2022

The Minnesota Legislature on Friday approved bills to give frontline workers one-time payments for their work during the pandemic and billions of dollars in tax relief to businesses by replenishing the unemployment insurance trust fund. 

Minnesota school workers, along with parents, union leaders and legislative leaders, on Wednesday demanded that any deal on the unemployment trust fund include a fix on a decades-old exclusion of hourly school workers from unemployment insurance.  

Gov. Tim Walz presented real solutions to challenges in Minnesota’s schools, including student hunger and untreated mental illness, during his State of the State speech Sunday evening. In response, Education Minnesota President Denise Specht released the following statement.

President Denise Specht and Secretary-Treasurer Rodney Rowe were reelected Saturday at the Education Minnesota Representative Convention. Richfield teacher Monica Byron was elected vice president. 

The package of permanent tax cuts favoring the wealthiest Minnesotans presented in the Minnesota Senate on Tuesday would leave the state without enough resources to provide students with all the academic and emotional support they need to succeed, said Denise Specht, president of Education Minnesota. 

Graduation rates dipped slightly during the pandemic and significant gaps by race and class persist, according to 2021 data released Wednesday by the Minnesota Department of Education.

On Tuesday, educators and parents will talk about how budget reductions will affect their students and school districts and call on the Legislature to quit sitting on the surplus and settle up with public schools that have been shortchanged for years.

Education Minnesota responded Thursday to the presentation by Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of their supplemental budget for the 2022 session of the Minnesota Legislature.