Minneapolis Schools Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Minneapolis Schools as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – At my particular school, my fellow employees are very friendly and professional. Teachers are truly committed to helping ALL students learn.

Cons – The revolving door in terms of top management in all departments is disconcerting; leadership in teaching and learning, family engagement, finances, etc. have all turned over within the last 6 months. It's hard to have a sense that there is a coherent plan in place to address our enormous achievement gap problem or to address continuing problems with transparency in terms of decision making. Departments drift for years at a time while leaders are recruited then leave, recruited then leave.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop the continual "crisis" mode in terms of budget. Make some tough choices about magnet programs, etc. -- either support them fully or not; don't leave them to wither and die. (Note: submission form states that current CEO is Thandiwe Peebles; current CEO is Bernadeia Johnson)

Former Employee – worked at Minneapolis Schools full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Good pay for 9 months a year. Got to help kids and experience an inner city low income student population

Cons – Horrible principal, tons of favoritism. Very anti-male and anti-white work environment. Union did nothing to protect employee harassment.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire administrators that are adept at dealing with people and treating them with the respect they deserve!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Minneapolis Schools full-time

Pros – Diverse working environment, "feel good" type of job, union protected

Cons – Old-school and not very tech saavy, large organization--some departments are better to work for than others

Former Employee – worked at Minneapolis Schools full-time for less than a year

Pros – Decent benefits package, lots of work

Cons – Too much work, not enough salary, etc.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Minneapolis Schools

Pros – Great peer teachers, great pay, and good professional development.
MPS has an environment where I do believe there is opportunity to grow as a professional.
Every one does their best to teach students and to ignore the very many issues going on in the system.

Cons – The school I was at had extremely poor management, and lost teachers in the middle of the year due to this. It is the kids that lose.
Leaders are not taught how to be business minded, or how to facilitate or manage projects that lead to change.
I had to figure out who to contact to get passwords to access sites needed to find student data, prof. dev., etc. No one even told me so much as the 10 different sites I would need to access. I had to figure it out along the way. Just no direction, really. Everyone seemed in crisis mode.

Advice to Senior Management – Technology needs to be integrated. I thought the intranet would streamline this, but instead just added another layers of passwords.
Management needs to learn how to lead, manage, and evaluate staff.
Don't change initiatives so often.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Minneapolis Schools

Pros – Higher than average pay and above average benefits for salaried employees. Non-salaried employees get paid well, but do not have as good of benefits.

Cons – There are absolutely no annual reviews, goals, or objectives for anyone other than the teachers. And even though the teachers are reviewed, pay increases are a negotiated benefit for all within the bargaining units regardless of performance. Top performers get a pay increase as well as the lowest or non-performing employees. This is true of all employees as all are in bargaining units and pay increases are negotiated for the group as a whole as opposed to earned individually. Top performers get rewarded with more work where under performers continue to slack!

Advice to Senior Management – Start providing reviews, goals, objectives, make pay increases contingent on meeting those goals.

Current Employee – been working at Minneapolis Schools

Pros – Working for the Minneapolis Public Schools has increased my knowledge of the community and made me excited to make a difference in the education system.
I feel like my work is valuable
I have a good and manageable workload

Cons – The organization is so large that it feels like changes can never be made. It's the small fish in a big pond idea.

Advice to Senior Management – I'm unsure what I can say about advice. I wish communication were better between schools, support and administrative staff, and higher administration.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Minneapolis Schools

Pros – The students are appreciative and hard working. Families appreciate our efforts to educate their children and coworkers are and the schedule.

Cons – The administration is top heavy with ineffective people who could not stand teaching and the school board does not fully consider the expertise of the teachers to be relevant in the decision making process.

Advice to Senior Management – Develop a more rational and productive method of evaluating the effectiveness of administration

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Minneapolis Schools

Pros – No interview necessary for my (former) job.

Cons – The way union rules are applied makes it possible to hold on to poorly performing employees.

Current Employee – been working at Minneapolis Schools

Pros – Good pay and benefits relevant to others in the field.
Great co-workers.
 Good balance between home and work life.
Diverse and educated work force.
Incredibly dedicated work force.

Cons – Constant stress from lack of funds and budget cut-backs.
Lack of understanding and support on the state level of the challenges the district faces.
Lack of understanding and support from public.
The many kids that live in poverty and come from dusfunctional families and the complexity of their needs present significant challenges to the distict.

Advice to Senior Management – The district is going in the right direction in the face of significant lack of financial support from the state. Superintendent Johnson is a great new face and very positive force for good in the district.