Legislative Members Meet with School Districts in St. Michael-Albertville

With K-12 education taking up half of the state budget, it’s no surprise that school officials may feel a bit uneasy when it comes time to close the state’s $6.2 billion budget deficit. To open a dialogue between legislators and local school districts, St. Michael-Albertville’s school administrators hosted four members of the Minnesota state legislature Wednesday, creating a forum for superintendents and board members from 13 local school districts to present their concerns and suggestions for the legislators as they work through the current legislative session.

Senate majority leader Amy Koch (R-Buffalo), Sen. Dave Brown (R-District 16), State House Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer (R-Big Lake) and Rep. Joe McDonald (R-Delano) were in attendance and looking for specific suggestions as the schools addressed their four main concerns: special education, funding equity, testing and assessment and mandate reform. An aide for Michele Bachmann, sixth district representative to the U.S. House of Representatives, was also in attendance.

The purpose of the evening was not to ask legislators to give their districts additional funding, but to offer ways they can help local districts without more money, such as working to reduce unfunded mandates and bringing more equity to the current funding formula.

“While most of us can profess to be either republican, democrat or independent, none of us can afford to let politics stand in the way of providing the best possible education for our children,” said Dave Wilson, school board member from Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose.

Wilson noted his support-along with many of his local peers’ support- for the education-related bills currently going through the Minnesota state legislature, including two house files that deal with collective bargaining with unions and eliminating fines to districts when contract negotiations aren’t completed by a certain date. Another bill, House File 88, seeks to eliminate “maintenance of effort” in the area of school counseling, meaning schools would not be legally bound to maintaining their current number of school counselors, and a bill that seeks to eliminate the mandate for two percent of a district’s funding to go toward staff development.

He and other school leaders particularly voiced their support for senate file 56, which would freeze teacher pay for two years; the bill since passed in the Senate on Thursday. This hotly contested bill, Wilson believes, would reduce teacher layoffs.

Perhaps the biggest issue the districts would like to change is the state equalization funding formula, which determines how the funding pie is sliced among Minnesota school districts. As it stands, students in the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth school districts receive at least three times the level of per-pupil funding as those in St. Michael-Albertville and surrounding districts. STMA board chair Doug Birk spoke passionately on the topic, saying STMA spends $7,420 per pupil unit, which ranks No. 309 in general education revenue per pupil unit in the state.

“The travesty is that same student in Minneapolis, just 30 miles down the road, if you take out all the variables-including special education-gets $3,000 more per pupil unit than the kid in St. Michael-Albertville,” Birk said. “How is that possible?”

“The bottom line is if you are going to give us a zero-percent increase in the general funding formula … that’s probably something we can understand,” he added. “But take this moment, take this opportunity, to do something about this school funding formula, because the constituents and kids in your legislative districts are paying for this. Your districts and your constituents are paying more in taxes and receiving less in revenue than any other set of school districts in the entire state of Minnesota.”

In the area of special education, Monticello school board member Jeff Hegle said Minnesota has 95 statutes and 41 rules have either exceed or expand on a federal law. He compared this to Wisconsin, which he said has a strong special education program, with 26 statues and 7 rules exceeding federal law. Hegle and St. Michael-Albertville’s assistant Superintdent Dr. Jim Behle, who previously worked in Iowa, said Minnesota special education instructors lose countless hours of instructional time with students because of excessive meetings and paperwork as a result of some of these additional mandates. Some other specific suggestions Behle listed include sticking with the federal age limit for providing special education services rather than Minnesota’s extended age limit, not providing special education for non-public school students or lessening the number of evaluations and re-evaluations Minnesota special education students receive.

“I think it’s an opportune time, not only for financial reasons, but to give our teachers and administrators time to do what they do best, and that is to lead our staff and instruct our students in ensuring better outcomes,” Behle said.

Koch, Brown, Kiffmeyer and McDonald responded to the suggestions and feedback with mostly enthusiasm and interest, along promises to bring these ideas back with them to the state legislature even though they cautioned that change doesn’t always come as quick as they would like.

 “I’m amazed, when I travel around and see your school districts, just how well you are doing even with those limited resources,” Kiffmeyer said. “That’s because of your commitment to the kids even in the midst of inequity.”