Students and parents at Rosa Parks Charter High School will need to find a new school for the 2024-2025 school year.

The Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools issued a notice of termination to the school, which has operated in Rochester for 25 years, that becomes effective Oct. 10, 2024.

“It is a crushing and heartbreaking outcome for all involved,” said James Zacchini, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Minnesota Guild. “We realize there are some students who are enrolled who are getting some rough news.”

Charter schools in Minnesota, by state statutes, require an authorizer, which provides oversight of the school in terms of academic performance, governance and finance. On April 19, the Minnesota Guild sent a letter of concern to the Rosa Parks board of directors stating it had concerns in several areas:

Non-compliance with required Special Education (SPED) services and adherence to Individualized Education Plans (IEP).
Physical and mental safety and well-being of students.
Off-campus travel with no prior notice or authorization from parents.
Appropriateness of subject matter pertaining to sexual health education.

Zacchini said the school had begun to address the issues, and the Minnesota Guild was considering allowing the school to move forward, but at that time additional complaints from students and parents came forward.

What triggered the initial letter of concern, Zacchini said, was a complaint of alleged sexual assault from February 2024 committed by one student upon another student. Further investigation indicated that the off-campus assault had been consensual, he said, but when additional complaints — mainly of students not feeling safe with the alleged assaulter still being at the school — were made, the Minnesota Guild issued another letter on May 17 outlining more concerns:

Limited learning taking place.
Physical and mental safety and well-being of students is threatened.
Certain aspects of “Sex & Drugs” class triggering negative emotional responses.
No accountability for students exhibiting hostile behavior in violation of the school conduct policy documented in ROSA’s Student & Family Handbook 2023-24.
Inadequate staffing to meet the needs of student populations.
Lack of professional boundaries between staff and students.

At that time, the Minnesota Guild directed the school’s board of directors to hire a third-party investigator to look into allegations of conduct and other issues. And by July 17, the Minnesota Guild had issued another letter stating, “The Guild is revoking ROSA’s charter due to concerns regarding ROSA’s compliance with statutory requirements and their charter contract, as well as the board and administration’s ability and effectiveness in overseeing and managing the school.”

Zacchini said the Minnesota Guild waited to finalize the revocation of the school’s charter until it had seen the results of the independent investigation. However, the response of the school did not adequately address the Minnesota Guild’s concerns, Zacchini said, and the third-party investigation “confirmed several complaints and highlighted other unresolved issues despite the ROSA Board and leadership’s assurances to the contrary,” the Minnesota Guild noted in an Aug. 27 letter finalizing the closure of the school.

Zacchini said other issues had plagued the school in recent years. The board and staff turnover was high every year, and the school was heading into the current school year — classes started Aug. 26, according to the school’s online calendar — scrambling to replace licensed teachers in certain areas.

A letter to parents indicated that Rosa Parks Charter would continue operation until the date of closure, Oct. 10, and would help parents and students find a new school in the interim.

“We are so touched by the continued outpouring of support and good will from our community and beyond. We hope you realize that we put everything we had into trying to keep the school open,” said the letter, which was signed by Blair Larson, the school’s science teacher, acting board chair and treasurer.

According to the latest data, Zacchini said Rosa Parks Charter High School indicated it served somewhere close to 60 students. However, he added, the Minnesota Guild was never able to confirm this number based on observation and information, and it estimated Rosa Parks Charter actually served about two dozen students.

Those students, he said, based on the focus of the charter school, tended to be students who have experienced trauma, have documented anxiety disorders and/or are working under individualized education programs. Zacchini said there is one other charter school in Rochester — Rochester Beacon Academy — that also focuses on students dealing with those issues. Furthermore, Rochester Public School’s Alternative Learning Center serves students with similar issues.

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Gen Zers Giovanni Burch, 17, and Selah Jacoway, 22, are passionate about making music and telling stories through their art. What they didn’t know is that the same passion they had for music would lend itself to a passion for journalism.

“I’m a storyteller before anything else,” Burch said.

Both Burch and Jacoway grew up in the St. Paul area, pursuing music in their youth. Jacoway started rapping at the age of 3 and produced her first song, “Don’t bully,” at 10. She’s performed across Minnesota for more than 40 venues, including schools and community events. Burch said he got his start in high school, recording music on his iPad with the $50 microphone his grandparents gifted him. For both, music has been an outlet to express their thoughts about the things most important to them.

In July, Burch and Jacoway were presented with an opportunity to pursue their storytelling in a new way.

