Kenny Community School · Southwest pathway · Board votes Nov 10
District leaders came to Kenny. They didn't show the math.
On Sept 28, MPS leaders answered five questions from Kenny's Site Council. The district's own numbers put Armatage and Windom, the schools Kenny students would join, at or over capacity. MPS showed no classroom plan.
Kenny is a two-time Minnesota School of Excellence (2016 and 2026), with 84.0% of students proficient in math and 81.5% in reading in 2025. [MPS] Formerly keepkenny.com.
What happened at Kenny
On Monday, Sept 28, Superintendent Dr. Lisa Sayles-Adams, Deputy Superintendent Ty Thompson and Senior Operations Officer Tom Parent met with Kenny's Site Council. The Site Council had sent five questions in advance. MPS answered with a 36-slide presentation and in person. (MPS slides, Sept 28)
MPS said it would follow up in writing on the questions it could not answer that night. It did not commit to a date.
- 1What specific problem does closing Kenny solve, and what evidence demonstrates that closing Kenny will improve the student experience?
- 2How will the receiving schools accommodate Kenny students while maintaining the student experience MPS says it wants to provide?
- 3What empirical evidence supports the district's 5% student attrition assumption?
- 4What happens to the district's enrollment and financial model if attrition is substantially higher than 5%?
- 5How will MPS determine whether the Transformation Plan actually achieves its stated goal of creating a stronger, more consistent, and more reliable student experience?
Their answers, checked
What MPS said, what its own numbers show, and what is still missing. Slide numbers refer to MPS's Sept 28 deck. Tap each question.
In-person answers are paraphrased from a recording of the meeting. Savings figures as reported by KSTP, Sept 25, 2026. (MPS slides, Sept 28)
The capacity math
Kenny's students would join Armatage or Windom by home address in every option. On Sept 28, MPS showed a new, larger capacity figure for both buildings. Switch between the two and see what changes.
That is 102% of Armatage and Windom's combined design capacity, before a single family leaves or a single new kindergartner arrives.
MPS's own planning target is 80-90% of a building's capacity. Windom reaches 100% at the top of its range even on the design figure. Armatage also houses 18 preschool students not counted here.
Design capacity: MPS building reports [MPS]. "Maximum capacity" and 2025-26 enrollment: slide 10 (MPS slides, Sept 28). Projections: MPS options pages, read Sept 17, 2026. Target: April 2026 Parameter 4 example.
Count the classrooms
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. MPS projects Armatage at up to 560.
MPS promises class sizes "will not change" (slide 13). Keeping that promise at Armatage takes classrooms MPS has not shown exist. In person, staff said the capacity analysis is not broken down by grade.
Model: April 2026 program-size parameter, K-5 community school under 70% free and reduced meals: 3 homerooms per grade, 432-477 students, 24-29 per homeroom. Slide 9 of the Sept 28 deck restates the minimum as "432 students or more" and drops the 477 upper end.
Kenny's own building fits the district's rule. Slide 10 puts Kenny's maximum capacity at 451, above the 432-student minimum MPS applies to it.
Where MPS's own slides disagree
Both sides of each pair come from the same Sept 28 deck.
Anthony and Southwest remain the pathway middle and high school for all students.
In Option 3, some Windom students go to Hale, then Justice Page and Washburn.
"90% or more of the schools in the Southwest pathway proposal would be able to generate the funds necessary."
Option 2: 3,577 of 3,967 Southwest pathway students (90%) attend an optimally sized school.
"In all options 100% of students have the MPS student experience."
Option 2: 90% of Southwest pathway students at an optimally sized school.
Minneapolis births fell 21.4% from 2008 to 2024.
Enrollment is projected to grow over 10 years in 7 of 11 city areas, including Central (+58.7%) and Phillips (+35.5%).
Enrollment now and in the future indicates two elementary schools are needed in this part of the pathway.
Possible future uses of the Kenny building include "long-range enrollment growth for schools."
(MPS slides, Sept 28)
What you can do before the vote
In date order. Each one takes less than an hour.
- Nov 10, 2026 · 5:30 PM · Board Assembly Room, 1250 W Broadway AvePlanned board vote on the final plan
All nine members vote.
MPS projects Armatage at up to 560 students. The district's own model of three homerooms per grade at 29 students holds 522. Where does the extra classroom space come from, and when will families see the plan?
Please do not vote on closing Kenny until MPS publishes a classroom-by-grade capacity plan for Armatage and Windom, a savings figure for Kenny, and its attrition model rerun above 5%. The Sept 28 answers to Kenny's Site Council did not include any of the three.
MPS's Sept 15, 2026 transformation plan closes Kenny Community School in all three options on the table. By home address, its 312 students would join Armatage or Windom. [presentation] Kenny earned the state's School of Excellence designation in 2016 and again in 2026. [MPS]
Kenny is not on the list because its building is empty. Its enrollment grew this year and no grade lost a student. What puts Kenny on the list is a size minimum. MPS left it out of the Sept 15 plan and confirmed it on Sept 25: 432 students for a community elementary with under 70% free and reduced meals. [MPS] Kenny has 312, only 323 MPS students live in its boundary, and it had roughly 470 to 480 students before 2020.
