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At the beginning of this legislative session many thought the legislature would hesitate before enacting new mandates. The past weeks have made it clear this conclusion was wrong. The legislature’s course this year is similar to last year with a significant drive to pass new policy. Whether the legislature as a whole is prepared to adopt the new provisions is anyone’s guess at this point. Last year the policy initiatives were attached to a multibillion dollar funding bill. Absent that attachment, policy initiatives have a steeper hill to climb for passage, but at this stage anything is possible. The following bills received hearings this week.

Rainbow flags: (HF 4273) This initiative would prohibit public schools (and any other governmental entity) from removing any rainbow flag, banner, poster or visual displays of rainbows on any property owned by the state. The bill passed through a House committee and was sent to the House floor. The bill is in committee in the Senate.

Mental Health Assessment: Senate File 1468 provides for mental health screenings of all students in kindergarten through grade 12. Schools would have to notify parents of their plan to conduct the screening and secure parental consent for the screening. Any data obtained in the screening would have to be destroyed within 60 days.

Librarians and Digital Citizenship: Senate File 3474 establishes a Digital Citizenship, Internet Safety and Media Literacy Advisory Council. The council will have 3 teachers, 3 media specialists, 3 PTO members, 4 reps from the Regional Public Library System and others. SF 3471 establishes a state school librarian in the Department of Education. The author of the bills, Senator Kunesh is chair of the education finance committee. She is also a Library Media Specialist.

Statewide Health Standards: Senate File 3746 directs the department to develop statewide health standards. These standards have traditionally been developed at the local level with the longstanding hot button issue of sex education left to local decision making. The legislation requires the new standard to cover vaping, cannabis, substance abuse, mental health, CPR instruction and other topics. The House policy committee plans to take up the bill (HF 3682) next Wednesday.

Attendance: House File 3827 changes the attendance statute requiring all excuses to be in writing. Parents would be required to “verify in writing” the child’s absence from school. A new statewide reporting system would be created to report all absences (excused and unexcused) to the Department. The bill’s author, Representative Keeler, indicated a willingness to work with us on issues presented by language in the bill.

SRO Legislation: The Senate Finance Committee took up the SRO bill on Thursday. It was expected that the bill was on its “glide path to the Senate Floor”. The House bill moved easily to the floor last week. The Senate Finance Committee was a different story.

The committee’s jurisdiction is typically limited to an examination of the spending in the bill. (The bill adds positions to the Department of Public Safety.) The Finance Committee is made up of several committee chairs representing significant legislative power. Members were not shy in questioning several aspects of the bill. The committee talked about prone restraint, security officers, damage to property, interest group influence, and the basic process. A key witness, Commissioner of Public Safety Bob Jacobsen was questioned repeatedly about the bill and potential language changes.

Commissioner Jacobsen deserves thanks from everyone interested in this issue. He has done a tremendous job supporting this bill as it moves through the legislature. Calm, balanced, thoughtful and reasonable has characterized his committee testimony. Interesting to note that his father was both a school principal and school superintendent.

Eating Disorders: House File 3660 directs the High School League to include eating disorders in coaching instruction. The Senate will hear the bill Monday. The League supports the bill.

Book Banning: House File 3782 (SF 3567) is known as the Governor’s Policy Bill. This always includes multiple topics proposed by the Governor (and the Department). One topic of interest is book banning. The proposed language states a school board (or other public library) “may not ban, remove, or otherwise restrict access to a book or other material based on the viewpoint, content, message, idea or opinion covered.”

Next week will be the last week for hearing new bills in the Education Policy Committees. The committee deadlines cannot come soon enough.

This was an unusual week at the capitol. Statewide precinct caucus meetings were held on Tuesday night. As a result, meetings were cancelled Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning to allow legislators time to get home and attend. Several legislators (as well as thousands of Minnesotans) attended the memorial services on Wednesday for Burnsville’s fallen first responders. Legislative work was put on hold out of respect. Several education meetings were cancelled.

The big news came on Thursday morning with the release of the budget forecast. The size of the surplus determines whether the legislature has any new monies to spend this year. The state was maintaining a surplus of $2 billion already. These monies can’t be spent this year, they are necessary to avoid a deficit in the next biennium. Thursday morning the state reported it has an additional $1.32 billion resulting in a $3.71 billion overall. The $1.32 is not sufficient to provide any ongoing funding but can be used for one-time projects and programs. The first claim on this type of surplus is usually bonding. In education, legislators are looking to increase funding for the READ Act. All committee chairs will be fighting for a piece of the small pie.

