Minneapolis Public Schools parents filled the John B. Davis Center meeting room Tuesday night as the school board listened to an opaque presentation from district administration on suggested school closures across the district.
The presentation comes after three years of discussion and analysis of district buildings. A physical space study conducted in 2024 showed that half of the districts’ buildings were underutilized. The district estimated it could save about $45 million per year in operating costs by “right-sizing” its physical footprint in its 2023 pro forma.
No financial savings information was presented at the meeting, besides a brief mention that the options could save up to $700,000 annually in utility costs.
The administration presented three different options for each community high school pathway on Tuesday night. Transformation plans for magnet, program, speciality, and alternative schools and programs were also presented with much smaller changes.
All options presented can be viewed on the district’s school transformation website. The presentation given to the school board is also available online.
The school board and parents saw in real time what schools were getting funneled into other schools as the options were presented. District staff did not present a clear list of schools being proposed to close.
Based on the options presented by Minneapolis Public School administration, elementary schools suggested to close within the Southwest High School pathway are Lake Harriet Lower and Kenny.
Field Elementary is the school suggested to close in the Washburn High School pathway. New attendance boundaries are also possible.
District 6 School Board Director Greta Callahan said during the meeting that board members were not given a list of school closures ahead of time and read the list of schools that district leadership has suggested to close.
Proposed school closures across the district are Kenny Elementary, Lake Harriet Lower Elementary, Field Elementary, Wellstone International High School, Bethune Elementary, Cityview Elementary, FAIR School of the Arts, Heritage Academy, Hiawatha Elementary, Anwatin Middle School, Hmong International Academy, Howe Elementary, Longfellow Alternative School, Loring Elementary, Pratt Elementary, Webster Elementary, and Wenonah Elementary.
All proposed school closures have planned pathways to different schools. For example, students at Kenny Elementary would be split between Armatage and Windom Elementary. Students at FAIR interested in continuing arts education would enroll at North High School
There are also some options that could keep a proposed closed school to stay open. For example, one option would keep Cityview open in the Camden pathway, another option could close the school.
“The last thing we need to do right now is dismantle our schools,” Callahan said. “A transformation plan will not keep students in the district. If people lose their school, they will go somewhere else.”
Parents who are not in support of closing schools said they want a more robust retention and recruitment program to bring students back to MPS. About half of the children that live in Minneapolis do not attend Minneapolis Public Schools.
Parents from Kenny Elementary said their school is a successful, growing school and they don’t understand why the school is suggested to close.
“I'm feeling really disappointed in the district,” Kenny Elementary parent Megan O’Reilly said. “We were just named a community school of excellence.”
The school is not one of the nine schools identified as underutilized, now referred by administration as “too small for MPS student experience.”
The nine underutilized schools are Loring Elementary, FAIR School of the Arts, Wellstone International High School, Ella Baker Global Studies and Humanities School, Pratt Elementary, Longfellow High School, Howe Elementary, Hiawatha Elementary, and Wenonah Elementary. There are no plans to close Ella Baker in Southwest Minneapolis.
According to MPS’ own interactive map, Kenny Elementary is currently 80% utilized. Armatage Elementary is comparatively 71% utilized.
“We know that the best way for us to stabilize Minneapolis Public Schools is to increase enrollment and to have better oversight over our finances,” MPS parent Christin Crabtree said. Crabtree is running for an at-large school board seat this year. “There's just a lack of clarity or analysis or projection around finances, about savings, about enrollment projections.”
Even though saving millions of dollars was the impetus for consolidating schools, MPS leadership said finances wasn’t the topic for the meeting.
“It’s very hard to project, in an exact amount,” MPS Executive Director of Communications and Engagement Donnie Belcher said after the Sept. 15 meeting. “What we don’t want is to project an amount that will later be confusing…each option is very different.”
Community engagement is planned for now through Oct. 16, 2026. MPS leadership is suggesting the board vote on school consolidation on Nov. 10, 2026.
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