2021

Everyone in Minnesota’s school communities must do their part to keep each other safe, said Education Minnesota President Denise Specht on Tuesday when announcing the union’s support for urgent new warnings about COVID-19 in schools from the state departments of health and education.

Eight school staff members have died of COVID-19 in the current school year, matching the number of staffers who died during the entire previous school year, according to data released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Health.

Strong majorities of Minnesota voters on Tuesday supported their local school districts in levy referendums and rejected school board candidates that wanted to deny students access to the information and skills they will need to thrive in a multiracial Minnesota. 

Seven school staff members have now died of COVID-19 so far this school year, nearly equaling the eight staffers who died the entire previous school year, according to data released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Health. 

Education Minnesota President Denise Specht called on state and school leaders to “be bold” in their plans to vaccinate all school-age children against COVID-19 after an U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel endorsed on Tuesday the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old.

School leaders around the state must do more to protect students and staff from the dangerous delta variant of the coronavirus, Education Minnesota said Thursday after the state health department reported the first death of a student from COVID-19 this school year and two more staff deaths. 

Rochester paraprofessionals and teachers will be joined by Education Minnesota President Denise Specht on Monday afternoon to share stories of educating during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The governing board of Education Minnesota has selected veteran policy analyst, political strategist and social studies teacher Carrie Lucking as the next executive director of the largest labor union in the state of Minnesota.