MINNEAPOLIS — It may be summer break, but school districts are already preparing for the new school year. And at the helm in Minneapolis, is interim superintendent Rochelle Cox.
She's been with Minneapolis Public Schools since 1997 with positions including Executive Director of Special Education and Health Services.
"My leadership style is really about distributed leadership," Cox said in a meet-and-greet with media Friday, July 1, her first day in the new role and the start of the district's new fiscal year.
"I share an example of when I was in special education and I got a letter from the Minnesota Department of Ed. my first week on the job, and it was telling me we were very disproportionate how many of our African-American students were labeled emotionally behaviorally disordered … I realized that alone, as a white female leader in our district, it was not for me to solve. It was really distributed leadership with our families, our students, experts in the field and our staff."
Cox reports "the risk of over-identification of black students as emotionally/behaviorally disabled" has since "reduced by three times."
Friday morning, the district posted a video introducing Cox to families. She's approved to lead the 2022-2023 school year.
She says, in her year on the job, goals include honoring commitments made to the community. She also says she'll document the relationships she makes with various partners and will pass that information on to the next superintendent.
"I want to reconnect with our families," she said. "If there's a family out there who feels like, 'Wow, I just don't feel like I belong at MPS,' I will tell you, over the next year, you're going to feel like you belong at MPS."
At this point, a permanent superintendent has not been named — but with one-time federal COVID funds set to run out in 2024, securing state funding is also on her to-do list. She says she'll work with the school board to advocate to legislators for funding across select areas.
"Looking at funding for special education, E.L. services … student support services for mental health, counseling, and other things," she said.
Cox says to expect more information about what the budget process will look like in the next couple of months.
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