Tag Archives: Comprehensive District Design

Minneapolis Public Schools Final CDD Plan: Pandemic Proof?

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

March 26, 2020

What is it like to run a large public school district in a time of crisis? That’s a good question for Minneapolis Public Schools superintendent Ed Graff.

Here’s another question for Graff. What is it like to push a major district redesign plan through in the middle of a global pandemic?

Regarding the first question, Graff received high marks from the nine-member Minneapolis school board during a special business meeting on March 26. The virtual meeting began with board members offering their praise for Graff’s leadership during the Covid-19 shutdown of the Minneapolis Public Schools.

In particular, Graff and his team were acknowledged for quickly pulling together school nutrition and enrichment packet options for families suddenly cast adrift from their school communities.

Graff in turn announced further plans for meal packets to be distributed at various sites over the next few weeks. (Check the district’s website for details, including a distance learning plan that will be made public on March 27.)

During the March 26 meeting, Graff was also granted special powers that will last through the Covid-19 emergency. With the board’s approval, he can now make budgetary decisions, and so on, that relate explicitly to the coronavirus situation–without the board’s approval.

A second resolution also passed, authorizing the board to hold virtual meetings, if necessary, during this crisis. Public comment will still be gathered, but not in person. (Kerry Jo Felder was the lone no vote on this item.)

The how/when’where of this has yet to be fully explained or considered, according to school board chair Kim Ellison.

Here’s why that matters: the district is still planning to vote on its controversial redesign plan, known as the CDD, on April 28–come hell or the Covid-19 shutdown.

That meeting and vote will apparently still be held, whether or not the public can attend an open meeting and engage directly with board members. Feedback and input will still be collected, in a to-be-determined manner, but it will lack the impact (or chaos, perhaps) of recent face-to-face interactions between and among the public and the board.

And so the CDD is likely to become a reality, with board members Ali, Arneson, Caprini, Ellison, Inz and Pauly expected to vote in favor of it. Representatives Felder, Jourdain, and Walser are likely no votes.

Final CDD Available March 27

The long-awaited final version of the CDD will be released to the public on March 27, although the board and some members of the media have had a copy of it since at least March 24.

I have reviewed the document (thanks to a public data request) and will say that it doesn’t stray too far from the five-option model released by MPS in January, although it does contain major boundary changes for many district schools.

There is also very little financial information contained within it, except for a projected five year capital improvement plan worth somewhere north of $224 million.

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways outlined in February, for example, are the same. Programming will be concentrated at North, Edison, and Roosevelt high schools, including an agriculture program at Edison.

K-8s On the Chopping Block

Other hot-button issues include K-8s and dual-immersion programming, and those in defense of both models may not be very pleased with the final CDD proposal.

Popular K-8 magnet programming at Hmong International Academy, Marcy Open School, Seward Montessori School, and Barton Open School will be eliminated, with each of these schools reverting to a K-5 model. (Hmong International is more of a community school with a Hmong language and culture focus; that emphasis will not change under the CDD.)

Folwell Performing Arts, another K-8 magnet now, will also become a community K-5 site.

There will be two new citywide K-8 magnet schools created–one at Jefferson near Uptown and another at Sullivan school in Seward. Jefferson’s Global Studies and Humanities focus sounds (on paper anyway) as if it will be similar to the popular IB programming that is eliminated in the CDD.

Sullivan will have a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) emphasis. Franklin Middle School will also be a citywide STEAM magnet. There are no K-8 community schools in the CDD proposal.

Green Central Community School will become a K-5 Spanish dual-immersion magnet, while Windom (currently an immersion program) is slated to become a community K-5 site.

No Separate Immersion Middle School

Immersion advocates hoping for a standalone middle school option–which MPS indicated could be housed at Jefferson–will instead have to be content with a 6-8 immersion strand program placed within Andersen Community Middle School in south Minneapolis.

Sheridan and Emerson schools will retain their K-5 immersion school focus, while no programming of this type appears to be headed to north Minneapolis, despite board member Kerry Jo Felder’s frequent requests for a northside location.

Bethune and Hall–two elementary schools in north Minneapolis–will be K-5 magnets, for art and STEM (STEAM without the art) respectively. Seward will be the district’s only Montessori option, with a K-5 citywide magnet model.

There is no clear indication as to how all of these new citywide magnets will be handled, from an enrollment, recruitment or transportation perspective.

Got Time to Propose a Specialty School?

A provision for “specialty schools” remains, although the timeline spelled out in the CDD will likely raise a few eyebrows. Global pandemic be damned, any school community wishing to become a specialty school (sort of a magnet school, sans any extra funding or transportation) will need to submit a final proposal by November of this year.

There will be much more to pore over, from March 27 until the scheduled board vote on April 28. Many will find much to admire about the CDD, including the bolstering of North High School with students from an expanded attendance zone that stretches into Kenwood and Uptown.

There is also a lot of language about capstone projects for STEAM school attendees, for example, as well as an admirable–and desperately needed–emphasis on recruiting and retaining more teachers of color.

These positive steps or goals may be weighed down by the sheer level of disruption the CDD promises to deliver, however, which one can guess at despite the lack of enrollment numbers included in the presentation.

There is the promise of a bunch of new schools being created all at once, alongside a major overhaul of MPS student placement and HR policies.

Many communities, in all corners of the city, may be surprised at the level of upheaval they will be asked to endure along the way to securing a “well-rounded” education for their kids.

Super Chickens Don’t Succeed

When the document becomes public, pay close attention to how teachers are discussed. The CDD in fact closely echoes the market-based education reform narrative around “high quality teachers,” as if they are chess pieces rather than human beings. (What makes someone a high quality teacher? Who should define this?)

Strong teachers are attracted to, and help build and maintain, strong schools. They are drawn to and inspired by schools with healthy climates and inspirational leaders. They thrive when they are allowed to be vulnerable without fear of retribution.

This is about culture and community, not the myth of the super chicken (look it up!).

