Last week was a short week in many respects as a majority of legislators took part in the observance of the three first responders that were shot while answering a call in Burnsville in late February.  That led to the cancellation of most committee meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, which are the heaviest days for education-related hearings although legislators were available for meetings.

The second week of the 2024 Legislative Session is behind us and the primary bill of interest to Minnesota’s E-12 education community in front of the Legislature right now is HF 3489 (Frazier)/SF 3534 (Westlin).  This bill would clear up the confusion that surrounded the passage of the non-exclusionary discipline policy in last year’s Omnibus E-12 Finance and Policy bill and caused a number of municipalities and counties to pull School Resource Officers out of school buildings.

The 2024 Legislative Session started on Monday, February 12, and the Legislature is swinging into action. The first week in the education world largely focused on issues related to school resource officers and legislation aimed at removing concerns expressed by the law enforcement community after changes made to discipline policies during the 2023 session. This became a hot political issue right after the 2023 session as a number of interests—particularly law enforcement—felt that the language in the non-exclusionary discipline provisions past last session was vague and left school resource officers in an uncomfortable position as what they could and could not do in situations that required their intervention.

2023 Omnibus Education Finance and Policy Bill’s highlighted by SEE staff.

And . . . we have a bill! It didn’t take that long once things started falling in place and the education finance and policy committee came to an agreement on Friday and finalized its proceedings on Saturday morning. The outline of the bill should be familiar as the contents in the Senate and House bills—and the Governor’s recommendations—have largely mirrored each other throughout the bill construction process. The major elements of the final agreement were central in the discussion by all participants from early-January although there was a difference in the degree of importance of some provisions accorded to these initiatives in the two omnibus bills and the Governor’s recommendations.