2022 Archive

MN 2022 Legislative Session

5-23-2022 End of Session:

The Minnesota legislative session ended at midnight on Sunday evening. What seemed like such a promising session, ended without the legislature making a deal on how to spend the state’s historic surplus on everything from education to public safety, health and human services, transportation, and public works projects. It is unknown at this point whether there was enough consensus for the governor to call legislators back for a special session to quickly finish this work.

Thank you to everyone who called and emailed conferees the last week, urging them to fund professional development for teachers. Your voice and stories make a difference. is growing! And during this session, the Senate, House, and Governor Walz all had significant literacy and dyslexia provisions in their proposals. This is in stark contrast to where the movement began eight years ago when no one had heard of dyslexia! We will keep advocating on this issue whenever the session returns, whether it’s in a few weeks or next January as usual.

The Dyslexia/Literacy Coalition that has been working so hard on literacy issues at the Capitol remains hopeful. The coalition of organizations interested in literacy is growing! And during this session, the Senate, House, and Governor Walz all had significant literacy and dyslexia provisions in their proposals. This is in stark contrast to where the movement began eight years ago when no one had heard of dyslexia! We will keep advocating on this issue whenever session returns, whether it’s in a few weeks or next January as usual.

5-5-2022 Update: HF4300 / SF4113 Omnibus education finance bill in Conference Committee - Conference committees can now make final agreements and pass their supplemental budgets before the May 23 session deadline.

4-13-2022 Update: Both the Senate and the House Education Omni bills are moving through the appropriate committees before going to the Senate and House floor to be voted on. Once the Senate and the House approve their bill it will go into conference committee. The two bills will be put together in what is called a side-by-side. One can see language that is similar, the same, or different. If the Senate or the House has language, but the other does not, one side will be blank. The job of the conference committee is to reconcile any differences because the Senate language and the House language.

The Senate and the House omnibus bills are very different. The Senate is allocating $30 million in LETRS training which is the same as the original bill. Unfortunately, the House is only allocating $1.75 million for LETRS training. In conference committee, which should start in the next couple of weeks, these numbers must be the same. The language in both bills will be consolidated into one final Education bill that will go to the Governor for a signature.

SF2872 / HF3300 Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) grant
funding provided. Grants to Licensed teachers who teach in Kindergarten through grade five to
complete the LETRS program. MDE will administer the grants and provide guidance. $30,000,000
appropriated.

Do you like this page?