On Tuesday the Senate Education Policy Committee took up a bill that would require school districts to accommodate students needing to access telehealth medical appointments. Several conversations with the author resulted in final language we could all agree with. Notwithstanding this, a parent testified severely criticizing administrators for the alleged difficulty his daughter had in accessing mental health services while she was in school. It is difficult to sit through one sided stories told to legislators. This happens often at the capitol where testimony is solicited that it the most dramatic.

On Wednesday the House Education Policy heard the Governor’s policy bill. This year’s policy bill (HF 3782 Pryor) is quite limited in scope when compared to last year’s bill. It will be heard in the Senate next week.

The Education Policy committees have two more full weeks of work and one week to put their omnibus policy bills together. Those bills have to be completed no later than March 22nd. Starting next week, authors will be begging for time on committee schedules. Bills that don’t get scheduled are largely done for the session. (Although nothing is ever really dead.)

Several issues are floating around looking for committee hearing time. Next week’s schedules are currently set. On Tuesday the House will hear bills on EPI pens, the administration of drugs in schools and the READ act.

Legislators are talking about rulemaking to develop statewide health standards. The Senate is hearing a bill on statewide health standards on Monday. (SF 3746 Kunesh). The House will hear the bill on March 13. Also on the Senate agenda is the Governor’s policy bill, charter school reforms, and another bill on smudging permission in public schools.

Week two of the legislative session is complete.

One of key issues of the session this year is correcting the legislative actions of the 2023 session. (HF 3489 Frazier and SF 3534 Westlin) The first correction this year concerns school resource officers, commonly referred to as SROs. Last year the legislature passed significant limitations on the use SROs. This resulted in the refusal by several law enforcement organizations and cities to remove SROs from schools. The backlash from this action caught some legislators by surprise. Many had never even heard of the issue given that the provisions had not been discussed in the Public Safety and Judiciary committees. Contained in the extensive list of policy changes, the legislation became both a practical and political problem for elected officials.

After consultation with police, education, and other groups a tenuous compromise has been reached to restore much of what was changed last year. Opposition to the bill is still heard from a variety of sources. The authors (Representative Cedric Frazier in the house and Senator Bonnie Westlin in the senate) successfully navigated the judiciary and public safety committees this week. The bills will move to the respective finance committees next week and most likely to the floor.

The bill will restore school’s ability to employ school liaison officers. A model policy for SROs duties, authority and conduct will be developed. (MASSP is included in the stakeholder group developing the policy.) Two key provisions affect principals directly. First, the bill changes the standard for the use of reasonable force by teachers and principals. The 2023 language required the threat of bodily harm to be “imminent” before reasonable force could be used. The bill removes “imminent” from the statute. Also, changes enacted last year removed references to the protection of property from the use of reasonable force. The authors, with the support of the House and Senate attorneys, clarified on the record that teachers and principals may use reasonable force to protect property. Both authors made sure this was “in the record”. This was much appreciated.

This bill is one of the most politically complex bills of the session. The bill has also taken considerable time and effort on the part of Senator Westlin and Representative Frazier. It’s not over yet though, the bills have to make it across both the House and Senate floors.

Two bills of interest were heard in House committees involving athletic events. HF 3352 (Huot) would allow the Amateur Sports Commission to impose a $1000 civil penalty to anyone who disrupts a youth athletic activity. This includes general disruption, throwing objects onto the field or assaulting a player or official. A separate bill would make assaulting a sports official a gross misdemeanor (HF 472 Huot). Erich Martens, Executive Director of MSHSL testified on both bills.

Much of the time in the education committees was spent on overviews. School districts, students and the Department all made presentations to the House and Senate committees. Drew Mons, Principal of Apple Valley Senior High Testified on Tuesday in one of these sessions.

A few bills of interest were heard during the week though. Representative Clardy presented HF 3363, a bill relating to an old topic, seat time. A key provision in the bill states: “For students in high school, hours of instruction include all hours that a school determines a student is actively engaged in the educational process of the district. All courses must be coordinated and verified by a qualified teacher, as defined in section 122A.16. This type of change can be challenging to some, but witnesses were compelling and the restoration of local control is refreshing. Frank Herman, former Cooper High School Principal testified in support of the bill. (And did a great job I might add!)

