[Music] it is Tuesday March 5th and a quorum is present this is the Minnesota education finance committee and I am now calling it to order today we will be hearing a presentation on school counselors and then we will move on to Senate file 3130 Senate file 3832 and Senate file 3912 um I think uh today is going to be a really important day when we uh are as we are hearing from the counselors one of the things we have heard loud and clear for a number of years is the need to get those services to
our students um as best we can to ensure that not only do they have a friendly face and a and a willing ear in our schools but also somebody to help guide them um to provide provide services when they are having perhaps mental health issues or other issues that are affecting their education um we know that and we're going to hear more about that in in the presentation from our school counselors that um the American school council Association recommends a 250 to one a 250 students to to one couns
elor and that even sounds kind of alarmingly large to me but um we're not really able to to meet those needs um I think the national average is actually uh 385 students to one and in Minnesota um uh I think we are 544 average um to one counselor and so I feel like it's really important that we that we hear from the counselors right from them because that's where we get our information the best information comes right from um from the people that are boots on the ground and and doing the work and
so at this time we will hear uh from school counselors and I believe we have half a dozen uh testifiers so if you would please um at as you are speaking share your name for the record and then you may begin good morning Senator Kunes thank you so much for inviting us my name is Sydney pyrus I am a school counselor in Stillwater area high school uh through the Stillwater area public schools and and I sit on our msca Minnesota School counseling Association advocacy committee um we appreciate your
time today and we want to start off with talking a little bit about what is the State of the State when it comes to school counseling and supporting Minnesota's students and so the premise here today is increasing support and increasing access for Minnesota students if we can go to the next slide please be great for real down there we go cool when we think about our main three issues that we're seeing in the state of Minnesota the first one being that there are insufficient School counseling st
affing needs and when we talk about that Senator Kunes uh kind of gave you a highlight in terms of our ratios Minnesota is 48th in the nation when it comes to school counselor ratios for students often times that is meaning that students are having to wait anywhere from days to weeks uh to even months to get the support that they need and that they deserve and that we pride ourselves as an education system in Minnesota to to help with um this also means that when there are school counselors in t
he elementary middles and high schools it also means that those staff already are significantly overburdened with the roles and responsibilities that we have been trained um very selectively and highly trained to provide to students it also means that at times that we are tasked with responsibilities that we are not trained to do um and have to take on because there are not uh other staff in the building that are doing that and so not only are we tasked with our own training and roles and respon
sibilities but we are also then tasked with a lot of inappropriate um tasks and responsibilities to help support schools part of that reason is that there's been a lack of clarity about our roles and our responsibilities both in this state and elsewhere in terms of what do we do what are we highly trained uh to provide students uh and especially trained to do that and so that is another factor and we find that not just within our own buildings and within you know our staffing District level scho
ol boards and obviously the community as well in at this level and then of course the last thing that that is part of this conversation is that because we are uh specifically trained in a certain way we all require master's degrees and above with a lot of practicum and internship hours that accessing our career field is is tough for a lot of folks and so not only is our profession challenging to enter at times but then once we are actually in the profession the reality of our job is also contrib
uting to students not you know obviously accessing us but is also contributing to folks leaving the field as well um and either going to different states oftentimes we're finding that in North Dakota for example as well as Wisconsin and Iowa um or they are switching professions and going into um a different a different role and so I know that the rest of the folks here will be talking a little bit more about those specifics but just to give you kind of an intro to why we're here today all right
good morning everybody uh my name is Clinton Ferguson I'm a school counselor in Minneapolis I have um EXC me would you mind either bringing the um the microphone a little bit closer or speaking closer to it thank you sorry about that uh my name's Clinton from Ferguson I'm a Minneapolis native I graduated from Minneapolis High uh Minneapolis public schools I work there got kids that go there I live there and so it's really a passion to of mine to be able to serve my community and a lot of other c
ounselors the same it's a calling for us um so the next slide we have is the counselor ratios so in Minnesota it's 544 is the average per counselor so students on our case load I have 576 students that I'm the counselor of record of and and these are 14 to 21 year old students with many many needs and so it makes it really tough to provide the quality service that our students deserve they they deserve it um it makes it really tough you know I'm booked three weeks out and all my replies start wi
th sorry for the delay and I don't want to say that you know and our parents and community members they deserve better than that students especially um so that really high number is it's Unique to Minnesota we've always remained in the kind of bottom three in the nation with regard to how many students the counsler has on their on their case loow Okay so some of the benefits of having school counselors in the building um one improved academic outcomes Studies have shown and that link right under
neath the benefits of lower ratios has all the research and all the data on this um there are improved academic outcomes when there are lower ratios for school counselors It's there uh we get to do more support with the students and we can really help them grow and and learn um increase College attendance so we are like walking dat databases of opportunities for students so even when I'm talking to community members and they're telling me Oh I got a I got a fif fifth grader and they play this an
d they like that in my mind I'm like prescribing resources you know what I mean and there's just so there's so much and we our students deserve this like every student really deserves quality Counseling Services um decreased discipline issues has been found with lower ratios uh often times counselors given our role we are kind of like the glue in the building between teachers administrators we hear a little bit from here a little bit from there um just to give an example like this year I was abl
e to get resources to look into some labor trafficking issues that going on in our building and identify it and and find supports for those students because we're talking to other teachers and we're really supporting that climate and community and culture of the building um with smaller case loads there's also increased student support services so being available for students we're like kind of like a triage I've developed relationships with students where they'll feel comfortable coming to me I
help them through a tough time so you know what I'm going to go to Mr Ferguson cuz he's cool you know I'm going to I'm going to tell him you know such and such has been having a bad day and we're concerned you know and now I'm not going to ignore my duties but you know we're going to I'm going to support that student and we're making inroads to to help students and connect Resources with the student I may not be able to provide the service but we have a a therapist or here's some resources for
mental health supports that that can support you um and then also hire staff morale so when we're support we support administrators and teachers um Everybody in the building so we kind of bring everything together and really help everybody be successful so when teachers need support we help them Advocate um you know as you all know politics is real and even in education unfortunately and so we've learned to navigate those spaces and really help as long as the the student is centered okay but wha
t we found as counselors is that there's really nobody advocating specifically for us except for obviously you all um but that's why we're here to today you know we're here to really get resources for our students so thank you good morning I am cie Maro and I am a school counselor at Central Middle School in White Bear Lake I also currently I'm serving as the president-elect for our Minnesota School counseling Association I see some friendly faces up front so thanks for being here and supporting
us um I had an opportunity along with Sydney to dive deep into some of the um data that is out there on mde and pby related to lentur and positions in the state and it was quite alarming to take a look at that information and see maybe some lack of accuracy or transparency and who is serving in roles across the state and also the lack of school counselors we have in our state So currently there are only 760 school counselor positions across our entire state of Minnesota that means only 58% of o
ur public school districts have a licensed school counselor either full or part-time in their District there's um about half of them are full-time and then the other half are about part-time you can also see that where we are serving the most amount of students is typically at our secondary our high school levels and often who is being overlooked are our youngest Learners and you're going to hear from one of my colleagues in a little bit who works at an elementary school I also do dove into kind
of looking at that ratios of where we are serving students um and who is closest to and by closest I mean still very far away from asa's recommended ratio of 250 to 1 so this is the 10 Minnesota counties with the highest number of school counselor positions they're shown on this map and you can see that most of them are within our Metro region it shows that those ratios range anywhere from 382 to the highest one in the top 10 this is the people with the most school counselors in their counties
to 737 the other alarming information that I found was it was over the thousands when it was in the bottom and some counties had no school counselors including our counties that have our native reservations so those are some important facts that I think we need to consider of who is being served who is being underserved the most and how do we work to strive to that 250 to one for all of our students in every corner of Minnesota hi I'm Megan Reyes um elementary school counselor in Rochester Publi
c Schools I work at Church Hill Elementary and Hoover Elementary so I work at two elementary schools within Rochester um as CI had mentioned we as elementary school counselors are vital act vital import importance to our students of our younger Learners um on the slide here we see that the role of the school counselor we work with our students in the academics and helping them with goal setting we try to do as much tier one so seeing all students um we do this by using our data to drive us and w
e are vital members of our school Community we help them in our three domains which is our academic achievement so like right now I'm helping many students overcome with growth mindset of frustrations when it comes to academics and setting them up for Success when they get to Middle School um personal Social Development we know that when the younger Learners it's important that they have those so social skills and interactions and learn how to handle those big emotions and naming them that way a