MPS is about to embark on an incredibly ambitious mission. It is one that the CDD’s lead author, MPS administrator Eric Moore, referred to recently as being rooted in a theory of disruption and deconstruction, with the goal of rebuilding a more equitable system from the ground up.

It is a theory, he acknowledged, that has “never worked” yet.

Will it now?

Pandemic No Threat to Minneapolis Public Schools’ Reorganization Plans

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

March 17, 2020

Just when it seemed the Covid-19 scare might lower the temperature of all things connected to the Minneapolis Public Schools and its controversial Comprehensive District Design (CDD) plans, Superintendent Ed Graff and school board chair Kim Ellison released a statement outlining their intention to keep pushing the CDD forward.

The district’s schools are closed now, along with those across the state, and are not scheduled to reopen until April 6 at the earliest. It is also possible that physical school buildings will not reopen this school year, with teaching and learning conducted online instead.

Still, the statement released by Graff and Ellison indicates that the school board will be asked to vote on the CDD at an April 28 meeting, with May 12 suggested as a second option in case the first meeting gets canceled.

This amounts to barely a blip in the previously noted timeline for a board vote on the CDD and does not appear to make any real provision for the loss of public input on the plan.

Consider this bullet point from the statement released today:

If a prolonged health emergency persists, the April 28 and May 12 board meetings may use electronic meeting protocols to ensure business can continue

This sounds as if the board is prepared to vote on the CDD whether or not the public can be there, in person, to observe or weigh in with comments.

Perhaps this would not be a problem if the board was being asked to vote on a relatively insignificant matter. But the CDD is built around a theory of disruption–one which district administrator Eric Moore said, on February 26, has never before been successfully implemented–that will impact every student and staff member, to some degree.

Here’s why, briefly:

  • The CDD promises to reconfigure many existing schools by the year 2021, sending thousands of students and teachers to new school sites
  • New magnet schools are being proposed, with no identified roll-out plan, while existing ones are slated to be dismantled
  • Students, largely from north Minneapolis, who are currently bused out of their own neighborhood to community schools elsewhere stand to be uprooted and put in newly reconfigured schools with new staffing teams
  • Teachers, support staff and building administrators have reportedly been told that their jobs are up in the air, meaning no one knows for sure–under the CDD–where they will end up working

While some community members are rooting for these changes, many have lingering concerns over who will be displaced and how, exactly, a projected $4.6 million in transportation savings will be enough to bolster struggling schools–especially in light of what MPS says is a projected $19 million budget shortfall.

In other words, can transportation savings alone make up for the district’s shrinking bottom line?

Politics 101: A Crisis Can Force Change

Aside from the financial piece, many parents and educators from across the city have raised questions about the plan. For evidence of this, look no further than either the February 11 school board meeting, which included impassioned input from a range of parents, or to the highly animated meeting that took place on March 10.

Moving forward with the pre-Covid-19 timeline could be an obvious way to hurry to the finish line and minimize further input, since the CDD has been in the works since at least 2018–when Graff was advised by a consultant to ignore community feedback.

But it could just as easily cost MPS what little public trust and support it does have, by appearing to callously push through a major reorganization plan while families are consumed by fears over job and income losses, not to mention health concerns and the overall stress of suddenly having kids home for weeks and possibly months on end.

Of course, there is also the issue of the current budget cuts rolling across the district. Cuts to the high schools are hovering at or above the $1 million mark, meaning a reduction in programming and staffing cuts–whether or not the CDD goes through.

Frankly, the funding crisis raises the question of whether the district is in solid enough shape to take on a massive overhaul, where schools with strong community support (including schools such as Green Central, Lucy Laney, and Andersen K-8 that serve majority non-white populations) are slated to be dismantled and shaken up–perhaps leading to further enrollment and budgetary losses.

Whose Schools?

This brings to mind a particularly troubling anecdote. On March 10, community members from Green Central school in south Minneapolis showed up at the district’s Davis Center headquarters, in advance of the night’s regularly scheduled school board meeting.

They had reportedly planned to address the board with concerns over the CDD during the public comment period, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Unfortunately, another group–members of the mostly pro-CDD Advancing Equity Coalition–had nabbed most of the first slots allotted to the public.

March 10 protesters

This coalition, which has ties to organizations that promote and fund charter schools (primarily the Minneapolis Foundation), is clearly well-organized and politically savvy. Before the meeting started, they left glossy literature outlining their support for the CDD on every chair in the Davis Center board room.

(There was a rival rally held outside the Davis Center on March 10, by another organized group–loosely known as Kids First–that is managed and minimally funded, to my knowledge, by district parents with PR chops.)

The Green Central families couldn’t wait for their chance to address the board, however, as their bus had to leave by 6:30 p.m., and so they left without having their voices heard.

Given the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, wouldn’t it be wiser for MPS to indicate care and compassion–as it has through the distribution of food and schoolwork to families in need–by slowing down the CDD timeline and ensuring true community input?

Protesters outside Davis Center

Comprehensive District Design or Community-Led Schools?

Uncategorized, , , ,

Guest post by David Boehnke

On February 5, I spent five hours learning about the Minneapolis Public Schools’ new “Comprehensive District Design,” first at a community forum led by a group of MPS teachers at North Commons Park, and then at the district’s own “listening session” at Bethune Elementary School, a short walk away. 

The meetings couldn’t have been more different.

The first, led by a pair of black teachers running for union office, was an open conversation. Different concerns, experiences, and opinions came together, people learned things and left more connected and informed, although many were still stressed by the district’s lack of authentic engagement with community members.

The MPS listening session at Bethune did involve listening, but it was the district doing the talking. After a lengthy presentation of technical administrative changes, audience questions were written on note cards. A few were then asked and answered by a diverse display of district higher ups.

The format generated skepticism and confusion. Why was so much work being done to prevent the hundreds there from giving real feedback or talking to each other? 

As is often the case, the most interesting parts were side conversations in the hallway – and the picket outside. A group of Educational Support Professionals (ESPs) greeted us as we entered, asking if we would come to their next union contract negotiations.

