JEFFERSON SCHOOL RENAMED

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After receiving approval from the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education, Jefferson Global Studies & Humanities at 1200 W. 26th St. will be renamed Ella Baker Global Studies & Humanities.
Sheridan Dual Language Elementary (1201 University Ave. NE ) will be renamed Las Estrellas Dual Language Elementary.
The process for a new school name for Jefferson also began in 2020. The Youth Participatory Evaluation (YPE) team, consisting of students and advisors, began the work by brainstorming the values they wanted the new school name to represent. Social studies classes in grades 4-8 then worked on a project where they explored why we name things, what names signify and made their own recommendation for a new school name. Ranked-choice voting was used to determine the number one pick, which was Ella Baker, an African-American civil rights and human rights activist.
“I’m grateful our students were involved in picking our new name,” said Principal Holly Kleppe. “Ella Baker represents a large majority of our student population. For our students to be able to walk into a building named after someone who looks like them will help encourage them to be their whole selves and strive to be as influential as she was.”
The MPS Facility Names Advisory Committee was appointed by the Board in October 2020, and consisted of students, parents, alumni, former teachers, and other stakeholders. The committee was tasked with researching and providing recommendations on MPS facilities that should be renamed. The recommendations that were turned into the Board included Sheridan and Jefferson.

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