gain they're going to be successful in order to make those decisions when they go to middle school and high school um and then the last one is College and Career Development it's also important to know and help our students K through 12 how are they going to be successful once they graduate high school where are they going to go um are they going to go a different career path or are they going to go to the secondary in helping them get through the college application process um trades programs a
nd things like that and we also do a whole lot with our consultation and collaboration with our school Community our family members Administration staff everybody um so it's important that we help support our students in the K12 become those successful citizens of our school Community our own community and then the citizens of Minnesota I can do the next slide this is a little bit harder to read but this is from our American school counselor Association it's our appropriate and inappropriate act
ivities for school counselors obviously on our huge list of our appropriate activities this is our goal is that 80% of our time is spent with Direct Services of our students so it might be us interpreting certain information um giving that small group situations with students doing classroom or town halls with all students to give them the right information or if we're supporting them individually um as some of our other colleagues had mentioned already that we support kids no matter what in all
crises but sometimes we are asked to do a lot of tasks that we are that are not inappropriate that are inappropriate for us so some examples are if we were asked to be more of an administrator when it comes to discipline handling things that are just out of our scope and sequence out of our training um maybe implementing different types of test testing um things along those lines I know from my own experience uh being at two different elementary schools one of my schools there was no admin for
the day and I was the only one who was trained to help with behaviors so I was getting the brute force of it removing students and being an admin that is not my job title um so I feel like there was harm put in that place with some of our kindergarten students who are having a very rough day um from that like I said we try to incorporate as many things and working together with our teammates and helping support each other but again as we said it's important for us to advocate for who we are and
what our roles are hi everyone good morning my name is Carolyn berer I'm a professor at the University of Minnesota and I train school counselors and I'm going to speak a little bit to questions that we frequently get about the pipeline so if we were to open more School counseling positions in Minnesota are there enough folks fill those positions so I will get to that but a few things that I just want to highlight are some things that my colleagues here have already uh hinted at or highlighted u
m one big thing is financial barriers to entering the profession of course any master's degree is very expensive as we all know however in School counseling it's especially expensive because these are 60 credit programs many Masters take about 30 to 45 credits so you can see that's a lot more credits that they're required to be in school for in addition to to that they're required to complete 700 hours of um School experience in practicum and internship settings and what that means is that they'
re in schools for about 25 hours a week on top of taking courses which means they're not able to earn money so many of them have to quit their full-time jobs or significantly reduce their part-time hours in order to complete their practicum and internship experiences and from my experience working at the UFM I would say roughly only 10% of our students are able to find some form of a paid internship um I'm going to turn it over to Bri bis next who's a great student of mine um to speak to that be
cause she's one of the rare students who was able to get a paid internship experience um but by and large most of our students cannot obtain that um and with the high licensure requirements and the significant financial barriers that ends up unfortunately leading to a lack of diversity in our profession uh the majority of school counselors are white women and in my opinion the reason for that is because many students from diverse backgrounds cannot afford to go to get these degrees and afford to
quit their jobs and so that contributes to lack of diversity in our profession um in in addition to a significant challenge with work life balance concerns if you're a caregiver a parent if you have a life which most of us do all of us do um it's very tricky to balance all of that along with grad school um the next slide here what I did was I uh surveyed the five instate uh Minnesota school counselor inperson programs um so that includes the schools listed on the slides you can see U my Univers
ity the U ofm MSU Mano MSU Morehead Winona and St Cloud State and so between these five in school uh excuse me in state inperson programs right now there are approximately 136 students enrolled in School counseling and um across the board about 177% of those are minority students and we calculated that approximately each year about 60 students are graduating from these programs with getting licenses in School counseling however I will add in spite of the fact that those numbers are okay they're
relatively good um part part of our problem is that many of these students that graduate end up going out of state so for example in speaking with Winona they said about half of their students end up going to Wisconsin and the reason for that being that Wisconsin funds paid internships for students and so students go to Wi to get their internship paid for and guess what they end up staying there they don't come back to Minnesota and so we are losing some of our excellent graduate students to oth
er states in addition to more funding in other states there are also um when many of our students say they opt to go to other states because they're when they go to those States they're more able to do the role of what they're trained to do because the ratios are much lower as you saw on the side slide that Clinton shared all of our neighboring states have ratios that are well below 200 plus students below what we are here in Minnesota so rather than putting out fires and managing crises in thes
e other states they're actually able to do the preventative work of a school counselor to be in classrooms to be preventing crises instead of responding to them and so when students are excited to go do the role they'd rather be in some of these other states and um there are links later on in these slides if you're if you have access to the PowerPoint um that shows more in depth what other counselor educ ators across the state are saying um so I just thought I would share a little snapshot of th
at to explain what the pipeline concerns are and I'm going to turn it over to my student Bri to share a little bit about her story good morning I am Brianna bis a graduate student at the University of Minnesota and one of the counselors at North High School in Minneapolis um I want to start by saying thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my experience as a graduate student my program at the U is 60 credits and I enrolled full-time which means I take courses for two full years includi
ng the summer and including 700 hours of practicum and internship I have been fortunate enough to live with my mom and find jobs that were willing to work with my schedule so I can financially provide for myself currently I have a paid counseling position at North High School in Minneapolis that counts towards my internship hours I graduated from North in 2016 and I've always wanted to return to give back to my community I am thankful because I would be it would be extremely difficult to provide
for myself and complete my internship hours for free I feel for those in my Cort who have not received the same opportunity with the demand of our internship hours and class time it is hard to work at paid jobs on the side some are working 16-hour shifts taking care of family members living on their own and some have even more challenging barriers we spend so much time at our practicum and internship sites and it would be help helpful for us to have paid internships it would decrease the burden
and stress of having to balance work in school it would prevent students from um burning out and dropping out which I know many are tempted to do as you've heard we are we are in need of more school counselors and funding internships could be a step towards increasing applicants thank you so briefly I know many of you all have recognized faces and we've met with you about our legislative priorities um this slide I know it's hard to see but I'll just give a snapshot of what we're advocating for
so one is we're really advocating for more policy around clarifying the role of a school counselor so that school counselors have some State uh support on advocacy on to advocate for their role and to advocate for recommended ratios other things that we've mentioned of course are funding paid internships and providing more scholarships and supports to students in the pipeline as well as loan forgiveness to those who graduate so that is just a little highlight of those policy recommendations I'm
going to turn it over to my colleagues to share a few brief stories before we we open it up for questions one of the unique things about being a school counselor is that we are well trained in data and of course some of that is quantitative data based on numbers but then we often times find ourselves in uh a situation where some of the work that we do you can't see in the data it's not very clear um it impacts it but it's not a clear connection and so I wanted to share a couple quotes based on t
he few years that I've been doing uh School counseling one of these first ones came from a parent of mine who we worked very closely together with her student um was a a male student had some academic challenges uh as well as some mental health challenges and uh very tragically years after uh graduation he did pass away and I never knew the impact that I had um on this student and their family until the funeral and at that funeral the mom pulled me aside in tears and said you know had it not bee
n for your role in my students education he would have never have graduated and that was the thing that he was most proud of was his high school diploma um he had started his own entrepreneurship business up north uh doing outdoor work and it was just it was phenomenal and it again you wouldn't have seen that in in a graduation rate or a test score rate or anything like that couple other quotes that I wanted to share because again our our work is so robust and in so many different areas like we
talked about social emotional AC mic as well as postsecondary planning uh some of these quotes are from uh students as well as from their family members and so um yeah first one is thank you thank you so much for uh all the work that you do for our students I don't know where I would be without all of your help I know I've not always been easy to help but I appreciate everything you've done whether it's academic or my own personal issues you've not given up on me when others have I truly believe
that you have helped save my life that was just from a couple months ago a few years ago I wanted to take time to tell you how much I appreciated having you as a school counselor over the years thank you for providing a safe space a place that I can rely on to recruit you've taught me to identify and manage my own thinking errors as well as teaching me how to be kind to myself thank you for all of that another one honestly being in your office was always the highlight of my school day thank you
for always making time to talk to me letting me vent to you helping with my homework other life problems but most of all just letting me be me thank you for everything I think it's been great to see you do this intervention in the classroom I've noticed that the students grades have all improved this semester due to the work that you are doing Additionally the last one that I wanted to share from a parent is I wanted to say thank you so much for everything that you've done for my student the wo
rk that you do is remarkable and you can see the heart that you have for these kids we are very lucky that our students have you to look up to at the high school again I wanted to share those things because you're not going to see that in data points you're not going to see those stories all the time a lot of um you know part of Minnesota nice sometimes is that we work hard when when things are going wrong we dig down we work hard and sometimes we're not always the best at asking for help and so
