MPS high schools alone have the space for 12,841 total students, yet only 7,819 were enrolled as of October 1, 2024.
Schools across Minneapolis sit nearly empty. Civic leaders throughout Minneapolis have asked Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and its elected School Board for a transparent strategic plan to deal with this issue since the late 2000’s. To date, there has been no reckoning with the problem of empty and utilized schools or its consequences for families, students, and taxpayers in the City. Those “underutilized” schools, as MPS refers to them, are sucking up millions of dollars of operating funds and renovation costs. Needless to say, this contributes to pressure on the MPS budget, increasing tax levies requested on a more frequent basis, and schools lacking the resources to provide high quality educational opportunities. There are many reasons for the decline in enrollment within MPS, including demographics, charter school growth, open enrollment laws passing, and real or perceived poor quality in the MPS system. Acknowledging the complexity of the issue, it is clear that failures of leadership and accountability within MPS to right-size its number of operational schools for the last twenty years demands attention. The School Board system of governance where officials are elected to represent their districts instead of the city as a whole likely contributes to the leadership failures seen in the following analysis.
In recent years, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) has found itself with a glaring mismatch between student population and its infrastructure. MPS has 75 operational buildings, 64 schools and 11 administration buildings. According to the City of Minneapolis Auditor, the District estimates it is built to serve about 40,000 students, while current enrollment is only “just over 23,000 students” — which implies the system is operating 43% empty. MPS high schools alone have the space for 12,841 total students, yet only 7,819 were enrolled as of October 1, 2024.
This enrollment issue is complex and the decline dates back to the early 2000’s. In the 2001-2002 school year, the enrollment was 46,256 students, the 98th largest in the US. But even then, the poor performance of MPS students and the quality of the schools relative to their peer schools led to a study that predicted 10,000 students would be lost in the next decade to charter schools.
This prediction turned out to be accurate and was further compounded by the large influx of new charter schools in the 2000’s in Minneapolis. Estimates are that up to 15,000 kids currently attend charter schools in Minneapolis. And yet, the MPS was not able to course correct, nor did the administration reckon with their new normal. Instead of consolidating their schools into larger buildings to offer consistent class sizes across the district, a competitive variety of core and elective classes, and diverse extracurricular opportunities (ie sports, arts, clubs), the district seems to have frozen with indecision. As far back as 2007, the MPS Administration publicly considered closing schools. And yet, to this day that has not happened. Making matters worse, the State passed Open Enrollment laws in 1989 allowing students to enroll in school districts other than their home address. Then, in 2000, the NAACP alleged inadequate education in Minneapolis and secured the students of the City priority placement in suburban schools and free busing to their destination of choice. While less of a factor than the charter schools, this also accelerated the exodus of students.
Strategic decisions by MPS further exacerbated the system’s decline. In 2021, the MPS School Board implemented the Comprehensive District Design—a plan to shuffle kids to schools in distant neighborhoods instead of their local school. This plan was derided by the Teacher’s Union and many parents as ineffective in its aims of diversifying the schools and unnecessary. However, with very little public awareness, a strong activist voice pushed the School Board to pass the initiative. The result: MPS lost 4,200 students. This represented over 10% of their students lost within two years. In public reports released by the School Board prior to implementation, it acknowledged the plan would lead to a massive hemorrhage of students.
And now you might be asking, ‘With all these empty schools, why were the teachers striking this November over large class sizes?’ There is lack of publicly available data to square this circle, but this is what we know. First, MPS has some of the lowest student to teacher ratios in the State per public data. MPS reported in 2023-2024 a district-wide average teacher to student ratio of about 1 teacher to 13 students. Second, MPS does not have any schools listed as “overutilized,” which means no schools have too many students which would require abnormal class sizes. Third, MPS did not use the Comprehensive District Design Redistricting in 2021 to make the schools equally filled. Below are the building capacity utilizations by school. It is clear that the schools in specifically Wards 7, 11, 12, and 13 are much higher in capacity utilization than the other wards. Also clear from the data is that the northern wards including 1, 4, and 5 have substantial underutilization of their schools. Data provided by the MPS Building Report Oct 1, 2024.
