MANKATO — Mankato Area Public Schools will present its 2023 legislative platform to lawmakers on Monday.
Over the past month, a committee made up of parents, district leaders and education stakeholders have worked to create the platform, which includes four key points including school funding, mental health support, teacher recruitment and retention and innovation, Supt. Paul Peterson said.
“Those are the four areas, but the ribbon running through all of those is full support for our kids and staff,” he said.
Peterson said the push for school funding can be broken down into two different areas.
First the district is asking lawmakers to fully fund the general education formula and make sure that it keeps up with inflation.
“It’s important the state general education formula reflects the true costs of educating a student in Minnesota and we need to close that gap,” he said.
This year, the district had to take $6 million from its savings to account for its spending being higher than its revenue, something Peterson previously told the Free Press was a one-time decision made by the school board in part to help bounce back from COVID-19.
The district is trying to get those numbers back in line, by bringing enrollment numbers back up and getting money from the state.
Mankato Area Public Schools starts building 2023 legislative platform
The district is also asking lawmakers to fully fund special education and address how special education is funded.
“When you don’t get special education dollars from the federal government and you don’t get special education dollars from the state government, then you have to use your local general dollars, non-special education dollars to cover those, and so that’s, you’re cross-subsidizing,” he said.
Peterson added that right now, on a yearly basis, the district takes $7 million out of their general operational budget that goes to support special education.
“That is underfunding at the state and federal level,” he said.
The district is also pushing for help in continued flexibility to expand teacher licensure pathways, Peterson said, adding that over the last several years, Minnesota has done innovative work to address the teacher shortage.
“Over the last few years as more and more teachers have retired, fewer and fewer people have been interested in becoming teachers, the state has provided more flexibility to make sure that we have qualified people in the classroom,” he said.
Several parents, like Jolly Corley, were on the committee that helped build the platform.
Corley said it was important to give parents a voice during the process.
“I think there’s two sides of it. One it’s a nice transparency for parents to be on the committee that’s building the platform and two just to have the perspective. I feel like we learn something as parents about the process,” she said.
She said she was glad to see support for teachers included in the platform.
“I think for me, the major thing is support for teachers. There’s a lot of talk about mental health. I think it’s so important that we help our students but more importantly so the students can be supported is making sure we’re supporting the teachers and the staff,” she said.
“Then the achievement gap for me was another important issue that I just want to make sure that we’re really being thoughtful on how we address that, give support to those students who need it and again the teachers so the state can address those needs of students who may need more support.”
This year’s legislative session begins on Jan. 3 at noon.