metimes we're not always great about talking about the help that we get right and so being able to share some of those stories with you again pieces that you're not always going to see in some of the data um but speaks to the the work that we can do and quite frankly some of these quotes came from uh a a my work in a state where I was at 250 to1 um I was out in Oregon before and so I had a 250 to1 ratio and the work that I could do that was preventative that was proactive that was evidence-based
that was collaborative that was Direct Services to students in their families compared to the work that I can do here in Minnesota where I'm at over 400 students to one it's night and day difference night and day and our kids deserve that they deserve having our respect they deserve having our time they deserve having our expertise um and they deserve someone that's in their Corner no matter what and we are just part of that puzzle for them and so you know our work as school counselors is in co
njunction with teachers and parents and administrators and our nurses and our social workers and our school psychologists we are just part of that puzzle but it's a very important piece that our students need and need more of and so we appreciate your time today this slide just briefly highlights the links if you're looking for more information so I just wanted to highlight that um hopefully you have that access to that in your PowerPoint um just real briefly these are our national group and and
our state school counselor Association Along with all of the names of the folks who you just heard testified today so I guess at this point we'll turn it over for questions from the Senators so we're we can popcorn around if I can't answer your question or Sydney can't we bring in our school counselors who can well first of all thank you all for coming out um to the capital this morning and sharing your stories and the kind of work that you do um having been a a teacher for 2 five years and the
last five at a a middle school um I recognize just how valuable Your Role is in the schools and how much our students depend on on the counselors for helping them get through uh unique issues and situations and and also the staff the staff as well uh and so I just I I want to say thank you to all of you for coming here today and sharing your information and your stories and and the difference that it makes um we do have a question from Senator Guston or a comment thank you madam chair first of
all I just wanted to recognize cie who is from Whitebear Lake um go Bears um and then Brianna um it sounds like you graduated in 2016 from North High School and I left there in 2011 so or 2012 so it looks like we maybe just missed you but and you also teach at North Minneapolis is that correct I'm at wasman High School in South Minneapolis got it okay um so anyways I just wanted to say it's it's really nice to see people who've kind of been in the same education circles um this was something tha
t I've been talking about for a long time and I really regret that we couldn't like completely solve this problem last session um you're right I I cannot say enough about what school counselors do in our schools I think it is um I almost feel like the job title does not really explain all of the hats that have to be worn um sorry I should preface that I'm was a teacher for a long time 12 years and I just you guys work so hard I think one of the things that makes this really hard to solve is that
there's no one way like we could put a bunch of money into school districts which we have we could add more and I'm still not sure that that would solve the problem so I like I like the slide that was hard to read but you explained it well about different solutions that you have and I do think that we have to connect it to higher education somehow it's got to be linked to some tuition incent or some training or maybe you know a change in licensing to make it more accessible for everybody um but
it is it's a tough job um I think these presentations are useful I think you should come back every session until we get this solved um and I hate hate that we're losing graduates to Wisconsin I can't say how much I hate that so um as someone who married a Wisconsin I but still I don't like that at all so anyway thank you for being here I appreciate it Senator swedzinski thank you madam chair um there's a lot going on in here and I just want to Echo what Senator gusterson said about how much we
appreciate you being here and hopefully um we don't ever have to have you back because we fixed the problem um but with that said I think you're going to be coming back and I don't know um how to even begin but I know we pride ourselves on an as an education state and I know in 2016 when I was campaigning um I used to tell people we were 44th in the nation counselor to student ratios and people were a Gass at that and now to find out we're 48th in the nation um we've gone backwards not forwards
and I don't know even to begin to answer how that happened over the last um seven or eight or nine years but it's troubling me and then the other thing I I um and I'll get to a question here in a minute but um I know that well I got two questions I guess but there was a one of my high schools had a class they created about six years ago and um because I do believe it was preco and it was a a a class of potential teachers and anybody thinking about going into education and they created this clas
s of about 20 to 25 students that took it that were thinking about a career in education and then they had a graduation ceremony at the last day of class and they asked me to come you know speak at it um and uh less than five were going into teaching after taking a class on wanting to be a teacher and the common refrain was I don't want to work that hard and um which leads me to my first question um the and it would be helpful if you put page numbers on the PowerPoint that's the teacher in me th
at um that wants to point that out um and then my students would always say and put how many more out of how many part so they knew you anyways okay um but this's one chart here um it's um Minnesota school counselor programs um that you yeah thank you for putting that up there um 140 students are enrolled and I'm less than 50% graduate what's happening to those wonderful young people that wanted to choose this noblest of professions um that less and half% end up being a counselor and I hope the
reason I brought started with that story of I found out how hard it is I hope that's not the answer but I'm guessing no no so just to clarify so the number of students enrolled is one number and that's across all programs they it's usually a two-year program so it doesn't mean that they're not graduating just means they're not graduating yet so um approximately you know I would say roughly at the U ofm we have relatively right now it's very very low about 99 95 to 99% of our students who enter t
he program graduate oh yes so it's much much more optimistic than that or that is wonderful news thank you um Madam chair for um okay and then my other question and I know I've met um with one of you at least um about this issue we we know that there's a mental health crisis in our students and our teachers and counselors as well I mean a lot of people in education are hurting and so last um session with the hard work that the chair um did on education funding um we really hoped that the counsel
or to student ratios would go way down and what we found or at least what I found is a lot of money went to administrative positions and not boots on the ground so so to speak and and um counselors that are seeing kids day to day and um do you have any insights or how to thwart the continuation of that um or what we may do as legislators to make sure that the hard work we do clearly benefits a a a person that's actually seeing account uh students on a day-to-day basis thank you madam chair certa
inly so I was speaking with our manager of Counseling Services the other day and having protected funds for school counselors including title 4 would be very very very helpful protected funds specifically for school counselors when we look at other states where they have ratios that are more in alignment with the ask a recommendation um those priorities and recommendations that we have provided are based on how other states stes have successfully navigated this so in those states there have been
the protected funds that are specifically allocated for school counselors there have been um funded mandates that have given suggestions to uh or like requirements excuse me um for those positions so at the high school level it has to look like this at the middle school elementary school and so those recommendations that we have provided um are based on how other states have successfully navigated uh that that specific question um everything from those funded mandates um the recommendations the
re making sure that the job descriptions and what we're trained to do that we are doing the appropriate responsibilities and and trying to take things off of our plates that are you know taking up our time that we're not trained to do um as well as addressing uh like Carolyn mentioned that pipeline piece to make sure that you know we have 760 positions here we're graduating about over a 100 students our school counseling profession is is strong we have the people here and our goal is to keep the
m here and right now that's the that's our concern is that they're leaving our state for others because those ratios are lower they're getting the paid internship opportunities and they're able to do the job that they've been trained to do and they're the feedback they're giving us is they're not able to do that here in Minnesota thank you madam chair I just have one observation I met with a 100 students in one of my high schools and I asked them simple questions that didn't require a long answe
r and um but the these were the questions has has your mental health declined postco how often do you feel unsafe how often do you read for pleasure those results weren't very encouraging um how many hours a night do you do have for homework and the first question I asked them was how long does it take to see your counselor and the number one answer was one to two days um very few students said immediately but a couple did but one to two days was um the number one answer so thank you all of you
for being here today it's a pleasure and an honor Senator fenworth you have a question or comment yes thank you thank you madam chair um so in my office in Hibbing high school I'm right next to the counselor's office and so I hear the the tears and the laughter and and the joking through the wall because it's not a great wall um and so I I certainly wouldn't question the value that you bring um but I think one of the things that I want to bring up is and and this is more of a suggestion as far a
s your your um your goals or your your suggestions to us as far as how to increase the number of counselors in the school um you know the the tuition reimbursement that sort of thing everybody's trying to do that nurses are saying we need to pay for tuition so that we'll get more nurses and for doctors and for dentists and and at some point it dilutes it so much that people are like well you know if I can get free tuition to do this why would I become a school counselor and my recommendation wou
ld be I heard a couple of my colleagues here say boy we wish we could have done it last year um we had a record amount of money last year we should have been able to do this but we didn't prioritize it we prioritized mandates and I I interestingly enough I read an article this morning from NPR that said School districts in the Twin City's metro area even with all of this record money are going to have to cut $300 million and most of this is because the Mandate so I would I would say that maybe i
n presentations like this they stop mandating the heck out of us let us do our job so the school districts have money that they can prioritize for these sorts of things um because this is something that's important as I said I my office is right next door of the counselors I hear and I'm like oh thank God I'm not over there having to deal with a 14-year-old crying um but we have to allow the school districts to have the funding to do that and we're not doing it the reason that we're falling fart
