Minneapolis Public Schools will not close any schools through the 2027-28 school year, after the superintendent dropped a proposal to close or merge as many as 16 schools and the school board passed a resolution on October 13, MPR News reported.
The board had been set to vote on the closures in November. Instead, Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams opened Tuesday's meeting by recommending against them, to cheers from the crowd.
"Based on what we've heard so clearly, so overwhelmingly and from so many people, even with a few days left of the listening period, I must recommend now that the school board not move forward with any school closures at this time," Sayles-Adams said. She said she still believed changes needed to happen, but that the community needed "more time to process something so big."
District staff had put forward three proposals in September, each closing at least 15 schools, Sahan Journal reported. The district proposed closing Longfellow Alternative High School, which serves pregnant and parenting teens. The district said closures would make better use of limited funds and underused buildings, according to MPR News. Parents and the teachers union pushed back hard over the past month.
The resolution was written by board members Sharon El-Amin and Greta Callahan, Sahan Journal reported. Along with ruling out closures, the board committed to discussing enrollment growth, early childhood enrollment, school start and end times, school choice assignments, and the distribution of needs-based government funding.
Several board members said the superintendent's recommendation caught them off guard. "This is a blindside move," El-Amin said, adding that she was glad the superintendent had recommended against closing schools. Callahan said, "I really appreciate the chair and superintendent's words, but that is not action," according to Sahan Journal.
"I want this city to heal. Let's just take a breath, OK?" said board chair Collin Beachy.
Board member Abdul Abdi said he had met with 98 communities in his district and attended three school listening sessions. The message, he said, was that "this city and this community went through a lot this year, and we need stability."
Catina Taylor, president of the educational support professional chapter of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, asked the district to focus on enrollment strategies instead. "Please use tonight to put this painful chapter behind us," she told the board, according to Sahan Journal.
The pressure that led to the proposal has not gone away. Minneapolis Public Schools enrolled 29,928 students in the 2024-25 school year, down from 36,357 in 2017-18, according to allk12's analysis of federal data. That is 6,429 fewer students, a drop of 17.7%. The district has also faced months of scrutiny over its finances.
Sayles-Adams warned that the next budget will be hard. "We will do our best that we can during the budget process to minimize impacts to students. However, because we've made significant reductions in recent years, we have fewer options than in the past," she said.
Minneapolis is one of many districts weighing closures as enrollment falls. Closures nationally have risen four years in a row, according to allk12's look at school closure data.
Sources
MPR News: Minneapolis Public Schools backs off school closure plan
Sahan Journal: Minneapolis district drops proposal to close schools next year
FOX 9: No Minneapolis schools will close in 2027-2028 school year after board passes resolution
Enrollment from allk12's analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data, 2017-18 and 2024-25.
