Armatage
This school stays open in all three options. What changes is who attends it and where its students go next.
What happens under each option
Receives Kenny students by home address.
Same.
Same, with a boundary further west.
Source: MPS proposed options pages, read Sept 17, 2026 [MPS], and the unprogrammed-building maps on slide 82 [presentation].
Kenny's students would come here. MPS hasn't shown where they'd sit.
In all three options, Kenny closes and its students join Armatage or Windom by home address. Today, Kenny, Armatage and Windom together enroll 1,061 students. Armatage and Windom together have 1,038 seats of design capacity. MPS's own staffing model budgets the two schools at 1,027 students in Options 1 and 2, 99% of those seats. [MPS staffing model]
The capacity math at Armatage
On Sept 28, MPS showed a new, larger capacity figure for Armatage. Pick an option and switch between the two figures.
MPS's own planning target is 80-90% of a building's capacity. On design capacity, Armatage reaches 104% at the top of MPS's Option 1 range. Armatage also houses 18 preschool students not counted here.
Design capacity: MPS building reports [MPS]. "Maximum" and today's enrollment: slide 10 (MPS slides, Sept 28). Projection: MPS options pages, read Sept 17, 2026. Budget: MPS 2027-28 staffing model [MPS]. Target: April 2026 Parameter 4 example.
Count the classrooms
Whichever capacity figure you use, the classroom count doesn't change. MPS's April 2026 model for a school like Armatage is 3 homerooms per grade, K-5, with at most 29 students each. That holds 522 students, and at most 87 in any one grade.
MPS says class size ratios "will not change" (slide 13). On Sept 28, staff told Kenny's Site Council the capacity analysis is not broken down by grade. (MPS slides, Sept 28)
Model: April 2026 program-size parameter, community elementary under 70% free and reduced meals, 24-29 per homeroom. Armatage is under 70% in every option in MPS's staffing model.
MPS projects Armatage at up to 560 students and its own staffing model budgets 542. Three homerooms per grade at the 29-student cap holds 522. Which classrooms take the extra homerooms, and when will Armatage families see the plan?
Please do not vote to close Kenny until MPS publishes a classroom-by-grade capacity plan for Armatage. MPS's own projections put Armatage at or near full, and on Sept 28 staff told Kenny's Site Council the capacity analysis is not broken down by grade.
The building
Design capacity from MPS building reports, Table 2 [MPS]. Enrollment is the state's official Oct 1, 2025 count, grades K-12 [MDE]. This site also served 18 preschool or early childhood special education students on Oct 1, 2025, counted separately by the state.
Large enough for MPS student experience, approaching optimal enrollment
Slide 6 of the Sept 15, 2026 presentation [presentation].
What the district's own dashboard shows
MPS School Detail Dashboard (Tableau), publicinsights.mpls.k12.mn.us/transformation, printed Sept 2026. Capacity and enrollment use MDE and MPS building-report figures elsewhere on this page, not this dashboard -- the two sources disagree on those two fields for every school checked so far.
Who attends from the boundary
We don't know the exact number of children that percentage represents, so this doesn't set a ceiling on the slider below -- it's context for how much room there plausibly is to recapture, not a hard limit.
This school's FY27 per-pupil rate isn't in our data yet, so a dollar estimate isn't shown.
Per-pupil rate: this school's FY27 total school-based budget divided by its own FY27 projected enrollment. It's the district's core classroom funding only -- it excludes centrally budgeted costs like transportation and district administration, so it understates, not overstates, what each student is actually worth to the district.
Your community meeting
Sourced from the MPS School Transformation page [MPS].
What the district has not answered about this school
- How many of this school's students does MPS expect to stay in the district?
- How many students would this school need to be sustainable, and what is the plan to recruit them?
- What evidence ties the district's size minimum to student outcomes? MPS left the minimums out of the 118 slides and confirmed them on Sept 25: 432 students for a community elementary under 70% free and reduced meals, 360 at or above 70%.
Director Callahan asked about savings, retention and sustainability at the Sept 15 work session and asked for answers by the Oct 13 business meeting. What the board heard.
Who decides
All nine board members vote on Armatage Nov 10. One represents this school's district; three more represent every school in the district, regardless of address.
The tag under each name is our read of their stance, based on the Sept 15, 2026 work session and Oct 14, 2025 votes on file — not their own statement of a position.
Sept 15, 2026 work session: read the list of schools proposed to close and rejected all three options: "I find these options offensive... three options that close more than a dozen schools is not what we ask for." Asked for three answers by the Oct 13 business meeting: per-school savings, the share of displaced students expected to stay in MPS, and what each listed school needs to stay open. Oct 14, 2025: voted for defining the "sweet spot" as 70-89% capacity (failed 2-6) and for Resolution 2025-0045.
Hear her full commentsSept 15, 2026 work session: asked seven questions, including whether the board can combine options (staff: yes), what success metrics are (no target or date given), and how much of the deficit the plan solves. Staff answered that closures are "not a huge cost savings." Thanked staff in closing. Oct 14, 2025: voted against defining the enrollment "sweet spot" as 70-89% capacity, and for Resolution 2025-0045.
Sept 15, 2026 work session: "You guys brought back exactly what we asked you to do... I think I have enough information." Asked no questions requiring answers. Suggested Afrocentric programming and raised the safety of adult Wellstone students at South. Oct 14, 2025: voted against the "sweet spot" definition and for Resolution 2025-0045.
Sept 15, 2026 work session (virtual): said staff "followed direction exquisitely" and called the plan "courageous." Asked nine questions on North Minneapolis equity, walk zones, dual language, inclusion, interventionists and libraries. Oct 14, 2025: proposed defining the "sweet spot" as 70-89% capacity (failed 2-6) and cast the only vote against Resolution 2025-0045.
These board members represent other parts of the district. The administration doesn't vote, but sets the agenda the board votes on.
Board members' emails and phones are theirs directly, from the MPS Board of Education page. Administrator contacts are their own direct lines, from MPS's staff directory.
This school's board district is confirmed. Check it yourself.
Ask them to stop the vote and wait for the newly elected board and for published goals to fix the budget.