The rule is not applied evenly. MPS's own 2027-28 staffing model keeps Field (321 students) and Hale (320) open in Option 2, both under 432 and both close to Kenny's income profile, and closes Kenny at 312. In Option 1 it keeps Hiawatha at 219 and Howe at 238. [MPS staffing model] MPS says openly that some schools stay below the line. The question is why Kenny is one of the ones that closes.
The savings are small. As reported by KSTP, MPS's Sept 25 handout shows net savings of about $721,000, $184,000 or $2.36 million a year, against a $39.7 million shortfall. [KSTP] The staffing model covers expenses only and holds enrollment at 27,425 in every scenario, while MPS itself estimates about 200 students could leave the district.
Keeping Kenny open is not only a Kenny question. The district's own Sept 15 numbers put Armatage's projected 2027-28 enrollment at 520 to 560 students in two of the three options, up from 385 today, against a 539-seat design capacity [MPS][MPS], with no published plan for the overflow.
What happens under each option
By home address, students join Armatage or Windom.
Same.
Same.
Source: MPS proposed options pages, read Sept 17, 2026 [MPS], and the unprogrammed-building maps on slide 82 [presentation].
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].
The Sept 15, 2026 presentation uses Oct 2024 enrollment for every school. The state's Oct 1, 2025 count for Kenny is 312, against 295 a year earlier.
Large enough for MPS student experience, approaching optimal enrollment
Slide 6 of the Sept 15, 2026 presentation [presentation].
By the numbers
Facts only. Every figure links to its source.
Kenny by grade, and every cohort held
Official Oct 1, 2025 state count. Kenny grew from 295 to 312, up 5.8%.
Cohort retention, Oct 2024 to Oct 2025
How many students in each grade came back one grade higher. Not one cohort lost a child.
The kindergarten class also grew, from 45 to 52. 2025-26 counts are MDE; 2024-25 grade counts are federal (NCES). Both come from the same Oct 1 collection. [MDE]
Kenny is not the smallest school in the neighborhood, or the district
Southwest-area elementary enrollment, Oct 1, 2025. Red bars close in all three options.
Hale has 314 students and stays open in all three options. Kenny has 312 and closes in all three. Two students apart.
Of 37 MPS elementary schools in the same state file, 13 are smaller than Kenny. Most of them stay open. [MDE]
See the full district capacity tablePrograms include autism spectrum programming, EL services, telescoped math, 5th grade band and Minneapolis Kids care. [ExploreMPS]
The real risk: a size minimum left out of the plan and confirmed 10 days later
Kenny isn't threatened because its building is empty. It isn't. The risk comes from a minimum enrollment that every school must reach to offer the full "MPS student experience." On Sept 15, Director Norvell asked staff how close or how far each school is from that number. No one answered. On Sept 25, MPS posted it: 432 students for a community elementary school with under 70% free and reduced meals, and 360 at or above 70%. [MPS, Sept 25] MPS says the numbers were discussed with the board in January 2026, and an earlier board deck had listed 432 to 477. But neither board resolution names a number. What the board heard.
Kenny enrolls 312 (Oct 1, 2025, up from 295), and it has been above 432 before: roughly 470 to 480 students most years from 2015 to 2019. Only 323 MPS students live in its attendance boundary. [MPS]An April 7 slide would also require every building to meet the minimum by 2030-31. [Apr 7, 2026, slide 38]
The rule is not applied evenly. MPS's own 2027-28 staffing model keeps Field (321 students) and Hale (320) open in Option 2, both under 432 and both close to Kenny's income profile, and closes Kenny at 312. In Option 1 it keeps Hiawatha at 219 and Howe at 238. [MPS staffing model] Counting community elementary schools only, the model leaves 7, 10 or 3 of the survivors below their minimum under Options 1, 2 and 3. MPS says openly that some schools stay below the line. The question is why Kenny is one of the ones that closes.
That number was not tied to student outcomes. MPS's post says the minimum is what funds the academic and social-emotional experience. It does not say what evidence links size to results. 432 works out to three homerooms per grade, six grades, twenty-four students each. It is a staffing formula. Kenny runs about two homerooms per grade and posts 84.0% math proficiency, 81.5% reading and 90.3% consistent attendance against a district figure of 64.1%, and it was named a Minnesota School of Excellence in 2016 and again in 2026. The district's own standard would close a school that beats the district on every measure the district publishes, because its homerooms are arranged wrong.
The district has also published a standard that says the opposite. Slides 6 and 81 of the September deck code Kenny orange, meaning large enough for the MPS student experience. Armatage, budgeted at 411, and Windom, at 370, are also below 432 and also coded orange. One map color and one number point in opposite directions. So the question for Oct 13 is which of them decided Kenny, and what evidence either one rests on.
The superintendent's Sept 15, 2026 presentation shows Kenny closing in Option 1, Option 2 and Option 3. On the Southwest Pathway diagrams (slides 71-73) Kenny appears only on the "current" side, never on the "future" side. Slide 82 lists Kenny by name as an unprogrammed building in every option.
