With the new school year starting over the next few weeks, most Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have pulled out all the stops to be able to provide their students with in-person instruction in accordance with state health guidelines related to COVID-19. Masks will be required, social distancing will be followed and student mobility will be restricted.
The challenge for many of these schools now? Their students might not be able to make it to school.
Transportation assistance, along with other services like nursing, counseling and special education assistance, is a form of taxpayer-funded pupil aid that state policy dictates must be provided to all students, regardless of their school of choice. For kids who attend nonpublic schools, however, these services are provided through the applicable public school district, and in some districts where public schools are not offering in-person instruction, they’re also not offering transportation for nonpublic school students, nor other in-person services.
“That’s a serious concern for us,” said Mike Rogers, president of Risen Christ Catholic School in South Minneapolis. Rogers says that over 75% of his student body, which mostly come from lower-income families, rely upon district-provided transportation to get them to and from school. But up to this point, the Minneapolis public school district has said it has no plans to provide the state-mandated service, which Rogers says, “makes things difficult for our families to access the education they have selected for their children, which is our Risen Christ Catholic education.”
Statute 123B.86, which governs transportation assistance for nonpublic school students, gives districts some discretion regarding how to provide busing, and districts are only obligated to provide the service when they’re in-session. But now, some districts are interpreting the statute in a way that some local Catholic school leaders say abuses their role as stewards, not owners, of state funds allocated for students who attend nonpublic schools. They add that though some public schools won’t begin the school year in-person, they’ll still be in-session, and are therefore obligated to provide transportation to all students in their district, noting that the state has said in-person instruction is a legitimate educational option if in accordance with health guidelines.
“Though the district administers these (pupil aids), they should rightfully accrue to public schoolers and nonpublic schoolers alike, even if the public schools decide to be online or in a distant format,” said Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, which has been advocating as part of a coalition at the state level for equitable access to transportation for nonpublic school students.
Through its action, including more than 1,000 constituent messages sent to Gov. Tim Walz’s office and the Minnesota Department of Education, the coalition was able to persuade MDE to revisit guidance issued in early August that originally emphasized that public school districts only needed to provide nonpublic transportation if and when public schools were meeting in person.
A modified version of the guidance, issued Aug. 18, maintains that stance, but now includes language that encourages school districts to “collaborate with their nonpublic school colleagues to develop creative solutions that work for both parties.” Additions also emphasize that choosing to not provide nonpublic school transportation now may affect the amount of funding public school districts receive in the future, and suggest that school districts consider reimbursing parents for the costs of transporting their kids to nonpublic schools. Previous language also made clear that local school districts could work with nonpublic schools to contract independent busing services with the state funds allocated for transportation assistance.
While Adkins is happy that these changes were made, he says the department can and should do more than merely offer suggestions to school districts, especially given Walz’s broad emergency powers.
Another remaining issue is an apparent discrepancy in guidance for how districts provide busing to charter, as opposed to nonpublic, schools. MDE guidance says districts, no matter what learning model they choose for their public schools, are still required to provide transportation for students who attend charter schools that are meeting in person. Adkins says this is slated to play out with some charter schools in Minneapolis, where students who attend nonpublic schools like Risen Christ are not being offered the same access to services.
“We think that’s irrational and discriminatory, and though the governing statutes (regulating charter and nonpublic transportation assistance) are different, we don’t think it requires the district to behave differently toward nonpublic students than charter students,” said Adkins, noting that poorer families with limited alternatives will be the most significantly impacted. He also pointed out that if mitigating health risks for employees is the ultimate concern for the school districts, it doesn’t make sense that they’re willing to bus kids who attend charter schools, but not nonpublic ones.
Adkins says MCC will continue to push for change, and that legal action could be a possibility, but much of the action now is taking place between Catholic schools and their school districts. He encouraged parents to get involved by attending local school board meetings or circulating petitions that ask for equitable access.
The archdiocese, meanwhile, is providing support by assigning a dedicated liaison to each Catholic school to assist school leaders “with navigating challenges they experience in accessing equitable services,” according to Gayle Stoffel, associate director of Catholic Education.
In some districts, there have been positive developments. At Nativity of Mary School in Bloomington, Principal Ryan Pajak says that the Bloomington school district informed him it will be able to provide busing five days a week, after making the decision to move its public schools from a hybrid model that would include only two days of in-person learning entirely to a distance model. And in Osseo, after first being told its students would only be able to use district-provided transportation twice a week like public school students, Principal Kari Staples of St. Alphonsus Catholic School in Brooklyn Center reported that, as of the morning of Aug. 24, the local school district will provide busing four days a week for students at St. Alphonsus and nearby St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in Brooklyn Park.
Both principals said they have families who have no other option for getting their kids to school than busing provided by the district.
Meanwhile, Rogers at Risen Christ has been in correspondence with his local school district, but has received no response to his request to use the funds dedicated to his students’ transportation needs to contract an independent service. He says paying for busing out of pocket isn’t an option, so his school will have to plan for contingencies as it approaches the Sept. 8 start date.
Staples summed up how many of her Catholic school colleagues feel amid these difficult conversations with local school districts: “It’s not us versus them or me versus them. It’s about the 175 students who are going to walk through my door on Sept. 1,” she said. “We’re going to do our best.”
Related:
