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Five weeks remain in this legislative session and it’s going to be a bumpy ride. The fireworks start this week with the much-anticipated house Education Omnibus bill. (HF 2497). We expect the bill to be up on the house floor on Thursday, but that is not certain at this point. You can watch the proceedings on the House and senate internet links.

We have not heard a schedule for the senate bills. As discussed previously, the Senate has split its bill into policy (SF 1311) and finance (SF 2684). Whether these would be joined for conference committee is not yet known.

Legislative leaders have indicated that the bills are to be off the floor and to conference committee by April 28^th. Another deadline I heard was that the bills should be out of conference committee by May 5^th. Democrats plan to finish on time and would not be unhappy finishing early.

On Thursday the republicans introduced a bill representing their response to the democrats’ education bills. HF 3221. These bills are submitted long after the committee deadlines and are much more of a political statement. But the bills basically fund schools (5% and 5% on the formula) and do not carry a load of mandates. Representative Ben Bakeberg is chief author of HF 3221.

Several policy issues in the bills continue to be problematic. First and foremost for principals is discipline. Last week MASSP and MESPA sent a legislative alert to call your legislators about this. Many of you did, but we need more calls. If you haven’t called (or emailed) your legislator, do so this week. We are attaching the alert again to this update. We are working behind the scenes in an attempt to come to some compromise language, but the discussions are slow.

Other issues in the bill includes bargaining of class size, bargaining student teacher ratios, restrictions on withholding recess, and curriculum mandates. One estimate is that the House bill has over 65 new mandates in the bill. This is subject to debate, but it is fair to say that are several new mandates.

Pensions are a major issue for many educators this year. The target pensions received was insufficient to move the needle on the retirement age question, but efforts continue to shift funding to this area.

The democrats have a four-vote majority in the House and one vote majority in the Senate. Every vote the members take matters. That is why your calls and emails on school discipline matter.

The Governor will give his state of the state address on Wednesday.

I’m pretty sure its spring, but last week it sure felt like summer and this weekend felt like winter, so I’m not sure.

The Education Committees completed their work this week. The staff had spent the weekend putting the bills together. After the bills were posted, the committees conducted multiple hearings with long agendas. These hearings include the staff describing every provision in the bills, scores of testifiers, amendments, and, in the end, passage.

The bills have to go through the tax and finance committees before they get to the floor. It will probably be mid-April before the bills are on the floor.

Both the House and Senate bills contain basic funding for the next biennium. The House bill contains a long list of policy provisions while the Senate passed its policy bill separately.

You can basically forget about the bill numbers that you have tracked for the session. When all the bills are merged into the omnibus bill, the combined effort gets a new number. The House Omnibus Education bill is HF 2497 authored by Chair Youakim. The Senate Omnibus Education Finance bill is SF 2684 authored by Chair Kunesh. The Senate policy bill is SF 1311, authored by Senator Cwodzinski, Chair of the Senate Education Policy Committee. These are the bills to focus on from here on out.

It is expected that the Senate Policy bill will be incorporated into their finance bill at some point so that the two bills could go to conference committee together. This has not, though, happened yet.

The House bill’s key financial provisions:

Increases the basic formula by 4% in the first year and 2% in the second year.
Pays down 48% of the special education cross subsidy.
Expands prekindergarten to 12,360 seats.
Invests $75 in the new comprehensive reading program.
Provides automatic future inflationary increases in the formula.
Unemployment compensation for hourly workers in the summer.

The Senate bill’s key financial provisions:

Increases the basic formula by 4% in the first year and 5% in the second year.
Pays down the cross subsidy by 40% and 47.3% in the first two years and 60% in subsequent years.
Invests in comprehensive reading program.
Does not include future inflationary increases.
Unemployment compensation for hourly workers in the summer.

The committees will have to work out an agreement on inflationary increases in the future and the amount of money on the formula in the second year.

As the session progresses multiple issues are contained in several bills all of which are concern. Key to principals are the discipline bills which fall into two key areas. The prohibition on dismissing or suspending K-3 students and the mandated use of non-exclusionary discipline. These provisions are in both the House and Senate bills. The House combined them with the financial provisions. In the Senate, those provisions are contained in a separate policy bill.

By mid April these bills will be on the House and Senate floors and will be subject to extensive debate and amendments. After the floor sessions, the bills will go to conference committee where the opportunity for additional compromise and amendments will decide the final outcome.

The pension commission met on Monday and reviewed proposals within the budget target established for the commission. The target is the amount of money the Governor, House and Senate leadership allocated to pensions. The amount is insufficient to support any significant pension reform. Advocacy on pensions has been significant, including a rally at the Capitol on Monday April 3^rd. Whether the advocacy will change the mind of the Governor and Leadership remains to be seen.

The legislature goes on break on Tuesday and will be out for a week.

The legislature finished committee hearings on bills for the session. From here on, omnibus budget bills will be the order of the day. Several committees went right up to the second deadline wire, including the Education Finance Committee. Friday found the Education Finance committee covering a full agenda ending around 4:30 in the afternoon, 30 minutes ahead of the second committee deadline.

The House members had to be tired. The previous day the full house went into session at 3:00 PM debating private prisons and transgender bills and concluded around 4:00 AM the following morning. This was the first all-night session for the House, and it certainly will not be the last. All night sessions are brutal.

The agenda on Friday included the last committee hearing on the K-3 suspension ban. The bill, HF 58, completely bans suspensions and dismissals of K-3 students for any reason. The hearing and witnesses were a repeat of past hearings. The stories were familiar, having been discussed over the past 5 years.

The focus of the testimony was the disparity of suspensions between black students and white students. The author outlined cases of different treatment of black students and white students in the same classroom. For example, a black student was suspended for being upset when a teacher confiscated her ChapStick. In contrast, a white student who caused thousands of dollars of damage by kicking in a door was given a time out.

The author stated: “The discretion and subjectivity that are built into our system lead to troubling statistics throughout our state.”

Representative Bakeburg, defended principals asserting that dragging principals through the mud was counterproductive. As everyone knows, he is a middle school principal from Jordan. He supported the additional funding in the bill but urged the committee to listen to the voices of principal leaders—referencing Jason Luksik and Nancy Antione. He said we need to listen to the professionals that know, and love and serve our kids every single day. He again reminded the department that it had yet to provide a report of the feedback from principal listening sessions. Several members of the committee indicated strong support for the ban on suspensions and dismissals. He encouraged a no vote on the bill. In the end, the majority is appears committed to the passage of the language.

The identical language is in the Senate Policy bill making the passage likely.

The week was dominated by the agreement between the legislature and the Governor on budget targets. The decision was made by the “Trifecta” – the Governor, House Speaker and the Senate Majority leader. The agreement was memorized in a one-page document with 38 lines identifying each area of the budget. The general fund target for K12 was $2.2 billion.

The global budget agreement authorizes the education finance committees to begin work on distributing the monies. Staff worked all weekend putting together omnibus bills that will fund the formula, special education, and inflation. The bills will be posted on Monday and Tuesday of this week. News will travel quickly upon release of the House and Senate bills.

Pensions received a relatively small appropriation. Despite concerted efforts by all affected parties, funding of pensions was insufficient to cover the requests for pension reform. Reform is needed, specifically in the retirement age currently required in the system. Pension pressure will continue from now through the end of the session. And these issues are not going away. Monday (today) the pension commission will hear from groups advocating for the reform of pensions.

This week will be eye opening as the budgets are released. Stay tuned.

Several key events occurred during the week. The Governor signed the bill providing free school breakfast and lunch for all Minnesota students at public schools. Breakfast and lunch will be provided regardless of family income. This signature program of the Governor was passed through the legislature with bipartisan support.

The Governor released his supplemental budget. The additional recommendations will cover the economic impact of the free meal program on compensatory funding. The supplemental budget will also cover the implementation of the unemployment insurance a year earlier than previously planned. The cost is additional $135.6 million.

Commissioner Jett announced plans to have Department staff visit every school in Minnesota during the upcoming school year.

The Governor signed an executive order protecting and supporting the rights of LGBTQIA+ individuals. Legislation is currently pending accomplishing the same goals and the Executive Order is a bridge to the passage of the legislation.

On Wednesday the House Education Policy Committee heard the Holocaust and genocide education act. (HF2685, Horenstein). The bill would require schools to offer Holocaust and genocide education as part of social studies curriculum. The bill also establishes a working group to develop the actual education requirements. Under the bill, the genocide studies will not be limited to the Holocaust. Dora Zaidenweber, a 99-year-old survivor of the Holocaust urged the committee to pass the bill with gripping testimony.

On Friday, the Education Finance committee heard a bill mandating class size ratios. The bill (HF2619, Stephenson) requires districts to hire additional teachers in order to reduce class size. The bill proposes increasing the basic education formula by $1,373, approximately 20%. The bill stimulated significant discussion in the committee. Unlikely that a 20% increase in the formula would happen this year, but the debate underscored the needs of schools.

The Senate Education Finance Committee heard the Governor’s budget proposals on Wednesday. On Wednesday evening the committee heard a bill creating a new state department, the Department of Children, Youth and Families. (SF 2399 Wiklund). The bill moved through the committee with relative ease.

The Senate Education Policy committee concluded its work with several bills. The teacher prep time bill was heard. Three principals testified about issues created by the bill. Chuck Ochocki (South St. Paul) Erick Norby (Robbinsdale Armstrong) and Chris Triggs (Moorhead). All three discussed the value of prep time in light of the overall implications of the bill. Principal Triggs indicated Moorhead would likely have to add 30 teachers to cover the gap in classroom time. Ochocki indicated that his school would need approximately $2.5 million to hire the additional teachers. If funding wasn’t available, the district would have to raise class size from 31 to 39 to cover the cost of the proposal. Norby highlighted the rigid approach of the bill and urged the committee to give schools flexibility.

The Read Act, another key bill, was heard in the committee. Principal Maria Roberts did a great job (New Brighton) testifying in support of SF 1273.

The policy committees in the House and Senate wrapped up their work for the session. The focus now is on the structure of omnibus bills to be followed by floor sessions. The House will roll policy into their finance bill in the next two weeks. The Senate policy bill went to the senate floor, but most likely will be added to finance provisions in the future.

Unfortunately, embedded in the policy bills are several new mandates including the requirement of nonexclusionary discipline in place of suspensions and the outright ban on suspensions in K-3. The provisions will result in moving students back into the classroom that would otherwise be out of the classroom for short periods of time. The advocates for ending student suspensions assert that the formerly suspended students need to be in the classroom.

Teachers will be significantly challenged by student behavior when these provisions are enacted.

The legislature hears constantly that teachers are leaving the profession in the first five years of service. The discussion includes comments that classroom behavior is getting more difficult to control. It would have been helpful this year to hear from teachers about behaviors in classrooms and the need to design and support interventions to improve student behavior. The silence of teachers on the discipline provisions in the policy bills was significant. The unintended consequences of the current proposals will be significant.

The news that Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic underwent cancer surgery was sobering news for everyone at the capitol. She is recovering at home and participating in legislative activities remotely.

Principals are coming to the capitol on Tuesday.