CONSEJO ESCOLAR DE LAS MPS

My name is Christin Crabtree, and I am running to be your next Minneapolis At Large School Board Director. For over 20 years, I have built relationships with educators, school staff, and administrators as an MPS parent, educator, PTO leader, member of site councils, and volunteer. My experience working in the community has ranged from grassroots organizing to nonprofit board leadership. My commitment to our city has fostered trust with city council members, county commissioners, and state legislators. I am ready to leverage my relationships to benefit the school district, working with a broad coalition of elected leaders and community members to increase state funding for the public schools our community deserves.

Public schools make it possible to imagine and work together towards the Minneapolis we deserve: a city where every resident can thrive. Minneapolis is at our best when we come together for a larger purpose. We have shown each other what it looks like to build collective action rooted in care. In 2022, I helped found Minneapolis Families For Public Schools, working alongside caregivers across Minneapolis to win the schools we deserve. Our organizing positioned caregivers to lead 3000 patrol shifts a week and distribute over $3.5M in mutual aid during Operation Metro Surge, keeping families housed and fed. I am ready to bring that same energy to our school board to fight for public education.

I am committed to integrity, authenticity, and transparency, and will serve constituents by remaining connected with our community; I am accountable to you. Good governance requires strong processes, procedures, and oversight to ensure leaders are being stewards of their constituents’ dollars and trust. I prioritize being present in our neighborhoods, schools, and community events. We deserve accessible and responsive leadership, and I am excited about what we can accomplish together.

Every student in MPS deserves a high quality education. In a large district with varied demographics and student needs, individual school communities have a range of varied priorities. There are some aspects of the budget where individual schools have more discretion, and there are specific areas where schools must comply with district policy and mandates from state and federal governments.

Each Minneapolis school receives different amounts of funding based on factors such as enrollment, income levels (Title I funding), multilingual learners, and special education programming. Much of this funding is provided for a specific mandated purpose. There are also funding requirements in place that prevent outside groups (including PTOs) from paying directly for staff. Policies like this are meant to reduce disparities across MPS schools so that all students have access to robust school environments with media centers, art classes, and safe teacher and staffing ratios.

Where principals do have flexibility in school level budgets, MPS’ site council model encourages shared input from caregivers, educators, and community on annual budget decisions. There is variation in the way individual schools approach this process, resulting in inequitable access to information and engagement with the people MPS serves. This is a missed opportunity for MPS to benefit from the diverse wisdom and experiences held by the people who make up our district. As a director, I will work towards implementing more intentional and consistent community engagement across the district, ensuring a seat at the table for a range of voices in our public schools.

Cuts and closures will not improve the health of Minneapolis; divestment is not a winning strategy for our future. We need a positive vision that reimagines how the district allocates resources to deliver the quality education Minneapolis deserves.

Increasing enrollment is one piece of stabilizing our district because per-pupil state funding is the largest single source of revenue for MPS.  Many factors led to declined enrollment, such as the pandemic, lack of access to safe affordable housing, policies that undermine public schools, and implementation of the deeply unpopular Comprehensive District Design. MPS must use relational, data driven efforts to retain and attract families while partnering across jurisdictions to implement policies that keep families in Minneapolis. MPS saw moderate enrollment increases in the 2024-2025 school year, however this was undermined by Operation Metro Surge, the implications of which are not yet fully known. I am heartened by strategies such as expansion of Pre-K and consistent learning pathways for students. I plan to build on these initiatives by working to increase retention of students in middle school.

I bring fresh eyes and increased transparency to budgetary decisions. The online budget dashboard is a good first step. To rebuild confidence, MPS must strengthen internal controls and establish policies and procedures to achieve proper billing for services, avoid unnecessary expenditures, and improve coordination across departments to realize cost savings.

Funding from the state is a critical path toward budget stability in Minneapolis and public schools across Minnesota.  Minnesota is currently ranked 26th in public education funding in the United States. I am a consistent presence at the capital, and will continue to be there alongside educators, staff, administration, and caregivers advocating for bills that protect and invest in our schools. I will make fighting for funding and systemic improvements at the capital a bigger priority for the district.

Our district is made up of vibrant, tightly knit communities of engaged families—a fact proven by the tremendous response to Operation Metro Surge. People are at the center of everything we do in MPS and I look forward to building coalitions based on shared priorities.

I am committed to providing consistent opportunities for community engagement by offering open office hours across the city to ensure equitable access rooted in MPS’ Climate values:

– Equity, representation, and anti-racism

– Physical and emotional safety and well-being

– Relationships, trust, and communication

– Shared decision-making and voice

To that end, my commitment is to:

1. Bring transparency to the role of school board representation—you will know what I am doing and you will see me engaged in the community.
2. Remain accessible to constituents—if you call, I will pick up.
3. Advocate for all at the highest levels of decision-making while remaining present in the street-level work.

Schools are successful when they center community needs and include collaborative decision-making. This can be accomplished through intentional approaches that prioritize relationship-building, collaborative decision-making, and restorative practices. I believe that people who are most impacted by decisions should be involved in making them. My work as a school board member will be informed by learning from our families, the people who work in MPS, and our community members about their priorities and what they need to make MPS the destination district students deserve.

As a parent and former educator, I know literacy is a high priority for families. Our community is worthy of meaningful conversations about reading that contain context, nuance, and regard learners as whole people. Reading is foundational to learning–an integral piece of being an informed person in a democracy, a locus of imagination and creativity, and a source of joy. I want students to love reading, to be excited to explore the library at school, to see themselves in the books they read, and to have consistent access to media specialists.

There is a link between student success and the well-being of our city as a whole: children who have access to recreation, safe adults, food security, and stable housing succeed. Children begin their academic journeys from a range of places and experiences, and they need schools to meet them where they are, offering the structure and safety needed to learn. Students are worthy of access to high quality electives that inspire engagement and ensure we go beyond test scores to educate the whole child. Smaller class sizes foster literacy; safe case loads for special education and multilingual learners are key to the creation of affirming school climates and to ensuring every student has access to a high quality education.

MPS has invested in student literacy through data driven, research based training and curriculum; I support these efforts and look forward to being involved in curriculum improvements in the future. Literacy rates are dropping nationally; MPS’ reading scores are just below the national average; and Minnesota is 26th in the country for school funding. These metrics are connected. Our students deserve better and that will take investment. As a board member, I will continue to support reasonable class sizes and equitable access to education resources without gutting the co-curricular programming that keeps students engaged.