Middle Schools (High → Low % of Design Capacity)
| School | Capacity Used | Efficiency | City Location |
| Justice Page Middle School | 86% | Efficient | Ward 11 |
| Anthony Middle School | 79% | Efficient | Ward 13 |
| Sanford Middle School | 72% | Efficient | Ward 12 |
| Andersen United Middle School | 70% | Efficient | Ward 6 |
| Northeast Middle School | 58% | Underutilized | Ward 1 |
| Olson Middle School | 52% | Underutilized | Ward 4 |
| Anwatin Middle School | 46% | Underutilized | Ward 5 |
| Franklin STEAM Middle School | 39% | Underutilized | Ward 5 |
High Schools (High → Low % of Design Capacity)
| School | Capacity Used | Efficiency | City Location |
| Washburn High School | 86% | Efficient | Ward 11 |
| Edison High School | 62% | Underutilized | Ward 1 |
| Roosevelt High School | 61% | Underutilized | Ward 12 |
| South High School | 60% | Underutilized | Ward 9 |
| Southwest High School | 59% | Underutilized | Ward 13 |
| Camden High School | 53% | Underutilized | Ward 4 |
| North High School | 46% | Underutilized | Ward 5 |
| FAIR School for Arts | 46% | Underutilized | Ward 7 |
| Heritage Academy (Wilder Complex) | 13% | Underutilized | Ward 9 |
| Longfellow Alternative High School | 5% | Underutilized | Ward 12 |
Elementary Schools (High → Low % of Design Capacity)
| School | Capacity Used | Efficiency |
| Emerson | 100% | Highly Efficient |
| Barton | 93% | Highly Efficient |
| Green Central | 89% | Highly Efficient |
| Northrop | 86% | Efficient |
| Loring | 85% | Efficient |
| Pratt | 85% | Efficient |
| Dowling | 85% | Efficient |
| Lyndale | 79% | Efficient |
| Howe | 79% | Efficient |
| Kenwood | 77% | Efficient |
| Kenny | 76% | Efficient |
| Marcy Arts | 76% | Efficient |
| Bryn Mawr | 75% | Efficient |
| Windom | 74% | Efficient |
| Ella Baker | 74% | Efficient |
| Pillsbury | 72% | Efficient |
| Hiawatha | 71% | Efficient |
| Bancroft | 71% | Efficient |
| Armitage | 70% | Efficient |
| Burroughs | 69% | Underutilized |
| Folwell | 63% | Underutilized |
| Las Estrellas | 61% | Underutilized |
| Lake Harriet Lower | 61% | Underutilized |
| Field | 62% | Underutilized |
| Hale | 62% | Underutilized |
| Lucy Craft Laney | 59% | Underutilized |
| Waite Park | 57% | Underutilized |
| Lake Nokomis Keewaydin | 63% | Underutilized |
| Lake Nokomis Wenonah | 51% | Underutilized |
| Lake Harriet Upper | 49% | Underutilized |
| Jenny Lind | 48% | Underutilized |
| Bethune Arts | 46% | Underutilized |
| Hall | 46% | Underutilized |
| Cityview | 39% | Underutilized |
| Hmong International | 33% | Underutilized |
The underutilization of the current MPS school buildings does not exist in a vacuum. MPS is facing a serious financial crisis. The district projects an $84 million budget deficit in 2025-26, followed by deficits reaching $100 million within four years. Despite this, the district continues to operate massive facilities at half capacity or less. Even the empty buildings need to be cleaned, heated, staffed, maintained, and apparently upgraded. This accounts for a meaningful portion of the yearly funding coming from tax dollars, which is diverted from things like hiring teachers and providing elective curriculum. Another issue has been the massive tax increases pushed through under questionable pretense by MPS over the last ten years. One of the recent examples was the $38.1 million tax increase passed for the 2025 school year for technology. This freed up money which may have been used to pay for the school remodeling of many highly underutilized schools.