her and farther behind is because we are the state of 10,000 mandates and you were talking about we need funded mandates well we have a lot of unfunded mandates so that that would just be my suggestion I I agree this is something that we need to do um it's something that we probably should have done last year and it was counterproductive all of the districts except for one in my Senate District have to cut after all of this record money that was bragged about they all have to cut and I know they
all want to add counselors and they're not able to do it so um you know other than you know maybe the paid internship is probably something that we could look at you know I when I did my student teaching I couldn't believe that my friend who was an actuary was going to get paid to do a to do a internship and I think that's something that's worth looking at but in general in education we have to get rid of the Mandate so that schools can hire counselors and I would say that's something that that
your organization should be pushing and saying stop mandating us we we do a good job we don't need the state micromanaging every single thing we do thank you well your your uh Viewpoint is well taken Senator farnworth but let's just remember that we put $60 million in student um Aid support Aid and uh in some instances some of that was mandated but also some of that was um up to the districts to use as they please so we did put a a substantial amount in there Senator fenworth thank you madam ch
air so my question then to the testifiers of that 60 million how many new counselors were added was it used for that I'm coming up from behind because this is an area that I've talked to a couple Senators on the committee about already so we have started to look as an association at some of that data and our data is only from what we've gathered so far MD probably will not have those numbers for probably until next fall um but as a Misa as our organization we started Gathering that information e
arly this fall to see how um it was impacting our fellow colleagues across the state of Minnesota and a lot of districts and what we've heard back is that the funding when it trickled down to our actual school districts was not enough to actually increase the number of school counselors psychologists or social workers in their buildings it may have taken a a part-time position and made it a little bit more full-time in one of those roles it may have taken a grant-funded position and made that so
it's sustainable and no longer a grant-funded position but we heard from very few colleagues around the state that they actually took like their school counselors from 10 in Hibbing to 12 there was no great change in the number of school counselors social workers or Psych olist being added to our state and that's I think where that trickle down came the money just wasn't enough to make a difference and I think when you were talking about the mandates I hear you and feeling your frustration ther
e I think when we're coming at it right now from our organization we are coming at it from a policy place we would love for for the state to to see our role as bigger than it used to be as a guidance counselor helping create language around the robust job that we do do as school counselors and setting that kind of expectation or recommendation for that 250 to1 that districts can start to strive to to better serve our students there are so many students in our state that do not have access to a s
chool counselor and so by starting here it's not a mandate but it's setting some language around policy about how we can better serve our kids in in the state followup farnworth Senator Farnsworth thank you madam shair no I mean she said it the the 60 million didn't add and I think part of that is because of the mandates gobbled up all the rest of the money so there wasn't money to add to that 60 million and we just need to stop mandating and allow schools to do to do their job and again senator
of Farnsworth we did um very intentionally put those dollars towards that of course it's up to the school district to use those dollars as best they can so uh even when we don't mandate sometimes those dollars don't get to where they will be we know that pby will have more information for us next year or next week on this in on this very topic and so um with that information we'll be able to perhaps re-evaluate and look at where those dollars are going uh Senator umu verba you wanted to say som
ething thank you madam chair I I just think it's important for us to recognize that we've been dealing with DEC es of underfunding of our schools so we did amazing work in this committee last session to try to catch up but we're still catching up right and I think our majority has made education a priority um something that was desperately needed in the sessions before this thank you followup far Senator Farnsworth thank you madam chair uh I find those comments interesting because none of my sch
ool districts have had to cut money until this year so this majority is the majority that caused my school districts to have to cut money all of them except for one so that's an interesting comment any other comments well counselors unless you have anything to leave us with we just want to say thank you again so much for taking time out of your today and coming here this morning and sharing with us and and really building um a very colorful conversation um this is something that we are you know
it's not a oneandone as as we said last year um we we started to do the work that we can um after years of of lack of Investments it was our first year at it um one year isn't going to fix everything and uh this is really one of those things that is is foremost on our mind so uh if you have any closing comments please go ahead otherwise thank you again so much thank you we appreciate your time this morning yes agree thank you so much thank you all right I think we are going to move now to um Sen
ator Hoffman's Bill 3130 uh in the meantime I'd like to recognize our audience has filled in quite nicely today is amsd uh day on the hill The Association of Metro school districts I know we have school board members here parents District staff um students and uh we just appreciate all of you coming to the capital today and sharing your thoughts and ideas I'm I'm sure many of us will be meeting with you throughout the day I see many uh my school district is here and um just appreciate the work t
hat you do to support our schools as well and so with that um Senator Hoffman Senate file 3130 Welcome to our committee it's nice to be back Madam chair I appreciate you taking time to have me here and there should be an A1 amendment in front of you that's uh my author Amendment just updates the dates from uh 2024 to 2025 so if somebody could move that I'd appreciate that all right Senator swad zinski would you like to move the A1 so move Senator thank you um Senator uh swedzinski now Senator Ho
ffman would you like to to speak to that amendment I will absolutely Madam chair I said that in my intro it just changes the date the effective date 2024 to 2025 I want to thank Senators Ric Senator you Madame chair Senator AER and Senator Marty for uh being co-authors of this bill um and to that point the um kids in need Foundation creates what is Equitable learning spaces through the distribution of supplies and resources investing in teachers and students and underserved schools promoting equ
ity in schools that is an invaluable social investment that gives children a reliable foundation and fosters a broader perspective a quality education equips the students with knowledge about themselves and the world around them and ultimately empowers youth to make decisions for their Futures the kids in need Foundation is the only National nonprofit focusing on the nation's most under reses served schools those where 50% or more of the enrolled students are eligible for free or reduced meals t
hrough the national school lunch program in Minnesota alone Madame chair 2023 the kids in need Foundation supported over 11029 to students and 4,82 teachers and approximately 351 underresourced schools across 20 counties um at the schools they serve through the programs and initiatives 50% or more of the enrolled students are eligible for national school lunch program services and that just sets the the bar of of the um of of the economic need that's there Madame chair Kids in Need Foundation is
seeking um Grant matching funds to help establish a 60,000 square foot distribution center for teachers and students in Roseville and if any of you have ever toured the existing uh organization structure that they have and to see um what they're doing it is absolutely Buzz with teachers coming in and they're able to get things for their students for the classroom that's there uh the multifaceted facility will repurpose the former Minnesota Department of Ed building that's encompassing the Minne
sota teacher resource center and volunteer Center School Supply Warehouse and general office space and the facility not only provides Minnesota teachers with access to free resources but also supports specialized programs like the rule and Indigenous School equity which is called rise directly addressing the unique challenges that are faced by these communities the expanded infrastructure will enable uh kids in need Foundation to offer increased support to the greater number of students and the
number of communities across the state Madam chair and with that Corey Gordon CEO of kids and need Foundation is here we have um Michael Houston who's a Minnesota teacher of the year I think there's a video on that and then uh kids and need Foundation board president Heather Green from the 3M corporation uh there's also a video as well in in your packet there's a fact sheet about the grant that breaks Downs the cost by item and as well as a teacher impact survey so with that mam chair Corey Gord
on before we go we do have to um move that A1 Amendment and so um Senator Ric we are going to lay lay this bill over um members do you have any questions on the A1 Amendment okay seeing none all in favor of adopting the A1 Amendment please signify by saying I hi any opposed okay the amendment passes and Mr Gordon would you like to go ahead thank you well thank you for the introduction Senator Hoffman Madame chair lead Ric members of the committee appreciate the opportunity to be here in front of
you and talk a little bit about the mission and work of kids in need Foundation we're a 30-year-old National Organization headquarter just 20 minutes from here in Roseville and uh We've a service teacher ERS and students all throughout this great state as well as throughout the country and uh for those of you who may not be familiar with the organization we're uh ranked in the 99th percentile and as a fourstar uh uh charity by charity Navigator we are profiled by great nonprofits and we're plea
sed to have the Platinum transparency seal from guar candid so those are some of the Watchdogs and uh entities that reviewed nonprofits across the us we also pair it as a short video as a way of introdu intruction many of you are current or former Educators so you know firsthand what it's like to have students come to school lacking supplies many teachers as you know are filling in the Gap there by providing supplies and buying supplies out of their own pockets and so we exist to ensure that for
both teachers but also for the students that they uh they see every single day that they are getting the resources they need to be in school and to stay in school and we provide these resour resources and supplies at zero cost to the teachers schools and the students it's completely free of charge to them and so as a quick way of introduction here please uh take a look at this video can we get some volume please nonprofit focused on the country's most underresourced schools where 70% or more of
the enrolled students are eligible for free or reduced cost meals through the national school lunch program these chronically underresourced schools receive significantly less funding annually and disproportionately serve students of color Kids in Need Foundation left a lasting mark on the educational landscape of Minnesota by extending its support to 11,292 students and 4,820 teachers across 351 underresourced schools the organization demonstrated an unwavering commitment to fostering educatio