“I knew I wanted to do this but didn’t know journalism was the word for it,” Burch said.

The Center for Broadcast Journalism, an educational media organization that aims to “transform media by empowering storytellers with diverse backgrounds,” launched its first youth-focused intensive program in July and the two were accepted as a part of the cohort. In four weeks the aspiring journalists would learn with support from the St. Paul News Network, the art of writing journalistically and formatting stories into audio and video format, along with job readiness skills and networking. They received a $1,200 stipend for their work funded in partnership with Ramsey County Workforce Solutions.

“This was really a community effort of multiple different organizations coming in and investing in the development of a workforce pipeline for journalists,” Center for Broadcast Journalism president and intensive director Georgia Fort said.

During the first week, each program member received their own personal camera, microphone and recording equipment that they’d get to keep even after the program finished. They met journalists like MinnPost managing editor Harry Colbert and sat in on a Sahan Journal editorial meeting, which Jacoway said was life changing because it allowed her to see herself in a similar space in the future.

“All I knew was that journalists wrote stories, I didn’t really know what that looked like,” Jacoway said.

Becoming journalists

Members of the inaugural Summer Journalism Intensive, a collaboration between the Center for Broadcast Journalism and SPNN, with funding support from Ramsey County Workforce Solutions, are from left: Selah Jacoway, Rachel Ashley Littles, Ciara Brooks, Angeline Patrick Pacheco, Gloria Ngwa, Tyshawn Spearman and Giovanni Burch. The intensive taught journalism, job readiness and networking skills. (Connor Anderson / Center for Broadcast Journalism

Center for Broadcast Journalism chair and intensive director Marianne Combs said she loves working with young, talented people and helping them discover the storyteller within themselves.

“This is really part of the core work of the Center for Broadcast Journalism,” said Combs, who also is managing news director for the center. “We are a radio station, we are a newsroom and we are an education wing, and our whole goal is to transform media to better reflect the increasingly diverse communities we serve.”

She said the young journalists were hungry and blew away her expectations. She recalled nights when cohort members like Burch and Jocaway texted her asking for advice on stories they were working on long after their work day had ended. Combs said the intensive proved what she’d suspected: that there is a lot of local journalistic talent in Minnesota from diverse and marginalized communities. She said all they need is the opportunity, the access to training and the resources to do the work, learn and thrive.

“I want to see these young people transform Twin Cities newsrooms in the years to come,” Combs said. “With this group I have no doubt that’s going to happen.”

The Pioneer Press interviewed Burch and Jacoway about their experiences as young journalists and what they imagine the future of journalism to be. Here’s what they said.

How Gen Z stays informed

Burch and Jacoway said people their age often get their news from social media apps like Tik Tok and Instagram reels. It’s short form content that’s easily digestible. But Burch and Jacoway don’t think this necessarily is a positive thing.

“I think that when you start getting to a point where all the information you’re consuming is in 30-second clips, then you start looking at life in 30-second clips and you don’t start building any longevity for yourself or your future,” Burch said.

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Jacoway said that the danger of short form content is that it’s not always fact checked and people become quick to believe anything they hear or read without questioning it. She believes this is the case because people, especially her age and younger, aren’t being taught how to find credible sources. Though she feels there’s value in reading long form news, she said the US doesn’t provide people the opportunity to live slowly, so short form content might be the best option for most.

They also expressed concern that digital algorithms feed into people’s personal biases and don’t allow for nuanced perspectives. Instead, news consumers are stuck in a bubble of their device’s making. Burch said it’s like when someone grows up in a household with specific religious or political beliefs that they naturally adopt as a part of their identity.

“It’s kind of blissful ignorance,” Burch said. “You don’t have to face the real world until you have to face it.”

General distrust in news

A challenge they’ve encountered is the public’s distrust of journalists. Burch said it makes sense that people find it hard to trust others when times are uncertain in politics, finances, healthcare and more. Jacoway said she thinks the country is the most divided it’s been since the Civil War.

Giovanni Burch, right, interviews James Garrett Jr., co-founder of 4RM+ULA architectural design firm, on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in St. Paul. (Tyshawn Spearman / Center for Broadcast Journalism)

“I don’t know if I’d tell anybody to trust journalism,” Burch said. “I think I’d tell everybody that you need to hear everybody out.”

