New Minneapolis superintendent kicks off year with rally

The Minneapolis school district and new superintendent Ed Graff kicked off the school year Friday at Orchestra Hall in front of a packed house of employees and community members.

The pep rally of sorts got off to a lively start with call-and-response chants from Lucy Craft Laney Community School students.

"Are you ready, are you ready? Yeah I'm ready, Yeah I'm ready!" the students shouted.

"The state of Minneapolis Public Schools is strong," Graff declared when he took the stage. "Being strong doesn't mean we're perfect. We have plenty of opportunity to improve."

Graff takes the helm after a year and a half of leadership upheaval in Minneapolis. Like many Minnesota districts, Minneapolis struggles with a wide academic achievement gap between white students and students of color. And while the district's overall graduation rate is on an upward trend, its state test scores showed little progress last year.

Graff said in his address that those challenges don't tell the whole story.

"I want to use this moment to reset the narrative about Minneapolis Public Schools," he said.

Graff highlighted district initiatives he sees as promising, like a training program that helps unlicensed Minneapolis staff become teachers. And a new data tool that aggregates attendance, grades and behavior information to help ninth grade students stay on track for graduation.

"The on-track program looks at all these indicators to help a team of teachers and staff identify students who are facing challenges. They put a plan in place to help those students keep track of how they're doing throughout the year," Graff said.

Minneapolis parent Byron Miller said the back-to-school event made him nostalgic. Miller says he grew up in north Minneapolis and was one of a dozen or so black students at Kenwood Elementary School in the late 1960s.

"As you get older and you kind of get out of the loop, you kind of take for granted the experience that the school systems had on people," Miller said.

Miller calls himself a "booster" of the district and said he's cautiously optimistic about its new leader.

"We'll see. I'm old school. I'm a Northsider growing up, so we're kind of like cats, kind of watch people with one eye open, one eye closed, and we'll see. It all sounds good — it's kind of like a politician. He is a politician to a certain degree," Miller said.

For his part, Graff was light on detail regarding changes he might bring to Minneapolis. He mentioned a commitment to objectives in the district's existing strategic plan.

"It has strong goals that we can all support. We have to work together to understand them and have them guide our work," Graff said.

School starts Monday for first through 12th grade Minneapolis students and Wednesday for preschool and kindergarten.