nal equality through targeted initiatives and resource distribution Kids in Need Foundation significantly enhance the learning experiences of countless students and provided support to the dedicated teachers shaping their future in 2023 Kids in Need foundation made significant strides in its Mission collaborating with nearly 60 different communities across a diverse array of counties in Minnesota the organization reached communities in the sount metro area and Beyond establishing meaningful Part
nerships with schools to distribute essential supplies engage with local stakeholders and Implement growth within our newer programs like rise Rural and Indigenous School Equity well I have to ask you as an educator what are new school supplies to students I mean we think of it as just school supplies but there's so much more to a student who may not be able to afford this oh there are so many students that can't afford it there's so many kids so many families I mean they they can't spend this a
nd you know when I first started teaching this is the start of my 41st year and when I first started teaching we have an issue yeah this we have an issue we have a gap we have to absolutely have to fill and we have kids that don't have what they need and what you do by giving to this place is invaluable thank you keep doing it with the support of additional funds Kids in Need Foundation is poised to make a transformative impact on education this strategic initi itive aligns with our mission of c
reating Equitable learning spaces expanding teacher resources and facilitating program expansion State funding coupled with generous contributions from supporters will be instrumental in providing Kids in Need foundation with the opportunity to continue its mission of fostering educational equality and positively impacting the lives of students so there's a quick introduction of the work that we do and we provide services to teachers and students a few different ways uh we uh Cally operate 40 Re
source Centers throughout the us but our Flagship Center is here in Roseville at our location where teachers can basically come and shop for free they come once a quarter we know teachers don't have big sto rooms in their schools so they come once a quarter so as they can replenish the supplies that their kids are using each quarter and uh when they come it's literally like going to a small retail Staples Office Depot type store where they have an appointment they come in grab a shopping cart go
up and down the aisles take the supplies that they or their students need and when they check out there is no cost to them we thank them for coming we appreciate them for being the teachers that on the front lines of education and we look forward to uh seeing them again next quarter and we do that throughout uh throughout the state so it's that Resource Center is available for any teacher who is at a qualifying School as well as open to school counselors School nurses and other Educators at the
se qualifying schools and again at zero cost for teachers who aren't able to make it to our Resource Centers we actually ship the supplies directly to them so whether it's in remote uh communities throughout the state whether we are servicing an entire School District we will Direct ship the supplies to the teachers so that way they can get the supplies that they need and for themselves and for their students now we had a couple of um uh Senator Hoff penin we had a couple of special guests that
we were hoping to uh be here with us um if we could get the thank you um one of these guests was uh is Heather green but unfortunately she's on a plane right now and was not able to make it uh she is um the vice chair of our national board of directors unfortunately uh she is as I said on the plane she travels quite a bit she's in her role as a global president for 3M 3M has a great example of the type of corporate support that we receive both here in our home state as well as throughout the US
and uh it's because of corporate Partners like 3M that we have never been in the public sector before we've been funded by corporations both from a cash and product perspective and so this is our first foray into the public sector 3M also provides an army of volunteers for us through their employees and that's another good example of the type of support we receive here in our wonderful State uh from corporations both large and small churches universities fraternal orders as well as just neighbor
hood groups parents individuals literally every single day we have volunte an army of volunteers that come to our Resource Center each day and thanks to the corporate support and the volunteer support we operate with a 98% efficiency ratio which only a very small handful of nonprofits across the entire country can tout now with that said in our story teachers are the heroes of our story and so the other special guest that we were hoping to attend well he's a teacher and guess what he's doing rig
ht now he's teaching class so late last night he said I'm sorry I can't be there but I want to send a video as a as a way of being there participating with you and with that I'd like to introduce Michael Houston the current Minnesota uh teacher of the year hello all thank you so much for allowing me to share my experiences with you I apologize I couldn't be there in person my name is Michael Houston and I'm a mathematic teacher at St Paul Harding High School and I'm the current 2023 Minnesota te
acher of the year Harding High School has approximately 1,800 students 90% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch 94% of our students represent marginalized communities and 33% of our students are English language Learners so school supplies for us are a necessity each school year our district only allocates $1,500 for the math department for which I am responsible to share among my 14 colleagues and our 36 students per class for an entire school year so as you can imagine school sup
plies only go so far in a career that only allows teachers to write off $300 for classroom expenses school supplies can get really expensive really fast however I am indebted to the kids in need Foundation which solely exists to help students obtain the school supplies their families could not otherwise afford I am grateful to the kids in neat Foundation which exist to help teachers meet the needs of our students so they can walk into our classrooms ready to learn with pride from pens to pencils
binders to notebooks book bags to art supplies some of which we are encouraged to take an unlimited amount of kids in need Foundation has become an invaluable resource that has made Might incredibly taxing yet incredibly rewarding career much easier to balance manage and afford thank you we look forward to being able to have Michael and Heather join us at some other time and hopefully uh you'll have a chance to meet them you all are welcome to come to our Resource Center in Rosevelt at any time
to come talk to the teachers directly and see what firsthand the work that we do several of you on this committee have already been there Senator Hoffman has been there as well and you have have seen um the seen what the work it is that we do for the teachers and for the students the funding we're looking for really is three parts one we want to be able to expand our resource Center to support more teachers we also want to be able to ensure that when the teachers come to our Resource Centers we
have the supplies that they're able that they need for themselves and for their classrooms the second part of what we're looking for is to expand our Rise program Rural and Indigenous School Equity Rural and Indigenous communities are oftentimes have the toughest challenges in having access uh to these supplies Logistics is obviously a challenge these days in the US and so we want to be able to do more for Rural and Indigenous communities and the third component is we truly do want to serve ser
vice the entire State uh and the funding that we received to be able to move be to Greater Minnesota up north uh uh to the remote corners of the state we want to be able to increase the support that we are able to provide for those teachers and those communities so that way even if they can't come to our Resource Center here in Roseville they can still get the supplies that they need because we're going to get send it directly to them that's our mission and I turn it over Madam chair for any que
stions that the committee may have thank you so much Mr Gordon and um yes I I uh enjoyed my visit with you this summer but also shared with you that over the tenure of my uh teaching career I visited your establishment a number of times uh really really seeing firsthand uh what a difference it made when I was able to have pencils and pens and erasers and rulers and paper that notebooks that uh students didn't have um coming into the media center and you know just saying do you have a pencil and
I could say yeah go in the drawer and there's a bunch of supplies in there take what you need and it was because of the um the foundation that was able to provide those those supplies as well um I know back in in at one time there was even like decorations for your room uh which eats up a teacher's salary and uh seasonal um opportunities you know for for room decoration that we would end up sending home with the students and there was nothing more than a thrill to be able for a kid to to be able
to take their you know some of those decorations or some of those items home to their famili so um I do thank you and I thank you for reaching out to the um the school in Greater Minnesota that identified as being in need and appreciate the your your willingness to work with um the expanded school districts across Minnesota um members uh oh Senator R you had something you wanted to say uh thank you madam chair and you know I am a co-author on the bill because I see um this and especially when u
h the testimony we heard from uh Mr Houston um we can see what the need is um and how this helps um but I think we also have to have a discussion I think this is a great followup uh from our last presentation um you know we are our schools are in great need and they are struggling with the dollars we do give them and then we're also looking at expanding and we you know we gave a lot of money out to nonprofits um last year which is actually taking away from what our schools can do and I think tha
t's something it's a hard discussion that I think we have to have as a committee is should we be focusing our dollars to our schools and only to our schools through this committee or are we going to continue to go down the road of um giving money to nonprofits um one of the things that I look at you know too as we um as I've looked at a lot of this we have the categoricals which drive more money to schools that have the English language learner and free and reduced milk and then a lot of these n
onprofits are also going um and serving those schools which um when we look at the bill that uh Senator Lucero had and we hear from all these schools like um that are at the bottom of the funding formula that they get the least amount per student every year this is continuing to drive that difference of what our schools are getting um per student and so I think even though a lot of these are such you know these nonprofits do great work and we support it we have to have this discussion are we goi
ng to if we're going to continue down this road um which could be a good thing I'm not saying we shouldn't but then I also think we should be looking at it and you know a bill that I have around um education savings accounts if we're going to direct money to nonprofits why aren't we also then directing money to parents so that they can make choices so I think these are hard discussions that we should be having as a committee um do we want to focus all of our funding to our school schools and giv
ing them the most flexibility to use it the way they need within their districts or do we want to break it up and assist nonprofits who are going to help but then if we're going to do that I also believe we should be giving some ability to parents to make uh some of those decisions and where are the money is going to go that they feel could help um their their children the most so thank you madam chair and again I I do support this it's a great it's a great foundation and the work that they do u