House Education Policy heard the “four-day week bill” on Wednesday (HF 1242 Baker). The bill is direct, returning authority to local school districts. Currently, a 4-day week schedule has to be approved by the Commissioner of Education. The bill deletes 'commissioner' and inserts 'school board'. “A school board's annual calendar must include at least 165 days of instruction for a student in grades 1 through 11 unless a four-day week schedule has been approved by the school board under section 124D.122.”

Adoption of a 4-day week is an interesting issue and the experience of other states can make this compelling for many districts.

Next week are precinct caucus meetings. Legislators will go home Tuesday to attend the meetings so a shorter list of business.

The legislature returned this week for the second half of the biennium. The process of reviewing, digesting and implementing the massive amount of legislation passed last May made the interim seem too short. Legislators are back and they are ready to pass more new laws. Leadership has made it clear that there is no new revenue for ongoing money.

The first order of business was an attempt to repair the school liaison office legislation passed last year. The legislature is in a hurry to complete the initial fix of the statute for both practical and political reasons. With this in mind, several meetings were held before the session with a variety of stakeholders arguing the issues. Advocacy groups had successfully enacted severe limitations on schools last session. Limits on the use of reasonable force and the use of liaison officers were cited by advocates as “wins”. These groups are highly resistant to any changes in the statute.

The proposed legislation (HF 3489 Frazier SF 3534 Westlin) allows the return of SROs, requires a model policy for SRO practices and procedures and will modify the reasonable force restrictions on teachers and principals. The bill was heard in House Education Policy on the first day of the session. The Senate Education policy committee heard the bill on Wednesday. The opposition testimony was over the top, with one witness arguing that the proposal would “kill children”.

The bill has a long way to go before passage. It was held up in the House Public Safety Committee on Tuesday night when it appeared a few votes short of passage and was laid over. Leadership will undoubtedly push the bill out to the floor.

The bill will be up in both the House and Senate Public Safety committees next week.

Wednesday was a preview of the legislature’s continuing interest in acting as a school board. The House Education Policy heard a bill requiring 15 minutes of eating time for school lunches (HF 3556 Jordan). More mandates are on the way.

PSEO was on the agenda again. (HF 2535 Hassan) Testifying remotely, Principal Eric Nelson of Chatfield High School provided excellent insights on the various provisions in the bill. The bill again expands PSEO, requires equal grade weighting for PSEO classes and mandates eligibility for awards and school offices. The bill removes the requirement that 10th graders pass the MCA as a condition of eligibility.

A major reform of charter schools was also heard by the committee. (HF 3484 Feist). Charter schools are not required to have licensed principals. To no one’s surprise, this presents problems in the operation of some charters. The bill has many new requirements. One interesting section requires 25 hours of annual training for individuals functioning as unlicensed administrators in charter schools. Several charters already have licensed principals. It might have been easier to simply require charter leadership to have the same license requirements as public schools.

The legislature has started another building project. The House members office building will double in size over the next 3 years. In the meanwhile, the original building is slowly closing. Many of the staff have been moved out of their offices, across the street to an older building. It is an uncomfortable situation for staff. House members will move out of the building and into cubicles at the end of the session. The next three years will not be pleasant for members used to private offices. Cubicles just aren’t the same.

Early discussions are taking place about new monies for the READ act. Monies would be dedicated to teacher training and curriculum.

This second year of the biennium generally involves House retirements. The Senate is not up for election this fall, so few Senators retire at this point. Campaigning is always hard, and that leave will avoid the rigors of campaigning next summer. To date, 15 House members have indicated they are not running again. That number will increase.

Everyone was saddened to learn that Sen. Kari Dziedzic, the majority leader of the Senate, was stepping down from leadership. In a short, heartfelt note, so shared that her cancer had returned, and she was “facing serious challenges”. She reflected on the legislative accomplishments of last year. A public servant to the end, her note urged everyone to get regular checkups and prioritize preventative care. Without question, she is a remarkable leader both publicly and privately. Keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Sen. Erin Murphy accepted the majority leader position for the session.

In This Issue:

The perils of historical simulations - and a better approach
How to handle "trigger warnings" in high-school classes
Problems with classroom behavior charts - and some alternatives
Making data walls more than multi-colored wallpaper
Timothy Shanahan on reading comprehension versus learning
Anticipating algebra difficulties in fourth and eighth grades
The quality of math instruction in different kindergarten classes
Recommended young adult books with a different twist

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