Kim Ellison, 60, is an at-large Minneapolis school board member running for reelection. She previously served as school board chair, and is now the vice chair. All Minneapolis voters will have the opportunity to vote for this seat. The other candidate for the at-large school board position is Shayla Owodunni .
Name: Kim Ellison
Age: 60
Day job: Administrative assistant to a chief operating officer at a nonprofit; incumbent school board member.
Kids in district: Parent of four adult children who attended Minneapolis Public Schools.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why are you running for reelection to the Minneapolis school board?
I’m running for reelection because I’m still super excited about the work, especially with the new superintendent and a very young board, and I’m just still hopeful about the work we can do together creating opportunities for students in the city.
What do you love about Minneapolis Public Schools?
What I love are the people: our families, our staff, the students, of course. What I’m excited about is how the people can all come together with this one mission of providing quality education for children.
Minneapolis Public Schools enacted painful budget cuts last year when COVID relief funding expired, and is expected to cut more this year. How do you think the school district should approach budget cuts when they’re necessary, and what do you think needs to happen to shore up district finances so cuts are not necessary in the future?
The board members and community need to be advocating for adequate funding for public schools. One of the boards I sat on before I was on the school board was Parents United for Public Schools, where for a number of years, I looked at how public schools throughout the state are underfunded, especially for our new arrivals, languages, our special ed and then the health services that we need to provide for students, mental health specifically.
So we need to be advocating that schools are fully funded and that our federal and state government fulfill their promises, especially around special ed and funding services that we provide for students. We need to look at enrollment. Why do students leave? What could bring families back? That would help.
My children all went to Minneapolis Public Schools when the district had about 50,000 students attending the district. We still have that same footprint in terms of staff and buildings and services that we provide, and we’re serving 29,000 students. So we need to do some right-sizing without compromising the quality of the work that we provide.
I don’t know if we need to close schools. Closing a building — and I differentiate between schools and buildings — closing a building does not save that much money. I mean, you’ve got electricity, water, utilities. But I do believe we should be consolidating programs, and that might not mean we’re cutting. In some cases, because enrollment is so small, then maybe we need to be cutting back on some of the programs.
But our only growing demographic right now are Spanish-speaking students. One thing that parents have said over and over again, and we have wait-lists for, is our Spanish immersion dual language programs. IB [International Baccalaureate] is very popular. We might need to be looking at how we can expand, also, some of the programs that are popular. And that’s what transformation means to me: giving families what they’re looking for.
Can you tell me a little bit more about the distinction you’re drawing between closing buildings and consolidating programs? What does consolidation look like that’s not closing a building?
It might be closing. But we have a couple programs where we have lower schools and upper schools. It’s all elementary. So maybe we need to consolidate those programs so they’re all under one building. They’re already under one theme. But we haven’t really lost anything. We’re still serving kindergarten through fifth grade. We’re just doing it in one place.
When we talk about closing buildings, I don’t want people to think that they’re going to be losing anything, which is why I make that distinction between schools, programs and buildings.
What are the most important steps you think the district can take to reverse enrollment declines?
I think they should be talking to parents. What would keep parents here? Why did parents leave? When I say parents, I mean whole families. To stop enrollment decline, again, what is it that families need? What do the students need? And then make sure that we’re able to offer that.
I do believe we need to work with our city parks, the city and the county. When we started losing enrollment a few years ago, they were leaving the city because they didn’t feel safe. We can’t solve for all of the ills that families are feeling, but we can partner with some of our elected officials, the city level, the state level and the county level, to ensure that even outside of school, families are feeling supported.
There’s a growing demand in the district for language and cultural programs. How do you think the district should respond to those demands in a time of financial strain?
We talk about how we need to be creating citizens who are prepared to operate in this world that they live in, and so we should be offering it, and that’s what families want, and it’s important. We know it’s important. I understand it might be spendy, but if that’s what keeps families in the district, brings families back, then it seems like a win-win situation.
How do you think Minneapolis Public Schools can support and retain new immigrant families?
I think we have a lot of that already going on. We’ve got our Somali pathway. We’ve got Hmong language and culture being taught in our schools, the same with Spanish. I think one thing that we don’t do well is advertising that. We’re not talking to families as they come in, new to country, new to the state, and letting them know that it’s available.
What are you proud of from your service on the school board?
Ethnic studies. It was a lot of work to get that even offered as an option, and now one semester is a requirement for graduation. That’s what I’m most proud of.
What’s another school board priority of yours we haven’t talked about?
Out-of-school time. What is our community ed department doing? School ends before work ends for families. So what are we doing to bridge that gap so students don’t get lost after they finish with school? What’s happening after school that we can support?
The post Kim Ellison: ‘Transformation means giving families what they’re looking for’ appeared first on Sahan Journal .
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