h but it's a part of a big discussion that we need to be having here uh thank you Senator R and I'd be happy to have that conversation with you if you ever want to reach out to me and and talk to me about that I think we do have to recognize the role of nonprofits in our society and uh the amount of support that they provide in so many different ways schools cannot be uh the only source of support and resource to to our communities um you can we heard today the role of what it takes to be a coun
selor um and uh I talked a little bit about schools not having the supplies that they need or the students not being able to um access all of the resources so uh these nonprofits are Partners in this they are doing a lot of the hard Community boots on the ground work that that our schools aren't able to do because of the limitations that they um that they also have and I think we owe a lot of success to uh the those organizations and we support them in the ways that we can so that they can conti
nue to do that poverty um housing all of those things um have been an issue in our our communities in our society for for so long and as I say time and time again um this is our first year being able to address or our second year um trying to address some of these issues uh if there are issues that you have I'm I'm happy to hear them if you have Solutions I'd like to hear your bills or see your bills at least and um if there are unfunded mandates please let us know I I did see a list from you gu
ys the other day uh briefly and I can say that most of those things we we did we did put dollars towards and uh we will continue to do that and make sure that that the schools have um the resources they need but it's going to take some time to do that and nonprofits are part of that equation and so any other questions Senator sadinski thanks for coming in I just um I'd like to encourage all the members of both education um committees to visit your facility um and hopefully um it's just a wonderf
ul experience and um I just want to thank you for you and your team for the hard work that you do to make um so many kids and teachers and counselors and social workers and all the people involved in education breathe a little bit easier every day because of your efforts so thank you thank you Senator yes uh that invitation is available uh when uh Senator swedzinski came out he asked several questions of me and I was happy to respond you know what those are some great questions look at the teach
ers that are in the center here please ask those questions directly of the teachers and hear from them directly why they are here and the value that's being provided so I would encourage all of you to please come and uh see for yourself thank you thank you so much um Senator Lucero thank you madam chair and uh I appreciate the words uh that you gave just a few minutes ago but I want to take you up on your your offer to hear ideas and so I do have a solution and that solution is currently drafted
at Senate file 3885 and that is as uh Senator Ric uh brought up districts at the bottom continue to fall further and further behind in terms of the per puple funding and that Gap continues to widen bills such as this exacerbate that ever widening Gap while poverty and other issues are absolutely concerns that we need to to focus on and have solutions for but another item that is just as important is academic opportunity and that ever increasing Gap is snuffing out and limiting academic opportun
ity for those districts at the bottom and so Madam chair I'm just taking you up on your your offer if you have I think your suggestion was if you have ideas I'd like to hear them sign it file 3885 and Madam chair you offer also solicited here you'd love to hear our bill so I'm wondering Madam chair if you'd be willing to commit to hearing having us uh uh Committee hearing this year on SF 3885 thank you Senator Lucero before I answer Senator um gson would you like to you had something you wanted
to say thank you madam chair I Echo Senator lucero's um conversation starter about Equalization which is commonly known as we also have a bill it's co-authored by Senator kruin um be happy to advocate for that to get a hearing as well but I just want to say that that is a bipartisan issue to make funding more equal for schools um and it is an idea it's one of many um I think what's you know for those in the audience who are not picking up on it maybe the conversations about um Choice means vouch
ers vouchers is a completely different conversation that really wouldn't address a lot of of what we're talking about here um but Equalization is something that hopefully we'll get um a further conversation this session or next session um but there are many people working on that and um SF 4184 if we're just going to be uh throwing up Bill numbers as one that people could look up as well thank you very much thank you and um we will be looking at possibly hearing these of course there's always a
cost to that we don't know what our um numbers will be this session um but I think it's really important to to recognize that um well there are communities that are are sincerely struggling to pay the um to pass referendums or to be able to put more money into their school districts many of those on that bottom um 20 that you talk about are actually schools that receive the least but maybe have the most in our state because they do have a a strong Tas T tax um base and um their communities inves
t in their schools by passing referendums and that's what makes up the difference from between the formula and the categorical so um those are things that we are looking at that we are talking about if we don't hear bills it might be because their funding is just impossible to to address but also that um the bill doesn't necessarily uh solve the problem that is there so we will continue to have these conversations and and Senator farnworth thank you madam chair uh a couple of comments that you m
ade pequ my interest um first of all the bill we won't know if it's going to meet the needs until we have a hearing on it and so why wouldn't we have a hearing and I guess my second question or maybe not question but my second point is if we don't know the cost we can't hear the bill because we don't know the cost maybe we should cancel this committee until we get our targets because we why are we hearing any bills if we don't know the cost so we might as well just Council committee Senator Farn
sworth what I really enjoy is um giving the opportunity for these organizations to um share the good work that they have done within our communities so we're not going to cancel that sorry uh Senator um you wanted to say something thank you madam chair I just wanted to uh say thank you for coming I had an opportunity to visit um kids and needs found Foundation over the interim um not quite in my district but just north um and I'm a proud daughter of a now retired um public school teacher and so
I just know how hard it is to get those resources and to get those supplies so thank you for the work that you're doing every day thank you and thank you for your visit thank you so much and I'm sorry that we got kind of sidetracked on um different uh ideological issues but we do appreciate the work that you and your organization is doing and the impact the positive impact that it has on our communities uh when teachers know that they can go get the supplies that they need that lifts up their Sp
irits it lifts up the the student Spirits it um adds those resources to our schools and to the our communities I know you all work so very very hard um at doing this where and I just want to say thank you for coming in and sharing those uh those successes and um appreciate the work that you all do yeah thank you madam chair thank you committee you bet all right next we have Senator swedzinski Senate file 3832 Senator sadinski we will be laying this um bill over for possible inclus inclusion in o
ur um future Omnibus Bill and uh appreciate you being here you may begin when you are ready um thank you Madame chair and members a couple years ago um a woman I worked with for decades called me up and asked if I'd be willing to um allow a student to Shadow me and so of course I we love when students Shadow us and so she shows up and um she was a recent immigrant into the United States her family came from Vietnam when she was in n9th grade and she loved meeting with me with constituents and lo
bbyists and um a hearing that we had that day and so it's the end of her visit and she's sitting on my couch in the office and she starts crying and um I didn't know what to say and finally I I just asked are you okay and she goes and again her family came here when she was in ninth grade she was a senior she's looks at me and she goes I can't believe I live in a country where I can go visit with my elected officials and watch them work and I just love that moment and that's part of our job as u
m legislators is to Foster and nurture our Our Youth and to build in them a sense of civic virtue and political efficacy so that they someday when they take on our roles as senators and and and representatives and um um research staff and interns and Pages they can say things like my um love for this state in this country began with my work with the youth advisory Council so with that said um I have three speakers I think today and I'm going to turn it over to them thank you madam chair good mor
ning and welcome um uh former representative davney we welcome you here this morning as the uh executive director of the Minnesota Youth Council if you would like to share what you have to share with us thank you m thank you madam chair and members uh I am Jim Davy I'm the executive director of the Minnesota alliance with youth we are very happily the host Agency for the Minnesota Youth Council I'd like to start by thanking senator swedzinski for authoring this bill today but also for being a li
aison between the Senate and the Minnesota Youth Council I'll try to be brief uh as I know I'm between the committee and a student testifier and I think I know the committee well enough that they want me out of the way and to hear from this the student uh the mission of the alliance is working in partnership with youth to ensure that all young people have Equitable educational opportunities that Foster their individual assets honor their voices and prepare them to reach their goals it's that hon
oring their voice es that the Minnesota alliance with youth looked to when we first started advocating for the creation of the Minnesota Youth Council 10 years ago and we're successful in that in those 10 years the youth Council has served as a leadership development opportunity for young people across the state it is a Statewide entity that is in statute uh unique in that it is tasked with advising the governor and the legislature on issues of to Youth and we work actively with the youth to dev
elop their skills and develop their voice to take their place in the public policy process because we recognize what you recognize which is the best public policy is made with the voices and the input of those most concerned and most affected by that policy and when we're talking about young people and their policy that affects them we help provide a unique conduit two young people to participate in that process the challenge for the alliance is with the exception of two years of those 10 years
the state has provided no financial support for the operations of the council so the state created us the state directs us to engage in certain activities but for the most part has not provided the financial wherewithal to accomplish those goals we've we do actively fundrais from foundations for that uh for funding to operate but the foundations kind of look at us like but you're a state created thing shouldn't the state be supporting you and that's what we're here about today uh Madam chair mem
bers thank you for the time today I'm going to get out of your way uh so you can hear from others thank you very much thank you um Mr Davy and uh we have a student that would like to speak or would you like your um perhaps Miss uh Miss mayawa uh the director of Minnesota Youth Council would like to speak first okay yes thank you so much Madam chair um I am also going to be very brief to allow for arjin to really take the spotlight today um but I just want to thank you all Madam chair members of
the committee for having us and hearing this bill um the Minnesota Youth council is a very inspire iring place to be and if you guys ever have the chance it would be great to come to one of our Retreats one of our meetings um I started this job at middle of December last year and I'm every day inspired by the brilliance by the knowledge the capacity of the youth that serve on this Council and I also want to point to the diversity of our Council um before starting this job I wasn't as intrenched