The hesitation to act on the building underutilization issue by MPS and the School Board reveals a lack of political leadership to make hard decisions for the good of the whole system. And, the lack of leadership at MPS has compounding effects. When touring the Heritage Academy this Spring 2025, a school located near Powderhorn Park, I was shocked first to see the massive school virtually empty. The last City records show that it enrolled 77 students in the 2023-2024 school year. The building was at 13% utilization per the data and this matches what I saw. I saw only a handful of students wandering the halls or in class. Strangely, the empty building was also undergoing a massive remodel. Public data shows that the huge cost to renovate this school was approved in December 2024, with the advance knowledge that there would be no student population increase. The data for this school and the Longfellow Alternative School was both excluded from the data set published online for public consumption. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be an isolated case of waste if you look at the massive capital expenditures approved over the last ten years on many empty or underutilized schools.
The real question is how come there has been no accountability for repeated failures in leadership at MPS to stabilize the district. In part, the School Board just doesn’t get a lot of attention from reporters. Another factor is the system of governance of the School Board which favors looking after the constituents in one’s own district and keeping the neighborhood school open over looking after the City as a whole.
The School Board needs to release a detailed public plan on how they intend to right-size the school district financially and whether keeping this many underutilized or empty schools open makes sense. A choice to avoid angering any voters or specific neighborhood groups has real costs: larger class sizes in some schools while others are empty; fewer elective and extracurricular offerings; poorer school performance; ongoing budget shortfalls; and emergency tax millages to bail out the district finances. Accountability through transparency is essential. Further, a new oversight governance structure, one where the School Board is appointed by the Mayor, may be a good path forward. This ensures the School Board has accountability to the City as a whole. Both Chicago and New York favor a similar structure. Minneapolis families, teachers, students and taxpayers deserve better leadership at MPS.
Minneapolis Public Schools was contacted for comment but have yet to respond.
Related: Minneapolis Public School Enrollment Declines & Graduation Rates
Steveb3955 is correct. I live across the street from Tuttle School building. 18th Ave SE and Talmage Ave. When MPS emptied that of MPS kids, it was rented to two non-MPS schools. Tatanka was trying to grow from its Little Earth site, but ended up moving back to south Mpls. ON THE OTHER HAND, Heritage Academy moved into the same building at the same time. Dr. Ali was a passionate educator who’d built the school as a science-technology magnet school. He did target Somali kids who were just learning English as a second language. It was very much a successful school and ended up being part of the MPS. I got to know the kids as a volunteer working with their on campus garden (which was already in place on the school campus. They were doing well, for the most part, but then they moved to South Mpls and the school has been empty ever since.
I’d love to sit down with a cuppa but here’s my take: When my son, who is almost 48, was “graduating” out of Marcy Open, MPS was already bleeding students. A businessman had just left the the MPS Board and when I read about losing students, I phoned him. My Q: “What are the parents of the leaving students saying on their exit interviews?” He replied that I was the first person he’d run into who actually knew how important those interviews really are. I kept following the reports in the S’Trib, and learned the board had decided to build an administrative palace somewhere. When I asked why, the answer was that it would cost too much to fix up the places they were already using. (Me: “hmmm?”) Later I discovered the MPS had never owned the buildings. They belonged to a long term commercial building corporate owner. This never did make sense to me in any respect, like So Move! or, So work out a deal with the owner, maybe. OK, the MPS also ruined IBS at Anwatin for my son, but my daughter and her co-hort graduated from Marcy Open and moved on to decent high schools. SW, South, and Edison. BUT the Tuttle building has been empty for a couple of years. The year it was put up for sale, a local developer (whom I know and trust and his tenants love him) made a bid. It was the only bid, I believe. The board turned him down for not enough money. Since then B&E tourists have visited often. I’ve seen the window replacement trucks drive on campus month after month after month. I talk to the maintenance staff who tell me Tuttle isn’t trashed like Cooper has been trashed. (is that good news? whoopie.) They’ve since accepted the bid my friend made (I think they have) but the city won’t let the school close the deal until MPS does substantial hazardous waste abatement for him. I believe they took out the exterior security cameras — don’t know about the interior ones. I do know that they still have to keep a skeleton maintenance staff working, and possibly keep up the insurance protection and so on. On the good side of the ledger, the roof isn’t leaking (yet). How many years of vandalism repair, insurance bills and more, because the initial offer “wasn’t high enough”? Bottom line: WE NEED TO ELECT SOME PEOPLE WITH BUSINESS SENSE TO THE SCHOOL BOARD, starting some 35 years ago. (here endeth the rant)
I believe Anwatin Middle School is in Ward 7, not Ward 5.
