Communicating in Context

Dear MPS board members. I’m an MPS Parent to a 4th Grader at Howe with an IEP.  Genuine question: Is there a •need• for the district to have unilateral control over the decision to add minutes and days to this school year? It has felt like there is (once again) no room for collaboration or problem-solving together with families, with principals, or with educators.  It is my understanding that •only seniors• need the added minutes this year.  Kindergarteners in particular, only •need• 850 hours.  I’d like to see more creative problem solving and community input, especially after the districts •chosen• behavior these past three weeks involving stonewalling and abandonment of bargaining duties, FOR DAYS at a time, as well as union busting actions and attempts to wedge community support away from MFT and ESP. These behaviors are abusive in nature and result in diminished mental health in the form of anxiety, for those who are working to make sense of all of this and get...

Dr. Heather Mueller, Dr. Stephanie Burrage and Eric Tauber, I'm writing today as a parent of Minneapolis Public Schools. Please strongly consider reversing the extra time (42 daily minutes and extension from 6/10/22 through 6/24/22) in the contract agreements with Minneapolis educators and educational support professionals. This agreement is not equitable for our family; my child who is in 4th grade and has an IEP is vulnerable to shift/changes affecting his ability to be a receptive learner, and is already struggling with the uprooting of the past three weeks.  For clarity, I wholeheartedly believe a three week strike was only necessary because MPS chose to spend several of those days and hours stalling, actively not meeting with the union bargaining teams to work things out. This added time feels like a punishment to the educators and families of Minneapolis Public Schools, given that a three week strike was necessary based on the districts choice to stonewall, and put ...

Three weeks ago, on day one of the •necessary strike• walk out of Minneapolis Public Educators & Educational Support Professionals (MFT/ESP) I learned how Malcolm’s school nurse (Nurse Angie) is on the MFT bargaining team. Today, she shared publicly this breakdown of time laid out by a fellow bargaining team member, of their total investment of time. I cannot begin to perceive the emotional, intellectual and spiritual labors, not to mention the emotional and physical •toll• these numbers represent. ‘Thank you’ feels like it will never be enough. Our public school community will be better because of these massive efforts (bargaining team and strike line, alike.) And, it is just the beginning. A message found me along the way through my years long personal mental health burnout/breakdown, and I feel it’s relevant here: ‘Discovery is not recovery.’ Our community is now made fully aware (in discovery) of the true state our public school system has been ‘existing’ (barely surviving) in....

  After everything our MPS educators and support professionals MFT/ESP have been fighting for, I want to underscore that my words here come from a place of deep reverence for the labors of every striker out on the line these past three weeks, as well as every MFT/ESP bargaining team member. I need to acknowledge how your work these three weeks was FREE; you weren't paid. You risked your personal safety and lost planned income for your families. I salute you and love each and every one of you, so deeply for showing what was *necessary* in the working conditions of MPS to stand up for yourself, for your valued knowlege and experience, as well the children of Minneapolis Public schools. WE NEED YOU. WE LOVE YOU. THANK YOU ALL. While my expression comes from a place of *full support* for the *Safe and Stable* schools this tremendous union family has worked so hard to create for our kids, I learned something new this morning and it is a spiky pill to swallow. It feels like salt being p...

I want to be hopeful today and through the weekend, that the demands and needs of MPS educators and support professionals, what all they’ve fought to secure for our kids, are being met in this tentative agreement.  However, I feel we have a long game on our hands; If the union members do vote their hearts and minds, in agreement, to return to school on Monday, then it’s “settled.”  I feel this effort must continue, in that case shifting completely to us; as parent/community stakeholders, to continue this fight in a couple of ways. Letting our educators and support staff continue to do what it is they do best; nurture our children’s minds in their schools and classrooms. 1) MPS administration and school board are an embarrassment, and behaved shamefully these three weeks. I believe they have shown us they don’t care for our kids. I don’t know how to flip a school board, but I would love to find ways to engage our PTO or other parent groups to •back• new candidates for the board...

As a parent struggling through this, I know how difficult it can be to not feel informed and up to date. Several others in this group speak the language of what all is happening on a deep level and I so value the emotional and intellectual labors being poured into this space. It is also difficult for me to keep up. Sometimes I simply need reminders like this (image, not mine and I don’t know who created!) to clear my own lens of perspective.  Shared from a place of love, and from a place of what I am sensing… that our educators are holding the last line of defense between •actual• publicly funded schools -  and a push toward privatization and further segregation by MPS. I am a person who struggles to stick to facts and numbers when people/entities are •showing us• how their words don’t match their actions.  The last parent communication email from MPS on 3/19 (four days ago) read “We are committed to getting students back in classrooms as soon as possible, as well as hono...

This is a hill I will choose to die on, over and over again. A deeply personal reflection as we begin week three of •necessary• school shutdown due to labor strike… Those who are suffering have a keen recognition of what is not being said due to having been forced to endure without the truth being exposed and internalizing more than words can often express.  Witness and listen. To to help uncover the truth for yourself, it can be done by paying some attention those who experience differently than you. As we are called over and over again to stick to the facts and numbers, as we continue in solidarity with this massive tide of needed change; I speak from a wholehearted place after experiencing a lifetime of not feeling (and not being) seen, heard, believed. Facts are critical. Yes, and, so are the feelings and •sensing• of those who are suffering.  Period. Facts. Thanks for reading. 💙✊🏼💙 #mft4kids #safeandstableschools #mps #minneapolispublicschools