with young people from districts very far away from mine right I live in West St Paul um I don't have anything to do with Northfield because that's not where I stay or you know where I play or visit um but I'm inspired by a young person from Northfield because of the diversity of our Council we we hit all eight congressional districts um in the state of Minnesota and then we have four extra members that are large members and then through a Mirad of um activities they developed their learning the
ir engagement skills their ability to be true representatives of their of their um of their pairs I should say because part of what we do is amplify those youth voices and they work really hard to understand like what's going on in my community what are other young people besides myself saying and what are they looking to have brought up to the legislature last week we had um youth day at the capital that was attended by over 500 students and our youth Council was able to hear a bill on climate
education um and provide their feedback to the authors of those bill on what they think young people want to see um in the state of Minnesota so just wanting to let you know like the youth Council does great work it's filled with young people who have all the aspirations um and goals and energy to really create a positive change in um in our society and I see them being the the future lawmakers of our society so really just here to ask for your support for the bill and then I am going to pass it
on to arjin to also provide his personal testimony thank you thank you so much thank you so much for for sharing that and I know that um many members of the youth council do um sit on the different committees or discussions within our state government when that there are decisions to be made about the youth and I think that youth voice is is really so very important and so um we have a young man here Arun uh if you would like to State your full name for the record and we'd love to hear what you
have to say um good morning chair my full and members of the committee my full name is Argent k Ren and then um well before I start um T find on the bill I want to thank the bill out there for like their support and encouragement for youth leadership and youth voice in the state of Minnesota um but we going on to like the Minnesota Youth Council specifically as one of the largest youth voices like throughout the state of Minnesota and one of the largest like connectors between the youth and the
and the government um the youth um the Minnesota Youth council is one of the it's a really crucial group for all people in the of Minnesota um the youth really are like we are the world's future and that's something that I feel like should resonate like heavily with all of the today's leaders in um Minnesota that eventually the youth are going to be the leaders of the world and they are going to be the leaders of the future and that's exactly the purpose of the Minnesota Youth Council which is
to make um the leaders of the future on the subcommittee which I serve on specifically the education Equity subcommittee we're working to ensure um schools across across the state of Minnesota have Equitable inclusion and opportunities for all their students our current project is a survey which will be sent out to schools across the state about um student voice in decision- making at school board meetings and school DEC School districtwide decisions in general um the other subcommittees such as
like the Juvenile Justice subcommittee the environmental justice subcommittee or like the health and wellness subcommittee are they're all also working in unique and like transformative ways to improve the state of Minnesota for not only students but also adults and ultimately the future because that's really what we're hoping to improve the future CU that's what the youth are we're going to be the future um the work of the youth and like I said the work of the youth Council ensures a beneficia
l future because every single seat in this room will one day be filled by a member of the youth every Legacy will be overtaken by a member of today's youth which is why we need as much support and encouragement for members of the youth um by increasing support and funding for the Minnesota youth Council the demographics regions and the amount of communities we can reach are truly unfathomable um I've seen firsthand how many people I've interacted with and how many people I've reached because of
the Minnesota Youth Council by just an increase in funding for more activities and more events we can have so much more um Outreach and so much more support um p on like a more personal level I'm in Youth and government which is ultimately just fake government but even still in Youth Government I'm I was elected as the Secretary of State and because of that I got to interact with so many different people in fake government but even in that fake government I saw how many how much change they want
ed to create and how much Drive they had and that's and the Minnesota Youth council is making real change in real government for the members of the youth we serve as a voice for the future um through the activities events and different um things that we um experiences that we host and encourage we encourage conversations and connections between people on all sides of the many spectrums whether that's political um social class or anything else um so really the Minnesota Youth council is more than
just legislation and policym it's Community enrichment in all aspects for all people of the state of Minnesota whether they're old or young um whether they're poor or rich or whether wherever they're from throughout the state of Minnesota it's really investing in the future and therefore I urge you all to support the bill in front of you thank you uh so much for sharing your your um experience with such a positive Life Light and congratul on your role in Youth and government I too was a youth a
nd government student and I remember sitting in my seat um in the lower right hand of the house with my friends saying someday I'm going to sit here and I'm going to have my name on one of these desks really not expecting that to happen and lo and behold uh many years later so these experiences that our youth have at a very young age uh can have a lasting effect and it might not be an immediate decision but uh all of you are our future and we appreciate the time and the energy that you and your
families and your schools put towards that um that effort so thank you so much for being here today members do you have any questions or comments seeing none Senator swedzinski any last words nothing that this fine young man um didn't already say more eloquently than I can thank you all so much again for for being here this morning and with that um Senator sadinski we will be um holding Senate file 3832 over for possible in inclusion in our future Omnibus Bill thank you madam chair and members t
hank you so much all right our last bill of the day is Senator gustavson Senate file [Applause] 3912 you're this it's just us right yeah online okay Senator gustaffson you have the A2 Amendment would you like to speak to that Amendment uh yes Madam chair sorry let me get my mouse here um it is really just putting it adjusts the eligibility and cost and gets the bill in the shape we need to go forward all right members any questions seeing none all those in favor adopting the A2 Amendment please
signify by saying I I all opposed oops the uh Amendment passes and is adopted uh thank you Senator I understand you have some test or would you like to speak to your bill as amended yes Madam chair thank you um just quickly SF 3912 makes school lunch milk available without cost to the student or parent as peros with the A2 Amendment so last year we passed Universal School meals um but because of federal guidelines according to the National lunch program students who brought a lunch from home wer
en't able to get a milk unless they took the meal which is a practical um so to accommodate our elementary students uh we're going to bring forward SF 3912 which provides provides one free milk per day to K through five students um and again only to the students who want the milk nobody is required to take a milk but it is for those students who bring a meal from home and then um would like a milk that is you know obviously milk is perishable so it's better to have it at school um they're not re
quired to take a milk um this is eligible for both private school students and public school students but it eliminates the confusion around preschool meals and whether or not students have to take a f full meal just to get the milk um it's not an unfunded mandate for those interested uh the fiscal note reflects the cost that would be reflected in our education budget to cover the cost for schools if it is adopted um and passed and you'll notice letters of support from the Minnesota milk produce
rs Association and the Minnesota school nutrition Association and whenever you're ready Madam chair we do have a testif two testifiers one online and one in person that are ready to go thank you so much for bringing this forward I know it's sort of a uh one of those things that you just don't think about until you start to implement a a program and I appreciate you bringing this forward once again and for the work that you did on making sure that all our students have the opportunity um to eat a
breakfast and a lunch at school at no cost to their families I think it's called a lunchbox tax break family tax break what is that yes M chair well it's it's money back in the pockets of uh those who live in our community the average family in Whitebear Lake saves about $1,800 a year so that's money back in a sense a tax cut thank you um first of all we have uh Leah Gardner if you'd like if you'd like to um state your name for the record and you may begin yes uh thank you madam chair and membe
rs uh my name is Leah Gardner and I am policy director at Hunger Solutions which is the advocacy branch of the food group and uh I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of Senate file 3912 which offers free School milk for elementary students that are bringing their lunch from home when we launched the hunger-free schools initiative um a couple years ago we did that because we know how important it is that all students have access to nutritious meals at school uh and that's
beneficial for their overall health and well-being of course and their ability to learn we we also know uh that students have a range of of dietary needs and in some cases that might necessitate them bringing a meal from home that can better meet their needs um and and we also know that regardless of whether a student is eating a meal prepared at school or at home we want them to have access to uh a full range of nutritious options including milk um as a a nutrient-dense product um so by offeri
ng no cost milk one thing that we are addressing is we're eliminating that incentive to take a whole meal if they already have one brought from home um you know with no intention of eating it just to get that milk which then means that we're eliminating the potential for that food waste that we don't want to see in our schools so we we find this to be a common sense bill um a practical solution as we're implementing free School meals for all you know we want to tackle these little um issues as t
hey come up and make sure that we're not creating confusion in the lunchrooms uh and we want to make sure that all students have access to milk as a nutritious option to support their growth and learning potential thank you thank you so much Miss Gardner thank you for all the work that you do with Hunger Solutions as well next we have um Glenn Ritter is there he is welcome Welcome to our uh committee Mr Ritter uh Mr Ritter is the Food Service supervisor at the St Michael Albertville School Distr
ict if you would like to state your name for the record and you may begin awesome uh thank you madam chair and members uh again my name is Glenn Ritter Food Service supervisor for the St Michael Albertville School District as well as the vice president for the Minnesota school nutrition Association and I'm here to offer msna support uh to provide uh free milk to students to bring a lunch from home was proposed in Cate file 3912 as you know that a Monumental bill was passed last year to help offe