Apparently there are over a hundred Davis Center people who make over 100,000 a year, while the ESPs, a unit far more diverse than teachers (although those on the picket line were mostly white) who also work directly with students, can’t afford to live on one job. 

In 2017, MPS students made signs to welcome refugees and immigrants

So why is there a need for the Comprehensive District Design plan and what does it do?

First, it’s been said that the district is financially unstable due to changing demographics and families leaving – 80% of whom are people of color. Second, there are legal concerns: with potential lawsuits if schools are more than 86% people of color – although this does not apply to white students. There are also difficulties involved with having so many schools where more than 80% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch. 

These legal concerns of concentrated race and poverty are also identified by the district as the core causes of MPS’ intense racial inequities – and their primary solution, according to CDD documents, is to increase integration, along with some teacher training.

The district’s plan also prioritizes reducing transportation costs by making most schools attended by people who live by them “community schools,” while moving magnets to the center of the city, making 14,000 students change schools in the process.

MPS administrators say this will stop parents from leaving the district, allow more money to be invested in academics, and prevent school closings and other dire financial consequences. 

Yet the materials and presentation hosted by the district at Bethune were confusing. The district speaks of “five plans” while really only having one, with minor variations. Parent surveys which assisted plan creation seem to have been creatively reinterpreted, with concerns for safety of students in schools rewritten as concerns about walking to school, for example.

And while it is admirable to try to find structural barriers to racist outcomes, to reduce transit times, and to shift the cost of integration from students of color to white students, it is questionable that this plan does that. 

For example, according to MPS, 70% of the 14,000 students who will have to change schools are students of color, more than their percentage in the district as a whole. And that’s a tremendous number of students – and staff – to move around.

So, it seems we want the same things but it’s hard to trust MPS’ current approach.  

In fact, what one comes to realize then, after wading through confusing language and barriers to conversation is that the District doesn’t know how to do the racial equity work it says it wants to do – and they don’t trust families, communities, or educators to make that happen, either. One worries that their urgency to make change fast is to cover over that fact, rather than create a real process with those whose lives will be impacted by their decisions.  

This could explain why all their changes seem to be up in $100,000-a-year land, far from our students and communities.

If community schools were a magic bullet to solve enrollment and teacher diversity, we’d see that in such schools in our district now.

If families of color were treated with respect already, they probably wouldn’t be leaving.

If the district cared about having more teachers of color and culturally relevant curriculum, they would have more teachers of color after fifteen years of working on the problem, and they would have ethnic studies everywhere substantively, not symbolically.

If true engagement was the plan, MPS would have community conversations, not elaborate events to collect comment cards. They would empower the bottom-up knowledge of the thousands of families of color, in partnership with educators and white parents, to set school boundaries, determine curriculum, create community, maybe even create an “inclusion revolution.”

Because after all,  there are people doing marvelous work in the district, but this plan doesn’t seem to protect them. In fact it seems like this is yet another cycle of the district systematically disrupting and pushing out people for doing the work they say they want done. 

Some of this showed up in the meeting hosted by teachers at North Commons Park. A teacher talked about a Social Emotional Learning Conference they planned and how the District attended because they didn’t know how to do that work on their own.

Parents spoke of facing increasing roadblocks from both a Northside school and the district’s central office regarding safety concerns with their child . A staff person expressed frustration about daily racism in the Davis Center and in schools. Southside parents came wanting to hear thinking from other parts of the city as well as continuity for the diverse schools they love for their children. 

Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) members expressed concerns with the union’s lack of a planned response to this District Design, as well as its “official inability” to address racist targeting by administration or other union members.

There were also discussions of why teachers of color leave schools and how to retain them, and of wanting to not have two internal hiring processes prior to external hires in order to hire new teachers of color before other districts do so.

This overlaps with concerns of many union people about attacks on seniority, which is something that many corporate-funded groups support. That said, in this context it was less about attacking the union and more about asking what it would actually take to get the type of staffing we need in our schools.

But the marvelous part of real conversation is that it generates new ideas and opens options. It reveals similar desires from parents on the north and south side, families and staff. That all of us want to have more control over our schools and many of us truly want to combat racism. That our lived experiences – combined – show us that so much more is possible in our schools, even if it has to be against the top down, non-transparent ways of the district, and sadly often the union as well. 

We do need a vision for schools worth fighting for. We need our schools to work for our communities. We need communities to be at the table, not as bodies to be counted but as people with local knowledge who are necessary to create good schools – and preferably as a mass movement that makes such involvement a requirement of any major change, like the one proposed in the CDD. 

As we left I was reminded that North High School is open only because community forced the issue. And that the current superintendent is only there due to community pressure against a racist curriculum and corporate takeover. That these are our schools, and School Board members are supposed to represent us.

The world is run by those who show up and take strategic action. What does the future hold? What will the community do this time?   

The district is going to reveal its finalized CDD plan at the March 24 school board meeting with a vote expected at the board’s April 14 meeting. 

David Boehnke is a Northside teacher and resident currently focused on working with prisoners to change the prison system. He has been working for racial and social justice in schools since he was a teenager, and for a decade in MPS. Comments or critiques welcome at dboehnke@gmail.com.

Minneapolis Public Schools Redesign Plans Marred by Inaccurate Information

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

January 27, 2020

On January 24, the Minneapolis Public Schools sent an email to parents and community members with the following subject line: Comprehensive District Design Digest: Everything you need to know!

The cheery exclamation point did little to calm fears, however, regarding the district’s comprehensive design proposal (known as the CDD).

For one thing, the email sent to MPS families and staff included a summary of the five options now contained in the district proposal, but there was no link provided to the actual document so that people could read through it themselves.

A parent requested the link on Facebook from a district employee, and it was then provided, but this does not seem like an effective way to build trust in MPS’s potentially massively disruptive plans.

Incomplete Information

The proposal, thus far, is outlined in a PowerPoint document that will be discussed at the school board’s January 28 Committee of the Whole meeting and at the district-sponsored listening sessions that will be held over the next several weeks.

