Star Tribune
Educators, lawmakers eye changes that could give Minnesota teachers unions more say in bargaining
Minnesota school districts would have to negotiate with teachers unions over class sizes, staffing ratios and testing policies under proposals in consideration by the Legislature.
Depending on who you ask, the measures would either grant unions an unfair advantage at the bargaining table or balance inequities in that process.
Such provisions are rare in labor agreements in the state. Class size was one of the issues that prompted Minneapolis teachers to strike last year, and an agreement over the issue helped avert a strike in St. Paul. Education Minnesota, the statewide teachers union and a big supporter of DFL politicians, is pushing for those discussions to be included in contract negotiations at a time when that party controls both the Legislature and the governor’s office.
School boards and district administrators across the state are concerned about having such mandates in the bargaining process. They said the requirements may prolong negotiations and leave little room to adjust to shifting enrollment or considerations around closing a school building or redrawing boundaries.
“The school boards association, superintendents, when they saw this language, they struggled,” said Sen. Jason Rarick of Pine City, the Republican lead on the Senate Education Finance Committee.
DFLers and Education Minnesota insist concerns over the proposals are overblown.
“It doesn’t guarantee any outcomes. It only guarantees that we have the conversation,” Education Minnesota President Denise Specht said.
Rep. Sydney Jordan, DFL-Minneapolis, agrees with the union’s take, adding that class sizes have been a contentious issue districts have long refused to negotiate.
“I think we’ve seen the results of not having these subjects of bargaining in contracts,” said Jordan, who sits on the House Education Finance Committee. “Educators are walking out because districts aren’t negotiating on this.”
Unions in Minneapolis and St. Paul secured limits on class sizes in their contracts last year, provisions that previously went in non-binding memos that acted as strong suggestions. In Minneapolis, that language helped end a three-week strike.
Kirk Schneidawind, executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association, said school boards and administrator associations prefer that such conversations happen during meetings between district and union representatives outside of the contract negotiation process.
“There are already avenues through which the exclusive [union] rep can share things that need improvement,” Schneidawind said.
Rarick said Republicans are concerned the legislation may have an outsized impact on rural districts, which may struggle to afford adding staff or classrooms if their student counts exceed the maximum in a union contract by one or two pupils.
The legislation’s opponents are also concerned by provisions that make part-time, seasonal and other educators eligible for union membership. Specht argues those employees are among districts’ lowest paid employees and shoulder an outsized burden in addressing students’ most intense academic and behavioral needs.
“They deserve the ability to unionize,” she wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
School board members, administrators and Republicans argue that contract negotiations should center on compensation, benefits and working conditions. Running the district and the way buildings are staffed, they say, should be the purview of the school board and administrators.
“School boards are in charge of budgets — setting them and making personnel decisions,” Schneidawind said. “When it comes to managing the budget, they need as many tools in the toolbox.”
DFLers and union leaders contend that staffing ratios and class sizes qualify as working conditions. And they say prospective educators have the right to know those things while on the job hunt.
“Educators are making choices about where they work,” Specht said. “I think that what they want is some assurances of what the workplace is going to be.”
She and Jordan also say the legislation would make that information accessible to parents, giving them a clearer picture of the academic support and one-on-one attention a school can provide.
“The current working conditions, as well as the current learning conditions in our schools, aren’t working for anyone,” Specht said, citing the state’s downward spiraling rates of literacy and math proficiency.
Still, the legislation’s opponents say they’re concerned it targets elements of school operations that vary from year to year, which sometimes need a swift response by administrators and school boards.
“They’re issues they have to be flexible on,” Rarick said. “This language scares them because it will really limit their abilities to do that.”
Star Tribune
Former Hubbard County official, school bus driver gets six-year sentence for sex crimes against students
A former Hubbard County commissioner and school bus driver was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for sex crimes involving minors.
Daniel J. Stacey, 60, was charged in April 2023 with criminal sexual conduct and electronic solicitation of a minor, both felonies, in Beltrami County District Court. He was then charged in November with nine additional felony counts related to criminal sexual contact with a minor.
