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Pat Pratt Cook joins Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) as the Chief Human Resource Officer after the Superintendent Dr Bill Green convinces her that HR will take on a more strategic role in the District. Pratt Cook arrives to find an HR department dramatically affected by recent budget cuts and limited by a bureaucratic culture focused on the basic employment transactions. Furthermore, the MPS is in the middle of contentious teachers'' contract negotiations, and Pratt Cook is expected to take a leading role. The MPS negotiating team secures a school-based hiring program, called ''interview and select'', and District administrators work with union leaders to implement the program. A new, collaborative union president is elected and Pat Cook looks forward to better working relationships. However, with each success, Pratt Cook finds that new challenges emerge.