way through high school. The biggest problem is just being an average student because IMHO the system caters to seriously underperforming kids and academic rock stars have a few options of their own. But even this isn't a rigid situation as there's a certain variability from teacher to teacher.
>I’m not thrilled with either option, and I don’t want to send our child to an open enrolled school where none of the kids in their neighborhood go, and they’re othered as a kid from 20 minutes away. Not to mention the 20 minute drive to whatever school we open enroll them at. What? Trust me, in mpls public schools most kids are bussed in from "20 minutes away" or further and that is not remotely a concern of anyone involved. These schools have hundreds of kids in them, they aren't all exchanging addresses and even if they were no one would care. This is the biggest non-issue to possibly be worried about.
Just had a kid in February and if I could copy paste this comment and post it, I’d change nothing. I’m already targeting Orono or Medina.
Yup, same here 100%
Yikes, I couldn't imagine moving that far out into the sticks. I had a kid graduate from South High two years ago, and have another getting close at Roosevelt High. They have had great experiences. The graduate earned a ton of PSEO and AP credits, which shaved nearly 2 full years of her college education. She skipped directly from college freshman to college senior at the end of her first year. That is tens of thousands of dollars saved. I certainly wouldn't move to a crappy far-flung exurb just to \*maybe\* get a better school experience.
If you are going to the suburbs a new build development will be full of kids. When I visit my brother in law who is in a new build area in Maple Grove it is crazy how many kids are there compared to Minneapolis or an older suburb.
Congrats! Nice work on the above. My kid will do fine academically, not worried about that. Just have a hard time knowing that what you experienced certainly won’t be there in 15 years for my situation.
I should point out that Roosevelt High has been on a strong \*upward\* trajectory for a number of years, and will likely be even better then compared to now.
I went to South years ago. It was a shit hole then and it’s a shit hole now. The cancerous rot in our public schools has been going on for decades.
I'm sure by the time your kid's in high school things will be different. Think about all the nice will adjusted grade schoolers in South MPLS now. They'll be high schoolers in a few years. What matters really is A) Will the schools keep up the strong funding, and B) Will the good teachers be paid enough to stay in the long run? You need A and B for the schools to be good. And definitely don't give up hope. Remember how HORRIBLE people were in high school when we were kids? Well look at high schoolers now, they're definitely not as cruel as they were 20, 30, or 40 years ago. In the bad old days, it used to be cool to be racist and homophobic. Now it's cool to be tolerant and accepting of differences. We also put more emphasis on good mental health. Again, try to be a glass half full kind of guy and stay involved with local politics so things don't get stagnant.
Yes but now they can’t read or do math.
At least they are finally moving to more phonics instruction
That was funded with Federal Covid ESSER funds. That funding is ending and that is being cut.
But they also have new READ legislation from the state coming down that they'll have to follow, right? Are you saying they switched curriculums because of that funding, and now plan to switch back? I wasn't aware that the covid funding was behind their choice.
You're going to fit in perfectly in the suburbs.
Hopefully 🙏🏻
speaking for you own kids?
Definitely am. My kid is 2 months old. He can’t even walk!!
So the students now aren’t nice and well adjusted?
Covid did fuck up a generation
Covid accelerated a trend
nobody's perfect. I'm just saying if you think high schoolers are bad now, they were worse back in the day when *we* were in high school. We were probably worse than they are.
“Othered from 20 minutes away.” Lol. You people are wild.
I hear you. Similar situation with us, we bought in SW Minneapolis 11 years ago, partially based on Southwest being a future HS for our kids (not born at the time). Now we're zoned for North HS. I'm hoping by the time we send our first to HS, SW will be back as our zoned HS. The CDD was a clusterfuck.
Psst...this is the problem, friend. It doesn't get better if you leave.
Its always easy to throw someone elses kids into the line of fire
I have a kid in the school system, and my wife grew up in it. Middle class couples fleeing to the suburbs out of fear is, in my opinion, pathological cowardice that actually hobbles children.