This approach–selectively releasing explosive information just days before public engagement sessions are slated to begin–seems designed to further stoke panic, division, and discord between parents and various school communities, with little sense of how to actually bring people together for the common good.

And the plan itself is laced with incomplete or inaccurate information, which is also sowing mistrust and fear in some corners of the district.

MPS Seems Bent on Slandering K-8 Schools

The CDD proposal released on January 24 continues an attempt to prove that K-8 schools are somehow worse for students than standalone middle schools. In so doing, the proposal offers a shoddy side-by-side comparison of unnamed (but easily identified) district schools.

Slides 45-46 seem to pit Barton Open K-8 against Justice Page Middle School. Barton is listed as “School A: K-8” and Page is “School B: 6-8.” A list of what each school ostensibly offers, in terms of enrichment and support, then follows.

But the list under School A: K-8 (Barton) is selectively narrow and purposefully incomplete, in order to drive home MPS’s pitch that K-8s are inadequate. This is slide 46:

Barton does offer team sports (though fewer in recent years, thanks to district-level budget cuts), though, and health in grades 5-8, not just in 7 and 8. Phy Ed also happens for every kid, K-8, and not just in 8th grade.

Barton offers art, too, and many other specialized elective course offerings, including Film Studies and a semester-long deep dive into the Holocaust and its connections to current events.

The dance class Barton offers as an elective is built around students as creators, since the class culminates in a show of dances choreographed by students. In recent years, there have been powerful works done that reflect students’ interest in Black Lives Matter and gun violence, for example.

The school also has a robust after-school debate league, and has recently fielded English, Spanish and Somali-speaking teams.

Good School vs. Bad School = A Problematic Framing

Barton does not have AVID (a separate programming model built around providing more support and smaller class sizes for students in need) but it does offer in-school classes for students who need homework help and so on–all on an absolutely bare bones budget, of course.

It may also offer something else, thanks to its smaller size: an opportunity for closer connection among teachers, staff, and students. This connection might foster stronger relationships, which is also a form of essential support. (Nicole Naftziger, MPS parent at a community K-8, has done a thorough job of debunking claims–often using MPS’s own data–that 6-8 schools are better for all students.)

But the CDD proposal seems designed to tell a purposefully inaccurate story.

Electives Are Not Offered to All

Justice Page is “School B” in the above slide, and it does appear to boast an impressive number of elective classes. But upon closer inspection, these course offerings are most available to the students who are already successful–as least as far as standardized test scores go.

That’s because the course offerings sheet available on the Justice Page website, which guides students through the enrichment classes available to them, includes the following caveats:

ELL students, in other words, are presumably isolated from the rest of their peers and not allowed to participate in enrichment courses with native or proficient English speakers.

And kids who perhaps don’t test well or who are somehow below grade-level in math or reading (the two most tested subjects) will also miss out on at least one enrichment class, and be shuttled into a remedial class–even though there is good pedagogical support for not doing this.

Should MPS Understand Its Own Schools Better?

While I don’t presume to know all of the reasons Page has structured their course offerings this way (it may be what the staff feels is most helpful for students), it certainly challenges the narrative that all kids will receive a “well-rounded education,” as MPS claims, at large, standalone middle schools.

My critique here, however, is not directed at Page, nor should this be read as a simplistic defense of Barton. My own kids have gone to Barton but my youngest will go to Page if K-8s are eliminated in MPS, and I deeply believe there are no “perfect” schools, including Barton.

Every school is a complex mix of success stories and sometimes deep-seated obstacles. Barton is no different, although it does–like Justice Page–benefit from the kind of stability and community support that should be cultivated at all MPS sites.

Rather, I am using an example concerning two schools that are in my neighborhood to poke holes in the incomplete and factually inaccurate marketing plan/proposal MPS released on January 24.

Beware the Red Herring

If we are to accept the idea that large-scale disruptions are urgently needed–now–in order to save money and better serve MPS’s most marginalized communities, then we need factual information that can be vetted and verified.

We can’t build a better MPS on half-truths and skimpy marketing plans.

Communities in north, northeast and the south/central neighborhoods have experienced the most disruption and upheaval in recent history. North High School was recommended for closure by district officials in 2010; it is still in the process of trying to rebuild its community.

Some people also maintain that the Central neighborhood has never gotten over the closure of its high school in the 1980s. From a website run by Augsburg College historians:

Central High School was the heart of the Southside African-American community for most of the twentieth century. Despite protests, the Minneapolis Public Schools decided to close the building in 1982. It was demolished soon thereafter (except for the gymnasium, which remains). The school was also critical in the life of Prince Rogers Nelson, who attended high school here from 1972-1976. 

The essential question, then, is what MPS can do collectively to support schools across the city, especially since closures are almost certain to follow–even though the January 24 CDD proposal states such decisions will be made after the board votes on a plan.

Community-Led Change

Disruption and the creeping Charlie-like spread of neoliberal, market-based education reform ideas are exactly what has been done, repeatedly, in Minneapolis and other large districts. (Just take a look at the proliferation of charter schools in north and northeast Minneapolis, in particular.)

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is jitu.jpg
Jitu Brown

What hasn’t been tried–as a school board member acknowledged recently–is a grassroots, community-led approach to strengthening existing schools within MPS. This is a strategy supported by many racial and education justice activists, including Jitu Brown of Journey for Justice and the leaders of the Schott Foundation based in Boston.

Will it really work to push through school closures, dramatic boundary changes (some of which I think hold promise, including the move to send Kenwood area kids to Anwatin and North High), teacher and staff upheavals, and so on? Where will this put the district in five years?

And, amid MPS’s faulty claims that standalone middle schools are somehow better for students, the Minneapolis City Planning Commission appears to have given the green light to yet another K-8 charter school in northeast Minneapolis, Metro Tech Academy.

“We don’t have failing schools—as a public we’ve been failed.”

