House Omnibus Education Policy Bill Released.  The House Education Policy Committee released its bill today and it comes in at 101 pages, which is relatively slim considering that a number of provisions in the bill are resurrected measures from last year's vetoed omnibus supplemental appropriations and policy bill.

The major provisions of the bill include:

• Significant changes to the tiered-licensure program adopted by the Legislature in 2017.  Under the bill, a tier one license could only be renewed once among other changes.  The pertinent sections of the bill are found in Article 3, Sections 10 through 29, starting on page 30 of the bill.
• Nonexclusionary disciplinary policies similar to those in last year's vetoed bill found beginning on page 15.
• Lowering of the age for compulsory attendance from seven to six.
• Several of the special education paperwork reduction initiatives that have been discussed this session dealing with conciliation conference requirements and short-term objectives on individual education plans.  The bill also calls for a working group on the prior written notice.

The committee will spend a lot of time over the next few days with the goal of finishing the bill on Thursday, one day before the deadline for policy bills to be heard in committee in the house of origin.

Here is a link to the bill:  HF 1711 Delete-all Amendment (Omnibus Bill Framework)

Great Hearing on Equalization in Senate Education Funding Last Week.  Two different equalization bills were heard in the Senate Education Policy and Funding Committee last week and SEE was well represented at the hearing.  In addition to my usual ramblings on the subject of equalization, expert testimony was provided by Stewartville Superintendent Belinda Selfors and South St. Paul Superintendent Dave Webb.  Both superintendents did a very good job of explaining how low property wealth school districts are at a great disadvantage when going before their voters for operating or debt service levy approval.  

SF 670 is Senator Roger Chamberlain's referendum equalization bill and it takes a different tack than the usual course of equalization bills by looking at tax effort in each tier of the referendum as opposed to using equalizing factors.  It accomplishes much the same purpose as current law and there's certainly no crime in thinking outside the box.

SF 1237 is Senator Nelson's bill that tackles both referendum and debt service equalization.  It stays within the current framework of the law and in the case of the operating referendum it hikes the second tier equalizing factor.  On debt service, it lowers the first tier eligibility threshold and the second tier eligibility threshold.  This makes more debt service revenue eligible to receive equalization aid and increases the rate of equalization for a number of districts.

Here's a picture of Senator Nelson and Superintendents Webb and Selfors taken after the hearing.  Thanks to all:  the Senators for introducing the bills and the superintendents for testifying.