r a free breakfast and lunch to all students on school days it's been a wonderful investment in the future of uh Minnesota students by ensuring they have uh fuel needed uh to uh uh to learn effectively at school and uh this has resulted in some increased participation in breakfast and lunch programs and this has been a great positive outcome uh for students however there has been some confusion among families um that bring a lunch from home uh one many wondering why there's a cost for a carton o
f milk uh when meals with milk are served free of charge uh so for example in my school district St Michael Albertville uh my department has received a number of uh phone calls this year uh from parents asking why their student has a negative balance in their meal account uh since meals are free uh for students this school year and as a department we explain that only complete meals are served uh free of charge so the carton of milk is part of a complete meal but alone is not eligible for uh eli
gible to be served free of charge under the Minnesota free School meals legislation uh again we feel like the nutritional benefits for milk is an important piece to help students learn and perform well in school and hopefully this will limit some of the unhealthy beverages sometimes that we see uh students bring in their lunch from home whether it's a soda or other sugary drinks um we want to um give them that nutrient-dense milk and so they'll help them concentrate and learn effectively um afte
r launch so again I think it should be you we need students need equal access to uh pre serving of milk uh during school meal service if they bring a milk from home or bring a meal from home sorry um this would help clear up the confusion for families um while sending a consist consistent message about the benefits of U milk as part of a balanced meal and so msna would urge you to vote Yes to Senate file 3912 thank you for your time thank you so much Mr Ritter um any questions uh from the St Sen
ator Ric thank you madam chair U first question is why is this uh limited uh up only to the fifth grade level Senator gipson yes thank you madam chair thank you Senator Ric so the anecdotes that we heard throughout the community over the summer with the places that seem to have the most confusion were the our youngest students just because they were they were ler they're not usually in charge of packing their lunches they were coming in assuming that a milk was coming and it wasn't and if you go
back to the uh Minnesota Dairy Farmers Association we just know that having that uh nutrient D option for them especially at such a young age is important um we just you know that that was what the cut off was made and the determination was based on that if that helps follow up uh thank you madam chair I I do uh see a little bit of a a problem with this I believe every school district in my area element is K through six and we're going to be telling the sixth graders you don't get this but ever
ybody else does so I I see some problems with with that language um limiting it to their um many schools elementary goes through sixth grade and uh we're going to create problems with that um and then just a a question quick maybe for our um staff um on line 1.1 five where we def you say wholesome milk um is there is there a what is the purpose of wholesome in the state statute language is that clarify something is that I I I just sometimes we have to look at the words on the page and make sure
it's not going to actually cause a problem um it just seems to me you know we don't I don't think we Define wholesome milk anywhere and I think just stating milk would actually be far clearer for the state stat stat you so oh I'm sorry madam chair is that for me or for well if you would like to respond first of all and then we'll ask our our support staff here too to respond so Senator Ric I would love to accept an amendment that extends it to sixth grade as well I think that that's a great idea
so I'd be happy to make that change um if you had that ready or we can work on that later um and then also just to address but I will rely on Council to clarify it further but I believe they're talking about like not chocolate milk if that helps it's got a lot little bit more sugar in it so we're trying to get away from that thank you thank you uh Senator Guston and I'm just going to ask um Mr uh arneson to respond to the question about wholesome milk Madam chair and members um to Senator Ric's
point I don't believe wholesome is is a defined term in the nutrition code um I'm not certain whether it's a defined term in the kind of Federal Regulation um it's a knowable answer but I don't know that answer right now I'll just note for the information the committee that the ex the existing language for example at line 1.13 of the bill um uh with regard to the kindergarten the existing law kindergarten milk program uses the word wholesome and so uh perhaps as uh drafters were were preparing
this bill they just kind of copy pasted that that that that language has been around I think for at least 20 years uh so but I can track down more information for you yeah thank you m arenson and I think we also have to think about um the milk itself you know I would think that skim milk might not be the best choice we know that those youngest un users need the calories and the fat from certain milks it helps with their um the their this is a long time ago I learned about um the milin sheath in
the brain and and the nerve endings and the importance of actually having some healthy fats in the diet which is why I'm sure we don't see skim milk I know at one point there was chocolate milk there was strawberry milk there were all kinds of different opportunities thinking that we were doing kids a favor by um offering these these uh flavored sugary milks and um so I'm going to um kind of assume that that's that's the case and we have to remember that um much of this the food that uh we serve
is um also supported by at the federal level by the Department of Agriculture and they have very strict guidelines as well Senator U may do you had a question or comment yes uh thank you madam chair um Senator gon I love your bill I did have a recommendation to address Senator R's point I think we have a definition of Elementary School in 128 at05 which is prek through six or any portion thereof so that might be a useful Amendment thank you Senator any other comments or questions uh Senator Far
nsworth thank you madam chair um thank you Senator guson um I have a couple of questions first I'm just wondering kids with um lactose intolerance is is can this be um interpreted to like if if somebody needs almond milk or something because it doesn't say dairy milk so I just I'm assuming that that is how it could be interpreted but what what's your thought on that Senator guson thank you madam chair well as someone who sits on the a committee and has no desire to make the milk uh Association m
ad at me um I would say that that this is what is available according to the National lunch program and so this is what we're sticking with so yes it would just include dairy milk in the sense of milk from cows and not plant-based milks that would be a something that a student would have to bring from home if that was something that they needed Senator farith followup um thank thank you madam chair um my next question has to do with the fiscal note and then last year um uh the Senate passed the
free lunch meal and it turned out to cost significantly more than what was estimated and so and this might be a question for staff I'm wondering if we have any assurance that the fiscal note on this is a little bit more accurate than the cost estimate for the free school lunch that we had last year Madam chair I can start that answer if if uh like to finish it yeah so a couple of things and I'm glad that this came up thank you Senator Farnsworth um the fiscal note it that about 25% of students i
n Minnesota so those roughly those who are bringing a lunch from home would want the milk and so they're not forced to take one um it's only if they want the milk it's just an estimate the schools would only be paying for the milks that are actually consumed um last year we did hear a lot about food waste as being a concern for Universal meals so this sort of helps address that concern students no longer have to take a full meal if all they want is the milk so we're trying to just make this comm
on sense and a little bit more effic efficient um and again just the the reason why it is what it is is because the federal government's National lunch program dictates what a meal looks like um and you know if if that is helpful I'll just on your on your last comment too about Universal School meals and costing more I think that that just goes to show how necessary this policy was we find out that more students wanted and needed that lunch or breakfast yes maybe their parents could afford it ma
ybe they could barely afford it either way it's a useful policy that um is very popular um in Minnesota and rightly so students are getting the breakfast and lunch that they need no questions asked um and if it expands and people are taking advantage of it I think that that's a good thing and I think it's well worth the investment that we allotted for it in our education budget thank thank you Senator gson um um Mr arnison you had a response to the question about non-dairy milk Madam chair membe
rs um yes to SAR Farnsworth question that under under the existing Minnesota kindergarten milk program um if a student has special dietary needs evidenced by um uh written in sand request for for an approved non-dairy substitute to to cow milk um from a parent or Gardener guardian or or medical Authority uh the district um can obtain that substitute and and claim reimbursement from the state program so I I suspect you know this this proposal in front of us would be administered in a very similar
fashion thank you Mr arneson we learned something new every single day there we go uh followup uh thank you madam chair and um I think I'll just make make a a comment rather than a question um with with deficits looming and this kind of goes goes back to our unfunded mandate discussion with with deficits looming next year my concern is that a program like this or the free school lunch will suddenly not be funded um and schools will be on the hook to pay for that and so um I guess my suggestion
it's kind of like Senator Ric's suggestion as far as including sixth graders would be to include some sort of a um a mechanism whereby if the state stops funding this then school districts can opt out of it because this is just this would be devastating I know for my school districts um and I don't believe I didn't see I read through this I didn't see a mechanism that would allow for that but I think that's something that the school districts would would like to have if that funding were to stop
thank you madam chair thank you uh Senator Farnsworth and if there are schools that are um have that fear and that worry I would love to hear from them so if your school district is worried um please ask them to call us or if you know of other school districts that are concerned about that we're happy to have that conversation so that we can put in the safety nets that we need any other questions did you have a response to that Senator gson uh no Madam chair I think you answered that perfectly
okay any other questions or comments well seeing none thank you so much for bringing that forward we know this is one of those those uh areas that um are really important to ensuring that our students have the health uh the healthy and the nutrition that they need to learn and to um to uh grow in a in a healthy way and so thank you again for bringing the Bill last year and then um improving on it even more this year and so members with that um we will uh we will adjourn in just a minute next mee
ting which is tomorrow we will be hearing an informational presentation from the bar Center we will have a presentation on long-term facility maintenance uh ltfm as it's uh so known and then we'll have two bills up one from senator Balon uh around Grant application for PCH programs and then I will be presenting uh the forecast adjustment authorization and appropriation and with that Senate file 3912 is laid over for as amended for possible inclusion and we are [Music] adjourned [Music]
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