Under the minimum MPS published Sept 25, Kenny is below the line today, though it enrolled well above 432 as recently as 2019. That is why this fight is about the rule, not the building. MPS's map still codes Kenny orange, "large enough for MPS student experience, approaching optimal enrollment." Nine buildings are coded red for being too small. Kenny is not one of them.
What separates Kenny is that its 389-seat building is too small to absorb another school, so in a consolidation it is always the school that moves, never the school that receives. The September deck states no minimum enrollment number anywhere in its 118 slides. MPS posted 432 ten days later and has not published evidence tying it to student outcomes.
At the Sept 15 work session the presenter said it three times: "By home address, Kenny students would join Armatage or Windom." No vote was taken and there was no public comment. In 92 minutes of questions, no board member asked about Kenny, Lake Harriet, Armatage or Windom. The district did say the board can combine pieces of options and that it wants to hear "things that maybe we hadn't thought of." That is the opening for a fourth option.
Read what the board asked and what the district said, including every question and answer.
As reported by KSTP, MPS's Sept 25 handout shows net savings of about $721,000 in Option 1, $184,000 in Option 2 and $2.36 million in Option 3, against a $39.7 million shortfall. That is roughly 1.8%, 0.5% and 5.9% of the gap. [KSTP]
MPS's staffing model covers expenses only. Its cover sheet says revenue projections come November to February, and every scenario holds enrollment at 27,425 students. MPS itself estimates about 200 students could leave the district, and each one takes that student's per-pupil funding along. [MPS][KSTP]
Test the break-even yourself: how many students must stay for this plan to save anything.
How Kenny got smaller
Kenny enrolled roughly 470-480 students in the years before 2020, more than its design capacity. Enrollment fell as the pandemic hit and as the district's 2020 boundary redesign took effect in fall 2021. See the full timeline.
Why Kenny should stay
It already meets the district's own efficiency standard.
MPS's building report calls Kenny's use of space "efficient." When the November 2024 space study named underused Southwest schools, Kenny wasn't one of them. [MPS][Mpls Schools Voices]
Closing a top-performing school doesn't help its students.
Students displaced by closures do better only when they move to a stronger school. After Chicago closed 50 schools in 2013, displaced students' math scores were still about two months behind four years later, with the biggest hit in grades 3-5. Studies in Philadelphia and Michigan found schools receiving displaced students also declined. Kenny students have little room to move up. [UChicago 2018][Fordham review]
The savings are smaller than they look.
Pew's study of six big-city districts found closure savings were "under a million dollars per school." MPS's own operations chief says an empty elementary costs $50,000-$80,000 a year to maintain and a sale takes two years or more. A district slide notes sale proceeds "largely" go to paying down existing debt. [Pew / EdWeek][Star Tribune][Research for Action]
Kenny is a campus, not just a building.
Kenny Elementary, Kenny Park and Anthony Middle School were planned together in the 1950s as a shared school and park site. Kenny is about a quarter mile from Anthony, on a clean pathway to Southwest High. Families built and maintain its water and perennial gardens and help fund its playground. [MPRB][ExploreMPS][MPS]
Distance changes how kids get to school.
The nearest other MPS elementary schools are Windom and Armatage, each about three-quarters of a mile away in a straight line. Walking routes are longer. National research finds longer distances explain nearly half of the decline in children walking to school. [McDonald, 2007]
Closed schools become empty buildings, and neighborhoods feel it.
MPS closed Tuttle in 2007 and was still trying to sell it in 2026. An empty elementary costs the district $50,000-$80,000 a year to maintain. Across 12 big cities, Pew found more closed school buildings sitting unused than sold or reused. Research has also found associations between closures and lower home values and weaker neighborhood cohesion, though cause and effect is hard to prove. [Star Tribune][Pew 2013][Research for Action]
Size alone is a poor rule.
A review of 57 studies on school size found the evidence generally favors smaller schools, recommending elementary schools of no more than about 300 students for largely disadvantaged populations and about 500 for others. A minimum size should reflect results, not just headcount. [Leithwood & Jantzi, 2009]
- 1Don't apply a K-8 sizing table to K-5 community schools.Set any K-5 minimum separately and publish the reasoning.
- 2Count results, not just headcount.Allow exceptions for schools with strong outcomes at efficient utilization.
- 3Publish the cost/benefit analysis first.Resolution 2025-0045 requires one. Director Callahan asked for per-school savings on Sept 15. As of Sept 25 MPS has published net savings only by option. Show net savings school by school before any vote.
- 4Stop the Nov 10 vote.Five of nine board seats are on the Nov 3 ballot. Wait for the newly elected board and a published cost/benefit analysis before deciding Kenny's future, or any other school's.
- 5Release Kenny's updated building assessment.It was promised for 2025. Decisions shouldn't rely on a 2017 rating.
- 6Grow enrollment before shrinking schools.Parameter 1 names winning back families as the goal.
The strongest arguments against us, and our answers
If you're going to make the case for Kenny, know the counterarguments. Tap each one.
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.
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
- What would closing this school save? MPS has published net savings only by option, not for any individual 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 Kenny 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.