Parent Power: What Families Really Want From MPS Transformation
In her latest Parent Power column, Khulia F. Pringle examines Minneapolis Public Schools' Transformation process, a major restructuring driven by declining enrollment, financial strain and aging buildings. Pringle argues that the district's engagement efforts have focused on whether families participated rather than whether their input actually shaped decisions, and that true trust requires showing families what changed because they spoke up, especially for Black, multilingual, Native and disability communities historically left behind by the district.
I have spent years encouraging parents to do the one thing adults love to say other people aren’t doing. Show up.
Show up to the meeting. Fill out the survey. Use your public comment. Join an advisory council. Build a relationship with your child’s school.
If families aren’t sitting at the table, how can we expect our voices to impact the decisions made about our children?
Then Minneapolis Public Schools announced it would begin the Transformation process.
Like many parents and community leaders, I attended meetings. Listened to presentations. Read district updates. And talked with families across Minneapolis trying to learn as much as I could about what Transformation could mean for our kids.
Somewhere in the process, I realized I had been focusing on the wrong question.
For years I asked: “Did families have an opportunity to participate?”
Now I ask: “How will families know their voices matter after they show up?”
I can’t shake that question because I think it really forces us to consider what community engagement is meant to achieve.
On paper, Minneapolis Public Schools has been very clear about why Transformation is necessary.
Declining enrollment. Financial uncertainty. Aging buildings. And lack of access to quality programs and courses have contributed to district leaders believing that the current system is unsustainable.
The School Board has directed the superintendent to present three program change options this fall.
Decision making doesn’t get much bigger than this.
What schools look like. Which schools remain open. Where students can attend school. All of these decisions will impact students, families and Minneapolis communities.
Which is why engagement matters.
Minneapolis Public Schools has invested time and resources into engaging the public. Some families attended community meetings, provided feedback on surveys, attended listening sessions, reviewed presentations and shared their thoughts throughout the process.
I attended a Transformation meeting with several engaged parent leaders from STAND Up Minnesota Parents United, and at the end of the meeting I asked what felt like a simple question.
“If your kid sister called you tonight and asked you to explain Transformation, what would you tell them?”
The responses struck me.
These parents cared. They showed up. They listened. They participated. But as I asked the question, no one could articulate exactly what Transformation would look like. They didn’t know what decisions had been made or what was still left to be decided. They didn’t know how the work they were doing in their classrooms and communities would influence the recommendations made by district leaders.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t been engaged. Quite the contrary. Information is not the same as understanding. Information tells. Understanding allows people to believe in what happens next. Throughout the Transformation process, I kept noticing how the district and families were having two very different conversations.
The district was communicating: “How did we engage the community?”
Families were wondering: “How did our engagement impact the decisions?”
That isn’t the same question. As a parent advocate, I’m not asking districts to implement every change families recommend. In fact, asking that much of public leaders isn’t realistic. But I do expect the district to share how decisions are made. I do expect families to know their voices were heard. I do expect families to understand what they influenced and why certain recommendations were adopted into the plan while others weren’t.
At the heart of my wondering, I have a few questions:
Who are the students and families who will be most impacted by these decisions?
Were those families engaged?
Did families who participated reflect the diversity of Minneapolis?
How were the voices of Black families, multilingual families, Native families, families of students with disabilities and other families who have been historically left behind by Minneapolis Public Schools reflected in these recommendations?
What changed because people spoke up?
And once decisions have been made, how will families remain engaged partners in the work to come?
These aren’t questions trying to prevent change. As hard as decision making can be, delaying these conversations does more harm to students. These are questions that build public trust.
I’ve learned over the past few years that any time you make a major public decision, you’re really testing something much larger than a school district strategic plan. You test relationships. You test whether or not your public institutions view communities as partners in creating the future.
That’s why I believe Minneapolis has the opportunity to do more than transform schools.
We have the opportunity to transform our relationship with the families who’ve committed to public education.
Because when communities see how decisions are made. When they recognize their voices in the changes adopted. And remain partners long after the meetings and presentations have ended, transformations create more than school district change.
They create trust.
Trust in our public institutions. And ultimately trust in public education. After years of working beside families, I’ve learned we’re not simply asking for a seat at the table.
We want to know that after we leave the table, something changed because we sat there.
Khulia F. Pringle, M.A., is founder and executive director of S.T.A.N.D. Up Minnesota Parents United, commissioner on the Saint Paul Recovery Act Commission on Reparations, and co-chair of the Minnesota Literacy Coalition. You can reach her directly at khuliapringle@standupmpu.org.
