With the late start to school next September, many local school districts have requested flexibility from their legislators for the next school year start date. Earlier Start More than 40 school districts have told MREA their school boards passed resolutions requesting the ability to start school before Labor Day in 2015. The Senate’s omnibus education policy bill (SF 1495) grants … Read More
School Readiness Programs Get Results
An array of research shows that providing students from low-income families the opportunity to attend a high quality pre-school program closes achievement gaps and offers extensive societal benefits. This has led to a growing interest among state policymakers to increase Minnesota’s investment in quality pre-K programming. Impressive Research Results The results from school readiness Pre-K programs are impressive. For example, data … Read More
LOR Equalization Leaves Out Poorest Districts
The equalization of Local Optional Revenue does not reach some of the poorest school districts in the state. The property wealth of school districts in the Central Lakes and Northeast Minnesota regions are among the highest in the state, and yet they have almost no relation to median income or Free and Reduced Lunch Percentages. In these 23 school districts the Referendum Market … Read More
House Reauthorization Stalls in Washington
The National Rural Education Advocacy Coalition (NREAC) in Washington reports that the House reauthorization has stalled. H.R. 5 is currently being held. Republican members are being pressured to vote against the bill, and Democrats are expected to oppose the bill as written. The Senate is still working on a bipartisan bill. The current schedule is to mark up the bill in committee the … Read More
ECFE Fund Transfers Permitted This Year
Many rural school districts are running up balances in Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) budgets and deficits in School Readiness budgets. For this fiscal year only, districts in this situation can request the Commissioner of Education to approve the transfer of funds from ECFE to School Readiness. Because both ECFE and School Readiness funds are “within” the Community Service Fund (Fund 4), these transfers … Read More
Budget Plans Begin to Hatch
As the policy deadlines loom the discussion about respective budget plans is starting to emerge. With a $1.9 billion surplus in hand the debate about education should be a matter of how much and where to spend it. The House Ways & Means Committee meets Monday morning to take testimony on what should be the upper limits of spending by … Read More
Education Policy Shaping Up As Deadlines Loom
March madness is in full swing at the state Capitol. This Monday marks the beginning of the first bill deadline. By Friday policy bills must clear their respective policy committees in order to be viable to continue on this session. Traditionally there’s an omnibus education policy bill and that’s true this year as well. The House and Senate education policy … Read More
New MREA Board Officers Elected
The MREA Board of Directors met for its regular meeting March 3 and elected new officers for 2015. Officers elected by the Board for 1-year terms are: Dr. Christopher Mills, Board President, Stephen Jeremy Kovash, President-Elect, Fergus Falls Darren Glynn, Secretary-Treasurer, Perham Mike Vasek, Past-President, Fischer Luther Heller, Montevideo, will serve with the officers on the MREA Executive Committee. “I … Read More
Transportation Sparsity Revenue Introduced
Rep. John Persell (DFL-Bemidji) presented a bill last week to cover the cost of pupil transportation for geographically large districts. Transportation sparsity revenue provides additional revenue to school districts based on indexes formed by measuring each districts’ geographic sparsity (pupils per square mile) calculated a few different ways and totals about $64 million per year. This bill creates two adjustment … Read More
Many Education Bills in the Air
MREA has been especially busy this year advocating on behalf of Greater Minnesota schools. There are a series of bills in the air. Here’s a rundown of what they are by key issue and where they stand at the Capitol as of now. Each includes the bill authors and where possible, links to their text and status at the legislature. … Read More