District 196 Will Receive Aid, Squares Away Teacher Licensing Before Shutdown

State aid to school districts must continue during a, according to a ruling Wednesday by Ramsey County District Court Judge Kathleen Gearin.

Because the Minnesota constitution requires a “general and uniform system of public schools,” the ruling makes funding education a critical core function of government. Consequently, for the most part, education aid payments will continue to flow to school districts.

The ruling was good news for the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district, which gets 72 percent of its revenue from state aid. The district will continue all its summer school classes, programs and camps, district Communications Director Tony Taschner said Thursday.

But without the approval of a K-12 budget bill at the statehouse, the state will not fund special education or compensatory education programs, which can be sizeable chunks of a school’s annual budget.

In response, many school boards—including District 196—have passed emergency cash flow borrowing plans to make up gaps from a shortfall in state funding. The district as a borrowing measure this spring, and also opened a line of credit as another somewhat short-term solution.

The district also , or school savings, to continue normal operations during the new fiscal year.

Besides hitting school district budgets, the state shutdown has essentially closed the doors to the Minnesota Department of Education.

With only a skeleton crew remaining at the MDE, many schools will now have to contend with expiring teacher licenses. District 196, however, confronted and resolved the issue weeks before the shutdown, Taschner said.

Teachers must regularly renew their licenses with the Minnesota Board of Teaching, showing that they met certain professional development milestones since their last renewal, among other regulations. Even if a teacher has been in the classroom for many years, he still technically needs a license to run a classroom. No current license, no classes.

The same goes for new teachers. And since many school districts across the state do much of their new teacher hiring during summer months, many new teachers may find themselves with a job but without a license to teach.

Taschner said about three weeks ago the district looked at this issue, and found about 20 teachers who would need their licenses renewed. By Thursday, all but one was squared away, Taschner said.

As far as summer school teachers, only one did not meet the licensure requirement to keep teaching, he said.

Since Gearin’s ruling, which decided the Board of Teaching was not an essential state function, came after the board’s online license-renewal system was shut down on Tuesday, some other districts are faced with the possibility that more of their summer school teachers may find themselves unlicensed to teach. And if the shutdown drags on, the number of licensed teachers available for the school year could significantly affect some of those other school districts.

Following the series of stories in the Star Tribune that highlighted the lack of the enforcement of the state’s licensing rules, the state vowed to crack down on districts flouting the law. Possible sanctions for those districts could include withholding state aid for districts that don’t correct licensing violations in a timely manner. In a shutdown-specific list of Frequently Asked Questions posted on the board's website, it said districts were allowed to apply for special waivers starting Thursday that would keep them out of legal trouble.