More suburbs adopt formal process for setting legislative priorities

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.

The Farmington school board has discussed creating a platform in the future, said Sally Reynolds, district spokeswoman.

Whether a district creates a platform itself or advocates for priorities through a larger organization, more districts are throwing their hats into the political ring than ever before.

"I can tell you, 20 years ago, you didn't see this at all," said Grace Keliher, chief lobbyist for MSBA.

A decade ago, districts started becoming more political. Now, when the MSBA trains school board members, how to "share your district's story" with legislators is something that's always covered.

"It is a way of sharing, especially with local legislators, what are your critical priorities," she added.

Some districts, like Rochester, Austin and Bemidji, are active politically, she said, but it's hard to pin down numbers on how many districts create priorities or are otherwise involved in the legislative process.

Keliher said the priorities are different every year, and it's interesting to see which ones many districts agree on, whether they are big or small, rural or in the metro area.

This year, "issues around teacher shortages are huge," she said, and that's reflected in one of MSBA's priorities.

Other priorities include getting the Legislature to add $300 per pupil to the general education formula, providing equitable access to technology and supporting teacher evaluation, including Q Comp, with appropriate resources.

Many school boards this year also advocated for Gov. Mark Dayton to hire a director of the School Trust Lands by passing resolutions.

Many districts belong to other organizations which also advocate on their behalf. The Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD) is one group, and Schools for Equity in Education (SEE) is another.

Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan, the state's fourth largest district, approved three priorities for 2015. They "do align fairly closely with other organizations' [priorities]," said Taschner.

A benefit of creating priorities at a district level is that organizations must cater to many districts' needs. A single district can be as specific or broad as it wants.

A goal is to "focus in on three areas, and try to be brief," said Taschner.

Funding is always topic number one, he said.