Minneapolis Public School System Host Community Leaders as Principals for a Day

Achieve! Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Public Schools announced that on Thursday, December 6^th 29 local civic and business leaders served as guest Principals for Day in area schools. The hope is that by inviting these community leaders to get a first hand view of the public school system that they will become instrumental in helping to improve it.

The participants in this year's exercise included: Mayors R.T Rybak and Don Fraser; President and CEO of Compass Marketing, Robbie Soskin; US Bank HR Manager, Leslie Siegel; City Council Member Don Samuels; President Ben Wright of Dunwoody Institute of Technology; Ameriprise Financial Director of Community Relations, Mark Hiemenz; President William Wells, W. Wells and Associates, LLP.

These leaders left behind their regular nine to five obligations in order to gain a better understanding of how Minneapolis's public school system is ran on a daily basis. The various Principals for the day attended meetings and gave talks to the student body on various topics. They intermingled with the staff and students to learn more about the issues that each face in today's educational system. Mayor R.T. Rybak even took his hand at leading the Northeast Middle School band. When he finished his guest conducting duties he extended an invitation to the group to perform at his holiday party at City Hall on December 19 ^th.

Following the days activities, participants and district leaders took part in a forum so that they could debrief and share comments. For a few of the guest principals this was their first direct interaction with the Minneapolis public school system. Many of the participants were amazed by how much the district is able to accomplish with the limited resources that they have. As public citizens, that have a louder voice than most, the guests came away with a better understanding of the issues facing public schools today.