—Jitu Brown

Minneapolis Public Schools Stands to Lose Up to 1/3 of Families with Redesign Plan

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

January 13, 2020

Jaws dropped at Minneapolis’s Bryant Square park on January 11 when citywide school board member Kim Ellison made a quiet yet stunning comment to the parents gathered before her for an informational meeting.

The meeting was largely comprised of parents from Barton (K-8 Open magnet school) and Windom (K-5 Spanish Dual-Immersion school). They had called the meeting to express their questions and concerns regarding the Minneapolis Public Schools emerging Comprehensive District Design (CDD) plan.

School board members Bob Walser and Ira Jourdain were in attendance alongside Ellison. The meeting was recorded, with board members’ approval, and has been shared on Facebook groups, including the Minneapolis Public Schools Parents page.

Towards the end of the nearly two-hour meeting, a parent asked how many families MPS expected to lose should the CDD plan (in its current form) get voted in by the school board.

Ellison’s answer? One-third. That high number drew stunned reactions from those seated closest to her, and later sparked a ripple of panic through parent organizing groups.

Losing up to one-third of all Minneapolis kids would be simply devastating for the city’s public school district.

Ellison later clarified that, to her knowledge, some MPS staff expect that one-third of all families with school-age kids living in Minneapolis (but not necessarily attending MPS) will be unhappy with the final CDD proposal presented to the board.

Whether or not this displeasure would cause them to leave MPS altogether is anyone’s guess, it seems.

But here’s a question: Who stands to benefit, should the board proceed with voting on a plan that up to one-third of all families in Minneapolis may not like?

One-third of all Minneapolis kids adds up to one-half of the district’s current enrollment, or somewhere around 17,000 students. State and city-based funding streams equal roughly $8,000 per pupil, in general education dollars. (Students in need get more money, thanks to Minnesota’s equitable funding model.)

Losing even a portion of those families who may be upset with the CDD proposal would amount to millions in lost funding for a district (MPS) that is already struggling to stay solvent.

Who, then, stands to benefit if a plan gets pushed through with minimal public support?

One answer could lie with the charter schools supported by private, philanthropic outfits such as the Graves Foundation.

The Graves Foundation is based in Minneapolis and run by Bill Graves, son of entrepreneur John Graves. Former Teach for America corps member and staffer Kyrra Rankine now works for the Graves Foundation as Director of Partnerships and Initiatives.

Rankine has been a vocal presence at Minneapolis school board meetings of late, and is one of three people who appear to be the leaders of an advocacy group known as the Advancing Equity Coalition.

Bill Graves

Public tax records show that Rankine earns close to $100,000 in compensation from the Graves Foundation (as of 2017; 2018 returns have yet to be posted). The group’s website also lists the Advancing Equity Coalition as one of the projects it supports.

Through this advocacy group and her salaried position at the Graves Foundation, Rankine seems to be working hard to control the public narrative around MPS’s district redesign–and to silence those who may disagree with it.

In fact, at the December 10 school board meeting, Rankine spoke during the public comment period. In her three minute turn at the podium, she roundly chastised the parents in the room whose presence she disapproved of.

In a sweeping take down of the “white folks” with whom Rankine (who is also white) disagrees, she admonished them for a range of things, from claiming (falsely, in her opinion) to care about diversity to only showing up when their own kid’s school was in danger of either closing or being moved.

In the video from the meeting, her disdain is glaringly evident. (The link here goes to MPS’ video streaming site. Rankine appears around the 1:40 mark for the December 10, 2019 meeting.)

Other notable Rankine appearances before the school board include the October 7, 2019 meeting, where she directly addresses the nine member board and criticizes those who don’t measure up to her definition of being hard at work on behalf of students.

Then, before warning the board that “2020 is coming,” perhaps in an allusion to the fact that several seats will be up for election this year, Rankine argues that students can–and should–leave MPS if they feel their needs are not being met by the district.

And where would they go? Perhaps to the ever-increasing roster of mostly segregated, mostly marginally successful charter schools that are privately run but publicly funded–from the same limited pot of money that goes to public school districts.

The lucky charters, with ties to wealthy organizations like the Graves Foundation, also receive additional streams of funding, seemingly with little accountability or oversight. (District schools also often rely on grants for programming support, especially in this era of compromised public funding.)

The Graves Foundation also doles out cash to a small group of elite local education reform organizations. That list includes:

  • Teach for America
  • Minnesota Comeback (which has since merged with another recipient of Graves Foundation money, Great MN Schools)
  • Students for Education Reform (whose employee, Kenneth Eban, is also part of the Advancing Equity Coalition)
  • Ed Allies (pro-school choice lobbying group headed by another Teach for America alum, Daniel Sellers)
  • Educators for Excellence (another group with Teach for America ties)

To be fair, the Graves Foundation has also given money to the Minneapolis Public Schools and a host of other notable causes, including In the Heart of the Beast puppet theater and the Minnesota Literacy Council.

But here’s the thing. One-time grants for pet projects or preferred charter school and reform groups are more like feel-good drops in the bucket than evidence of real systems change.

Many people, most notably Anand Giridharadas, have pointed out in fact that philanthropy is no substitute for an actual sharing of wealth, nor should it be confused with a sustainable investment in the public good.

It is likely much easier to lecture others about equity from a plush foundation’s perch than from, say, an overcrowded public school classroom, where half–if not more–of the students may be experiencing some kind of trauma (wrought by institutional racism and inequality, perhaps) at any one time.

Teachers and school support staff likely don’t have time to weigh in on what is equitable and what is not regarding MPS, nor have they reportedly been asked by the district to do so.

Parents and other community members have also stated, as they did at the January 11 meeting Ellison and others attended, that they have not been asked for their insights regarding how to help the district better serve all families.

And some of the families speaking the loudest on January 11 were people of color, many of whom expressed a strong connection to their child’s school.

One mother even told the crowd about how she had changed her work schedule so that her children could continue to attend Barton, and several said they like the K-8 model because it means their children can be together. (K-8 schools have been left off of the district’s most recent redesign models.)

