Ben Peck and Minneapolis Public Schools: Ten years and out, without a warning

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Change has been a constant this year for the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Information Technology department. In addition to bringing on Rich Valerga, its third Chief Information Officer in eighteen months, thirty-four of the department’s approximately sixty employees have been fired, laid off, excessed, or have resigned their positions and left the district.Many former and current IT department employees said that the December 2013 firing of long-time IT manager Ben Peck has been a particularly painful loss. Peck, who graduated from Minneapolis South High School and Stanford University, shared his IT department story in a recent Q & A session.Can you describe the work you did for MPS’ IT department?I was hired as a building tech in August 2002, and was promoted to positions of higher responsibility within IT over many years. Twice, we rebuilt the district’s IT infrastructure, as we took it from a mainframe computer in the basement of 807 Broadway (former district headquarters) up to what we have now with almost all of the servers being consolidated “virtual” servers. Our department oversaw the building of a whole new data center at the Davis Center, the district’s new central office. Continue Reading

Krishna Pathak: Hostile environment in Minneapolis Public Schools IT department

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Krishna Pathak, like his former colleague Ben Peck, was a manager in the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Information Technology (IT) department for many years. Pathak started in the district in 2001 and resigned his position as Director of Application Services in December 2013, as a show of support for Peck, who was fired that month by Rich Valerga, the district’s current Chief Information Officer (CIO).Recently, Pathak shared more information about a question that is on many people’s minds these days: What is going on with Minneapolis Public Schools’ IT department?You worked for MPS for over twelve years. Why did you resign in December 2013?I resigned to show support for Ben Peck, my colleague who was suddenly fired in a public way.What happened when you submitted your letter of resignation?I gave my two weeks notice in an email, and outlined the reasons why I was resigning. I received no reply from our CIO, Rich Valerga. That same night, however, I tried to log into the MPS system, but my access was gone.Aside from Peck’s firing, why did you resign?Since Valerga came to MPS in August 2013, we were working in a hostile environment of harassment and intimidation. Continue Reading

Valerga’s vision: Technology in Minneapolis Public Schools

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Under Rich Valerga’s tenure as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), the district’s information technology department has undergone extensive changes, most notably in terms of who is employed there. As of May 2014, thirty-four of the department’s approximately sixty employees had been laid off, “excessed,” fired, or otherwise let go. This has left many current and former IT employees wondering what Valerga’s vision is for the IT department.

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Leaner or meaner? Minneapolis Public Schools makes changes in IT department

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Minneapolis Public Schools have seen major changes in the Information Technology Department in the past year, including restructuring that removed 34 of 60 employees from their jobs. This is the first in a series of four articles exploring what happened — and what people have to say about the changes.Up until 2012, the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Information Technology department did not have a Chief Information Officer (CIO). Since 2012, it has had three of them.Before 2012, one Executive Director and several managers ran the IT department. Then, a 2010 study of the IT department, which was commissioned by district administrators and done by the Center for Educational Leadership and Technology (CELT), advised reorganizing IT, and adding a CIO to oversee the department.The first CIO was David Mayor, who came from a mostly private sector background in Rochester, New York. Unfortunately, Mayor died unexpectedly six months into the job. Continue Reading

Minneapolis principal fights for co-teaching to counter turnover and burnout

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Being the principal of a high poverty, inner-city school is not easy, and north Minneapolis’ Lucy Laney School principal Mauri Melander has the bite marks on her wrist to prove it. They are from a previous day’s encounter, she explains, and an example of what makes working at Lucy Laney challenging.The constant turnover of the teaching staff is another challenge that Melander has to deal with as she works to build Laney, where approximately 90 percent of the students are working below grade level, into a strong, stable school community. This year, she said, she has seventeen first year teachers and few veterans.When Melander found a strategy that helped improve both student performance and teacher stability, she wanted to do all she could to expand it. The strategy is co-teaching, which puts an additional teacher in elementary school classrooms for up to one hour and fifteen minutes per day. Currently, it is being used in many Minneapolis schools in an effort to keep children in their classrooms, rather than pulling them out for extra services and instruction.The push to try co-teaching came from the district’s Teaching and Learning department about four years ago, according to Melander, as part of an effort to add middle school-style content specialists to elementary level grades. Continue Reading

Opting out of tests and into learning that matters

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This week at school, my nine-year old son will be working on a project that he is passionate about: an in-depth look at the Greek god Poseidon. He will be researching Poseidon, trying to figure out how to accurately and artistically draw a trident, and otherwise putting the finishing touches on his project, which will then be shared with his classmates next week. Continue Reading

