The arrogance of the Minneapolis School Board is astonishing!

In a year when they are slashing budgets, increasing the number of kids in the classrooms and stonewalling any criticism of their budgetary practices; in a year when the Minneapolis Superintendent of schools leaves unanswered legitimate comparisons of the higher Minneapolis costs per student with the St. Paul costs and then leaves the State for a job in Memphis; in a year when trust in the Board is at an all time low, they have decided to tear down Sanford Junior High School (which they just spent $6 million to renovate) and build a new middle school on the site of a community garden that has been a beloved community resource for 60 years.

What is going on here?

Don't they care what we think?

Or, do they believe it doesn't matter what we think?

Almost five years ago on these pages we pointed out that according to their own figures almost a third of Minneapolis teachers were missing in action. That is, the State said the City had 3287.32 teachers in 1998, and the City said they had 2153.67 teachers in classrooms. Where were the remaining 1133.65?

Admitedly, some of these teachers were legitimately working on lesson plans, but many of these teachers were performing administrative functions or were in training to become assistant principals. Many others were involved in a mentoring program: teaching other teachers, rather than teaching children. Teaching in the inner city is a tough job, and the one thing we know that can help teachers teach and students learn is to reduce the student-teacher ratio. We need all teachers back in the classroom. We don't need them in quasi-administrative roles, and we don't need them to pat teachers on the back after they've been mortally wounded in an overcrowded classroom filled with troubled kids.

But the administrators, the planners, the experts at 807 Broadway tell us they know a lot better than us what's best for our kids.

That kind of arrogance is most recently on display in their attitude toward closing Sanford Junior High and building a new middle school at a cost of $35 million six blocks away on the site of the Dowling Community Gardens. They didn't bother to ask the people who lived in that area what they thought. They genuinely believed it didn't matter. They probably believed the matter could best be decided by experts who probably live in the suburbs.

There will be two informational meetings on this issue: Wednesday, September 10, at 5:30 p.m. at Ann Sullivan Communications Center, 3100 28th Street East, and Monday, September 15, at 5:30 p.m. at South High, 3131 19th Avenue South.
There will be one public hearing on the issue on Tuesday, September 16, at 5:30 p.m. at 807 Broadway Avenue Northeast. This public hearing is very important. No contract with a developer is valid until after the Board has held a public hearing and conducted a vote. Your voice is important at this meeting.

For more information call Sanford School at 612-668-4900. For information about the garden (the second oldest continuously operating Victory Garden from World War II in the country) contact Wendy Haan at 612-729-4042 or Angela Elser at 612-728-9893.