This year tested us, and we showed the world what we’re made of
This was the most difficult year for Minnesota educators since the pandemic. It showed what educators are made of and renewed my faith that, collectively, we have what it takes to overcome the challenges facing our profession.
We began in the shadow of violence. In June, a gunman dressed as a police officer assassinated House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their Brooklyn Park home. He also went to the home of a state senator and his wife and shot them. Thankfully, they survived.
Less than three months later, on the first week of school, a 23-year-old gunman opened fire at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Two children, both under 10, were killed. Twenty-eight others were wounded. The shooter left behind writings soaked in violent, nihilistic ideology.
Then came Operation Metro Surge. Through the late fall and winter, armed federal agents worked near schools and bus stops. A 5-year-old child was used as bait to detain his father. At Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, agents arrested an educator, shoved staff and fired pepper spray at students. Thousands of families kept their children home.
Education Minnesota filed a federal lawsuit in February to restore the 30-year-old protections that had kept schools mostly off-limits to immigration enforcement. We lost the first round, but the lawsuit continues.
At the federal level, the Trump administration withheld more than $2 billion in congressionally appropriated education grants, attached political conditions to school funding, fired 90 percent of the Department of Education’s civil rights staff and signed a national school voucher bill into law.
After everything educators had been through, in May, the people charged with leading American education marked Teacher Appreciation Week with a contemptuous SpongeBob cartoon. You just know it was posted with a smirk. Educators deserve better.
Many go to work even though they feel unsafe. For some, it is the fear of gun violence, a fear that lingered this year in a way it hadn’t before. For others, it is the daily reality of students whose mental health needs go unmet until they boil over, or the anxiety that some of our students may surf the same message boards the Annunciation shooter did.
Through all of it, educators faced spiraling health insurance premiums that consumed wage increases and left them struggling to afford basic care for their families.
One school counselor in Greater Minnesota told legislators this year that she and her husband, also an educator, prepared for eight years to start their family, but the moment that baby arrives, their monthly premium will more than double to $1,464 — with a new $7,000 deductible. Wanting to stay in education, she said, is no longer enough. We need a system that makes it possible. She’s right.
That’s why Education Minnesota is pushing for the Educator Group Insurance Program, which would pool coverage statewide and give school employees the negotiating power they’ve never had. As I write this, the Legislature is poised to pass a comprehensive study of district insurance costs, a necessary step toward creating the pool in 2027.
We’re up to the challenges ahead, as the whole world saw in January. When those sworn to protect became the threat, we turned school hallways into supply closets, rode buses with frightened students, stood watch at school entrances and spoke out when silence was safer.
When families were afraid, educators showed up. When democracy needed defending, educators were there. We do it because it’s who we are.
Our work is measured in the successful lives of millions of Minnesotans. Please never forget that.
Enjoy a short break, educators. You’ve earned it. Then get ready to change our world.
Together,
Monica Byron
Education Minnesota President
