St. Paul turns to Edina superintendent to be next schools chief

Stacie Stanley, superintendent of Edina Public Schools and a graduate of St. Paul’s Central High School, has been chosen to be the next superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools.

The school board voted unanimously Thursday night to make her the district’s new schools chief, pending contract negotiations to be finalized in January.

The decision came after four hours of painstaking discussion and after board members praised Stanley for her warm, familiar touch with district staff members during school visits this week and for the promise that she will be an inspirational leader to students in her hometown.

“The opportunity we have now is to lead with compassion,” Board Chair Halla Henderson said Thursday night. “I think that’s who Dr. Stanley is.”

Stanley prevailed over two other finalists — Hopkins Superintendent Rhoda Mhiripiri-Reed and former Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius — who also share a local pedigree and the distinction of being “friends and sisters,” Mhiripiri-Reed told board members this week.

Board members had the rare opportunity to select a new leader in St. Paul. Unlike most urban school systems, the state’s second-largest district has avoided a steady churn at the top. Joe Gothard, who left in May for his hometown of Madison, Wis., served seven years — ranking him among America’s longest-serving urban superintendents.

Gothard was honored in February as the 2024 National Superintendent of the Year.At the time of his departure, he was being paid $256,000 annually.

Despite a national search, however, St. Paul attracted just 21 applicants, and some people who had been part of the vetting process said they would have liked to have seen more diversity among the finalists.

Still, Board Member Chauntyll Allen said Thursday: “Each one of these candidates could lead this district in a wonderful way.”

Stanley began her teaching career in the East Metro Integration District and then served as a principal in the Roseville Area Schools and an administrator in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage and Eden Prairie districts before taking over three years ago in Edina, where she oversees 8,600 students.

She is a product of the Rondo neighborhood, she told school board members Wednesday, with a “long, rich history in St. Paul.” Initially, Stanley worked as an occupational therapist, but switched to teaching when a student asked her “whether or not you could be brown and you could be smart,” she recalled, describing it as a “pretty profound experience.”

In Burnsville, she oversaw programming for English language learners, and in subsequent moves to Eden Prairie and Edina, succeeded in narrowing achievement gaps. She said she was impressed with the SPPS Reads program to boost student literacy and sees it as a perfect fit for her skill set.

“I say that literacy is the currency of power in the United States,” Stanley said.

Mhiripiri-Reed started her career as a middle school teacher in St. Paul, and then went on to be a high school principal in Brooklyn Park and a school administrator in Monterey, Calif., and Washington, D.C., before taking the top job in Hopkins overseeing 6,900 students.

The daughter of an immigrant father from Zimbabwe, she told board members this week that she guides with a moral compass.

“I am a fighter,” she said. “I am a champion for what’s right and what’s just.”

Cassellius taught at Benjamin E. Mays School in St. Paul at the beginning of her career, and she later held administrative positions with Minneapolis Public Schools, Memphis City Schools and the East Metro Integration District before being appointed state education commissioner by Gov. Mark Dayton in 2011.

In 2019, she took over as superintendent of Boston Public Schools.

“I value children,” she told school board members Tuesday. “I place children first. I want to wake up every day and make a difference for children.”

St. Paul hired the consulting firm BWP & Associates to come up with a leadership profile for its next leader via an online survey and virtual and in-person public forums.

Formidable challenges await the new superintendent.

Student test scores have been described by board members as devastating and troubling. And though the district has seen a rare uptick in enrollment to 33,469 students, it still faces a budget deficit of up to $44 million in 2025-26 — after a $100 million-plus 2024-25 shortfall.

“In Edina,” Stanley said, “not every one of my children is a multigenerational affluent child. We definitely have children whose families don’t have a lot of money in their pocketbook, and our vision is for each and every student to discover their possibilities and thrive.”

As for fiscal pressures, Stanley and Cassellius said St. Paul should consider asking voters for additional funding — an idea floated recently by Tom Sager, the district’s executive chief of financial services.

Stanley said she is confident the community could pull together in tough times: “We are a big small town and we care for one another,” she said.