Burch said the public often believes individual journalists have an agenda because of their personal beliefs. People have a hard time separating the job of a journalist from who they are, he explained. Because it’s difficult to speak directly to the wealthy or those with positional status, journalists become easy targets to place blame.

“I think you shouldn’t shoot the messenger, but we have,” Burch said.

Jacoway said journalism is a form of democracy and is still the best way to receive the most adequate information. She suggests that people research different news outlets and journalists to do so, then subscribe to the ones they like and trust.

“For most journalists, our entire motto is to just tell the truth,” Jacoway said. “That’s what we’re here to do, and expose the things that may need to be exposed.”

Fort said she believes it’s essential to invest in the future of journalism, especially in programs that will cultivate BIPOC storytellers. She said if news is to reflect the communities newsrooms serve, the workforce must be diversified.

“The need for news and information is never going to go away but how it’s delivered and how it’s consumed will continue to evolve,” Fort said. “I think that this group of young people will be at the forefront of creating those formats in which their peers and younger generations will ultimately use to consume news.”

Applying their learning

During the intensive, Burch said he discovered his news voice, developed patience and learned to keep going even when challenges present themselves. As a young Black journalist beginning to explore his career, Burch said he wants to focus on covering stories in the Black community. Through this experience he was connected to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, and is now a reporting intern.

“I feel like we tell the same stories over and over and over again, so if there’s anything I can do in the journalism field, it’s telling stories that people aren’t hearing,” Burch said.

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Jacoway is pursuing broadcast journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead and wants to tell the stories of diverse communities while covering a multitude of topics. She’s especially excited to lean into investigative journalism; she said that as a Black, multicultural person she’s seen first-hand the injustices her family and communities have faced. She is now interning for the Center for Broadcast Journalism’s radio station, POWER 104.7.

“My dream is to just be able to impact our world in a positive way and to expose institutions and systems who have gotten away with abusing their power for so long,” Jacoway said.

The two thanked Fort, Combs, director of workforce solutions for Ramsey County Ling Becker and everyone who gave them the opportunity to pursue journalism. Burch said the experience was a breath of fresh air.

“I think every student needs an opportunity to experience that in some capacity,” Jacoway said. “I think it was the most beneficial opportunity to me in my life.”

A few months after the musician Prince died, in 2016, Monique Linder hadn’t seen as strong a local tribute as she believed the artist deserved, she recalled.

Linder, a longtime radio executive and talent agent who’d worked with Prince on media and marketing in the mid-2000s, thought the State Fair would be the perfect place to celebrate an iconic Minnesotan. She didn’t know anyone at the Fair, but no matter: She cold-called the Fairgrounds one day, from the car, and hung up the phone with an appointment with Fair leaders scheduled for the next day.

The result was Unite in Purple — a full day of Prince music curated by his resident DJ, purple lights on Fair buildings and rides, themed Fair merch giveaways and a shoutout from Grandstand performers Charlie Wilson and Fantasia.

After the Fair ended, marketing leaders asked her to attend what she thought was a recap meeting.

“They went, ‘So, what are we going to do next year?’” said Linder, who runs a company called OMG Media Solutions and a recording studio at Vandalia Tower in St. Paul. “Talk about a challenge!”

Linder and Fair leaders developed a marketing and promotional partnership called Celebrating Culture and Community, which is now in its eighth year of highlighting a diverse lineup of Fair musicians.

Throughout the year, Linder works with Nate Dungan, who’s in charge of booking the Fair’s free stages, and Renee Alexander, who oversees the Grandstand and is also now the Fair’s CEO, to identify potential musicians for that year’s Fair. Once the entertainment schedule is finalized, Linder and the marketing team meet to determine which artists will be featured under the Celebrating Culture and Community brand and receive additional promotional support from Linder and OMG Media’s outreach team.

State Fair crews set up the Leinie Lodge Bandshell Stage for duo The War and Treaty on Aug. 26, 2024. The Grammy-nominated band is one of about 30 artists that media agent Monique Linder has helped book and promote during the 2024 Minnesota State Fair. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)

At the 2024 State Fair, the Celebrating Culture and Community concerts included Ludacris and T-Pain’s sold-out Grandstand show, Grammy-nominated duo The War and Treaty’s free concert at the Leinie Lodge Bandshell Stage and nearly 30 other acts. Previous Grandstand headliners included under the brand include Usher; Earth, Wind & Fire and Diana Ross.

