The district's own numbers
Ten places where the Transformation proposal's data does not support its conclusions, each with the slide number and the question the board should ask before it votes.
Our argument
On June 9, 2026 the board adopted Resolution 2026-0036, a balanced 2026-27 budget, with no Transformation option in effect and no building closed. [Resolution 2026-0036] [MPS budget] Minnesota law requires an annually balanced budget every year, and MPS got there the way it has before: about 150 staff positions cut [KSTP, May 2026] and about $10.8 million in newly found special education funding for 2026-27 [FOX 9, May 2026], closing roughly the reported $39.7 million gap.
The same meeting, the same day, the board also adopted Resolution 2026-0050, directing the Superintendent to build the three Transformation options presented Sept 15. (Resolution 2026-0050) Its first listed parameter told her to prioritize strategies that increase enrollment and retention. The options that came back do not do that: they are built on a 10-year enrollment projection that is flat, not growing (Finding 6, below), and they close 14 to 15 buildings.
Opens your email app, addressed to all 9 board members and cc'd to the superintendent, deputy superintendent and the three associate superintendents.
The colors come from slide 6. The closure list comes from the maps on slide 82 and the MPS options pages. Put them together and the district's stated merger rule does not explain most of the closures.
| Option | Buildings closing | Red (too small) | Orange (large enough) | Green (optimal) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Option 1 | 16 | 7 | 9 | 0 |
| Option 2 | 15 | 8 | 7 | 0 |
| Option 3 | 16 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
Counts include campus consolidations and the Wellstone program, which moves out of leased space. Sources: slides 6, 25, 81 and 82 [presentation], the MPS options pages [MPS], MPS building reports [capacity], and the state's official Oct 1, 2025 enrollment [MDE].
What retention rate does this plan need?
MPS's only published savings figure for this plan is utility savings on closed buildings [slide 112]. It does not account for students who leave the district entirely rather than transfer to another MPS school. Every one of those students takes their per-pupil funding with them. This uses the district's own FY27 school-by-school budget [MPS budget office, 5/9/2026] to show what retention rate the plan needs just to come out even on that basis alone.
MPS needs a retention rate of at least 98.88% among students at these 16 schools for this plan to net-save any money at all under its own only published figure. MPS's own last comparable reorganization, the 2020 Comprehensive District Design, retained about 92% of enrollment in its first year (see the last redesign). A repeat of that result here would cost the district roughly $3,909,861 more than it saves, before counting a single dollar of relocation, transition, or program-disruption cost.
Method: for each school closing under the selected option, current enrollment (state Oct 1, 2025 count, or the district's Oct 2024 building report where the state count isn't available) times that school's own FY27 per-pupil allocation (that school's FY27 total funding divided by its own FY27 projected enrollment) [School Allocations]. This is the district's core school-based funding only -- it excludes centrally budgeted costs like transportation, food service, and district administration, so it understates, not overstates, what a departing student actually costs the district. The utility-savings figure is the only savings number MPS has published for this plan; it is not a total cost/benefit analysis, which Resolution 2025-0045 required and which does not exist in the public record as of this vote.
Ten problems in the presentation
Tap a finding to expand it. Severity rates how directly it contradicts the deck's own numbers or a stated requirement, not which school or building color is involved.
Our argument
A 2026 Stanford study of every California school district found that closing schools did not improve district budgets on average: districts lost students, and revenue fell about as much as spending. [Stanford, Sept 2026] That is not a claim that closures make budgets worse. It is a reason to see this district's own numbers, school by school, before a vote.