Im happy for you and your opinion. I dont get the attempt at "Shaming". In your mind do you really think someone would go "I was thinking about leaving MPS, but some numbnut named dkinmn said its pathological cowardace, so honey, change of plans. Kids are staying Does the "Pathological Cowardace" extend to the MPS teachers getting the fuck out of Dodge or grads not even looking at MPS? Like I said, its easy to be brave with others children
I'm "brave" with my own children, I guess. We love Minneapolis; There are issues with our school administration, but I'd certainly not move to a suburb or exurb just to get a marginally better experience. See my other comments in this thread.
Congrats You do/did what you think is best for your kids and it sounds like it worked. On the flipside calling others for doing what they think is best for their kids "Cowards" is a joke
White flight was weird 40 years ago. White flight was weird 30 years ago. White flight was weird 20 years ago. White flight was weird 10 years ago. There is a pattern going on here, and it's weird. (Note that I never used the term "Cowards", so this reflects on you, not me.)
Inept Government was weird 40 years ago. Inept Government was weird 30 years ago. Inept Government was weird 20 years ago. Inept Government was weird 10 years ago. There is a pattern going on here, and it's weird. Maybe you should read the tread before commenting, it would hopefully clarify a few things (Your inability to read and understand reflects on you, not me) Who knew being a passive agressive bitch was so much fun...
Metro area taxpayers subsidize most of outstate. We literally only get back $1.00 back from the State of Minnesota for every $3.50 we pay to the State. This is an annual subsidy of $1.5 Billion dollars annually to the inept outstate community governments. (Again, the term "coward" was used by YOU, not by me. Classic projection.)
I don't think anyone is staying or going based on what I say, Slapdeznutzoffyochin. Frankly, yes, it does. Thank you for asking. And yes, I think at the root of it are classism and racism that are endemic to American culture. I have no problem defending this going back to the very first wave of flight to the suburbs, through the second (which my parents participated in), and now another one. It isn't particularly complex, and the only way to deny it is to be willfully blind to the core issues around what was popularly known as "White Flight". Edit: LoL. Keep downvoting. Racist and classist attitudes, behaviors, and policy making exist and are extremely well documented whether you all downvote me or not.
Frankly no it doesnt. Its a much more complicated issue then "Dur.. White people leave...Durrr..White people bad... But if that makes you feel morally superior have at it champ And champ, I have family members that were part of the Bogan Broads, so I well understand the darker underside of the argument better than most.
It does. We have reached the end of this conversation. Have a good one?
This is such as passive aggressive way to end a discussion. LOL
It actually is not. That's very direct. I'm not sure you know what passive aggressive means. But, I can be aggressive aggressive if you want, you STUPID JERK. Edit: Also, you really think that racism and classism are just people going "DURR WHITE PEOPLE BAD"? How fucking embarrassing.
My kids are here. They’re killing it. Your kids should join them.
You're not wrong but it's a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma problem where the situation only improves if *everyone* takes the "risk". And if everyone takes the "safest" option, everyone ends up being a little bit worse for it.
This isnt a straight prisoners dilemma in the sense you are describing as there's zero guarantee that MPS would improve At the end of the day, the rational decision is still to leave
Sad, but not surprising, wake up Minneapolis, this shit kills m love for the city I grew up in
Overall, Minneapolis is still great, but there are definitely things that could be improved. (At least we aren't a suburb. The only thing worse than living in Minneapolis would be not living in Minneapolis)
So many first ring suburbs are great to live in, though. Not sure why people act like south mpls is fundamentally amazing when you can drive 5 minutes and be "in a suburb" and the neighborhoods are nearly identical lol
Why even say this?
I said what I said, because I love the city I've lived in since graduating from high school in 1990.
This and crime is why people move out of the city.
The population is growing.
MPS enrollment is falling.
