(C) Minnesota Reformer
This story was originally published by Minnesota Reformer and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
State: Minneapolis Public Schools violating disability law • Minnesota Reformer [1]
['Melissa Whitler', 'Michelle Griffith', 'Madison Mcvan', 'More From Author', 'August', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-08-14
The Minnesota Department of Education notified Minneapolis Public Schools that it’s in violation of state and federal law for overidentifying Black students in the category of “developmental cognitive disability” for the past three years.
The notification is part of an annual review process conducted by the state, as required by federal law, to determine what’s known as “disproportionality” in special education. The review compares identification, placement and discipline for students with disabilities across racial groups.
Disproportionality is particularly concerning for Black families and their children because they are more likely to be identified in disability categories that are socially stigmatized, like developmental cognitive disabilities or emotional behavior disorder. Students placed in these categories are often placed in separate classrooms or schools, which may limit their access to rigorous coursework, electives and other opportunities open to students without disabilities.
Under federal law, the district is now required to set aside 15% of its federal special education funds to address the disparities through a process called coordinated early intervention services, or CEIS. Using $1.2 million from its federal special education funds, the district’s plan must provide services to students without disabilities to prevent overidentification in the future.
The district has selected six elementary schools that account for a substantial part of the disproportionate identification. One position will be added at each school.
MDE has also notified the district that it’s at risk of violations in two other categories. For the past two years, Black students with disabilities in the district have been suspended, expelled or otherwise removed from school for disciplinary issues at more than three times the rate of other students with disabilities. And, in the 2023-24 school year, Black students with disabilities were suspended for more than 10 days more than three times as often as other students with disabilities.
The district will hire one person who will assist nine elementary schools — which the district didn’t identify — with student behavior to reduce disproportionate suspension of Black students with disabilities.
“I’m almost embarrassed that we needed to wait for MDE to tell us we needed to come up with a plan,” said Kim Ellison, vice chair, during a board meeting Tuesday. “My guess is these numbers aren’t new.”
Ellison was on the school board when the district entered voluntary agreements with the federal Office of Civil Rights in 2014 and the state Department of Human Rights in 2018 to address disproportionately high suspension rates for Black students.
In 2023, the state began requiring districts to notify the public when they reach mandatory CEIS status, even though MDE itself does not report on its website when districts have been notified of the CEIS violations. MDE notifies districts of disproportionality in special education annually, around March.
The most recent federal data show that in the 2020-21 school year, 31% of Minnesota school districts had been identified for significant disproportionality in special education. This is the third highest of all fifty states, behind only Wyoming and Rhode Island.
Audit critical of special education services
Separately, the school board on Tuesday discussed an audit that found the district is failing students who need extra help by not providing instruction and support they need to meet grade-level academic standards.
The special education audit was conducted by the Council of Great City Schools at the request of Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams. The district received the 178-page final report five months ago, but it was shared with just a few district leaders. The report has been circulating among district families and advocates in recent weeks, and the district recently shared the report with the public in advance of a school board discussion.
The report focuses on the district’s failure to use what’s known as a multi-tiered systems of support, or MTSS, a framework commonly used by school districts to identify students who need additional academic or behavior support. When implemented correctly, district staff would review student data regularly to identify students needing support; determine appropriate supports for students; review data on the impact of the supports; and adapt supports as necessary. The review cycle can also highlight district-wide issues that need addressing.
The MTSS framework is most effective when all students have access to high-quality instructional practices in regular classrooms. This is known as “Tier 1” or “core instruction” under the MTSS framework. Additional support will be less effective without effective core instruction.
Many of the district’s classrooms lack high-quality instruction, and regular classroom instruction “is often far below grade level standards,” according to the report.
Many of the district’s teachers are in the middle of two years of intensive training to improve how they teach reading, as required by the state law known as the READ Act. The district also adopted a new literacy curriculum for early elementary students. The hope is that the additional training and new curriculum leads to improved academic outcomes.
Dr. Liz Keenan, who joined the district at the end of June in the newly created role as associate superintendent of special education and student support services, said the district has recently made some progress in improving academic outcomes for students with disabilities, particularly elementary students. She attributed the success to a new literacy curriculum and teacher training in elementary schools.