Final pre-endorsement forum for Minneapolis school board candidates

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With a theme of “Why We Can’t Wait,” current Minneapolis School Board member Tracine Asberry hosted a school board candidate forum at Martin Luther King Park on April 24. The forum was intended to address school board governance questions, and it brought together citywide candidates Rebecca Gagnon, Ira Jourdain, Iris Altamirano, Doug Mann, and Andrew Minck, along with District Five candidates Jay Larson and Nelson Inz.Asberry’s forum, which was described as being sponsored by partners and supporters of “Team Tracine,” was moderated by Victor Cedeno of Generation Next and included pre-determined governance questions as well as questions from the audience and from Minneapolis high school students.An audience of around fifty people listened as the candidates sought to distinguish themselves from one another before the April 26 Minneapolis DFL Convention. The first question asked the candidates what they would look for in a future superintendent, which led to calls for someone who would lead with transparency and what Altamirano called a “collaborative yet decisive” approach to the job.As the forum progressed, a high school sophomore from Washburn asked what the candidates would do to allow for “more inclusion of Latin American history” in the district’s classrooms. In response, most candidates spoke about how they would push for the greater inclusion of parent and student voices regarding what is taught in schools, with Mann saying he would want to look at what is present and what is missing in the curriculum.Become a supporting member of the Twin Cities Daily Planet. A Bryn Mawr parent asked how to further diversify the literature students are exposed to in district classrooms. In response, current board member Gagnon said that the board is in charge of curriculum, but not Focused Instruction, which some have said emphasizes a more narrow, standardized approach to the classroom. She then went on to say that she supports the IB (International Baccalaureate) program currently used in the district because she believes it does “pull in” materials that represent broader perspectives.Mann said today’s curriculum is “still about patriotism” and therefore offers a limited view of history and literature, while Minck said he believes teachers should use as many sources and resources as possible throughout grades K-12. Continue Reading

Minneapolis school budgets — and a parent’s passionate plea

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When community members showed up for a “community engagement session” on the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) budget, ready with lots of input for the district, MPS officials said that allocations for the 2014-2015 budget have already been made. Apparently, the MPS community engagement was planned as telling community members what the budget was, not asking for their input.Amid a rocky rollout of its 2014-2015 budget, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) has planned community engagement sessions throughout the month of April in order to ensure a budget process that is “disciplined, predictable, and transparent,” according to its website. The April 22 community engagement session was held at the district’s Davis Center headquarters, around the theme of “school board engagement.” This meant school board members were in attendance, listening to questions and concerns from community members, while the district’s Chief Operating Officer Robert Doty, finance staff member Tammy Frederickson, and Chief Academic Officer Susanne Griffin-Ziebart walked the audience through the district’s budget PowerPoint presentation and fielded questions.While Doty, Frederickson, and Griffin-Zeibart were there to explain the district’s budget allocation process and how it would support the district’s priorities, many staff, parents, and site council members from north Minneapolis’ Lucy Craft Laney School were there to question the process and advocate for their school and its students.Got something to say? Register as a user and write an article.Of particular concern was the school’s request for more dollars to expand what they say has been a successful co-teaching model. Lucy Laney principal Mauri Melander says the school has been using additional staff for math instruction since the 2011-2012 school year, and that the effects have been positive. Continue Reading

Achievement gap or education debt? Minneapolis school board candidates face questions

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Is “education debt” a more accurate description than “achievement gap?”This was one of the early questions in the April 12 Minneapolis school board candidate forum put on by Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC). The forum is one of several being held before the  April 26 DFL Convention, when delegates may or may not choose to endorse school board candidates.The forum was held at Shiloh Temple, across the street from the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Davis Center headquarters, and it attracted approximately fifty neighbors, NOC members, and interested citizens.A key race this year is for two citywide at-large seats, and all five declared candidates for these two spots were present. They included incumbent Rebecca Gagnon, who has been on the board since 2010; Doug Mann, who is making his ninth run for a spot on the board; and newcomers Iris Altamarino, Ira Jourdain, and Andrew Minck.Also present was Nelson Inz, who is running against Jay Larson for the District Five seat in south Minneapolis. District One incumbent Jenny Arneson, who is running unopposed for her seat, was not able to make the forum; Said Ali, running in District Three, was also not there.The forum was moderated by high school student and NOC member Jerica Gillespie, who worked to keep candidates’ answers succinct and on topic. When Gillespie finished, audience members also had a chance to ask questions.The first question asked the candidates how they would define the term “achievement gap,” and Gagnon said she would reframe it the way African American educator Gloria Ladson-Billings has, as an “education debt.” Gagnon said she felt the term achievement gap implied that children are responsible for catching up to another group of students.Inz built upon Gagnon’s distinction and said it is important to consider how the “achievement gap” is being measured. Continue Reading