Native Spanish speakers with kids at Windom also spoke out, often with evident emotion, about how much they want this school to remain open in some capacity, although they fear it has been slated for closure.

These people represent a captive audience for the Minneapolis schools. They already like their kids’ school, although I did not hear anyone say any school in the district was perfect or somehow beyond reproach.

Alienating them, or allowing some well-funded outfits to try to silence their voices, just doesn’t seem like a good idea.

The push for equity that has been tacked onto what likely started as a cost-savings plan designed to simplify transit routes is admirable. But who gets to define what is or is not equitable? And who will be left behind if the district pushes through a plan that may alienate thousands of students and families?

A three-option CDD proposal is expected to be publicly released on January 24, with discussion to follow at the school board’s January 28 Committee of the Whole meeting.

Minneapolis Public Schools: Surrounded by K-8 Charter Options

Uncategorized, , , ,

January 6, 2020

If the Minneapolis Public Schools succeeds in turning the district into K-5 and 6-8 schools only, as its current Comprehensive District Design proposal strongly suggests, it will become surrounded by a sea of K-8 options within and just outside its boundaries.

Of the one hundred sixty-four charter schools currently in operation in Minnesota, half are at least K-6 schools. Most are exclusively K-8. Many more are K-12, and of course this has something to do with the need and desire to retain students for as long as possible, for funding and programmatic reasons.

In Minneapolis alone, there are thirteen K-8 charter schools. Many attract non-white populations, despite the claim that students of color either do not do well in K-8s or that families of color are not seeking them. (Watch the Minneapolis school board’s December 12, 2019 Committee of the Whole meeting for a discussion of this.)

If higher standardized test scores are the measure of equity and success–which I would dispute wholeheartedly–then parents from all walks of life appear to be disregarding this when choosing K-8s. In a list of area K-8 schools provided below, I include test score and demographic data that illustrates this very point.

Most K-8s in and around Minneapolis in fact have MCA test score results that are lower than or equal to MPS sites with similar student demographics.

Of all the charter schools in Minneapolis, Yinghua Academy in Northeast has the highest percentage of students with grade-level (or above) math and reading MCA scores. This is not hard to imagine because test scores most closely match students’ socioeconomic status (or, as MPS administrator Eric Moore said recently, “test scores follow students”), and just ten percent of Yinghua Academy students live in poverty.

But scores notched at Yinghua are still lower than those at the district’s Lake Harriet School in southwest Minneapolis, which is a K-8 dual campus site where only 7 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch.

It is very difficult to compare these schools to one another, simply on paper. And, of course, MCA test scores do a terrible job of telling the far more complex story of any school. But it does beg the question of what criteria families are using to select schools for their kids.

Does MPS have this information?

If parents, and especially parents from marginalized communities, are not choosing K-8s because they can promise higher standardized test scores, why are they choosing them? What about this model is attracting thousands of kids who, perhaps, would otherwise be attending a Minneapolis public school?

The answer may lie in the fact that public education has become a choice-based marketplace, dominated by increasingly segregated, privately managed but publicly funded schools that are as subject to fraud and failure as any traditional public school.

And what will happen if MPS further reduces or altogether eliminates its K-8 sites, under the clearly mistaken assumption that K-5s and stand-alone middle schools are either better for students or more appealing to families?

K-8 and K-6 Charter Schools in Minneapolis (including demographic and test score data obtained from the Minnesota Department of Education)

Best Academy in north Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 756
  • 98.1% Black or African-American; 88% Free and Reduced Lunch (FRL)
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 25.4%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 32.1%
  • Authorizer: Audubon Center of the North Woods (*authorizers receive thousands per year, per charter school, in taxpayer dollars to oversee school quality)

Bdote Learning Center in south Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 101
  • 81.2% American Indian or Alaska Native; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 2%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 0%
  • Bdote offers context for its lower scores here, through an language immersion lens
  • Authorizer: Innovative Quality Schools

Brightwater Elementary, north Minneapolis. Pre K-6. Preschool is private (tuition-based), K-6 is a charter school.

  • Student enrollment: 160
  • Nearly evenly split between White and Black or African-American students, with smaller percentages of other groups; 53% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 20.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 35.4%
  • Authorizer: Audubon Center of the North Woods

Cedar Riverside Community School, south Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 140
  • 92.9% Black or African-American; 7.1% Hispanic or Latino; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 20.8%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 33.3%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Friendship Academy of the Arts, south Minneapolis. “Due to family and community demand, FAA has expanded to  a K-8 school.”

  • Student enrollment: 168
  • 98.2% Black or African-American; 73% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 51.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 52.8%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Hennepin Schools, south Minneapolis. K-8, dual campus.

  • Student enrollment: 268
  • 94.8% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 44.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 40.5%
  • Based on the sample schedule listed online, students are in school from 8:30-4:35 with one 15 minute recess
  • Authorizer: Friends of Education

KIPP North Star, north Minneapolis. K-8. KIPP has a “strategic plan to grow to four schools by 2024.”

  • Student enrollment: 203
  • 97% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 19%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 26.4%
  • Authorizer: Volunteers of America

Mastery School, north Minneapolis. K-6.

  • Student enrollment: 230
  • 94.3% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 23.2%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 31.2%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

New City School, northeast Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 306
  • 56.9% White, 22.9% Black or African-American; 32% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 49.5%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 63.5%
  • Authorizer: Novation Education Opportunities

Northeast College Prep, northeast Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 319
  • 68% Black or African-American, 16% White; 90% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 41.8%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 39.7%
  • Authorizer: Student Achievement Minnesota LLC

Skyline Math and Science Academy, south Minneapolis. K-6.

  • This is school has yet to open.
  • Authorizer: Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools

Sojourner Truth Academy, north Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 389
  • 74.6% Black or African-American; 18.5% Hispanic or Latino; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 13.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 13.3%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Southside Family Charter School, south Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 116
  • 39.7% White; 21.6% Two or More Races; 47% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 47.3%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 60.8%
  • Authorizer: Volunteers of America

Spero Academy, northeast Minneapolis. K-6.