Board Director Greta Callahan challenged this assertion and attributed the improving academic outcomes to class size caps and higher educator pay that started with the collective bargaining agreements Callahan helped negotiate as teachers union president in 2022.
There is no similar professional development initiative for mathematics, where student proficiency also lags behind state averages. The district has implemented new math curriculum for elementary, middle and high schools in recent years, however.
“There is an increased sense of urgency to provide (professional development) for both veteran and new teachers who have insufficient understanding of mathematics content, pedagogical content knowledge and require support to deliver core instruction to all students in inclusive classrooms,” the report says.
Board Director Joyner Emerick questioned why the audit shows no review of “specially designed instruction,” which is modification to regular instruction to meet the unique needs of students identified for special education.
“Why is it absent? Because it is absent,” Keenan said.
Keenan said the district lacks a well-defined process around specially designed instruction.
In response to the audit, the district has created a new central office position, executive director of MTSS, and is currently trying to hire someone for the role.
Board member Lori Norvell expressed concern about whether the district should use MTSS in its schools. She recalled her previous experience as a district math specialist and middle school math teacher working under MTSS.
“I don’t know how it’s supporting them [students] and not a burden on our adults who are working with our most vulnerable kids,” Norvell said.
MTSS interventions are not the same as special education and do not replace special education services, but for some students effective MTSS services may prevent the need for special education. Because Minneapolis Public Schools lacks consistent and adequate MTSS services across its schools, many parents — sometimes at the behest of teachers — request special education evaluations because they view this as the only way to get students the academic and behavioral support they need.
The report also identifies district problems with staff professional development. The district doesn’t make it mandatory, doesn’t commit enough time to it and doesn’t differentiate professional development based on educator needs.
The district also lacks a structure to support so-called positive behavior intervention for students whose behavior interferes with academics. The absence of behavior support is at least partly to blame for the disproportionate use of suspensions to discipline Black and American Indian students without disabilities, according to the audit.
The district has implemented “procedural safeguards” to limit the use of suspensions for students with disabilities when their disabilities are related to their behavior. Because of this, students with disabilities are suspended at half the rate of students without disabilities.
On average, Black and American Indian students without disabilities are around four times as likely as other students to be suspended for one to 10 days. Black students without disabilities are 15 times more likely to be suspended for more than 10 days.
The district lacks internal processes to regularly review this data, determine its root causes, and develop and implement plans to reduce these disparities, according to the audit. This applies to discipline data as well as data related to absenteeism and placement of special education students in separate classrooms or schools.
The audit shows about a quarter of elementary students with disabilities miss more than 10 days of school. For middle school students with disabilities this rate rises to about a third. By high school, nearly 4 in 10 students with disabilities miss more than 10 days of school each year.
An analysis of district data also shows that the district disproportionately assigns students receiving special education services to restrictive settings. Under federal law, special education students are entitled to receive education in the least restrictive environment. Overuse of restrictive placements is a violation of students’ rights.
The audit also finds that once students are assigned to specialized classrooms or separate schools, there does not appear to be a regular pathway back to more inclusive educational settings.
Keenan told the board that the district can improve special education by providing students with disabilities more access to general education classrooms.
The audit also describes dysfunctional district administration: Key staff members fail to collaborate, and important policies are not documented. The report includes at least a dozen references to policy and procedure documents that the auditors were unable to review because they were password protected. The auditors said many of the documents should be readily accessible to the public, as well as the district’s employees, to bring transparency to policies and procedures.
The CEIS notification and audit come amid significant fiscal challenges, which will likely limit the district’s ability to respond to the audit’s findings. The district closed a $75 million budget deficit for the upcoming school year by making significant cuts to central office staff, and continues to rely on its dwindling reserves to balance its budget. In the next budget cycle, the district anticipates needing to cut at least $25 million, a figure that could increase if federal funding is reduced.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/08/14/state-minneapolis-public-schools-violating-disability-law/
Published and (C) by Minnesota Reformer
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/MnReformer/
