End of year reminders
I have provided some end of the year reminders, as we continue to keep our students engaged and work toward the last student day scheduled for May 26.
• Graduation ceremony for the Class of 2023 will take place at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 25, in the JP Gym.
• Similar to past practice, students will be dismissed Friday, May 26, at the following times:
Watkins at 12:45 p.m., E.V. Elementary at 1 p.m., EV-W High School at 1:15 p.m.
• Notifications related to Summer School, Targeted Services, and Extended School Year programs and transportation have been released. If you have questions, please contact your respective building level administration at (320) 453-2900.
Legislative updates
The 2023 legislative session will officially close on Monday, May 22, and the House and Senate have an agreement on the education bill and have passed it to the Governor for signature. Like most education bills, this one has some good and bad, as well as ugly components to it. I’m sure you’ll be reading more about the “historic” investment toward K-12 education, but this bill also includes many new mandates and expenses that school districts will have difficulty fulfilling.
The bill increases the per-pupil funding formula by 4 percent in 2024 and 2 percent in 2025. This is far from historic when school districts are facing 6 to 7 percent inflation and have been grossly underfunded the past 20 years. It will also provide new money for libraries, school support staff, changes in reading instruction, and funding to pick up 44 percent of the cross-subsidy expense of special education. Some of our students need these important services and schools have been mandated to run these programs, but the state only pays for 6.4 percent of special education costs and 28 percent of English learner costs.
While we can all appreciate the financial investment in education, the bill also includes numerous mandates that will create challenges for us at EV-W. Once the dust settles and the detailed language confirmed, we’ll need to address new provisions for unemployment benefits, Earned-Paid-Leave, new graduation requirements in Personal Finance, Citizenship, and Ethnic Studies, along with new labor agreements on class-size and staff ratios.
My most pressing topic, and one that concerns a lot of rural MN school districts is the lack of attention given to the growing financial discrepancy gap in the per–pupil allowance. Each and every year this discrepancy gap among districts continues to grow and results in inequitable programming, opportunities and experiences for our kids. This needs to be the future priority for our representatives, education associations, and MDE as we continue to develop our future leaders.