How much does a seat on the Minneapolis school board cost?

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For incumbent board member Rebecca Gagnon, who came in first in the Nov. 4 election, the cost was approximately $.70 per vote. Gagnon, who ran for one of the two open citywide seats, secured her spot on the board with 56,901 votes.A fundraising chart for the four at-large school board candidates—Gagnon, Don Samuels, Iris Altamirano, and Ira Jourdain—put together by Minnesota Public Radio on Nov. 3 shows Gagnon’s campaign raised or otherwise benefitted from a fundraising amount of around $40,000. By dividing her fundraising dollars by the amount of votes she got, an approximate per vote cost of $.70 is determined.For Samuels, who came in second and therefore also won a citywide spot on the board, the cost per vote was much higher. Continue Reading

Minneapolis Public Schools CIO Rich Valerga steps down

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Controversial Minneapolis Public Schools’ Chief Information Officer Rich Valerga is gone, according to district sources, who say Valerga announced his exit at a hastily called staff meeting on Monday, Nov. 3.An email sent to all Minneapolis Public Schools’ employees by Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson confirms that Valerga will no longer be working for the district, saying Valerga has left to “pursue other endeavors.”Valerga joined the district as CIO in August 2013, becoming the third CIO for MPS in just three years. During his tenure, Valerga oversaw the firing, reshuffling, or dismissal of thirty-four of the department’s sixty employees, including long-time staff members such as Ben Peck and Krishna Pathak.Peck and Pathak shared their stories with the Twin Cities Daily Planet in May of 2014, as part of a series of articles about changes going on in the IT department. In late 2013 Valerga fired Peck without warning, and Pathak soon resigned as a show of support. In the interview with Pathak, he refers to Valerga as “rude, cruel, and disrespectful,” saying Valerga had a “my way or the highway” management style.Superintendent Johnson’s email to employees today said the changes Valerga ushered in have been “difficult on staff and the students in our schools.”  An IT employee who attended today’s staff meeting said that Valerga told those present that he had decided to step down because “his negative publicity was tainting the department and affecting the good work being done.”An MPS IT employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their job, did not know what negative publicity Valerga was referring to, saying he did not give any specific examples.Both the district employee and the email from Superintendent Johnson said that IT employee Fadi Fadhil will serve as director of the IT department until an interim leader can be found. Continue Reading

This election is a big deal: Are you ready to vote?

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This election, of course every election, is a BIG DEAL. In the case of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education, both your votes and mine are about the trajectory of the district for all our children in grades Pre-K – 12. Our votes must be about advancing the district as a whole. School board members’ priorities need to focus on moving effectively and urgently in the direction of improved student achievement for all students in all Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). Continue Reading

Lynnell Mickelsen: Why all the conspiracy theories and pearl-clutching in this year’s school board race?

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This has been the hottest school board race I’ve seen in 25 years of living in Minneapolis, with lots of conspiracy theories and pearl-clutching.This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. The opinions expressed by Community Voices contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TC Daily Planet.Many of my neighbors and friends see the furious posts on Facebook, with all the hysterical warnings about the imminent destruction of public education as we know it, and are honestly confused. They ask me what the hell is going on in this race.So here’s what I tell them.We put the school board race at the bottom of the ballot and often treat it like a homecoming king and queen contest. But Minneapolis Public Schools currently spends $784 million a year and employ 6,991 people….which I believe is more employees than the city of Minneapolis.Want to know more? Check out TC Daily Planet coverage of the 2014 Minneapolis School Board race.So we need to remind ourselves that we’re electing people to govern an operation that spends more than three-quarters of a billion dollars a year. Continue Reading

Follow the money: Jourdain calls out dark money in Minneapolis school board race

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What do John Kline, Tom Emmer, Mitt Romney, and Minneapolis school board candidates Iris Altamirano and Don Samuels have in common?They have all received campaign donations from Minneapolis attorney Douglas Seaton, who was one of the lead attorneys working against the recent drive to unionize home-based childcare workers in Minnesota. Altamirano is a former organizer for the Service Employees Internation Union (SEIU), which helped lead the fight to organize home childcare workers.Seaton, who has given thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and committees, according to the website opensecrets.org, also  contributed $5,000 to the 2012 Minnesota Voter ID Amendment campaign, which was defeated by voters in the 2012 election.According to recent campaign finance reports, Seaton has given $250 donations to both Samuels and Altamirano.Another donor to both Samuels and Altamirano is the Hubbard family. The Hubbards, who run Minnesota media company Hubbard Broadcasting, gave $2600 to each candidate in September 2014. Hubbard Broadcasting, the corporation, is a very politically active one: the company recently gave $200,000 to the Freedom Partners Action Fund, which is the Koch Brothers’ new super PAC.Other prominent supporters of Samuels and Altamirano include former Minnesota Republican party chair Rob Eibensteiner, who gave $1,000 to Samuels, and local attorney and MinnCAN board member Mike Ciresi, who gave $1,000 to each candidate, individually, and contributed $10,000 to the recently controversial group the Minneapolis Progressive Education Fund, which has been campaigning for Samuels and Altamirano.Benson Whitney, who is the board chair of MinnCAN and a prominent funder of Republican campaigns, also gave $1,000 to both Samuels and Altamirano.These names on Altamirano and Samuels’ campaign reports prompted fellow at-large candidate Ira Jourdain to hold a press conference on Nov. 1. Continue Reading