A fresh start. A new beginning. It’s time to see education through a new lens. With a global pandemic largely behind us, the world has emerged with new ways of seeing. America’s education landscape is now filled with digital technologies, and staff and students are fluent in cyber literacy. Along with all of this technology comes the realization that interpersonal, social and ‘soft’ skills are more necessary than ever. Relationships between students and teachers, families and schools, community members and leaders are at a new level of relevance.
With your help, we can see and fully support all of these education stakeholders. We can bring public education funding in line with inflation. We can feed learners who need sustenance. We can honor inclusivity. We can support families with in-school wrap-around services. We can SEE each and every learner and serve their individual needs. We can create a vibrant future for Minnesota.
Moving forward into 2023, Hopkins Public Schools seeks to Strengthen and Simplify the strategies that worked best during the past few pandemic years. We ask the Governor’s office and the Minnesota Legislature to partner with us to immediately accelerate funding and to allow school districts to expand much-needed services for our scholars and their families.
Hopkins LAC’s highest priority for 2023:
REFORM and STABILIZE the Education Funding Formula to PROVIDE ESSENTIAL SERVICES TO ALL MINNESOTA STUDENTS
Keep pace with inflation, provide a consistent and realistic funding stream that allows school districts to engage in long-range planning
- ELIMINATE THE SPECIAL EDUCATION AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER CROSS SUBSIDIES by delivering promised state dollars, and by working with federal legislators to capture promised - but never delivered - federal funds
- PROVIDE ALL FAMILIES WITH SIMPLE, SECURE, AND SUSTAINABLE EARLY EDUCATION FUNDING to offer brilliant futures to every young Minnesotan, regardless of socio-economic status
- EXPAND AND STABILIZE MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORTS and services by increasing and stabilizing funding, resources, and access
- FULLY FUND PUBLIC SCHOOL NUTRITION PROGRAMS so Minnesota families have equitable access to healthy meals, contributing to overall community health and food security
- ELIMINATE COMPENSATORY FUNDING QUALIFICATION based on free and reduced-price lunch applications, and move toward community eligibility for essential services
- SUPPORT YOUR INVESTMENT IN REIMAGINE MINNESOTA to ensure that public education remains – as written in our Minnesota Constitution – a “Duty of the state Legislature”
- EMPOWER LOCALLY-ELECTED SCHOOL BOARDS to do the job to which they were elected. Grant Local Control to renew existing operating referenda, set school calendars, allow flexible and innovative spending priorities
- DIRECT THE LEGISLATIVE AUDITOR TO AUDIT THE MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IN AN EFFORT TO UPDATE AND REFORM outdated processes, procedures, and assessments which have become disconnected from reality, including cumbersome and inefficient reporting requirements, mandated “seat time” vs. online learning, barriers to hybrid-learning, restrictive teacher licensing procedures, and many more