March 15, 2018

On March 14, interim Minneapolis Southwest High School principal, Karen Wells, sent an email home to families, informing them that a “small fight” had taken place during the day, as Southwest students participated in the National School Walkout.

Today, that “small fight” is snowballing into a major incident. It reportedly began as students were participating in the walkout, when one student was allegedly seen waving a Trump flag and calling out racial slurs. A small group of students then engaged in a physical confrontation with the one waving the flag. The fight, Wells said in her email, was “quickly broken up.”

It did not end there. Rumors raced through the school, with fears of gun violence and retaliation causing some parents and students to skip school today and reach out to the Minneapolis police for information. Parents are reporting that school officials determined there was no credible threat, although extra security measures were apparently taken at Southwest today.

Local and national news outlets picked up on the story, with CBS and the NY Post stating that no one was arrested after “a student carrying a flag with the word ‘Trump’ on it was assaulted outside of Southwest High School.” 

Now, the flames are being fanned by Olivia Anderson-Blythe, a reporter for the Republican aligned, questionably funded, Alpha News site. On Twitter, Anderson-Blythe and a group with the Twitter handle “CrimeWatchMpls” have been retweeting one another about reports of violence at Southwest High School.

The CrimeWatch group has an accompanying Facebook page full of comments about “snowflakes” and kids who don’t appreciate the gift of a taxpayer-funded education.

Anderson-Blythe published another story about Southwest High School on March 13, after apparently attending (and recording) a community meeting that was held at the school on March 8. That meeting was called at parents’ request after a lunchroom fight between two students was videotaped and shared on social media sites.

The March 8 meeting was led by Carla Steinbach, Associate Superintendent for the Minneapolis Public Schools, with Southwest administrators, Wells and Tara Fitzgerald, also weighing in. Although the fight and the administrators’ supposed Draconian response (students were not allowed to leave the lunchroom during the fight, nor were they then given passes to leave class) was the official reason for the meeting, many other concerns and questions arose during the 90 minute session.

Inequity and racial tension dominated the conversation, yet the meeting seemed to end on a high note, with Steinbach enthusiastically calling Southwest a “great school,” and other parents and administrators agreeing to come together again soon for more dialogue. Still, it was impossible to ignore an elephant in the room: the school’s administrative team was “decimated in 2017,” a parent stated, leaving, perhaps, unprepared leadership in charge.

Longtime Southwest principal Bill Smith was pushed out last summer, along with two assistant principals, Sue Mortensen and Brian Nutter. Although an Office of Civil Rights complaint was rumored to be the reason for the shake up, sources say that it was instead an internal investigation prompted by allegations of race-based discipline disparities that led to the changes.

While Smith and Mortensen elected to retire one year earlier than expected, many observers believe Nutter–a younger administrator with deep roots in the Minneapolis schools–was unfairly pushed out by top-level district decision makers. (Today, he is reportedly on his way to the Middle East to serve with the National Guard.)

In place of these three, Southwest has largely been managed this year by Wells, who has no high school administrative experience, and Fitzgerald, who was previously removed from her position as principal of Northrop Elementary School. This has proven problematic in the eyes of some, as Southwest is the district’s largest and arguably highest profile high school. 

Others, though, have praised Wells for working well with the school’s large population of students of color.

Southwest often gets dinged for its position in one of the whitest, wealthiest corners of the city. Still, it serves over 700 students who live in poverty, according to federal guidelines, and 45 percent of its 1,800 kids are students of color (per Minnesota Department of Education data). Successfully meeting the needs of a wide swath of the city’s population is undoubtedly challenging, especially in this era of videotaped fights and real or alleged threats of gun violence, not to mention pending budget cuts and administrative upheaval.

UPDATE:

In an official statement, MPS spokesperson, Dirk Tedmon, addressed the latest incidents at Southwest. Here is part of MPS’s response:

State law limits the information that can be shared regarding Minnesota students, so
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is prohibited from sharing details of the brief fight that occurred on March 14 across the street and off school property. MPS does not condone fighting or disrespectful behavior. When it happens, we follow the same behavior and safety guidelines for all students involved. 

MPS continues to believe the events of March 14 provided a focused opportunity for student voice on an important civic issue that is bipartisan in nature. One of MPS’s priorities is giving students skills for critical thinking, building positive relationships, hearing diverse views and problem-solving in challenging situations. The District’s hope and expectation would be students approach one another in a respectful manner, even when they disagree. At the same time, we realize some students, much like our society in general right now, sometimes have difficulty constructively engaging in civic discourse. As a learning organization, MPS’s
obligation is to create spaces for students to learn this skill.

MPS’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths and helps students grow into well-rounded, global citizens. It is important to maintain a safe, positive learning environment for each Minneapolis Public Schools student in every one the District’s schools, and we are committed to doing that.

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