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Nominations open for the 2021-22 ESP of the Year

Nominations are open until Sept. 26 for the next Education Minnesota Education Support Professional of the Year.  The program honors exemplary professional and union work by an Education Minnesota member in any ESP job category, including paraprofessional/education assistant, secretarial/clerical, custodial, food service, maintenance and trades, transportation, groundskeeping, security, technology services, health services and others.  All…

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MEA conference will be hybrid this year

Members can attend this year’s MEA conference either in-person on Thursday, Oct. 21, at the Saint Paul RiverCentre or log on to watch select sessions virtually.   The 2021 MEA conference lineup includes about 70 in-person workshops, focusing on racial equity in education, student and educator mental health, classroom strategies and much more. About a dozen…

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Professional development opportunities

Professional development National social studies conference in Minneapolis  The National Council for the Social Studies will hold its 101st annual conference in Minneapolis, Nov. 19-21. The conference will include 400-plus workshops, featuring the latest in social studies and geography education. There will also be more than 75 exhibits highlighting the latest social studies products and…

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Supreme Court upholds student’s off-campus speech rights

When 14-year-old Brandi Levy was not selected for the 2017 Mahanoy Area High School varsity cheerleading team, she vented her frustration on every modern teen’s venue of choice: social media. From a convenience store, Levy expressed her dismay with a Snapchat photo of her flipping off the camera. Along with the photo was the caption,…

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Two new charter schools unionize with Education Minnesota

Two new charter schools unionize with Education Minnesota  The teachers and staff at Hiawatha Academies, a Minneapolis charter school network, and Great River School, a St. Paul charter school, both voted to unionize with Education Minnesota this June.   Both schools’ bargaining units will include teachers and most non-management school staff.  Great River and Hiawatha become…

Bloomington paras take contract fight public
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Bloomington paras take contract fight public

The Bloomington Federation of Paraprofessionals’ contract has been unsettled for more than two years. And after working during a pandemic, many of whom were on site providing essential child care from the start, the local union decided to take its negotiations fight public.  “Our members have gone through a lot,” said Bill Schwandt, the local union president….

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A loan forgiveness success story

Michelle Lieder, an elementary school physical education teacher in South Washington County, recently got a surprise in her bank account as student loan payments she had made for the last two years were returned to her as she completed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.  “I felt like I won the lottery,” Lieder said. “The…

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Student borrower bill of rights becomes law

Education Minnesota and its allies have been working on legislation that would protect and support those who take on education debt for years, and this year that effort turned into a new law—the Student Borrower Bill of Rights.  “Student loan borrowers like me need someone on our side to protect us from abuses by loan…

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Education budget, federal dollars, create equitable investments in Minnesota schools

Gov. Tim Walz and the Minnesota Legislature approved an education budget that includes the largest single increase in the per-pupil formula in 15 years, a meaningful step toward fully funding our public schools.   The Minnesota Senate passed the budget bill June 30 and the governor signed it hours later. The Minnesota House voted on it…

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Educators, local unions push back against attacks on honesty in education

Karen Rubado, a teacher and local union president in Pequot Lakes, knows exactly when a shift happened in her district.   The then-superintendent filmed a video for an event highlighting rural equity efforts and discussed how educators had gone through training from The SEED Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) and his reasons for wanting to…