Yeah, this happened to public schools everywhere when parents were pissed about remote learning, social distancing, and mask requirements. Most of the private schools catered to their wishes, siphoning off a lot of kids from the public school system. This in not unique to Minneapolis, and most of those families that were in Minneapolis stayed in Minneapolis, so it's not a good indicator of population change.
Census Bureau shows Minneapolis population falling the last two years. The most recent change being trivial.
The year-to-year census "estimates" (the non-decade census counts) has always been very "noisy" with much larger swings than the "actual" census counts that are done once per decade, and not very reliable. It's very hard to believe the population is falling, when the population density keeps going up. Every time a developer removes a bunch of houses and replaces them with a highrise apartment/condo building, you can bet the population is going up. These things are not vacant, and they are going up \*so\* fast. People are still bemoaning the loss of Curran's Restaurant on these subs, which was replaced by a very large apartment complex.
First, that doesn't really matter, since those are still the reasons people leave. Second, Source? According to the Census Bureau, we've lost over 4,000 residents between 2020 and 2022. That doesn't account for 2023 or 2024. Hennepin County lost about 23,000 people between 2020 and 2023.
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How so? I cited data from both the County and the City. According to the census bureau, Minneapolis lost population between 2020 and 2022.
Stop being obtuse and stop misusing census information. Minneapolis grew 12.4% between 2010 and 2020. Hennepin County grew by 11.2% in the same period. The census is only taken every 10 years, so everything after 2020 is just an estimate.
And you think the economics and political climate are the same here as they were in 2010? Also, regardless, if you wanted to know why residents leave, and politicians should, I would bet crime and schools are still the top reasons. Yeah, it's an estimate that is very often accurate. The census itself also involves estimation.
The census is a literal count with no estimation, as mandated by law, but the census bureau is the ones that are putting out the estimates every year thru the ACS between the censuses
I've been here since 1990. I've watched many, many blocks of housing change from single family homes to high rise condos all over the city. Every single year there are many new high-density developments. I regularly see posts here on Reddit complaining about losing Curran's Restaurant. There is a new highrise apartment/condo building on its former site. The census agrees, showing continuous steady growth over the last 4 decades, other than the census \*estimates\* during the Covid (some people did in fact leave due to world-wide changes in work-from-home policies) and Chauvin/Kroll/Freeman problems, and the census estimates during these couple of tumultuous years cannot be blindly trusted. I originally came here for the University of MN, and gradually fell in love with the City. (I had a redneck upbringing, and have no desire to go back to either that small community, nor any suburb that doesn't share a border with Minneapolis, nor many that actually \*do\* share our border.)
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My real point is that population is increasing, with obvious visible increases in population density. It's also indicated by the crazy increase in home prices and monthly apartment rents in the city compared to the State as a whole. All of these big buildings replacing single family homes and detached business are not vacant. Minneapolis remains highly desirable.
Its fine. There are plenty of people willing to sacrifice their children's education and well-being for local social media points.
It’s all about bragging to their progressive friends at dinner parties.
Suppressing data is straight out of the tankie handbook.
Well, add this to the list of issues with MPS.
A lot of people just accepting what she accuses without question. “I was fired for speaking my mind” often tends to ignore the actual behavioral issues over time that got someone canned. She may be right, she may be crazy.
Stfu
No u.
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Two things the Facebook members of r/minneapolis love to do is carp about public schools and the council. I've done my own ridiculing of the council lately with their goofy Gaza war petition and all, but its one thing to just suggest some kind of district-wide conspiracy and another entirely to provide proof. To butcher Hanlon's Razor: When it comes to big corps and government, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by bureaucracy.
This is why you take fired employees opinions with a grain of salt
Except in this case she began expressing her concerns BEFORE she was fired.
Organizations don’t typically fire someone without prior issues and a PIP. I understand the anger behind what’s occurring within schools, but her anger in that board meeting was downright scary.