State of Shutdown: Questions for Lakeville Schools Include Funding, Licensure, Test Scores

State aid to school districts must continue during the , according to a ruling Wednesday morning by Ramsey County District Court Judge Kathleen Gearing. The ruliing ensures state payments will keep flowing to the Lakeville Area Pulic School District even though the state itself is embroiled in a political sinking ship.

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.

Tony Massaros, Lakeville’s director of administrative services, said that while the details are still being worked out, the district was thankful for the recognition by the court in ensuring schools continue to receive funds.

“Right now, this is positively a good thing,” said Massaros. “It’s fairly complicated, but it will help us in maintaining our cash flow.”

But those payments, for general education aid, property tax credits, and debt service equalization aid, only account for a portion of a school districts annual operating budget. Without the approval of a K-12 budget bill at the statehouse, the state will not fund special education or compensatory education programs—often sizeable chunks of a school’s annual budget.

The Lakeville school district recently secured to help ensure their cash flow ahead of the court ruling. Those funds were to be utilized to ensure payroll costs and other operating expenditures in the event of a state shutdown. It’s unclear if those funds will still have to be used at some point, but the short-term loan will cost the district approximately $40,000 in interest payments.

“It (state payments) will delay the need to go into those funds,” said Massaros. “The whole process is moving pretty fast and there are a lot of questions still, and of course, now we’re dealing with a state agency that’s basically shutting down in trying to get answers.”

Besides hitting school district budgets, the state shutdown has essentially closed the doors to the state department of education.  

Licensing Woes

With only a skeleton crew remaining today at the MDE, many schools will now have to contend with expiring teacher licenses.

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, they still technically need 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.

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 afternoon, districts like Lakeville are now faced with the possibility that some of their summer school teachers may suddenly find themselves technically unable to teach.

Possible sanctions for teaching without a valid teaching license could include the withholding of state aid for districts that don’t correct licensing violations in a timely manner. The Board could not be reached for comment at the time of publication, but in a shutdown-specific list of Frequently Asked Questions posted on its website, it said districts were allowed to apply for special waivers starting today that would keep them out of legal trouble.

State Testing

Critical student test scores would be delayed with a shutdown because the MDE would be operating with a six-person crew. That would prevent schools using those assessments to address student needs.

The results from these “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) and Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) essentially drive instruction at Minnesota schools. Since many districts decide on curriculum changes in August, after those tests results are published, schools across the state will be without a way to see where educational gaps exist and correct any problems.

These tests are also important because they’re used under the federal No Child Left Behind Act to determine whether a school has made AYP. If districts and schools receiving Title I funding fail to meet AYP goals for two or more consecutive years, they are classified as “in need of improvement” and face a battery of potential consequences.

The State of Minnesota is responsible for submitting the local test results to the Department of Education for evaluation. Without the staff to submit those results, an extended shutdown could mean Minnesota schools would miss the federal deadline to turn in their AYP scores—set 14 days before school begins.

MDE Acting Director of School Improvement Steve Dibb spoke to Patch just a few hours before the department’s doors were to close Thursday and said, “We’re not feeling very positive [around here].”

He said it was unclear exactly how the shutdown would affect or delay test scores from getting into educators’ hands because the impact was contingent on how long the shutdown lasts.

“If [the shutdown lasts] a day or two, there probably won’t be much of an effect,” he said. “If it turns into a few weeks of a shutdown then the reports would be delayed … How long? We don’t know … We haven’t had this happen before.”

But the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) told Patch that if the shutdown continues, the MDE can apply for a waiver of the federal reporting deadline, calling the shutdown an “unforeseen, mitigating circumstance,” and predicting that the a school district “would get a sympathetic review from the USDOE since it would get the same treatment as a natural disaster that impedes State operations.”

The difference between a state shutdown and a natural disaster however, according to the USDOE, is that in Minnesota’s current situation, no one from either the state or the local school agencies is communicating with federal education officials. Once the state government is back, the USDOE would wait until MDE is operating and able to estimate when test analysis would be complete and the results disseminated to local school districts, before deciding on a new deadline.

Dibb went on to say his department at MDE had been working with its test vendors and clients to set up a contingency plan so when the shutdown is over, they can pick up where they left off.

“We’ll have to wait until the shutdown is over,” he said. “We’ll just take it as it comes and do our best.”