The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district had a problem last year. A $500,000 problem. They wanted to build a second transportation hub, a home base for the state's largest district-run fleet of buses.
Officials calculated that constructing the facility would save up to $500,000 a year. But the district needed the legislature's permission to use lease-levy money to fund something that didn't directly affect kids' education.
Gone are the days when districts waited quietly and watched state legislators make educational decisions all on their own. Increasingly, school boards are getting political and putting forward their own legislative priorities, hoping to influence legislators' thinking on a variety of issues, many of them budgetary.
Because school district officials included the transportation hub in their legislative priorities, they received authorization to spend the money and build it.
"It wouldn't have been [included in the bill] if we hadn't been actively pursuing that legislation," said Tony Taschner, district spokesman and the staff member on the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan legislative action committee.
The district created its own legislative action committee three years ago to come up with priorities, which the school board then approves.
This year, the Lakeville district formalized its priorities by creating a set of resolutions for the first time in years, said board member Michelle Volk. The resolutions the board chose — along with other districts' priorities — were sent to the Minnesota School Boards Association (MSBA), where they were voted on by 150 delegates from various school boards. Volk was a Lakeville delegate.
"I think it helps the legislators understand the unique situations that each school district comes across," Volk said. "So it kind of helps you to have a bigger voice."