Minneapolis parents feel relief as school board votes against closing schools

Minneapolis parents feel relief as school board votes against closing schools Image by Karida Tashakor Parents and educators stand and applaud following Superintendent Lisa Sayles‑Adams recommendation that the board stop proposed plans for school closures. Minneapolis parents feel relief as school board votes against closing schools The nearly month-long deliberation that threatened to close up to 16 Minneapolis schools came to a close in Tuesday’s meeting when the school board unanimously voted to halt the plans. Categories: City City Life Marquee Top Story by Karida Tashakor Published October 14, 2026 After weeks of uproar from parents and educators, the Minneapolis Public School Board voted against transformation plans that would have closed up to 16 schools and merged many others in the next school year. The Tuesday-night school board meeting unanimously passed a resolution authored by board directors Sharon El-Amin and Greta Callahan which stops closures for next year and provides more time to deliberate. While the final school board vote on whether to move forward with the transformation plans was slated for Nov. 10, family advocacy groups had pushed for immediate action to block the school closures since the plans were announced. More than 85 members of the Minneapolis community came to hear the board deliberate, with more than 20 speaking during the public comment period. Many parents and educators feel that closing schools would harm the district’s enrollment rate.  The transformation plans were announced in September as the result of a multi-year plan to combat the district’s enrollment crisis.  Minneapolis Public Schools records show current enrollment is at less than 30,000, when the district’s buildings have the capacity for 40,000. Almost half of the school-aged children in Minneapolis attend charter or private schools, or public schools outside of Minneapolis, according to the Star Tribune.  Board members at last night’s meeting disagreed over the manner and timing in which the new resolution was proposed. School board member Lori Norvell pushed back on El-Amin and Callahan for developing a resolution and publicizing it without clear input from other members.  “Seeing that no action was being taken, we were prepared to do what was necessary for our community based on what we had been hearing about what they wanted,” El-Amin said. Community engagement has remained high since the plans were announced, with groups such as the Minneapolis Federation of Educators and Minnesota Families for Public Schools pushing back against the proposed closures. St. Paul teacher Alli Kildahl warned that Minneapolis risks following an alarming pattern of closures in districts across the country that she said begins with rushed school closures promising financial relief, but ends in lower enrollment rates.  “The trickle of public school students switching to charters becomes a flood of lost enrollment and lost funding, trapping the remaining public schools in a cycle of decline that seems impossible to turn around, ramping up the inequality and segregation across the district,” Kildahl said.  Parents and educators also felt a lack of transparency from MPS or consideration for the effects the plan would have on students and educators. One Minneapolis parent, Robert Thesing, created a website that outlines parents’ concerns with the proposals, as well as interactive tools that show how the plans would affect each school in the district, which he said has drawn more than 100,000 viewers.  MFE President Marcia Howard said she lacks trust in the board’s intentions. She said if the board wanted to improve education for students, they should have focused on promoting the constitutional amendment on voters’ ballots next month, which would direct more funding to schools.  “Encouraging people to vote yes for that would assure us getting funding. We could have been collaborating on enrollment strategies,” Howard said. “We could have been putting our heads together about how to capitalize on the fact that Minneapolis is their darling of the world right now. The board and superintendent agree that working toward optimal school enrollments and providing quality services to students and staff is still a priority. Specific discussions of those goals will likely depend on the results of November’s election, as five of the nine board seats will be on the ballot this year.  Sayles-Adams said she agreed with avoiding major changes in the district at this time. “Our community needs more time to process something so big, and they want to be involved earlier and more deeply in developing the possible solutions,” Sayles‑Adams said. 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