New Minneapolis school board members bring more diversity

Star Tribune

      It may be an overstatement that the road to the Minneapolis school board leads through Judy Farmer's kitchen, but that's where two school board rookies first met on their way to helping to form the most diverse board in district history.

      Otherwise, Lydia Lee and Peggy Flanagan took different paths to their swearing-in today. Lee was so much an outsider ethnically that she started school speaking only Cantonese. Flanagan didn't get in touch with her Ojibwe half until she was well into college, and never felt out of place in tolerant St. Louis Park schools.

      Lee knows the inside workings of a classroom and the district's headquarters. She wants to make sure the board considers the perspectives of school workers. Flanagan has done her work at the street level, struggling to better connect Indian families and their children with schools. She especially wants to represent communities who have felt left out by the schools.

      Both had ties to Farmer, the longest-serving board member. Lee shared an office with her long ago at Marcy Open School. Farmer was Flanagan's go-to board member, both for her concerns about Indian students and her decision to run for the board.

      The seven-member school board had three black members at one time, but never before has its minority representation been so diverse, with one Chinese member, one American Indian and one black. Sharon Henry-Blythe, who was reelected, is black, as are 41 percent of the district's students.