“What’s guiding all this — we’re known as the Great Minnesota Get-Together,” State Fair marketing director Christine Noonan said. “And from a marketing perspective, that’s a great advertising slogan, but those are also words we try and act on. We really take the idea of accessibility and inclusivity and embracing our community in as wide of a circle as we can.”

Linder is one of several community partners that help the State Fair reach out to and serve groups who haven’t been as able to connect with the Fair previously, Noonan said.

La Raza, a local Spanish radio station, and its owner Maya Santamaria also identify and promote musicians on the Fair’s free stages and help coordinate Pan-Latino Day at Dan Patch Park, Noonan said. Hmong Minnesota Day, another themed day at Dan Patch Park with stage shows and cultural programming, came about through community partnerships, as have the significant expansion in disability and accessibility options at the Fair in recent years.

Dancers with the Blue Sapphire group practice their form before going onstage during Hmong Minnesota Day at the Minnesota State Fair, Monday, Sept. 6, 2021. The 12-14 year-old dancers perform Hmong, Thai and Chinese dances. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)

“We’re really trying to be that place where Minnesota comes to celebrate itself and celebrate each other — and what does that look like?” Noonan said. “We try and develop relationships that are mutually beneficial. I think it’s important that the Fair doesn’t just use these partnerships to benefit what we do, but ask what the Fair can do for these partners.”

To that end, the Fair pays musicians who perform on free stages and gives stipends to the community partners who help promote them, Noonan said. Buying ads on Spanish radio stations like La Raza, for example, doesn’t only benefit the Fair but also represents dollars flowing back into the Latino community, she said.

And in and of itself, booking up-and-coming local artists of color on high-profile State Fair stages is huge, Linder said — both for the artists’ own careers and for bringing people through the Fair gates who might not otherwise show up.

As part of their promotional efforts, Linder and her team give out flyers and free State Fair tickets, and she calls on Celebrating Culture and Community artists to meet with youth participants in the Innovation Lab, housed at OMG Studios.

This year, Chance the Rapper, who performed at the Grandstand, met with Innovation Lab youth, as have The War and Treaty and local big-band The Men of Motown.

From each of their perspectives, both Linder and Noonan expressed that the relationships between the State Fair and community partner organizations help the Fair better live up to its potential as, frankly, a fairly powerful cultural institution.

“These are partnerships that have come from individuals contacting us and saying, how about this? Or, I’d love to come to the Fair, but there’s this issue,” Noonan said. “We hear, every day, stories from people who say, ‘I’m so glad to be here because I hadn’t been able to come to the Fair before.’”

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Today is Monday, Sept. 2, the 246th day of 2024. There are 120 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 2, 2013, on her fifth attempt, U.S. endurance swimmer Diana Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the help of a shark cage.

Also on this date:

In 1666, the Great Fire of London began, which would destroy more than 13,000 homes and hundreds of additional structures, including St Paul’s Cathedral, over the ensuing three days.

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Today in History: August 29, John McCain picks Sarah Palin for running mate

In 1789, the United States Treasury Department was established.

In 1864, during the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s forces occupied Atlanta.

In 1935, a Category 5 hurricane slammed into the Florida Keys on Labor Day, claiming more than 400 lives.

In 1945, Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, ending World War II.

In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act, which provided aid to public and private education to promote learning in such fields as math and science.

In 1963, Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers.

In 1969, in what some regard as the birth of the Internet, two connected computers at the University of California, Los Angeles, passed test data through a 15-foot cable.

In 1998, a Swissair MD-11 jetliner crashed off Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people aboard.

In 2005, a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled into New Orleans four days after Hurricane Katrina.

In 2018, a huge fire engulfed Brazil’s 200-year-old National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, as firefighters and museum workers raced to save historical relics.

In 2019, a fire swept a boat carrying recreational scuba divers that was anchored near an island off the Southern California coast; the captain and four other crew members were able to escape the flames, but 34 people who were trapped below died.

Today’s Birthdays:

Former Sen. Alan K. Simpson, R-Wyo., is 93.
Horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas is 89.
Former United States Olympic Committee Chairman and former Major League Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth is 87.
Football Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw is 76.
Basketball Hall of Famer Nate Archibald is 76.
Actor Mark Harmon is 73.
Tennis Hall of Famer Jimmy Connors is 72.
Football Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson is 64.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is 62.
Actor Keanu Reeves is 60.
Boxing Hall of Famer Lennox Lewis is 59.
Actor Salma Hayek is 58.
R&B singer K-Ci is 55.
Electronic music DJ/producer Zedd is 35.