The Minnesota PTA 2023 Legislative and Policy Agenda is represented in a number of bills that are moving through committees this legislative session. Read the whole agenda here.
How can you advocate for every child with one voice?
- We will be periodically asking our PTA members to take action on bills we support – stay up to date with our alerts and contact your state legislators with a few clicks by registering for Voter Voice at https://www.votervoice.net/MNPTA/Register
- We will be looking for members to provide written testimony or to testify in person at committee hearings. If you have a story to share that supports any of the items on the Legislative and Policy Agenda and would like to share it through testimony, contact advocacy@mnpta.org.
Read the full update on bills we are tracking that have been heard in the education committees (for reference SF means a Senate Bill and HF means a House Bill):
FUNDING – Minnesota PTA supports increasing the general education basic per pupil formula by 5% in each year of the biennium and indexing the general education basic per pupil formula to inflation.
- No bills yet heard in committee, but the Governor’s budget recommends “increasing the general education basic formula for fiscal year (FY) 2024 by 4 percent and FY 2025 by 2 percent, with a tie to inflation for FY 2026 and beyond.”
CROSS SUBSIDIES – Minnesota PTA supports full funding to eliminate cross-subsidies.
- SF 8 provides one-time funding to districts to decrease the special education cross subsidy,
- SF 28/HF 18 provides funding to eliminate the special education cross subsidy over the next two fiscal years.
- SF 21 provides funding to eliminate the English learner cross subsidy over the next 4 years.
SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS – Minnesota PTA supports additional state funding for school districts to hire support staff to meet the health needs of our students, including counselors, social workers, psychologists, nurses, and other licensed mental health professionals.
- SF 56/HF 8 provides new revenue to districts to add school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, school nurses, or chemical dependency counselors.
TEACHERS OF COLOR AND AMERICAN INDIAN TEACHERS (TOCAIT) -Minnesota PTA supports policies, programs and funding to attract, prepare and retain an increased percentage of teachers of color and American Indian teachers in Minnesota.
- HF 320/SF 619 sets short-term and long-term attainment goals for increasing the percentage of teachers of color and who are American Indian teachers in Minnesota and for ensuring all students have equitable access to effective and racially and ethnically diverse teachers who reflect the diversity of students.
RECESS –Minnesota PTA supports legislation and/or changes in local school district policies that will increase the amount and quality of recess in Minnesota schools.
- SF 0183 and HF 271 both prohibit “excluding or excessively delaying a student from participating in a scheduled recess period as a consequence for student behavior” or “based on incomplete homework”, except in three limited situations.
FULL SERVICE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS – Minnesota PTA supports expanding access to full-service community schools that bring social, medical, family-centered and before- and after-school services and activities to the school campus.
- HF 21 provides $90 million for comprehensive support of full-service community schools.
COMPUTER SCIENCE – Minnesota PTA supports policy and funding to expand the teaching and learning of computer science in Minnesota schools
- HF 759 includes funding for Department of Education staff and an advisory committee to develop a state strategic plan for long-term and sustained growth of computer science education in K-12 schools, training for computer science educators and development of a high school computer science graduation policy.