Visitation to become all-girls in 6th grade

No boys will be allowed at the Visitation School's middle school in Mendota Heights next year.

The school will change its coed sixth grade into an all-girls class. The Catholic school is currently an all-girls school from seventh through 12th grade.

Visitation's Lower School from prekindergarten through fifth grade will remain coed.

St. Thomas Academy will create a sixth grade to accommodate boys from the Visitation School.

Since 1873, Visitation has functioned as an all-girls school. In 1974, the Lower School began adding coed classes.

"We look forward to expanding the benefits of single-gender education to sixth grade in the coming year and beyond — and to continuing our close collaboration with Saint Thomas Academy," Visitation Head of School Rene Gavic said in a news release.

Beatrice Dupuy

Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius said her department doesn't want to move forward until the state Legislature tackles issues including school eligibility for the achievement and integration program.

Cassellius doesn't see eye-to-eye with the administrative law judge who rejected the state's integration plans in March, according to the notice. Judge Ann C. O'Reilly said that the department lacks the authority to loop in charter schools.

Some issues need to be clarified, the notice said, including whether inter-district integration efforts should be required and how American Indian student concentrations affect eligibility for the program.

Elementary-level Twin Cities charter schools are more racially segregated than their Minneapolis, St. Paul and suburban school equivalents, a 2015 Star Tribune analysis found. More than three-quarters of Twin Cities charter elementary students go to schools with 80 percent or higher white or nonwhite student bodies, the Star Tribune reported.

The possibility of charters coming under integration plans has been hotly debated. Charter advocates say it would remove the pillar of school choice; other say that charters should be integrated, citing the benefits of school diversity.

The Minneapolis School District is ditching its annual School Fair Showcase in exchange for school tours.

The district's new event — called Visit Our Schools Month — aims to give families a feel for the schools and a chance to learn about school culture.

"Whether you're deciding where to enroll your child for kindergarten, you're a current MPS parent, or you have no school-age children but want to see what's happening in today's public education, we will warmly welcome you," said Superintendent Ed Graff in a letter on the district website.

A survey of community partners and district employees asking whether last year's event was effective, drew nearly 50 percent "no" responses and 30 percent "somewhat," the school board was told.

The district's enrollment dropped sharply 10 years ago, from 38,500 in the 2005-06 school year to 35,000 in the 2007-08 school year. It rebounded to 36,600 students in the 2015-16 school year.

Elementary school tours run Oct. 25, Nov. 1 and Nov. 7 from 10:30 a.m. to noon and Nov. 1 from 4 to 6 p.m.