  • Student enrollment: 127
  • 55.9% White, 15.7% Black or African-American; 40% FRL
  • Almost 100 percent of students qualify for special education services
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 34.3%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 35.7%
  • Authorizer: University of St. Thomas

Stonebridge World School, south Minneapolis. K-6.

  • Student enrollment: 287
  • 64.8% Black or African-American; 22% Hispanic or Latino; 84% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 16.4%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 25.3%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Twin Cities International Schools, north Minneapolis. K-8.

  • Student enrollment: 1,021
  • 99.9% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 41%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 43.3%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities

Universal Academy, south Minneapolis. Pre K-8

  • Student enrollment: 403
  • 97.3 Black or African-American; 86% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 24.4%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 30.5%
  • Authorizer: Novation Education Opportunities

Yinghua Academy, northeast Minneapolis. K-8 Dual Immersion (Mandarin).

  • Student enrollment: 822
  • 53% White; 30.9% Asian; 10% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 84.5%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 74.2%
  • Authorizer: Friends of Education

And here is a quick look at a few of the non- K-5s near Minneapolis:

Loveworks Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, Golden Valley. K-8. *frequent recipient of philanthropic funds despite notably low results

  • Student enrollment: 159
  • 94.3% Black or African-American; 95% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 6.7%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 15.4%
  • Authorizer: Pillsbury United Communities.

Nasha Shkola, Brooklyn Park. K-8. Focused on the “unique needs” of Slavic and Russian immigrant students, as well as those interested in learning Russian.

  • Student enrollment: 99
  • 94.9% White; 70% FRL
  • Percent of students with math MCA scores: 65.6%
  • Percent of students with reading MCA scores: 47.5%
  • Authorizer: Innovative Quality Schools

Noble Academy, Brooklyn Park. Pre K-12. A growing charter school that recently expanded to include grades 9-12, with a special focus on Hmong language and culture.

  • Student enrollment: 1, 029
  • 86.9% Asian, 11.3% Black or African-American; 52% FRL
  • Percent of students with grade-level math MCA scores: 59.8%
  • Percent of students with grade-level reading MCA scores: 49.1%
  • Authorizer: Audubon Center of the North Woods

In January, MPS will begin holding information sessions regarding its Comprehensive District Design, with a final proposal expected in March. Thus far, the only versions of this redesign shown to the public have included nothing but separate K-5 and 6-8 schools. 

We must ask why this is, when the evidence clearly shows that all types of families are actively choosing the K-8 model. This points to another problem with the proposed redesign: the lack of ground-level staff and community input.

Minneapolis Public Schools Plan Does Not Include K-8 Schools

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

December 8, 2019

In 2017, New York University professor Elise Cappella made this point, in reference to a study she had just helped conduct regarding middle schools and their impact on students:

“Research broadly supports the idea that K-8 is a better choice, overall,” Cappella said in an interview with Joshua A. Kirsch.

You would never know that by looking at the latest iteration of the Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive District Design plan.

On December 8, the district released its latest teaser, offering a look at the direction it is headed while claiming no ownership over the ideas. “It’s just a study,” district representatives keep insisting, regarding the information it has been releasing lately–all while simultaneously outlining a rapid timeline for a final school board vote.

  • Public engagement regarding the district’s various design studies and models will take place in January and February, 2020
  • The school board will be asked to vote on a final Comprehensive Design plan on March 10, 2020
  • The December 8 document is called “Phase 2 Boundary Study Presentation,” to be shared with the school board during its December 12 Committee of the Whole meeting. (There will be no public input at this meeting; those wishing to speak up will need to do so at the December 10 school board meeting.)

The presentation is framed as simply a “what-if” scenario, designed to see the “impact on integration and transportation if all K-8 students attended their community schools.”

And those community schools are only either K-5s or middle schools serving 6-8 grade students. All existing K-8 schools, including Marcy Open, Seward Montessori and Barton Open, are reconfigured in this PowerPoint as K-5 sites, although Seward retains its Montessori programming.

All three schools currently serve 700 or more students from diverse racial and economic backgrounds. Under this MPS plan, or study, those schools would shrink in size and arguably become more segregated.

While the December 8 document is being pitched as just a study–as in, nothing to see here, folks–it fits into an ongoing pattern. Over the past 18 months, MPS administrators (mostly Eric Moore, Chief of Accountability, Research, and Equity) have created and shared PowerPoint presentations that offer a skewed perspective on district data, with information either missing or inaccurately presented.

For an example of this, review either the documents or video from the school board’s November 23 half-day retreat. There, Moore offered a lengthy look at how the district is configured, from a school boundary perspective. (One data point that was missing: the highest concentration of enrollment losses at MPS occurs from 5th-6th grade–but not at K-8 schools.)

Many of the PowerPoint slides he shared, however, were less than fulsome. Slide number 17, for example, bears the label, “Lack of Effectiveness of Magnet Schools, and then notes that “1/3 of MPS magnets lost students of color from 2013-2017.”

But 2/3 of magnets gained students of color–even if these gains were “inconsistent or minimal,” as the PowerPoint slide claims. The gains must mean something–but what? There was no analysis of that, only the perception that magnets–which MPS has routinely claimed–are not working, either for integration or improved student outcome purposes.

Another example comes from the zig-zagged transportation routes shared at the November 23 retreat.

Only magnet school routes were included, making it look as though magnets are an outsized burden on the district, while open enrollment routes (where kids are bused to community schools outside of their own neighborhoods) were absent–even though we know that, particularly in north and northeast Minneapolis, students are bused all over the place as a retention and enrollment strategy.