Stacey pleaded guilty in June to four felony counts as part of a plea deal that dropped the remaining charges. His attorney, Joseph Tamburino, declined to comment Friday on the sentence, and officials with the Nevis school district did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Stacey resigned from the Hubbard County Board in January 2023 and was placed on leave from his school bus job during an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) that began after the parent of a Nevis student filed a complaint.
In an email Friday, Hubbard County Administrator Jeffrey Cadwell said he had no comment other than that Stacey’s actions “did not occur within the course and scope of his duties with the County and the County was completely unaware of them.”
According to a criminal complaint, Stacey offered to mentor a 13-year-old male on his bus route. He brought the boy to his property, asked him to watch pornography and tried to touch him in a sexual manner, court documents state.
The boy told investigators that Stacey told him not to tell anyone, and helped him rehearse what to say about doing chores at his property. Investigators said they found footage showing times Stacey would deactivate the school bus camera when the boy was the only student left on the bus.
A second criminal complaint outlines similar allegations against Stacey with a minor who was 14 years old.
Star Tribune
Woman charged as investigation into attack on north Minneapolis homeless shelter continues
A 33-year-old woman has been charged with two felonies in connection with an attack on a north Minneapolis homeless shelter that forced 54 women and children to relocate last week.
Eureka D. Riser, 33, of Minneapolis, is charged with second-degree rioting with a dangerous weapon and first-degree damage to property, according to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. She was in custody Friday, a day after Minneapolis police confirmed her arrest.
Riser, also known as Eureka Willis, is alleged to have been in a group of at least three people who on Sept. 5 went to St. Anne’s Place, 2634 Russell Av. N., and threatened residents, smashing doors with a baseball bat.
Residents were forced to vacate the shelter, leaving it boarded with plywood and watched over by armed security. Building managers estimate that property damage amounts to more than $10,000, according to the county attorney’s office. Additional charges may be brought against others involved.
“This violent attack on some of our most vulnerable community members, unhoused women and children, in a place where they had gone to seek shelter and safety cannot be tolerated,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.
Hoang Murphy, the CEO of People Serving People, which operates the shelter, said earlier this week that the four-hour episode was the culmination of an argument between shelter residents and neighbors over street parking that started days earlier and spilled over into violence.
According to the criminal complaint, which cites surveillance footage, Riser allegedly swung a baseball bat against the shelter’s doors, shattering glass while residents were inside. Another member of the group pointed what appears to be a gun at the front door of the building, the complaint says.
Residents have since been relocated to a hotel for safety reasons, costing People Serving People $9,000 a night — a figure that Murphy called unsustainable.
A man who was shot and wounded by sheriff’s deputies in east-central Minnesota while resisting arrest received a six-month jail term Friday.
Leo H. Hacker, 71, was sentenced in Pine County District Court in connection with his guilty plea in two cases of assault, and obstructing and fleeing law enforcement in connection with his clashes with deputies in February 2023.
Hacker’s sentences will be served concurrently and includes Judge Jason Steffen setting aside a three-year sentence sought by the County Attorney’s Office. Steffen’s terms also include five years’ probation and community work service.
According to the charges in each case and related court documents:
On Feb. 21, deputies tried to pull over Hacker’s pickup truck on a gravel road about a mile from his Pine City home. As two deputies approached his vehicle, he drove toward them. Both deputies opened fire on Hacker and wounded him.
Hacker was wanted at the time on charges of second-degree assault and obstructing law enforcement in connection with allegations that he pointed a gun at a deputy outside his home on Feb. 14 and angrily defied orders to drop the weapon.
At one point, Hacker warned the deputies that if they did not leave, he would return with “something bigger,” the charges quoted him as saying.
The deputy was there to seize Hacker’s SUV stemming from a dispute over his unpaid attorney fees, the charges read. However, law enforcement outside the home “determined that based on the totality of circumstances, it was in the interest of safety to leave the scene at that time” and instead seek a warrant for Hacker’s arrest, the criminal complaint continued.
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