News from St. Paul
School Closure Bill
With thousands of Minnesota students still in remote learning, and school reopening guidance rumored in the coming days from the Walz administration, House Republicans held a news conference Thursday to push for legislation that would empower local school districts to make the best decisions for their districts and remove the Governor's ability to unilaterally keep schools closed. A similar proposal cleared its first committee stop in the Senate earlier this month, and could come up for a vote in the coming weeks.
Classrooms are meant to be collaborative and social and interactive. With distance learning, I saw an incredible drop in student engagement, especially among students where English is not their family’s first language. This is not how learning is supposed to take place. We need students in the classroom, learning with each other and from each other. Students need the opportunity to be back in classrooms, learning with their friends, instead of alone in front of a computer screen.
Public Safety Hearings
Late last week in the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform committee, we heard a great bill that would establish a Hometown Heroes Assistance Program, which would provide a onetime payment to firefighters who are diagnosed with cancer or heat disease, develop a trauma counseling program for firefighters, and develop training materials to help firefighters reduce the health risks associated with their profession. This bill is just one small way we can say thank you to our local firefighters.
Thursday, we heard a proposal that would provide funding to develop law enforcement training on issues associated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease, as well as adding categories to the criminal alert network to increase the safety of those with dementia or Alzheimer's. This bill does have a fiscal cost, but I hope that we can find a responsible funding source within this biennium's budget to make these important changes to protect Minnesotans with dementia and Alzheimer's.
Austin Aspires Grants
I want to spotlight a bill that I coauthored which received a hearing in the Education Finance committee this week - HF 156 would add an additional tier for planning and development grants for promise neighborhoods, achievement zones, and other community partnerships.
Our own Austin Aspires program is an example of such a community partnership, which has been a huge benefit for students in our community! You can watch my speech on this bill in committee here.
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