The key thing here is, as a friend advised me, to think about what story the district is trying to tell, and what conclusions they are working towards. Going back just until the summer of 2018, when the district’s initial comprehensive redesign plans were publicly presented, there is a consistent through-line:

  • Magnets are not working
  • K-8s are not a worthwhile investment
  • The district is easier to map out and, perhaps, manage, using a K-5, 6-8 only plan
  • Shrinking the number of magnets and moving them will save MPS money and naturally promote integration (assuming all kids currently in the system stay in MPS, no matter which school they are assigned to)

It is impossible to say what the purpose of all this is. MPS appears poised to claim that eliminating K-8 schools, greatly reducing magnets (and replacing them with nebulous “specialty schools,” in a nod to the “coordinated uniqueness” pitch that once accompanied these plans), and concentrating greater numbers of students in large middle schools will save money and improve transportation, if not student, outcomes.

But, as far as I know, there has been little if any input here from front line staff, including teachers, support staff, and site-based administrators.

This is a problem.

Without ground-level guidance, this runs the risk of being little more than another top-down, hit and run way to hobble already-strong (or newly emerging) programs rather than learn from them.

Many MPS veterans, including students, parents, teachers, and administrators, have battle scars already, thanks to previous plans that promised big things while failing to adequately consider the insights of those who will be held accountable when things veer off course.

Knowing that middle schoolers, even eighth graders, are still the children who played tag at recess a mere three or four years before, is not infantilizing, but humanizing to the young adolescent.

—Claire Needel Hollander, New York City public school teacher

Minneapolis Parent on School District’s Proposed Redesign: Changes Should Not Be Pushed on Us

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

May 11, 2019

Sonya Perez-Lauterbach can appreciate the predicament the Minneapolis Public Schools finds itself in. After decades of competition and pressure from school choice schemes, including charter schools and open enrollment plans, the district says its student numbers are shrinking. Any continued loss of students means a drain on district finances, while costs for aging infrastructure continue to rise.

And so, district administrators say they have pulled together a redesign proposal, based on an internal, eighteen-month process of scouring and compiling data. This proposal–framed by the district as “options for a sustainable path forward”–was released to the public in late April and has thus far caused some measure of confusion and uncertainty among the school communities most likely to be impacted by it.

Perez-Lauterbach lives in north Minneapolis and has a child who is slated to enter kindergarten this fall at Sheridan, a K-5 arts and Spanish dual-immersion school in the northeast corner of the city. She says she is certain that “leading a public school district is not an easy job,” and that any attempt to realign the Minneapolis Public Schools will require humility and an understanding of the complexities involved.

Display of support for refugees, Barton Open School

Side note: Dual-immersion schools are a popular choice for many parents but could become more segregated–or disappear altogether for some communities such as north Minneapolis–under the current district proposal.

Still, Perez-Lauterbach is not yet ready to let the district off the hook. In the face of increased competition for students and resources (thanks to the market-based reform model foisted upon public education systems around the world), she argues that changes “should not be pushed on parents.”

Instead, she would like the district to embrace parents and community members as “partners in making a better school district.” After all, Perez-Lauterbach notes, people naturally seek “ways to regain control in a seemingly unstable environment,” and she assumes that the district does not want parents to opt out of the system altogether in search of stability. (The graduate degree she holds in Learning and Organizational Change is likely an asset here.)

This week, Perez-Lauterbach wrote a letter to members of the Minneapolis school board, expressing her concerns with the district’s proposal and arguing for a better, community-focused path to change. She has given me permission to publish her letter, with her original formatting.

Dear School Board –

To what extent is this comprehensive plan and process building trust and confidence in the MPS system?

I am aware that MPS is bleeding students to the many other school options available today. The financial solvency and future of MPS DEPENDS on increasing market share.  But I believe that increasing that market share is not an issue of redrawing boundaries, or moving programs. When it comes to making decisions on behalf of your child it requires a high degree of CONFIDENCE and TRUST in whomever you entrust your child’s education.  Families also want to KNOW with confidence, that their voice and concerns will be HEARD and ACTED upon. In order to increase market share MPS is challenged with the goal of changing HEARTS and MINDS of parents who have and are exiting the system. MPS board needs to take on a full force focus on building TRUST and CONFIDENCE with ALL its stakeholders. Unfortunately the current plan and process has, so far, NOT built trust or confidence.

As the plan stands there is no access to the data that was utilized to create it. The financial numbers on cost savings or implementation are not verified or even available.  Families were not involved in building the proposed plans. And the current timeline for feedback feels completely inappropriate and disingenuous. In May and June, a time when families should be celebrating pre-k, 5th and 8th grade graduations and the continuation of education, unfortunately they have been thrown into a whirlwind of worry and concern not knowing what their child’s future educational options are within MPS.  Teachers who work tirelessly to create a safe, and stable environment for their students do not have answers as to what will happen to their class and are also burdened with the heightened concern for their own employment and future with the district.

Recommendations:  

  1. Release a clear and heartfelt apology to all the students, families, and teachers for the way this planning process has been handled.  
  2. Re-publish the plan and associated communication with “DRAFT” on it. If you truly desire feedback and buy-in from your stakeholders more steps need to be taken to build confidence that this feedback process is genuine and will significantly impact the ultimate plan.
  3. Adjust the feedback timeline  to include the development and response time to feasibility studies. These are HUGE decisions impacting the lives of thousands of children that are being made based on ASSUMPTIONS of cost savings.
  4. Release the data, assumptions, and insights that were used to build the current plan. As well as the selection process of the consultants who built this plan and the criteria and qualifications of that group.
  5. Review every step of the process with a Change Management Professional with a human-centric perspective and approach.
  6. Equip yourselves, principles, and parent advocates with unified talking points and answers. So far every meeting I attended I have found more confusion and questions generated; confidence has not been instilled.

Many, many families want to support MPS because they believe in public education. But the leadership of MPS must take actions to build trust and confidence so that we can feel good about choosing MPS for our children and even work to convince our neighbors and friends to join in the MPS community. PLEASE USE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD TRUST by taking corrective steps in the process. I look forward to seeing positive action from the board that radically interrupts the continuation of top down culture and unresponsive leadership that public education is unfortunately known for.

Sincerely,

Sonya Perez-Lauterbach

Public meetings about this proposal are scheduled to take place in May, including the May 14 Minneapolis school board meeting. A final board vote on the plan is currently scheduled for August.