The last redesign

The desegregation goal

Racially isolated schools, by the state's definition. Green is the district's goal; red is what happened.

A "racially isolated" school, under the state's definition, is one where the share of students of color is more than 20 percentage points above the district average. District leaders predicted the CDD would cut the number of racially isolated schools from 20 to 8. The result, per the district's own later reporting: 21, worse than where it started. Eleven of the 14 schools MDE now identifies as racially isolated are centralized magnets, seven of them new magnets created by the CDD itself. Ira Jourdain, a board member at the time who voted against the CDD, was asked years later whether the isolation goal was met. His answer, in three words: "That never happened."

The enrollment loss

Share of enrollment lost, fall 2021, MPS vs. its own forecast and its peers.

In fall 2021, the redesign's first year, MPS lost about 8% of its enrollment, roughly 2,100-2,400 students, against a forecast of about 1,200 total across the first two years. By one national ranking, that was the third-highest enrollment loss rate in the country for the 2021-22 school year. St. Paul, which had not yet closed any schools, lost about 4% that year; the state overall lost under 1%.

The transportation savings

Districtwide busing costs, before and after. The CDD projected $7M-$11.5M a year in savings.

Contemporaneous reporting put projected annual transportation savings at $7 million to $11.5 million. The district's own last two updates to the board on the CDD, in January and February 2023, reported those savings came in "less than projected." Districtwide busing costs have since risen, not fallen, from about $59 million to about $73 million a year.

The small-school goal

Reducing the number of small elementary schools was one of the redesign's stated aims. The district's own February 2023 update to the board reported the number of elementary schools under 300 students had gone up by one since before the CDD, and listed that result under "completed" items in the same presentation.

The cost, and the last report

Two figures for the same five-year capital cost, from coverage at the time. Nothing reconciles them.

The redesign's own capital cost was reported two different ways in coverage at the time: $560 million over five years in one account, $141 million in another. Nothing in the public record reconciles the two. The board has not received a comprehensive report on the CDD's outcomes since February 2023, three and a half years before this vote. A University of Minnesota study of the CDD's effects on enrollment exists and has been referenced anonymously in Star Tribune reporting; it has not been published.