Our school district had a choice between a practical board candidate who acknowledged that schools likely needed to be closed, and one who didn’t. Guess who won? The school board continues to hold their hands over their ears while asking for more tax dollars.
Thank you for sharing your view of the situation.
You mentioned the rise in numbers of charter schools beginning in the early 2000’s. Question: Weren’t the charter schools created partly as an alternative to what some people were already seeing as the failure of the public school system to provide a rigorous education for all students?
Steveb3955 – The short answer is “yes”, they were.
But there is a longer version of the story. I moved to Minneapolis from Woodbury in 1991, in part because I had a daughter in mid-elementary, and the South Washington Co. District was then doing incredibly poorly at keeping up with population growth. Class sizes were absurd. We had to TELL our child’s first grade teacher, at the SECOND parent-teacher conference, that she was left handed – with so many students, the teacher hadn’t noticed! MPS had a decent reputation then, although one was still advised to be careful about what building one’s child was placed in. But certain schools, at each grade level, were regarded as best-in-class, and there was diversity of programs and emphases, and the rules were such that it was not TOO hard to get a child placed into one that was a good fit. Our child went through 3 years at Folwell (then a Middle School, and not our first choice) and 4 at South High (which was our first choice), and we watched sadly over those 7 years as the quality of education literally degraded before our eyes. Being active in DFL politics, I was in denial for all but the last year or two of our child’s education. We now have a grandchild, who has been in a Minneapolis charter from the beginning. We are very proud of our daughter and son-in-law for having very thoroughly explored their MPS options and then, reacting to the realities they faced, putting our granddaughter in an excellent K-12 Mpls. multi-building charter system instead. She’s in 8th now, looking forward to H.S. in the same charter system.
Charters actually predate ALL of this, and the original justification was that, freed from many of the rules the regular public schools must follow, they could be free to experiment – and the regular public schools would naturally adopt the experiments that “worked”. As it turned out, a lot of experimenting has taken place, some have worked, and many have not. I am aware of nothing that has been adopted by MPS specifically because it has worked in a charter in Mpls. or elsewhere. In fact, driven by animosity toward charters by the teachers’ unions (not just ours, this issue is nationwide), MPS leadership appears to feel that the only way in which it wants to acknowledge charters is to complain about them, and voice opposition their ongoing existence, and certainly their expansion.
MPS’ largest single problem is its unwillingness to actually ask families who leave – for open enrollment in other public school districts, for private schools, AND for charters – why they are leaving, and what could have been different that would have resulted in their staying. And then taking action based on that information. Note, NOT what will bring families back – Typically, that ship has sailed. Until they decide to do this in earnest, it’s not even reasonable to ask that they expand from that to asking parents like my daughter and son-in-law, both educated in MPS schools, why THEY wanted something different for their child FROM THE BEGINNING. Until MPS does these things, and acts upon the input, they will just continue to “bleed students”. With all the available choices, how could it possible be otherwise?
Thank you Jim. My replay to Steveb3955 also pounded on the Exit Interview (lack of) question.. ALSO some people may not know what IB is: I learned about it because the university students I hired to work at the U of MN Libraries, who had attended an IB program, were so completely heads above the rest, I found out more. Google: international baccalaureate programs When MPS decided to add an IB program, my husband and I jumped for it for our son. MPS decided to put that program into the Anwatin curriculum but when parents complained that their kids couldn’t do the work, insted of bringing the kids up to snuff, they dumbed the program down to the very low level Anwatin kids could do. We ended up sending our son to Edina, where he did great after a bit of serious adjustment. AP Classes all over his hs transcript and eager to go to school.
Excellent article! The main problem is the school board itself. It’s filled with unserious ideologues who have no ability even to begin formulating a strategy. Honestly, there isn’t a quality board member in the bunch. Watch a meeting, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s the board’s job to appoint the superintendent, make policy, and approve the budget. All of the problems that MPS is experiencing are clearly in the board’s purview.