Hopkins 270 Blog

In my last article, Tikkun Olam and Primum Non Nocure, I talked about how I was raised to believe in the fundamental Jewish principle of taking actions to heal the world (“Tikkun Olam”), but that the desire to solve societal wrongs must be tempered by the duty to first do no harm (“Primum Non Nocure”). I expressed my frustration at the absence of this balance in considering the policies and programs being implemented by the Hopkins 270 district administration.

In this post, I’m going to address what I see as another major flaw in the thinking of the district administration: treating Hopkins Public Schools, MN District 270, as if it is Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) — or New York City, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, etc.

Righting Real Wrongs in L.A.

I grew up in Los Angeles and I am a product of that sprawling school district. LAUSD currently serves over 420,000 students in PreK-12 with over 1,400 schools, including 434 elementary schools feeding 77 middle schools, leading to 86 high schools, plus 331 Magnet Schools and Centers, 221 Independent Charter Schools along with a slew of other school types (few of which existed when I was a student). It stretches over 710 square miles containing approximately 4.8 million residents. [Source].

The thing about LA Unified is that it has a well-documented, horrific history of racism, segregation, and intentional inequality in the distribution of spending, maintenance of school buildings, and the assignment of quality teachers and administrators. When I attended LAUSD in the 70s and 80s, children were required to go to their assigned schools. Because Los Angeles and the area encompassing the LAUSD was historical geographically segregated by race, religion, national origin, etc., kids growing up in “black” “brown” and “white” neighborhoods, etc., went to schools that were, by-and-large, filled with students, teachers, and local administrators of the same background. And the spending and resources across that vast area were unequally allocated, creating massive, long-term inequalities.

LAUSD was subject to federal injunctions starting in the 1970s to address true inequalities and right some of the real world wrongs being dumped on children by the nature of their birth. And, from what I can see, the LAUSD is still working through unwinding the long term effects of these actual inequities — the types of real-world problems that the Hopkins 270 district administration seem to suggest need to be addressed here.

Historical Wrongs in Hopkins 270?

So, how does Hopkins 270 compare to LAUSD? A history of how Hopkins 270 was formed can be found in a 2012 article in The Patch. Hopkins 270 reports having 6,850 students in PreK-12 (2022-23) with SIX elementary schools feeding TWO middle schools, leading to ONE high school, plus a few other programs. I’m unable to locate any reports or evidence of historical enforced segregation for any of the neighborhoods encompassing the Hopkins 270 district. There are no reports I could find showing historical evidence of racist policies, spending, or assignment of lower quality teachers and administrators for any schools in the district. I have not seen or heard any allegations even suggesting that any one of our schools has been individually treated any different than any other school in the district. Hopkins 270 has not been subject of any Federal injunction based on racists, discriminatory policies, either de jour or de facto. And there is certainly nothing to even suggest that any school or group of students within the boundaries of Hopkins 270 have been subjected to any one of the myriad of intentional inequalities placed on schools in the LAUSD that were predominately populated by students of color.

[POST-PUBLICATION NOTE: After originally publishing this article on 7/10/24, I was watching a December 2022 School Board Workshop session addressing Restorative Practices, and there was a discussion of an agreement entered into between the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) and Hopkins Public Schools (along with 38 other school districts and charters) addressing facial disparities in discretionary exclusionary discipline practices (expulsions or suspensions) between black and white students. The MDHR did not allege any intentional or willful acts of racism, but instead pointed to the clear negative correlation between the total population demographics of students by race and the proportional percentage of students of color subjected to discretionary exclusionary discipline (i.e., while white children constitute half the students population across the State, they make up only 21% of the students subject to exclusionary discipline). I will address in a future post my thoughts on the need to conduct appropriate scientific analysis to assess whether a causal relationship exists.]

We Need to Focus the Challenges in Hopkins 270, Not LAUSD

I accept that BIPOC members of our community face continued prejudice and injustice in our society writ large. I understand that white privilege, and the impact of it, exists. And I know that George Floyd was murdered in 2020 less than 10 miles from our school district headquarters by Minneapolis police officers sworn to protect and serve the public. Real societal problems exist in the World, in America, in Minnesota, and in the Twin Cities Metropolitan area. I take that as a given. But none of those truths turn the Hopkins 270 Public Schools into a system filled with inequities that require full scale intervention and fundamental changes to establish actual equity, as needed for the LAUSD and other major metropolitan school districts.

There are children in countries around the world who are not getting a base level education. There are massive failures to educate children in schools districts across this country resulting from issues that go beyond historical racial and ethnic inequities. We are not going to make changes in Hopkins 270 to address every historical and modern cause of these educational system failures domestically and internationally.

We are facing real challenges in the Hopkins 270 school district, and we need the administration and the School Board to focus on identifying and disrupting the root causes of these real problems. This administration needs to focus on creating policies, programs, and procedures to help THIS school district with OUR challenges, which do not include remediation of historical wrongs like those facing the L.A. Unified School District and others.